Topic: Final fantasy discussion thread

One thing about FF8 that's annoying me is just how often you switch characters. I'm not even kidding, towards the end of disc 1, I was switching between three groups of characters with only a few minutes of playtime with each group. It's also annoying because I have to constantly switch junctions and this wouldn't be a problem if the character's HP adjusted accordingly but it doesn't. So each time I switch junction, I need to also heal that character to full health. So if I do this and then switch back to the previous group after just a few minutes, then I just wasted healing. Sometimes you don't even fight any enemies with the new group. If the character just got full health automatically, then it would make switching junctions so much more seamless.

I think I could eventually avoid switching junctions when I've acquired enough summons for my party members that I don't need to switch all the time. But that's under the circumstance that I've unlocked all abilities of each summon. Otherwise I would miss out on precious ability points by not having them equipped all the time.

I’m making my way through Crisis Core - Reunion and happy to report that I’m still enjoying it. I’ve been taking my time with it and so far am trying to be as complete as possible and hitting all the side missions. I’m not sure how long I’ll continue to do that, because the little optional side missions, although very brief (usually just taking 5 minutes or less each), do get a bit repetitive. The rewards for completing are variable too. Some of the missions have very important or useful items like materia, summons, and nice equipment, but many of them have superfluous stuff. Some also have nice little vignettes about supplemental characters too, so it’s hard to know which ones to skip.

Combat is pretty fun, although a little imbalanced. I’ve been able to easily beat and clear most stages and enemies and yet there’s a couple that I am struggling with. Last night I ran up against a mini-boss in a mission that I kept dying to over and over (gratefully the game allows you to reload after death, back immediately before the fight, even giving you the option to switch out your equipment and materia before you jump back in), and I couldn’t even get close to winning this battle. I was about to abandon it and come back later but then I tried the tactic of just spamming Fira from a distance and I was able to kill the boss quickly without taking any damage. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Some of this random imbalance is due to a specific element of RNG to the battles - the Digital Mind Wave (DMW) mechanic which is basically a slot machine running in the background during battle that will randomly create power-ups during battle. The DMW is also how you get summons. I don’t know if I am a fan of the system because sometimes your Ifrit pops up to use when you’re fighting a simple common enemy and yet doesn’t show up when you really need him during a boss battle, for example. Still, if you run around the battlefield long enough usually you’ll get a good power-up or summon eventually.

Zack is starting to grow on me. Initially I found him a tad annoying, but I’m gradually acclimating to the slushy 2007 storytelling. I feel like I understand the world and factions in FF7 a lot better now. I think when I played the OG FF7 (and even Remake), I just wasn’t really paying attention to the diverse groups of baddies.

@Th3solution That's good to hear! I've been contemplating on when I should start up Crisis Core as I have finished the original FF7 but I've only gotten through the first dozen hours of Remake so I think I want to finish it first before starting up CC. I've also watched Advent Children, which fleshes out the characters a bit more, so I've definitely been interested in learning more about Zack. I think playing CC might help prepare you for Rebirth or rather make you appreciate it even more.

@LtSarge Yes, that’s what I was told — playing Crisis Core before playing Rebirth is recommended, so that’s the order I wanted to do it. It’s been hard to wait and ignore the Rebirth hype, but this way will be better in the long run to have context about the storyline.

@LtSarge When people say CC I always thought they meant Cristal Chronicles.

Anyway, I just didn't realise they also remastered Crisis Core. I need to get on top of that! On the other hand, I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy these last few years. Don't want to overdo it!

With regards to Rebirth. It's a magical game, y'all. I think Remake might be a bit better, but I'm enjoying a lot of the vibes from Rebirth. The game, from the music to its graphics and writing, is a labor of love and I am going to say it: the combat is probably the best in any post-2000 FF game.

Highlights so far have been:

The parade
Dragon's Blood
Anything Yuffie

@LtSarge I'd say playing Crisis Core before Rebirth is more than recommended. I'd say it's basically required since there are portions of the game where it switches to Zack and I don't think they would make much sense if I didn't play Crisis Core beforehand. Not really a spoiler since technically you have no idea what I'm talking about yet.

Also, I think you and @Th3solution playing Rebirth far after release isn't exactly a bad thing. Sometimes you enjoy games better when the hype is gone. I know I have even though I still loved Rebirth for the most part. Just be prepared for A LOT of side content that can be ignored by choice if you want. Playing it so far away from release seems to be working for @Herculean.

I've been playing FF7:Rebirth in short bursts recently and I'm just not feeling it.

I absolutely LOVED Remake, enough so that I got the platinum and then replayed the game with the DLC on PS5 but this just feels off so far (I'm as far as Junon). The cheesy JRPG dialogue and mannerisms of the character, especially the female ones, seem to be annoying me more than they did before. The open world just feels like mostly filler as well but which I feel obliged to complete. And goddamn Chadley and that AI **** who just won't shut up (especially when shouting at my in a high pitched manner through my controller during combat).

Hopefully I get into the groove a bit more with it soon!

Glad to hear you're enjoying it though @Herculean

@Th3solution @KilloWertz Sounds good, I'll play them in that order then!

So I just finished Final Fantasy 8 on Switch after 35 hours of playtime. Before I get into my thoughts about the game, I just want to say that I'm getting tired of Final Fantasy games having too difficult final bosses. The final boss in FF8 is just absolutely brutal and I had to look up online if I were alone in thinking this, which I'm not. I didn't finish FF4 for that reason and FF6 I gave up on because I couldn't bother getting through the final area with different teams as I hadn't leveled up the other characters.

Fortunately, I played the remastered version of FF8, which let me turn on instant health recovery so I wouldn't die during the final boss battle. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have finished the game and I can't be bothered to grind or look up strategies for defeating the final boss as I just want to move on to my next game. I didn't even bother exploring the final area as it was just absolutely massive. It was like exploring the mansion from the first Resident Evil, it was just overwhelming considering this was the final area of the game. So yeah, I didn't really like the final boss of this game either. I'm just glad I played through the remastered version.

As for the game itself, disregarding the final area, I absolutely loved it. The junction system was so much fun, the story was engrossing, the pacing was excellent and it was overall a refreshing Final Fantasy experience after having played Final Fantasy 7. The only thing I didn't like as much compared to FF7 were the characters. There were a lot of great ones but most of your party members were just bland compared to the ones from FF7.

As a whole, I highly enjoyed my time with FF8 and would even go as far as to say that I liked it more than FF7 mostly because of the junction system, even if it had some flaws, and the story, which was more on a personal level compared to the one in FF7. I seriously liked Squall and Rinoa so much, and Squall's character development was done very well.

I'm glad that I've finally experienced this game and I'm thankful the remastered version made it easier to finish it as I just hate it when I spend dozens of hours playing a game and I'm not able to finish it.

@LtSarge My big "problem" with FF8 is that I had a pirate copy of it back in the day but the second disc didn't work. So I finished the first disc several times before I finally got hold of disc 2 and can't ever bring myself to play through to the jail again.

I have zero memory of the final boss but I beat the optional Ultima Weapon boss in the final area which is much harder so the actual boss probably felt comparatively easy.

Triple Triad is up there with Gwent for best in-game card game though At least in FF7:Rebirth the card game allows you to replay a game without losing any cards unlike in FF8.

@Thrillho Ah that really sucks. I was actually thinking about that towards the end of the game that it would be really annoying to play something for hours and not be able to continue because you're missing the next disc. Good thing we don't live in those times anymore!

I'm embarrassed to say that I never tried the card game in FF8 lol. I'm just not interested in that sort of stuff, I just want to focus on the main game. But now that you talk about it, maybe I should've given it a try. Oh well.

I faintly recall FF9 having a card game as well. I could give that one a shot once I get around to that game.

@LtSarge It was good fun as a side game but one of the GF abilities you can unlock allows you to turn cards into items which is really useful for weapon upgrade items and rare cards can be changed into really useful items (one gave you 100 elixirs!)

If you are playing the game, it also allows you to trim your deck down so if the rule where you don’t choose your deck is in use, you only get good cards.

I love Rebirth. One of the greatest games of all time.

@Herculean good to hear. Although I’m yet to play it, I can’t help but feel it didn’t quite receive the plaudits it deserved, nor the amount of sales its quality warranted.

I’m still quite new to FF myself but have a plan to knock out two per year moving forwards (one pixel and one polygon). I’m looking forward to Rebirth above all of them.

Whoever designed the Shinra Mansion section of Rebirth obviously hates video games.

The crate throwing stuff is equal parts frustrating to annoying and the solo fights with Cait Sith are just awful.

It just feels like a game that doesn’t respect your time at all with such much awful “busy work”, particularly in the open world sections and especially with the awful Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon maps.

@Thrillho I don't really remember the Shinra Mansion stuff, so I can't comment on that. As for the game not respecting your time, I understand that. While I still loved the game in the end, the amount of side content did become beyond overwhelming. I eventually just stopped doing most of it once it started becoming too much and focused on the main story and it was a lot more enjoyable.

I'm not going to criticize anybody who got really engrossed in it and did all the side content too, but I do think it would've been even better if it was a more "focused" game like Remake was. I do think the story portion of the game was still great, and I did enjoy some of the side content. I just think that Remake is the better overall game.

@KilloWertz I hope to get to Rebirth this year. Would I be in danger of being under-leveled and have a hard time by the late game if I were to try to mainline it and skip a lot of the side content?

@Th3solution @Hapless No, you can skip the side content and be fine as far as I can remember. As negative as we sound about the side content, there is some in there that are actually worth doing for story purposes. It can get to the point where there's an overwhelming amount though (and some could be considered pointless), so like I said before, I can definitely understand skipping a solid portion of it to focus on the main story. In other words, pick and choose what you want and don't want to do and you should be just fine.

@Hapless No problem. Yeah, I would definitely find the game more enjoyable without worrying about the platinum.

@Th3solution @Hapless Loads of the open world stuff is pretty optional with the main thing being XP and the points you get in each region can be used to buy niche materia from Chadley (the second most annoying gaming character of all time, the first being MAI; an AI character developed by Chadley).

It’s mostly the same thing of towers that reveal other areas, mako fountains which do nothing exciting, some variant enemy fights, and some more region specific mini games.

But there are sooooooo many mini games altogether. The card game is great but loads of the others are a bit of a pain but luckily mostly optional or at least only mandatory to be played once.

So I gave the XVI demo a whirl seeing as I hadn't had a chance to yet (Though I'd already seen some of it) and... Yeah I had a great time with it.

The combat is a bit basic with you only having the Phoenix uppercut like skill alongside your slashes but I'm sure as you go along it'll become more interesting. Performances were good from the cast and I'm all for the high fantasy stuff rather then the sci-fi/modern settings!

The spectacle with Phoenix and Ifrit as one big Kaiju fight was just insane! Loved it!