Meowskvich whines about Final Fantasy 8

[Meowskivich]

Eh.

-They made foes scale to your hero's level so that you don't need to grind. Unfortunately, they made foes scale to your hero's level so that there's no point to grind.

-Party members never gain levels when outside the party. Ever. Even if you're barred from using them, they will remain that sexy lvl 15 when you get him back when you're level 30.

-Because foes scale to your hero's level, there's no point in juggling party members. You'll have an army of level 30 members while your hero and foes are level 99.

Eh, if I feel like whining more, I'll edit it in later.

[JadePharaoh]

I don't mind the level scaling. I feel it's not a bad way to reduce the need to level grind; in some ways, it discourages grinding. Some enemies get REALLY strong at high levels (Ruby Dragons...). I almost wonder if that was in response to FF7 players who got everyone up to LV 99, got all of their best weapons, Materia, Limit Breaks, and the game-breaking Knights of the Round... and then complained that the endgame was too easy...

Of course, that's not to say FF8 doesn't have ways to break the game into itty, bitty pieces. The level-scaling was meant to encourage use of the Junction System instead of just EXP farming. Of course, if you go out of your way for the right spells you can boost your stats up to obscene levels even early on; it just requires a different sort of grinding.

[Meowskivich]

It feels like a mess, and level scaling really wouldn't be bad if there was a "party level" where everybody shares the same level. Problem is, the game keep forcing me to use people I want nothing to do with at random times and takes away party members I actually DO want to use and then it just sends me off with a vague "we should do something" in the endless featureless void that is FF8's overworld. If I HAVE to make myself broken just to comfortably enjoy the game, then I don't want anything else to do with the game. I don't like grinding, and I feel like the game is just a mess all around. It's a pile of decent ideas thrown together in a blender with some elmers glue and vomited out into annoyance. I have no qualms in running away from all battles because there's no penalty for it. everything is tiered to squall since he's the only party member who will be able to stand up to nearly anything after the game gives you time to let your party members be forcibly torn from you at random. Not to mention that the game doesn't even let you use all the essential abilities in conjunction with other abilities. if you want to summon GFs, you have to forget either being able to use magic, being able to use items, being able to stock magic, or one of the many bonus abilities you can earn that essentially can all be replaced with items to begin with.

[Jason]

I like the level scaling. FF9 and Tactics both did it also and it worked really well there. The problem with it in Tactics was that only the random battle enemies were influenced by your level not the story battles. However if you wanted to avoid a lot of random battles, or used the job grinding method instead of level grinding method it wasn't too bad.

Why is it bad that people that don't participate in battles don't level up? That's not how it worked in 6... or 7 that I recall... or 9. That's just extra EXP going to characters you'll probably never use. In FF8, for example, I never use Zell. Just don't like him. It makes no difference to me that he's level 12 or level 52 because I never use him. Now I know that's a point you made, Meow, but if you end up with a 3 person party with two members at level 44 and one at level 14 the enemies will be based around your average level. Is it a problem with FF6 that you have to do those multi party dungeons and maybe have to take someone you don't like *cough Setzer cough*, and they haven't leveled up because you don't take em anywhere? It would, to me, make sense that someone hanging out on the airship for 30 hours isn't going to be as good at killing things as someone that you've have to use a few phoenix downs on cause they're always in the party.

Of course everything is tied to Squall. He's the main character. Everything in FF7 is all Cloud centered in someway. Even when he's in his little mini-depression-coma you still have to drag his ass all over town in his wheel chair and listen to his wheeze. Only later on can you drop him from your party, but there aren't a lot of good options to replace him with... Sure there are options, but most of em just fall short.

So... FF8 gets a black mark for not giving you all the "essential abilities"? FF7 lets you attack and item unless you want to use material which requires you to get equipment and take a hit to your stats to use it. You wanna use magic? Sure, but here's a 5% penalty to your HP for each spell you equip.

As for taking the trade off for Magic or Items... Items are made mostly useless with Magic anyway... and most Magic can be made useless with Items. I mean... that's almost like saying "FF Tactics is kinda bad cause if you wanna be good at items, you need a Chemist which means they can't be that great at hitting things with sticks." You have multiple people in your party, they don't all have to be cookie cutters of the same skill set. That's a staple in just about every Final Fantasy game though. Once you start getting good White or Effect magic, you never really need to deal with items again unless they're to save MP for later bigger things.

And speaking of that... that's an issue I have with FF3, 5, 6, 7 and 8. You can, with some work, end up having a full party of the exact same character if you do it right. That is what takes away from the variety of the gameplay more than anything. FF1, 2, 4 and FF9 did it right.

And really quickly before I end up my two cents here... FF7 was a bit of a runaway hit. We need to keep that in mind. SquareSoft knew it was gonna be hot... but how hot they had no idea. They needed a follow up and they needed it quick. So FF8 came out relatively soon after FF7 did... but FF7 came out on a brand new system with brand new software and hardware to try and learn. FF8 was being worked on at a time when the limitations of the PS1 were being explored a little more deeply... if you're gonna compare the games you have to take that into account too.

FF8 wasn't perfect... it had it's flaws... but they are (I think) way smaller and more of annoyances than they are problems. FF7 (again to me) was both flawed and annoying. I'd play 8 over 7 any day of the week.

[Ragnatz]

My thoughts on FF8:

The first time I played the game, I started off excited about the story, but after the big Garden fight, I felt that the story started to go downhill fast. The moment that everyone found out they grew up together but lost their memories - that felt like such a rushed plot to me and it really soured the game experience. From that point on, I had a lot of problems with getting into the story. The fact that my game bugged out (PC version) and after making it to disc 4 once but not saving, I could never again go back into the lunatic pandora from the previous save, and I was not able to get to disc 4 again without starting over (which meant having to go through the story again).

Now in response to that, years later I watched a video walkthrough of the game (not quite an LP but close, I guess) which did all grinding off screen after getting Diabolos so it was all story and boss fights on screen. I wanted to finally see how it ends, I guess. I found that the second time through, the "big twist" wasn't as irritating - perhaps because the different pacing of watching the game without battles gave me a chance to see it unfold with better flow. I don't know.

As for the magic and GF systems.

I liked the GF system itself. I like that the summons were interactive with boost, and I liked that there were affinities and customization. I hated the magic system. I felt that the whole Draw system meant that you would find the easiest battle with the magic you want, and then draw up to 100 and junction it to the best stat it affects, and bob's your uncle. It made magic feel less special. And speaking of special, I hated that due to certain spells being better with certain stats, everyone had the same magic pool by the end of the game. There was no really reason to vary it up. I recognize that a similar argument can be made for FF7, but at least in that one, you had to master most of the good materia before you could get a second one. FF8 (and FF6 and FF10 and FF12), in my opinion, all suffer from all the characters having one unique move and then, other than that, being clones of each other by end game. I guess I never really had that problem with FF5 and FFT because you don't end up being the sum of EVERYTHING you've learned, so I'd still load out everyone differently - I'd have my dedicated healers and my dedicated attackers and my dedicated mages. But there is no real dedication in those other games (by end game at least), so I find myself disappointed towards the end.

Finally, regarding monsters leveling. Honestly, I didn't really care. I mean, I know the feeling of having a monster that is hard and then grinding a bit and then wrecking its face. And I know the feeling of finding a foe that is hard and then beating it by having the right loadouts and winning by the skin of your teeth because you fought well. Type A may be satisfying, but Type B is more engaging by far. But the thing is, I never really felt that FF8 was Type A OR Type B. You grinded to make your summons stronger, but you made the enemy stronger with you. It was a give and take that didn't feel very exciting, tbh. As for it maybe being a response to over-grinding FF7, I think FF12RW did it best by having the final boss go up from level 60 to level 99 if you 100%ed everything before the fight. You grinded to get all the best things, so now you get a challenge that makes you NEED the best things. I loved that. I wish more games did that.

Alright, I think that's everything... for now.