/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10708993
Argh I'm getting pumped to play this but I'm stuck wandering World of Ruin in FF6 right now, and junctioning is so weird that while I can usually juggle a few jarpigs I want to dedicate time just to this one.

>>10708993
I personally love FF8 but don’t like the ending. Disc 1 is 100/100 perfection. After that, the weirdness made the game worse IMO. Still love it to death but it could have been a lot better.

>>10708993
Meh, I don't want to give partial credit for being "insane" when I think they basically just jumped to an underwritten thrown together ending and villain

>ff8 thread again
nigga, play another game in the series ffs

>>10709038
I swear I’m not the same anon that made the other ff8 threads. You can even check my IP. I just wanted to share my thoughts, and not create another flame war.

>>10708993
At least FFVIII establishes early on that you're fighting sorceresses. FFIV gets just as insane but unlike later games it comes completely out of left field. The game starts out with a commander of an army having a crisis of conscience over his king's orders. By the end you've had several bizarre fakeout deaths of your party members, found out the king was an imposter, encountered a subterranean civilization, and flown to the moon. FFV also loses it's shit halfway through but that game is intentionally a farce.

>>10709006
wtf fucks up people so much about junctioning? magic has stats and gfs let you equip it

its as simple as it gets

>>10710183
ffiv is kind of strange but most of it is foreshadowed by npc dialogue so its not really as surprising as you might think, also dark crystals existed in ff3


ffv is actually extremely coherent so i honestly have no idea what the fuck you are talking about, the world split?

>>10710204
>the world split?
That and Ex-Death being a tree that pulls shenanigans like hiding out as a splinter. As a story it definitely has better plot structure than IV but it still goes ham VERY quickly.

Honestly, this is a pretty fun exercise. Which FF game gets the most bonkers when comparing how it starts to how it ends?

>>10710209
exdeath being a sacred tree meant to contain evil souls and then corrupted by them is just a basic bitch primordial evil backstory

the splinter was just a little gag, along with super turtle. ffv has quite a few moments like this. i don't really see it as incoherent it's just supposed to be a little less serious

the world thing was pretty much expected tho as there isn't much to the 1st world and in the second world if you pay attention you'd probably understand what's coming next

>>10710214
idk man 9 maybe? the start is so grounded and the end absolutely isn't

>>10710214
1, easily.
>starts with 4 dudes going out to save the princess from an evil knight
>ends with you fighting a demon who is in fact the same evil knight who created a timeloop where one creates the other endlessly so that they can eventually rule over space-time

>>10710254
The end is just "random evil god out of nowhere lol"

>>10710214
Probably IX (from kidnapping a princess to stopping a biological weapon designed to assimilate your planet into its own, but now suffering an existential crisis and trying to destroy the core memories of existence and end reality), but it's a fierce competition.

I think the easier question is which games don't get that insane. Even the tamer ones involve a time loop to cheat death which dooms the world, or journeying into hell to kill a man who usurped satan. I suppose VI is the tamest, weirdly enough.

>>10710262
nah those 4 dudes are prophesized warriors destined to save the world from a great evil, still a little ridiculous but they ain't just any 4 dudes

>>10710264
idk man, 10 doesn't change much, it starts with sin and ends with sin(well basically anyway) stuff happens in the middle with all the undeads running around but it stays pretty consistently fantastic imo.

>>10710264
VII is fairly tame all things considered. Midgar had Shinra as the big bad, but once Sephiroth is introduced he stays the villain for pretty much the entire game.
The sequence of Cloud regaining his memories is weird, but the plot twist itself isn't that crazy.

>>10710264
FFII is probably the least insane overall. It's mostly a resistance story throughout. VII is obviously crazy but you're told the stakes pretty early and everything that happens stems from Shinra doing Shinra things. The stakes go up over time but you don't get a lot of strangeness beyond the baseline tone established from the start.

>>10710353
Yeah FF2 is pretty down to earth which is why it's one of my favourites: I can actually relate to it; it's a realistic war story with 2 factions at war (at least up until the very end) and even the fantasy elements are treated like tools of war, magic is treated like you'd treat a gun or another weapon in a war story. It's actually pretty unique and ahead of its time for a JRPG like that and I don't think many people realize that.
FF8 actually has many similar elements to 2, but it's embedded and mixed in with the crazy stuff.

>>10710214
Hard to say, they all end up at some other worldly, or extradimensional demi-god stuff. I guess it depends on the individual interpretation.

FF1 goes from rescue the princess, to an infinite time loop has kept good and evil in check for untold millenia

FF2 goes from evil empire burned down my village, to having to kill the assassinated emperor again because he took over hell when he died.

FF3 goes from 4 kids find sapient power crystals when playing in a cave, to a dimensional good/evil balancing act that's about to tip over violently into darkness.

FF4 goes from a conflicted knight questioning authority, to him finding out that he's superman and krypton is the moon.

FF5 goes from a carefree drifter traveling the world, to there was once a tree so evil that we split our reality into paralell dimensions to seal it away.

FF6 goes from rebels vs empire, to a magic addled psychopath tearing the world apart at a whim

FF7 goes from a japanese shadowrun, to a space parasite crashed into earth a long time ago and gave everyone mental AIDS

FF8 goes from a japanese high school, to a sorceress trying to escape her fate by compressing time into a singularity

FF9 goes from a kidnapping heist, to a pair of grim reapers from another planet trying to harvest souls by making a soul filter on a soul collecting tree.

FF10 goes from Deep Impact on ESPN, to life purging monster that is comprised of every subsequent group of people who have come to face it, is actuallly controlled by a cockroach revered as God.

I haven't played beyond that. I guess I'll vote 8 as most bonkers

>>10710556
>to an infinite time loop has kept good and evil in check for untold millenia

No no no, the infinite time loop was created by evil to keep good in check because they couldn't win otherwise. Evil is a sore loser like that.

>>10710556
6 doesn't really escalate unless you deliberately frame it that way. The opening scenes describe the war of the magi tearing the world to pieces until magic suddenly vanished, and then warns that the same thing is poised to happen again. You already know what's coming, it's just seeing each player take up their role as the play unfolds.

>>10710556
some of these are not exactly right,
in ff3 the world was already destroyed by darkness at the start, only that one girl and the tiny floating island were left

and in ff5 exdeath had absolutely nothing to do with the world being split,(that was before, for a different evil guy) though he was the one to re-combine them

also ff10 sin is not like that. yevon only parasites the latest aeon to defeat it, the previous ones are all dead and stay dead, just like in the final battle sequence.

>>10710558
well i mean imagine if there were an absolute truth revealed by prophecy that said you were gonna lose no matter what, you'd get creative right?

FF8 disc 4 is up there with disc 2 of Xenogears with being extremely fucking dumb

>>10710575
>disc 4
I dropped FF8 at disc 3 because I was bored shitless. Did I miss out on anything?

i like that ff8 isnt about killing god but a time witch that wants to zip file the universe

>>10710604
The closest thing to "God" in any FF is Necron is 9; though I haven't played anything past 9

>>10710616
Necron was the closest until XIII-3 (which I guess isn't retro, right?) where they finally had you actually kill god. Not some facsimile or ascended being, but actual god. Despite it being a cliche, you didn't actually "fight god" for the longest time in the final fantasy series.

>>10710623
japanese people don't have a western conception of god so it makes sense, the idea of some ascended being, from which all other things are derived, does not exist

>>10710616
most of the antagonists become a god. But i think Ultramecia is finally possessed by the Great Hyne as the final boss. who was a wizard thats essentially God in FF8's universe

Great Hyne is the secret antagonist of FF8 only briefly mentioned but he is the one possessing the Sorcerers and wearing them like a puppet and slowly turning them into himself.

>>10710657
Sorceresses i should say.

>beat seifer
>go to ultimecia castle in the future after watching some cool fmv
>explore final dungeon like any other FF game
>kill optional boss if you want to
>kill last boss
>watch fmv
>watch credits
>the end
I dont see what all the fuss is about

>>10710657
desu ff8 has such wacky worldbuilding, theres a bunch of shit about the moon or space or whatever also

>>10710189
I guess my issue so far is that I am drawing a bunch of magic from mobs, but I don't know what magic I should be going for because the magics themselves dont tell you the stats you gain until you junction them. So you have to try every combination. i mean, I guess that's the fun of it. I just haven't devoted much time to figuring it out, pretty much just a few seconds of menu between fights in the timed fire cavern. What happens if you spend all the magics you junctioned? You lose that junctioned or will Squall keep the junctioned copy in reserve?

>>10710830
Generally, offensive spells work better on STR and MAG, and healing/support spells work better on HP/VIT/SPR. Stronger spells give a bigger boost per unit than weaker spells, but quantity counts too, so 100 Fires is better than 1 Ultima.
If a spell runs out, you lose the junction. The final boss sequence actually has a nasty trick where it can blow away one character's entire stock of a particular spell, which means that junction effect is gone.

>>10710837
>Stronger spells give a bigger boost per unit than weaker spells, but quantity counts too, so 100 Fires is better than 1 Ultima.
Interesting. So as I'm spending stock to cast spells my junction effect is diminishing. This is so fucking autistic, should be fun. Thanks anon.

>>10710559
Yeah VI does a lot to foreshadow what's coming. All FF games open with a certain intimacy but VI is clear right from the start that some zany magic shit is about to happen.

I'm replaying these games and I'm having trouble getting hooked on 8 because the cast is unappealing. It has been the longest of any since I've replayed, and this is likely the reason. Best boss theme in the series though, great OST in general really. Moved on to 9 for now, but might come back.

>>10708993
>Ultimecia’s castle is a really fun final dungeon too
Agreed. Lots of puzzles, secrets and tough enemy encounters that drop high level items you can do crazy things with using the various conversion/refinement abilities.

A while a back some anon shared his savefile because he was stuck on the final boss, and I had a blast just jumping in at Ultimecia's castle and getting the party into shape.

>>10711163
>A while a back some anon shared his savefile because he was stuck on the final boss
Think I remember that thread. He was complaining that he'd bricked his save because he couldn't go back for stuff, right?

>>10710843
Pro-tip: Use ultima for elemental defense instead of your regular stats. It gives you full immunity to all elemental magic in the game, which is much better than whatever extra points it gives over other high level magic such as meteor or full-life. Also go for 100% defense against status such as death, stop and sleep instead of 40 or 60% against every status with stuff like reflect, holy and esuna, since the Ribbon ability can only be obtained with Chocobo World/Angelo Search (Remaster), and Chocobo World kind of completely breaks the game even more than it can already be broken.

Actually squall at disc 1 he dies he junctioned his mind into another multiverse squall that didn't get killed. So he can end the time loop.

>>10711515
This. If you junction well you'll never even have to cast magic. You'll be a walking tank that does thousands worth of damage with your basic attacks. Go down to the beach at the very start of the game and draw water spells for a boost so good that it will carry you through the early parts of the game just by itself. If you focus on modding cards and then turning those items into spells then forget about it. It's like a built-in Gameshark.

>>10710558
I liked stranger in paradise.

>>10708993
This looks marvelous. I'm not a big rpg fan but I might want to try this.

>>10710751
honestly i just hate that the entire disc 4 and a chunk of disc 3 is a "point of no return" where I can't go back to towns

>>10710587
nah, not really. i've always disliked the story so i'm a bit biased but nonetheless it just feels really fucking dumb. i know that's a childish description but disc 3 set things in motion and disc 4 just made me go "oh...oh...okay? well, that's one way to tie things together."

might be worthwhile for you to check out the disc 4 cutscenes on youtube or something just to see how it actually ends.

>>10712075
Why did they do that, by the way? It comes off like a technical thing. Like the fourth disc was too full because of the ending FMV so they had to omit a lot of the town renders and rather than force people to swap discs back and forth they just sealed everything off.

>>10712362
>Like the fourth disc was too full because of the ending FMV so they had to omit a lot of the town renders and rather than force people to swap discs back and forth they just sealed everything off.

Literally yeah, you nailed it on the head. Final Fantasy IX does the same thing with the roots of the Iifa Tree closing off all the unneeded towns and old dungeons. Final Fantasy VII doesn't do it because the final FMV isn't even that long.

FMVs took up most of the space on the disks. All the FMVs together come to the length of a full hollywood movie.

>>10710262
Its not conventionally a mindfuck when you only figure out the mindfuck plot 30 years later from the internet

>>10711546
lmao what were they thinking? you can refine fish fins with the starting GF shiva to get aga tier spells in the first 10 minutes of gameplay

>>10712646
Yeah FFVII was almost only two discs. It was promoted as such in early magazine coverage. The ending probably juuuust barely spilled over. Its probably why the third disc is weirdly short.

>>10712665
It had to be on purpose. Earlier FFs all had many ways to break the game but this time they went balls to the wall.

>>10710556
>a conflicted knight questioning authority, to him finding out that he's superman and krypton is the moon.
thats not what happens, you ding dong

>>10712665
You can reasonably get full stocks of Flare and Full-Life/Arise for at least one character before you even go to Dollet. Not to mention Holy in Galbadia Garden (middle of Disc 1). Literal endgame stuff before your characters even find out about Edea.

FF8 is shit. Imagine talking about Disc 4 in a positive way. Holy shit. Get some taste.
Even though I say that, it's still not the dumbest plot in the FF series like OP claims it is. That's because 15 exists

>>10710587
The best endgame in the series, objectively, not even my opinion, this is fact and any argument against it is contrarian nonsense or straight up trolling.
The series took a nosedive when voice acting was introduced. I enjoy reading over having my ears insulted.

>>10713078
>best endgame in the series
groaned reading this, i suppose someone out there had to enjoy it.

>>10713078
>>10711163
FF VIII is my favourite game in the series and I hate the last dungeon. VIII is the only game I have ever beaten the superboss having said that. IV is my favourite end game dungeon for comparison.

>>10713764
>FF VIII is my favourite game in the series and I hate the last dungeon
Interesting. I'm not a huge fan of VIII, but I love the last dungeon. The music and visuals are awesome. Fighting bosses to get your commands back is a fun gimmick.
I overall prefer VII, but the crater is just so short and bland in comparison.

I admit the first time I played I had to brute force the painting puzzle.

>>10713764
>IV is my favourite endgame dungeon
Mine too. The red wings theme, and then Within The Giant playing at the core while walking on those nice crystal tiles, it was a great end.
FF5 had a good endgame dungeon. FF6 Kefka's Tower is also pretty cool. Seems like it was a lot more hit-or-miss for endgame dungeons in FF and RPG's in general when they went 3D.
Speaking of endgame dungeons, were the ones in Lufia 2 unfinished/rushed? Those 3 towers you go to were extremely bland compared to everything else in the game.

>>10710263
It's not an evil god, it's Death.

>>10708993
Biggest CHAD move in the entire FF franchise

>>10714163
Gets BTFO’d by Gilgamesh after this. Gilgamesh just shows up, takes Zantetsuken, makes a reference to Bartz, and leaves. I love that guy.

>>10714163
This was so amazing.

FF8 is full of great moments

>>10713764
>>10713834
4 is definitely the winner. 7 and 3 also have cool final dungeons.
I hate 6's. A heap of trash.

I never beat Omega weapon except for with Selphie
Though I hear you can also cheese the fight with some item that makes you immune to damage for multiple minutes

>>10714927
6 doesn't seem to realize how much of a pain in the ass it is to keep switching your party. Juggling all your equips isn't very convenient and yet the game keeps playing party member roulette with you. You can tell it's the first game in the series that let you select your active party because of how clunky it is.

did anyone else fight zero wild battles until the castle and struggle big time with the last few bosses? i barely beat the game at like level 18

>>10715030
If you have decent junctions being at a lower levels makes bosses easier, not harder. What spells and GFs did you have?

>>10710214
From calmest to batshit-I-can't-believe-that-part-was-the-beginning, or just the most batshit by the end? IX and VIII respectively. I haven't played to finish and its not retro, but based on what I read of XVI's plot, that's probably another contender since it turns into Xenogears at the end (and a calm start).

>>10710556
>FF4 goes from a conflicted knight questioning authority, to him finding out that he's superman and krypton is the moon.
Made me chuckle

>>10714978
Omega's strongest attack counts as a physical attack so you can just use the Defend ability to block it completely
I didn't know that when I first played FF8 so I beat Omega by learning the attack pattern and having everyone start summoning a GF right before Terra Break to avoid getting nuked

I can't beat NORG.

>>10715449
>Omega's strongest attack counts as a physical attack so you can just use the Defend ability to block it completely

Wow

>>10715685
Just attack the orbs when they change colour, and I think one of them has a GF to draw.

>>10714978
Hero/Holy War/Holy War-trial. Makes you completely invincible for a short time. Rinoa's Invincible Moon does the same thing. It's completely and utterly fucking busted and was how I beat Omega as a wee lad 20+ years ago.

Last playthrough, I told myself I wouldn't use them and went in at max level like a thunderchad with blinding confidence. Even put the battle speed at max or one notch below, on active mode, because I thought I was the guy.

Not even halfway through the battle I chicken-wussed out and started spamming the god mode items because I was getting so BTFO. Fucking love FF8.

>>10710837
>>10710843
Best junctions are

HP: Tornado
Str: Triple
Vit: Meltdown
Mag: Flare
Spr: Curaga
Spd: Haste
Evade: Stop
Hit%: Double
Luck: Aura

Elemental Defense: Full-Life, Ultima, Shell, Life

Status Attack: Drain
Status Defense: Holy, Esuna, Pain, Reflect

>>10708993
>4 discs
boomers will defend this

>>10716520
IMO, Triple is better on Speed, especially if you abuse the refine trick to make STR Ups.
Reflect is another good option for SPR.
St-Atk Drain is good, but with the caveat that you shouldn't attack undead or zombified enemies.

>>10716652
The only easy way to get str ups without Chocobo Word is by challenging the CC group in the Ragnarok in late disc 3. The regular refine trick requires 1.5 million gil just to make a single str up, and the mega potion trick doesn’t give you money neary as fast as you need.

>>10715280
>If you have decent junctions being at a lower levels makes bosses easier, not harder
Not always. Most bosses actually have a level cap and stop scaling. The point at which they stop is earlier than you'd think for most of them.

>>10716634
disc based games were kind of a new thing at the time, even back when those late 90s FF games released people were still staying "WTF why is that CD case so big" "FOUR DISCS?"

>>10709034
ultimecia is present throughout the entire game. 4 and 9 are the ones that throw a random boss in right at the end

>>10716824
Yeah, I remember one playthrough where I set everyone to L100 from the beginning via codes, and had an interesting experience where most bosses were absolute pushovers compared to random mobs in the same area.

>>10717789
And even single disc games sometimes came in a double disc case, often because the manual was too thick but it also seemed like a marketing tactic since at some point those bigger jewel cases implied quality and depth.

I'm going to replay FF8, is there any good guide out there that only points out missable things? I don't really want to follow a walkthrough but I also don't want to miss out on GFs and other shit

>>10719827
Sort of. There are degrees to the missable stuff, depending on what you want from the game - for instance, there's a method of farming an item for statmaxing that you would never need, but people who go for 255 all stats, 100 all items etc playthroughs will leave a certain optional boss alive because it allows them to farm an item that would otherwise be slow to obtain.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/197343-final-fantasy-viii/faqs/72431/missable-item-walkthrough

This is pretty comprehensive, but certain missable objects on this list are things most people wouldn't care about. For instance, it recommends NOT giving a magazine to Zone, because the magazine is unique. However, the magazine is also completely useless to you and the point of it existing is to trade it for the Shiva card with Zone. You can get the Shiva card another way, but it requires you waiting till the very end of the game. Certain other "missable" objects it lists are simply for entries in your menu that give some background lore, or stuff like the location displayer for Tomb of the Forgotten King (which you don't need to finish the dungeon and is only useful inside it).

If your main concern is missable GFs, that list includes them, and you should also note that you can draw most of them from bosses in the final dungeon if you miss them the first time.

If you care about the card game, I would also suggest that at some point after you get the airship, you look into how to make the airship reachable in disc 4, and also how to get the CC group players to show up on the airship. As long as you do those things, you can pretty much get every card. The exception is PuPu, which has its own quest, and is mentioned in the link I included.

>>10719827
FFVIII is one of the more forgiving RPGs of its day. There's not a lot of things you get absolutely one chance at while also not being told exist.

>>10710353
>>10710402
II gets absolutely bonkers at the end too.
>You finally kill the Emperor who got his powers from selling his soul to literally Satan
>Turns our your missing friend was the Dark Knight all along and he crowns himself the new Emperor
>The Emperor SOMEHOW manages to fuck up Satan, takes over Hell, become Super Satan, returns to Earth, and raises the Castle of Hell on Earth
>You now have to travel to the REAL Castle of Hell that's actually on Hell since the one on Earth is just a manifestation of it to kill the new now Super Satan Emperor