/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.8223653]

I just finished ff8 and I realized something...
Ultemecia is actually pretty difficult. I never could beat her as a kid but as I'm going through everything I honestly have no clue how I could have even really done it.
I was at 82 I believe... I died the first time but I had quistis who was lvl 16 and I think she she lowered the grievers level but holy shit this final boss is actually kinda hard especially since you couldn't get all of the GFs unless you had a guide.

My first playthrough as a kid I missed out on doomtrain and tonberry because how the hell could anyone figure that out honestly?
Eden was weird I missed her also but I skipped the deep sea and just drew from tiamat.

[Anonymous No.8223824]

>>8223653
Bump

[Anonymous No.8223829]

IIRC, you can just mac Selphie's limit break and constantly re-roll it until the auto-win button pops up.

[Anonymous No.8223856]

>>8223829
If you're talking about The End, good luck with that. Odds of popping are ridiculously low plus last phase Ultimecia will go though all the talking meaning you gotta to pull off The End like 4 or 5 times for that part alone.

[Anonymous No.8223898]

>>8223856
Do you think ultimecia was one of the hardest final bosses in final fantasy?

[Anonymous No.8223905]

>>8223653
Every Final Fantasy game is extremely easy. Change my mind.

[Anonymous No.8223915]

>>8223905

About the only one I can think of to really go against that is the Famicom version of FF 3. That game is brutal.

[Anonymous No.8223937]

>>8223905
Yeah, I'd like to see you breeze through the Crystal Palace and World of Darkness without grinding for days.

[Anonymous No.8223942]

I played card games and wasn't afraid of cheesing it with the infinite invincibility items because my Disc 4 was never in great condition and I was afraid any random newly-load loaded battle animation could crash the game. But the weird thing is I don't really remember needing them because I cast Kamikaze early in the phase and she did nothing but talk until she was pummeled to death. I guess that was just a lengthy cinematic phase? Really weirded me out.

[Anonymous No.8223947]

>>8223915
I have DS version of iii and hated it

[Anonymous No.8224037]

>>8223898
No. But I had Lionheart so I have no idea how people would tackle Ultimecia without it if they didn't either refine cards or if they weren't skilled enough to properly junction their characters into beasts. I think there are a lot harder RPGs final bosses out there but I do think Ultimecia might be designed as one of the hardest in a FF title.

[Anonymous No.8224430]

>>8223898
Yeah. Only other boss that gave me trouble was LR.

[Anonymous No.8224450]

I farmed spells at the two islands closest to hell/heaven and when i got to ultimecia I abused the zell's limit break to kill all her phases. you can pretty much guess which combo it's gonna show up and spam it while the animation is playing. when the clock starts ticking it instantly chooses the new combo, meaning you can spend various minutes on each limit break

[Anonymous No.8224546]

IMO the only thing that makes her a hard boss is that she can blow your stocked magic away, including the stuff you're using for your junctions so shit can go real bad if you're say depending on squall to do lots of damage with physical attacks and his STR junction gets blown away
Only real way to counter it is to load your magic list up with dummy shit and hope that gets blown away instead of something you need

[Anonymous No.8224563]

>>8223653
griever one hit me so i turned the game off and watched the ending on youtube

[Anonymous No.8224762]

>>8223653
>I never could beat her as a kid but as I'm going through everything I honestly have no clue how I could have even really done it.
Keep tapping triangle (I think that was the button) until your Limit break comes up? That's how I did it as a kid

[Anonymous No.8224768]

>>8223829
Limit breaks are based on a hidden crisis level stat and this determines what pops up in Selphie's options in Slot and The End isn't in all of them.

[Anonymous No.8224807]

>>8223947
>D's
God bless your soul

[Anonymous No.8224923]

I think she might be my favorite villain design in the whole series.

[Anonymous No.8226467]

>>8223653
Based

[Anonymous No.8226494]

>>8223653
I beat her just by spamming Zell's limit.

[Anonymous No.8227926]

>>8223653
Put Kamikaze on anyone not your A-team.

[Anonymous No.8228605]

>>8223905
Tactics is a pita.

[Anonymous No.8228721]

What magic should I junction to strength?

[Anonymous No.8228751]

>>8228721
HP - Full-Life
Strength - Ultima
Magic - Meteor/Flare/Holy/Quake
Vitality - Meltdown
Spirit - Reflect
Evasion - Tornado
Seed - Triple
Hit - Aura
Luck - Pain

That's what I end up with, but it depends on what you're going for; e.g. if you want status and elemental junctions too.

[Anonymous No.8228760]

>>8228721
Early game: Quake (refine card mods - Abyss Worm)
Late game: Meteor (save Ultima for HP - it's the only way to max out without GF abilities IIRC)

[Anonymous No.8228770]

>>8228751
>>8228721
Ultima on strength is a waste. You can easily get it to 255 with other spells. It should go on elemental defense

[Anonymous No.8229163]

Why did the Rinoa=Ultimecia theory come into fruition anyway?

[Anonymous No.8229842]

>>8229163
I'm sure someone else can give a more fleshed-out assessment, but I have always attributed it to a lack of readerly sophistication on the part of certain players -- those who can only engage with a text at the level of plot, and are unable to contend with narratological structure or theme. For starters, there is a fair amount in the game that sets up Rinoa and Ultimecia as a complementary or reciprocal pair, which is carried out in terms of their visual design (as is the case with Squall and Seifer, as well): black hair, white wings/white hair, black wings; blue dress/red dress, etc. The symbolism isn't complicated, and one is intended to approach these analogies as a gloss describing thematic or interpersonal relationships, but for a plot-fetishist, the fact, for instance, that Rinoa and Ultimecia both have wings must have some significance that operates in the register of the game's plot -- so there must be some connection between them that is independent of their narratological function as foils to Squall, and thus they must be the same person (although, tellingly, the fact that Squall and Seifer both have matching scars, or have essentially complementary designs, is entirely disregarded).

tl;dr -- it's essentially just a function of a naive but all too common literary-critical methodology.

[Anonymous No.8229878]

>>8229163
Idk much about this theory but on my half ass playthrough reading it ultimecia gave her powers to any sorceress that would accept it

[Anonymous No.8230552]

Ultimacia is only close to difficult because you have to spend the first few turns making Squall kill the party members RNG gives you till you get your core.

[Anonymous No.8231536]

>>8229163
SquallofSeed on gamefaqs. He wrote one on Necron being the IIfa tree too. I think there was a Jenova one also.

[Anonymous No.8231548]

>>8223905
The old ones could be a pain in the ass back then. No saving in dungeons could mean hours of progress lost. Never even bothered with the bonus dungeons of a few of them, as the guide said that level 50+ was the minimum required, and I was still at 40 something after hours of grinding.

[Anonymous No.8231723]

>>8229163
Pretty sure Rinoa and Ultimecia are meant to be parallels, particularly since they're matched up with Squall and Seifer. The whole point of the Sorceress' Knight is to show that a sorceress needs someone who can tether them emotionally so they don't go out of control. Squall does that for Rinoa. Seifer, however, literally based his life goal around a shitty movie Laguna made for quick cash, so he doesn't understand that a literal god doesn't need him to swing his sword and protect her.

Beyond that, I have no idea. The idea that Rinoa becomes Ultimecia makes the story of VIII pretty pointless, because Squall could've just handed Rinoa over to the government after they got back from space and saved everyone a headache.

[Anonymous No.8231941]

I find little Squall standing out in the rain genuinely heartbreaking.

[Anonymous No.8232525]

>>8231941
It's sad

[Anonymous No.8233542]

Can we all agree that the orphanage scene is absolutely retarded?

[Anonymous No.8233552]

>>8231941
>>8232525

[Anonymous No.8234161]

>>8233542
No way.

[Anonymous No.8234173]

>>8233542
The basketball court flashback orphanage scene?

Or Edea's info dump at the beginning of disc 3 that only makes sense when you dive into developer interviews and start piecing together what the story was suppose to be.

[Anonymous No.8234183]

>>8223653
>cast aura on everyone
>spam limit breaks
>recover and revive as necessary
I remember beating her first form in one go with Zell's limit break

[Anonymous No.8234197]

>>8233542
Honestly, it and the Laguna story were the only parts of the plot I cared about so I didn't care that it didn't make all that much sense in the context of the parts of the plot I didn't care about.

[Anonymous No.8234213]

>>8229842
>>8229878
>>8231723
it actually started on gamefaqs if memory serves, but it's the only way the plot makes any sense when you consider conventional time travel "physics". plus everything is bound to repeat, etc.
there's a lot of loose ends in FFVIII because Square rewrote huge chunks of the story to be more trendy and in line with pop culture at the time. legend goes 8 was suppose to be a "no john, you're the demons" type of thing with Squall in purgatory, etc.
ultimately imo it makes more sense for Quistis to be Ultimecia seeing as how she's lowkey obsessed with Squall and a blue mage to boot.

[Anonymous No.8234412]

>>8234213
>legend goes 8 was suppose to be a "no john, you're the demons" type of thing with Squall in purgatory, etc.
are you talking about the squall is dead shit? that was proven false but it is pretty awesome. makes more sense than the game does in practice
>ultimately imo it makes more sense for Quistis to be Ultimecia seeing as how she's lowkey obsessed with Squall and a blue mage to boot.
this is true actually. she would be pissed off and probably has no life after the events of the game
i always interpreted ultimecia as being from thousands of years in the future though, long after everyone involved in the main story is dead

[Anonymous No.8235383]

Ultimecia = Sephiroth’s real mother

[Anonymous No.8237067]

>>8234173
>when you dive into developer interviews and start piecing together what the story was suppose to be

What are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.8237075]

>>8234412
>i always interpreted ultimecia as being from thousands of years in the future though, long after everyone involved in the main story is dead

That's right. The 12 sorceresses you fight before you reach Ultimecia's castle gap the bridge between the timelines. We're talking generations that span centuries most likely.

[Anonymous No.8237094]

[Anonymous No.8238164]

This might be the only game where you can say “Where did I park the school?” And have it make sense.

[Anonymous No.8240184]

>>8223653
I just started playing this game (like 30 minutes in just beat Ifrit) and I have no idea what are all these junction things. It's the most confusing game I've played.

[Anonymous No.8240190]

>>8240184
the junction system uses spells to equip stats, more or less. it's weird. the key is not to be OCD and enjoy the game

[Anonymous No.8240260]

>>8240190
if I draw 10 fires from a monster what happens when I use the 10 fires

[Anonymous No.8240281]

>>8234412
>>8237075
who's to say ultimecia/quistis couldn't have lived all those centuries?

[Anonymous No.8240843]

>>8240184
The Junction system is basically like equipping gear to your stats

[Anonymous No.8241595]

>>8240260
you have 0 fires
don't draw spells more than like, once per enemy. the game is way more fun if you focus on summons and limit breaks. eventually you get a bunch of abilities to transform items into other items and that's where you can start powergaming

[Anonymous No.8241610]

Triple Triad really is the best damn minigame of the whole series.

[Anonymous No.8241662]

>>8229842
It's an interesting theory and could've worked, but considering the majority Jap writing is Shonen-tier having to explain everything to you and NEVER leaves anything up to interpretation, the theory is ultimately (heh) debunk.
People that come up with these theories think they're such big brained high IQ scholars, shoehorning complexity/deep themes into otherwise dull media. It's similar to those comics and fan art like with Earthbound or Hylics, depicting blank slate characters and inserting their own personalities onto them when the characters otherwise already had personality for less than 2 minutes in-game before the devs wanted you to play pretend.

And before you say "Soulless! You don't have an imagination!", I had more fun as a kid creating my own characters with the toys I had rather than what was presented to me with blank slates in media.