The Shrine

I know this is more than a month old, but just in case anyone happened to miss this spectacular 8 dollar release; and wants to try out the game.

It is, to this date, still the richest experience in the Final Fantasy series, and one of the richest experiences of all videogames. It has a nice diversity of atmosphere, with a steampunk frame... Very victorian setting, with lots of ultra-high technology; and as a very nice icing, orchestrated style music which really compliments this setting very well. You have Dollet, which is a very wealthy type 1800's to WW1 era type city. Timber which is a very train filled town, a very nice place where a lot of revolutionary work is happening. Then there is Galbadia which is like a city sitting on the edge of the Industrial and Atomic eras. There is the ulta-high tech environmentalist Shumi Village, and the Metropolis of Esthar resembling Tokyo may look like in 2100 AD. Then there are the archology-like gardens.

Cosmetically, it is a huge leap over the last FF game, FF7. Characters are no longer blocky, but are now very detailed. The overworld isn't filled with pop-up. Characters remain an adequate size on the screen. Artistically, this game is still one of the best games in existence over ten years after its initial release.

Characters tie deeply into a wonderful secondary cast which is unlike anything seen before or after FF8 in the franchise. The plotline is linear multi-threaded, and flows like a really nice late or post Victorian period novel. There are a lot of little things to explore, mythologies, histories, what other people are doing. The world also evolves throughout the game on a level much greater than FF6 or 7 did; almost after every chapter, something is different in your hometown of Balamb Garden.

There are people who didn't like this game; I think the problem was that FF8 is the least intuitive of the series, but they'll make up things like "It was too romantic," or "They were from the same orphanage when they were toddlers" which hardly ruin the game at all; very poor excuses (since other FF games are "worse" than FF8 in weird plot points and romance). This is more or less just an excuse that people make up because they don't want to admit that they didn't understand the gameplay. Yes, the game is very unintuitive; especially considering that there is actually a level up system, and drawing magic is an option. If you jump in and play without researching, it is almost guaranteed that you will do it wrong =)

Some tips I would have to avoid the terrible unintuitive system of FF8 would be play in the following manner:

1. Draw Command, leveling up, DON'T USE IT IN BATTLE EXCEPT ON BOSS BATTLES. ONLY use draw battle commands to draw GFs/Guardian Forces (Espers) from bosses, it is a tedious waste of time otherwise. It should be used in most cases to draw GF's, you can ignore magic from all bosses since there are other places to get it. There are much better ways to get magic that I will explain soon. The GF will act as sort of the central hub for all character upgrades (not the actual character itself). DO NOT LEVEL UP AS MUCH AS YOU CAN, this doesn't do much for stats, and like FFT, monsters increase in level as the player does. The benefits of leveling up are best when certain skills are equipped (ie. STR +2 per level up).


2. Refine Skills: This is the main way that the user should acquire magic (as opposed to drawing), it is both easiest, and most effective. The basic system works as follows:
A. Battle enemies for items
B. In your Guardian Force menus, they learn skills via AP (like experience points), make sure to have a priority on ref (refine) skills.
C. Use your refine skills to refine all sorts of items into different spells.
D. The closer to 100 charges a player has on a spell, the better.
E. There is a card game, Triple Triad, where you can win cards that can be refined into LOTS of powerful magic.
F. Higher level enemies (see part 1) of the same species drop better items.

3. Junction System: Think of this as the system that replaces the traditional equipment system, it functions the same way, only on a much more detailed and customizable level:
A. Junction at least 1 GF to each character
B. GFs have abilities which allow players to junction magic to different stats (like str, Vit, accuracy, speed, etc...)
C. Take refined magic, and equip it to the available stats; in such a way, Flare spell being equiped to str would be the same as equiping a sword.
D. GFs also have modifier abilities, (ie. STR * 40% which would boost your strength stat 40% in power, these can be stacked, so you would gain much more benefit if you equipped two STR * 40% instead of just one), the player can equip a limited number of abilities, make it suit their play style.

4. Trading GFs: The system allows for full trading of all GFs and skills in a single command. So only distribute magic and GFs to three characters (even though you have more that you can use), and when the need is there, just simply "Trade All" between characters. IE. Trading All from Character A to Character B immediately makes Character B as powerful as Character A was.


System Abuse tips:

1. Money is gained by a salary which is not linked to combat. Do the quizes once they become available, they're fairly easy, and there are online quides if you don't know the answer. This will increase income heavily. Buy items at item shops, and refine them into easy magic.

2. Pump up max HP to obscene levels. Keep characters at low levels of current HP (like 1000/9999), this will allow for easy limit break skills. The player can tap the X button to keep selecting the character until a limit break appears. A limit break is a powerful attack delivered based on various factors (for Squall, his limit breaker changes based on what kind of weapon he has ; For quistis, there are various types of blue magic that can be learned by using certain types of items on her ; for Zell, it is finding certain combat magazines throughout the world to learn new "Blitz" skills that can be chained together).


The system is very easy to use once you get the hang of it.

Is it still available on the PSN? I need to get 7 and 8.

It is for the PSP, i know. I see it all the time when i browse for something new. Its also one of my favorite FF's, i hope they put 9 up on the PSN one day soon, though.

The only thing i dont like is also one of Seek's comments, "If you jump in and play without researching, it is almost guaranteed that you will do it wrong =) "

I dont like how this is pretty true, games should be easy to pick up no matter if you read GameFAQs or not. I didnt research, but it took a while to realize where to find the best magics draw, then the game was broken because if you sit around and draw for a great spell for a few hours and junction it on a your skills or hp, you suddenly are a beast.

Imakeholesinu wrote:Is it still available on the PSN? I need to get 7 and 8.

Yep, it should be available permanently.

Bollocks on FFVIII. This sort of sums up every single problem that the game has, and hilariously rips apart its bullshit story, cumbersome junction system, and abysmally bland characters.

Granted, the card game and setting were cool, and I would argue that Discs 1 and 2 are actually pretty cool--going from location to location doing tactical military operations with an RPG twist. It's just once they got into sorceresses and space aliens and Rinoa that everything went to hell.

RentCavalier wrote:Bollocks on FFVIII. This sort of sums up every single problem that the game has, and hilariously rips apart its bullshit story, cumbersome junction system, and abysmally bland characters.

Granted, the card game and setting were cool, and I would argue that Discs 1 and 2 are actually pretty cool--going from location to location doing tactical military operations with an RPG twist. It's just once they got into sorceresses and space aliens and Rinoa that everything went to hell.

I think the villian was lacking, but overall a pretty good plot. Let's not forget that FF7 had space aliens as a critical point in its plot: JENOVA.

SineSwiper wrote:

RentCavalier wrote:Bollocks on FFVIII. This sort of sums up every single problem that the game has, and hilariously rips apart its bullshit story, cumbersome junction system, and abysmally bland characters.

Granted, the card game and setting were cool, and I would argue that Discs 1 and 2 are actually pretty cool--going from location to location doing tactical military operations with an RPG twist. It's just once they got into sorceresses and space aliens and Rinoa that everything went to hell.

I think the villian was lacking, but overall a pretty good plot. Let's not forget that FF7 had space aliens as a critical point in its plot: JENOVA.

To be fair, most of the FF's had shit plots. But almost all of them are redeemed by some quality that my adult brain can embrace. FFVII has an AWESOME villain(s) in the form of the Shinra Corporation, FFIX has everything, FFX has great music and, while its voice-acting is hit or miss, I enjoy its story well enough.

But looking back on FFVIII, I realize that it has nothing. An interesting setting, and lots of potential, but it is all squandered by a shoe-horned love story, bland characters, irritating fetch quests, and a cumbersome and easily broken junction system. The ONLY reason to play FFVIII is that fucking card game, and that's arguable too.

Rent - FF has mostly bad stories? I disagree, it is one of the few game series out there that dares to have plot points an strings that are completely weird and insane in them. This gives them a unique element of entertaining on a level not touched in most other game series. These games are art.

I think your statements have more to do with your own personal bias against the FF8 than the actual true quality. You even went out and searched out a link with some angry loner on a mission "to defeat Final Fantasy 8", by pulling a few elements out of the context of the game (which is a huge problem in itself) and critisized them against the criteria of what he thinks is good/bad. Using this sort of product-bashing style, you can make any great game, movie, or book sound bad if you have enough time on you hands to do that. The fact of the matter is, for many of those of us who are fans of Square games, we really enjoy this one and can greatly appreciate the experience offered.

Essentially Rent, you seem to have a set way of how you think things should be done. When something falls outside of that box, you see it as bad; if any little detail is seen as wrong, you try to apply the same dislike of that to everything in the product. Then you feel the need to bash that product in fan discussions. I find that all very unfortunate.

The major issue with FF8 is its unintuitive system. There is plenty of opportunity within the game to access tutorials and stuff on how to do things; but my first playthrough of the game was more of a learning experience (same with games like Ogre Battle and Fire Emblem). Other than that, I have had tons of enjoyment on all future playings of the game.

There's a lot of detail in the game, for example, it was only a couple of years ago that I discovered Selphie's blog on the Garden Intranet. Now, this game was developed in the 90's, well before livejournal, blogspot, and myspace. It updates at variou points through the story and is a nice thing for fans like myself to discover after multiple playthroughs =)

I liked the story, too. Squall is a cool main character and, like Kupek, i'm a sucker for love stories whether its in a video game or movie form. Jumping from Laguna to Squall mixed things up nicely and the whole sorceress angle, i thought, was pretty cool. Its actually one of the few FF stories i remember very well.

The Sorceress angle was on of those really twisted angles that I like from Kitase games.

There are multiple figures involved: Seed, Edea, Rinoa, Adel, Ultimecia, Odine, and Ellone. I'll try to place events in chronological order:

* Hyne, an evil god, is defeated and his powers are divided among many women who become sorceresses.
* In the past there were many sorceress lineages, essentially a sorceress passed her powers onto a suitable successor. These gradually became fewer and fewer a successors took on the powers o multiple sorceresses
* By Laguna's time there were two lineages - Edea and Adel. These two were more powerful than past sorceresses (at the en of the game, it is demonstrated how sorceresses through time gained greater powers as the lineages combined)
* Ellone possessed the power to transfer the consciousness of people throughout her lifetime. So the furthest back she could take people was during Adel's life.
* Adel disappears from history (Laguna locked her up and secretly imprisoned her in space)
* Odine built an Ellone emulator, it can go back to a time before the main story time period.
* A mysterious sorceress is seen by sorceress Edea, Edea recognizes her power as being the same as her own, this prompts her to create Seed as an anti-Sorceress force, somehow time travel of matter is possible.
* Edea is possessed by the thoughts of a future sorceress who has he consciousness sent back in time using the emulator. Can only go back to a time after Adel is already gone.
* Edea takes over Galbadia, searches for Adel, but can't find her. She seeks Ellone so she can go further back to a time when Adel existed.
* Ellone runs.
* Edea defeated, Rinoa possessed with the future sorceresses thoughts and inherits the sorceress powers from Edea. The future sorceress is identified as Ultimecia.
* Adel had been discovered by Ultimecia apparently, Seifer had been instructed to use Esthar technology to generate a Lunar tear at the correct co-ordinates, this brings Adel to earth and into Seifer's hands.
* Ellone and party go to Adel, Ellone transfers Ultimecia's consciousness to Adel who then immediately tries to absorb Rinoa with her full power. Adel is apprently the more powerful half of the Hyne lineage.
* Time compression used when the absorbing fails, matter of Adel transferee to the future along with Seed.
* Ultimecia uses Ellone emulator to go to Squalls time an possess Edea
* Time compression, Seed reaches a world that Adel seems to have recently conquered (newly dead resistance forces found on her doorstep).
* GF powered Seed destroys The full sorceress power under Ultimecia
* Ultimecia's body Is sen back in time to Edea's orphanage where she learns about the danger of the future ahead when she absorbs her power.

Man, that stopped making sense after about the 5th point. Even Chrono Cross or Xenosaga had a less complex story.