Playing FF8 for the first time

[Smitson]

So you guys are telling me the game isn't even worth playing through once?

[Zozma]

thats pretty much what were saying.. i dont see why squall even has a fanbase at all, unless it was just because of kingdom hearts and all that

[Archael]

I loved all FF's

because Sephiroth is in FF7 and by association all other FF's are lovely

I disagree strongly

[philsov]

Looks like the guy from Super Punch Out.

[ArkDelgato]

Looks like the guy from Super Punch Out.

[Cheetah]

I would definitely recommend giving it a try. Obviously almost everyone here has given the game more than a little portion of their life. If you don't like it then you should be able to figure it out pretty quick.

[Kuraudo Sutoraifu]

Play it if you're having fun, but don't expect greatness is all that I'm saying.  BTW, I'm playing FFXII for the first time, and I do say, it's shaping up to greatness.

[Verdeni]

I'm playing FFXII for the first time, and I do say, it's shaping up to greatness.

Opinion differs for that one too. I feel that it had potential, Storyline was good.

Never should have used the MMO battle style.

[Smitson]

I'm playing FFXII for the first time, and I do say, it's shaping up to greatness.

Opinion differs for that one too. I feel that it had potential, Storyline was good.

Never should have used the MMO battle style.

That game blows without Balthier, but with him it's all win.

[Kaijyuu]

Never should have used the MMO battle style.

It's what killed it for me.

Could have a story better than even FFT's. I'm not sure the pain of playing the actual game is worth it.

[philsov]

Never should have used the MMO battle style.

I dunno.  I greatly preferred it to the old fashioned "enemies on the right, party on the left, select attack when your turn is up style" from basically all the other FF's.  And the gambit system was amazing and allowed for real-time battle, where unit placement really mattered (I just wish there was a gambit for BIG AOE RUN THE HELL AWAY).  It required a bit of min-maxing, but it was more enjoyable than the traditional system for me.

I just disliked how towards the end everyone was everything, license wise.  I'm a sucker for a class system, or at the very least some restriction which presents opportunity cost.

[dwib]

i though XII had a shitty storyline

VIII is definitely worth a playthrough.

Last time I heard of someone play FF8, he only played it for the card game.

lol if I wanted to play an FF card game it'd be on IX
also on this topic i once played FFX just to play blitzball

[Sephirot24]

First time I played XII I was hyper-excited. I waited XII for SO long I went and popped it up (a month before it came out.. yeah, here all "VG Stores" are just a bunch of pirated CDs and DVDs stores). I was blown away with it's graphics and gameplay mechanics that didn't involve random battles every 5 steps ever again! The gambits were useful for saving time and fun to make and try out new combos. Music was quite good (not Nobuo level but still good). Story was boring, very political themed.. like FFT but more unnecesarily long and didn't have any zodiac stones and monsters in it XD .

One thing I also hated was the voice acting. Though many of you'll say that X's VA was horrible and XII's fixed it, I don't think like that. Maybe because english is not my 1st language.. but X's VA was easy to understand, full of emotion, and Tidus narrating the story was quite enjoyable. Here it was the sound quality of an old radio, and all these people from Enland talking in super refined English, so much that got close to old english (which I obviously don't know, 'cept for a few words like thy, art, thou...). It was hard to understand many parts because of complex sentence structure..

Anyways, like I said I loved the gameplay my 1st playthrough. I played 150hs in 3 weeks. Beat every single hunt (even Yiazmat, which had 50 MILLION HP, I'M NOT FUCKING KIDDING, 50 MILLION). Took 6 hours with 3 lvl 97 party members with the best possible weapon to fight him (a darkness elemental ninja sword which I had to spend hours to get the materials from a rare drop). Killed also Omega MKXII which was a much shorter fight but still very difficult. The ending was quite easy, and after a few days I thought I'd give it another run. But here comes the biggest problem IMO: THE LICENSE BOARD.

Who the hell thought it'd be a good idea?? The license board system is like a huge board split into 2 parts: one for equipment and one for skills, magic, and support bonuses in general. ALL your 6 characters share this one, and anyone can learn anything from the board (the other characters can still learn it, it doesn't take it away). So, you can have all your people with heavy armour and a huge Knightsword if u like. You can learn every support bonus (things like +HP, reduced charge time, magic power, physical power, etc), every technique, and every Magic ability (black, white, green, time and arcane IIRC).

You'd think "well, ok. many FFs have done this. you can have all your party members the exact same if you want, but you can also have them differ.. no one has a gun to your head" and you'd be right, but here's the shit: look at FFIII or V or FFT.. you can learn everything, but you're only able to equip a limited amount of abilities, making the game balanced and in general, forcing you to balance your team for better results. Here every technique or magic skill you learn, you can use it whenever you feel like it. If you learned every black, white, green time and arcane spell, you can use them anytime, and so does any party member who has learned it. So, halfway through the game when LP (kinda like JP) gain is not an issue, your 3 main characters will be carbon copy of each other! Any character can raise, cure 3, fire 3, haste, protect, shell, bravery, whatever needed. The only thing that differences them is their quickenings (they are an awful, AWFUL attempt at limit breaks in general), their Summons (when someone learns a summon, no one else can use it... they are totally useless anyway), and their equipment IF you choose to equip different armor (which I did).

When I tried to play it for a 2nd time (and a couple of months later a 3rd attempt) I couldn't. I think it's because of that.. everyone ends up being the same character. It takes too much time to get money to buy equips and abilities (you even have to buy magics). And the bazaar system is complete bullshit. It's a system where selling the right amount of certain kind of loot will make special items or offers available in the bazaar shop, labeled with anything except the items name.. so you never know what you're buying. There's also NO list of what items you have to sell to get what items, in what quantity, and which loot stacks its count and which resets, or where to get them. And don't make me started on the Zodiac Lance.. (was that the damn name..?).

To conclude. It's worth a playthrough IMO. Maybe 2, but I just couldn't do it. The main story alone takes about 70 hours if you are used to check most places in general, buy nice items, and do short sidequests.

[philsov]

There's also NO list of what items you have to sell to get what items, in what quantity, and which loot stacks its count and which resets, or where to get them

There's FAQs for that >_>

[Sephirot24]

There's also NO list of what items you have to sell to get what items, in what quantity, and which loot stacks its count and which resets, or where to get them

There's FAQs for that >_>

Yeah, obviously. You think I got those Dark elemental swords by chance? XD
I mean that there's NO hint whatsoever in the entire game on what enemies to poach, or where they are, or how much items are required.. not even a word about HOW the Bazaar system works. How would you know that it'll be the same if you sold 1 of your hard earned special loot, or if you sold 12 at the same time. Some items quantity stack and others cycle. Even with a FAQ is confusing..

And the Zodiac Spear!!! "Uh ok guys, let's make the Zodiac Spear, the best weapon in the game. BUT it can only be obtained if you DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT open 4 specific chests that not only are located at the beginning of the game, but are also close to impossible for anyone to miss." Who in the world would not open a chest in their way. Maybe if it was hidden within a cave and some old guy said something like "Uh.. don't touch that.. it's cursed" or w/e.. but no, there's no hint in the whole game. Oh but wait, you can still have it! There's a chest halfway through one of the most annoying dungeons which has a 10% chance of appearing, a 10% chance of having an item, and a 10% chance of having the Spear!! Which makes for a whooping 1/1000 chance!