Final Fantasy VIII is actually pretty okay you guys.

[Kim]

I don't think not doing something incredibly stupid with the plot, for whatever reason, reflects poorly on a game.

[Jagos]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Why would Aeris be resurrected? Why?

I'm just saying that they never finished it one way or the other. It's not about her being resurrected, it's the plot threads that were never finished because Square rushed in the final few hours to get the game out the door.

[Krylo]

There were no plot threads left hanging. The only thing they have is some dialogue left in that you can only access with a game shark. Which might not even point to resurrection so much as them not doing all the writing entirely in order.

[Specterbane]

I'd say FF VIII was over all a good game, but it did take me like five or six new game start-ups over the course of years to actually beat the game on my own. It just seemed to drag on a bit, but there were a lot of cool things that were in the game world.

The game can be broken in SOOOO many ways though. Either with getting refine abilities to get high level spells very early in the game (I had 100 tornado spells to junction on everyone maybe half way through the first disk). Or by keeping one party with low levels and only leveling up one set of people, thus you can keep the average level of the party that the enemy level is based off of low by including on low level character as fodder for the enemies. OR by keeping you characters at low health and waiting jogging between characters quickly until their limits come up, this is especially game-breaking with Aura.

But I have to say that it has one of the best realized love stories of the FF franchise that I can think of. Even if Squall is whining about his mascara the whole damn time.

[Gregness]

Well, I've already had most of the major plot points spoilered for me (sort of) because I've been following this pretty fantastic rewrite. So, my reaction to the plot point in question was more like "Damn, that really was out of left field."

As for the battle system, I gathered some broad pointers while reading the rewrite above and so while I haven't been trying to break the system in half, I make it a point to draw as much new magic as I can when I find it. Right at the end of the second disk, one of the monsters was running around with flare, so I put it to sleep and drew 200 copies out of it. Then I junctioned Zell's str with 100 flares and watched him kick the shit out of absolutely everything with his limit break. The Sorceress was actually incredibly easy both times I fought her 'cause I had carbuncle junctioned to squall and she spent the whole fight dispelling me while we kicked her ass into the next disk. I actually like the idea behind this battle system. In theory it means you never have to grind at all, which can be a huge pain in some of the older RPG's. The problem I think is they didn't strike the proper balance needed to ensure that people who don't optimize aren't cockblocked on all future progress.

This actually brings me back to the point I made originally (and a few other people have mentioned now) about this game having incredible potential marred by flawed execution.

Edit: a tonberry kicked my ass while I was trying to figure out the puzzle in Odin's tower thing after I hadn't saved in an hour or so. EFFffff-.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Man drawing magic is a massive waste of time. Not recommended.

[Gregness]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's at least a half dozen things I could be doing to squeeze out every little advantage I can but I'm not really trying to break the game in half if I don't need to.

Also, in the shumi village does anyone know what all this stones business is about? I've got a few of the life stones in my inventory, but I can't seem to find the blue stones. The NPC they pointed me to says he thought they had some in stock, but I've searched the place and haven't found a damn thing.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Man I ran round that Shumi village for ages and don't remember what I got but I remember it wasn't worth the effort. It's nothing plot related or anything and you get a not massively useful item if I remember.
You mentioned checking your inventory- all the stones are in the village and you got to walk up to them and push X. The one that he mentioned is in his inventory is on the same screen that he is on. Just find a blue stone on the screen and walk up to it and hit buttons. You may need to elave screen and come back again.

But I mean if you're not trying to break the game I still wouldn't waste time drawing magic. Buy some items, transform them into magic, far faster than drawing and still make you easily powerful enough to stomp the game.

[Flarecobra]

The Blue Stone: The large blue rock behind the statue.

And you get a Phoenix Pinion.

[Specterbane]

If I remember right the Shumi Village is a fetch quest that only has you find things around the village to be used. So if they have it "in stock" it would be in some store house. I think that's how that one worked.

And yeah, drawing magic is almost completely a time sink once you get refine abilities on your GFs, then you just get higher and higher magics and junction yourself to the point where you'd kick the shit out of Heracles if he so much as looked at you a way you didn't like. I've got mixed feelings about that on a whole.