WHAT VIDEOGAMES ARE YOU PLAYING RIGHT NOW?

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author=darken
(if only I excelled at gf advancement irl heyoooooooooooooooooooooo)

well played; yeah the first time they mentioned GF in the game I was like...girlfriend tutorial??

Anyway I'm trying to get through it without cheating, so I'll take the advice about aura stones and grinding AP and not levels, but uh, leave Darken's soft cheating and Marrend's flat-out cheating cheating.

What's amazing is all the little ways I've noticed that this enormous AAA commercial RPG released in 1999 by a Squaresoft very near the top of their game still has design decisions I would find completely unacceptable in an RPG Maker gamer (you want to read 500 TUTORIALS, RIGHT, I MEAN WHO DOESN'T WANT TO START THEIR GAME BY READING 500 PAGES OF FUCKING TUTORIALS), but that's just one example. I guess once you've done enough RPG Mak you just can't look at J-Arpgas the same.

Initially I was trying to play it on a PSX emulator (actually, I tried three different emulators and at least two different ISOs before FFVIII would even boot; I initially just got the one emulator for Persona and the like, titles that are hard to find) but when it actually ran FFVIII it came close to melting my computer twice so I just bit the bullet and gave Squenix $9.99 on the Playstation store so I can play it on my PS3. My PC can easily run most PC games released in the 2010s, the thing's a custom Alienware powerhouse, but I guess there is something REALLY resource intensive about emulating a Playstation. Either that or she's just getting old. I have had her for a while.
Spamming Renzokuken and Lion Heart over and over is pretty darn fun man. ya missing out.

PS1 emulation is just kind of still trash. The only decent one is Mednafen but it's a pain to setup as you likely have to go through retroarch or some bad GUI wrapper thing. So I actually do recommend the PS3 ps1 classics anyway, and if you have a vita lying around that can be played on there too on the same account. Hilarious timing though given the Switch announced all the final fantasy games ever EXCEPT FF8.



edit: Also a neat tip about the level scaling, it takes the average level of your CURRENT party members, so if you find yourself stuck overleveled, you can just swap to lower level characters to even up the playing field. So like if Zell is level 100 and everyone else is at 20 or something as long as he's not in the party he won't mess up the scaling for the level 20s. So oddly it's a good excuse to swap characters once in awhile?
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I forgot how many tutorials FF8 shoves down players throats. They seem skippabile at least (circle (cancel?) is my friend). What gets me is that they always say something to the effect of "if you forget later, you can reference the in-game tutorial" somewhere in the explanation. Which... kinda feels like a waste of time? Like, just give me some floating text that a new tutorial is available, and if I really need to know (or have forgotten), I can look it up? I dunno.

author=Darken
Spamming Renzokuken and Lion Heart over and over is pretty darn fun man.


Totally agree with this sentiment.
Funny thing about those tutorials is that actually a lot of rpgmaker games in the 2000ish era tried to replicate this thing where the character walks you through this menu you don't interact with and you watch the message boxes explain things as the finger icon deliberately moves along. I feel like those were only added because Final Fantasy did it. It was just this irrational need of wanting to feel like an official game of some sort.

It was mostly games with CMSes that did it, though oddly I recall some games using essentially default menu screenshots to accomplish it as well. An interesting copycat era. Though as I type this right now there's some kid making their "Undertale-inspired" masterpiece where some elements are just there because it feels "right". So idk.
author=Darken
edit: Also a neat tip about the level scaling, it takes the average level of your CURRENT party members, so if you find yourself stuck overleveled, you can just swap to lower level characters to even up the playing field. So like if Zell is level 100 and everyone else is at 20 or something as long as he's not in the party he won't mess up the scaling for the level 20s. So oddly it's a good excuse to swap characters once in awhile?


I levelled everyone. orz
Because I was tryhard like that. That said, I got all the GFs, even Eden, so... that's a bonus?
Even Edea or Seifer? ;D

Actually now that I think about it, it would be a weird strat to level Seifer to 100 and just not leave the dollet mission just to give GFs all that AP...

But I mean. Who would even do that...




oh...
author=Darken
Even Edea or Seifer? ;D

Actually now that I think about it, it would be a weird strat to level Seifer to 100 and just not leave the dollet mission just to give GFs all that AP...

But I mean. Who would even do that...



oh...



jeez I didn't even want Seifer taking a piece of my XP just cause he WAS SEIFER. anyway I automatically feel 1000% better about every decision I ever have made or will make about how to spend my time, because it was not leveling Seifer to 100 in FF8.

edit: of course the strategy involves Seifer murdering the entire rest of his party within 2 minutes of the start of the video lol
edit2: most important question of all WHICH BUTTON SKIPS THE GF ANIMATIONS???
There isn't a skip option, I think mainly to accommodate the Boost ability (hit select then mash square to make gf attacks stronger). Which is at least something to do while you wait.

You really shouldn't be using the actual summons anyway unless to shield incoming damage while summoning. The main idea behind junctioning is that you put your best attack spell (probably a fire related one, auto junction will tell you) and spam attack/limit break. The more spells drawn/stored the better your attack damage/stat is so you don't even want to bother casting spells unless it's for very important cases (casting the enemy's spell back at them is efficient for example). But yeah generally summons are pretty time inefficient for damage even though it seems like a cheap Fly/Dig equivalent move.

(also don't spend all day drawing spells in a battle ((I do not know why youtubers do that other than completionism)), there are other ways to get spells throughout the game as you go).

Fighterz, SFV, and Tekken7 mostly.
Actually been playing FF8 after all this talk (and the switch scandal). Loaded up whatever current save I had on my memory card. Hilariously I had named Rinoa: Rockman and her dog Rush and I was right before the big romance moment, kind of ruined the atmosphere. But hey she's blue and she shoots things out of her arms. Decided to kill some sidequest bosses like Cactuar, Bahamut, Ultima Weapon but now I'm thinking hey maybe I'll just complete the playthrough!

Also another tip I found out from someone: You can hold down the cancel button to skip tutorials!!
author=Darken
You really shouldn't be using the actual summons anyway unless to shield incoming damage while summoning. The main idea behind junctioning is that you put your best attack spell (probably a fire related one, auto junction will tell you) and spam attack/limit break. The more spells drawn/stored the better your attack damage/stat is so you don't even want to bother casting spells unless it's for very important cases (casting the enemy's spell back at them is efficient for example). But yeah generally summons are pretty time inefficient for damage even though it seems like a cheap Fly/Dig equivalent move.

Yeah, I'm doing a much better job of comprehending and enjoying the systems than back when I was like 13 or whatever. Junctioned Irvine with 100 Fire to Str, etcetera. But the summons are a pretty obvious FOO (First Order Optimal Strategy, forget where I learned the term but I think it comes from fighting games) early in the game when your options are limited. Like the T-Rexaur in the B-Garden training area, not too much to do but spam Shiva (who I renamed*) and Quetzacotl (who I didn't) over and over until all of those HPs are gone. But yes, as the game opens up and you're able to level up the GFs and junction your spells properly to each slot, I'm liking it.

I think one key thing I missed way back when I was a little'un is that you really want to have all of your GFs junctioned to someone at all times so they keep getting AP and levelling. Like when I was a little'un I thought, okay, so Shiva (who I renamed) belongs to Quistis and Ifrit belongs to Zell, so I didn't use Shiva when I wasn't using Quistis and I didn't use Ifrit when I wasn't using Zell. The essentially random correspondences between "Dream World" characters and the real world party did a lot to add to the confusion (wait a second, so now this enormous fat dude with an anchor-sized spear is a clone of how I built...Selphie?).

author=Darken
Also another tip I found out from someone: You can hold down the cancel button to skip tutorials!!

One gets the "how to switch party member" tutorial after you pick up Irvine which is (depending on your play style and discounting crazy strategies) roughly eight hours into the game. Already been playing 8 hours? Have another tutorial. THIS IS FINAL FANTASY.

* Whether or not I rename GFs depends on how absurdly far they have departed from their mythological origins. Ifrit is more or less a fire spirit, in mythology and folk lore and Shiva is a four-armed male deity of Destruction and Yoga, and I realllllllly don't get how even through the filter of Japan we got from there to "sexy ice elemental lady".

author=Darken
Hilariously I had named Rinoa: Rockman and her dog Rush and I was right before the big romance moment, kind of ruined the atmosphere.

XD

I cannot stop myself from pronouncing Rinoa as if it rhymed with Quinoa even though I KNOW IT DOESN'T.
author=StormCrow
Whether or not I rename GFs depends on how absurdly far they have departed from their mythological origins. Ifrit is more or less a fire spirit, in mythology and folk lore and Shiva is a four-armed male deity of Destruction and Yoga, and I realllllllly don't get how even through the filter of Japan we got from there to "sexy ice elemental lady".

Actually Shiva has many different forms (and genders) and Hindu religion is kind of complicated as I think at one point it combined some of it with Buddhism and eastern mythology. Though with Final Fantasy and mythology I think they just like making up their own types of gods and giving them cool names from all over to give it a worldy feel. It's supposed that Shiva is also a pun on "shiver" when romanticized in japanese. But rule of cool overrides anything near mythological accuracy. GFs in FF8 were kind of interesting because they were designed to be less human and more beast like actually, but not feeling like complete monsters. There's kind of a "pet focused" feel to the summons in this game.

Beat FF8, such a great ending. Decided to start up FFX for the first time (assuming playing the beginning on a friends ps2 and the demo disc doesn't really count). I'm hella sick though so it's probably a bad idea to start a big RPG when my health is lowered. I can't stop thinking about the Tidus laughing meme whenever he speaks though, and I know the context of THAT scene but still, VA in an FF is hard to get used to. I do like going from FF8 to FFX and feeling the improvement in the animations and the smoothness of how the battles transpire, FFX really does feel like it was trying to push the envelope in some ways.
Ya know, it very much might be that they had all these other elemental-based summons and couldn't come up with a good ice-themed one that the dev team liked and while they were looking in to old gods and myths and shit one of them might have made a Shiva/Shiver joke and everyone liked it so much that they decided to go with it for the lols.

I've certainly done dumb shit like that before as I'm sure we all have at some point.
I'd also like to think of it as the world of Final Fantasy where there's all these myths and legends, but the summons that show up aren't quite what they were as described. A lot of old myths were dictated orally, so some details get mixed up or misremembered. Odin's horse (Sleipnir) sometimes doesn't have 6 legs throughout the games. Though I don't know how the universes in Final Fantasy works given how much time travel and reality bending there is.

Also the final Seifer fight while having Odin is sick as hell. Don't ever skip out on getting Odin.
Each game is a different world except when they're not, is pretty much the rule of thumb. XD
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Final Fantasy 8
Squall's just returned to Balumb Garden, finding it in the middle of NORG's attempted coup de dat.

Suikoden 3
Yes, I'm playing this again. Please send help. Too late, I'm Suiko-screwed.
author=Darken

Or PS4 apparently.... : (
9 hours into FFX, so far it's been kind of a slog in terms of how the story exposition progresses. Minor spoilers but learning about the connection between Tidus and Sin kind of leaves me hanging. I'm really not thrilled about the next plot point being yet another temple to pad out the length (before finding the next bread crumb that Auron is holding back on). Throughout the years I overheard terms like: Sphere Grid, Blitzball, Wakka being OP, Tidus' whining, without knowing if they were negative or positive. But now I'm familiar and have my own opinion about them.

Sphere Grid is pretty awful and I don't know how it survived through the next few games, at least FF12 seems a little less restrictive. But the interface is just the worst, alright this row of spheres look good to me! move, use, move, use, move use. The sphere levels are also just constant meaning you either choose between doing it periodically or all at once after a boss/major cutscenes and it just feels like maid work.

I don't care much for Blitzball just like any other (major?) FF minigame, but what pissses me off is how the story lead up to it. Like I'm thinking Tidus is a big goof and everyone he meets turns into this grade 7 highschool bully at him. But at the very least he's a star blitzball player so he must be really good right? That being the redeeming quality of him at this point, he's a fish out of water when it comes to anything else. So I'm thinking it's gonna be like the snowball fight scene in Elf or something. But then you play the blitzball game, and it's hard as fuck. Yeah Tidus' stats are higher than most, and he has the Jecht Shot as a special but it's maddening that 1. winning blitzball is entirely optional, 2. they don't let you retry and 3. the story doesn't really care that much either way. Yeah sure it's an introductory and it's more about winning the entire season. But it's pretty dumb that the story just dead ends as far as that goes. Sure Wakka gets some development but it's not really that great.

Everything else about the story is fine, and while Tidus VA does bother me at times it does add to his character and feels intentional. The core battle system is really good. Targeting sucks though (it's like this in every final fantasy). Why did no square employee just a suggest a consistent list order targeting menu, especially for the party members since their names are onscreen anyway??? It's usually camera based but some of the camera angles are just awful for this.
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
@Darken: Which version of FFX are you playing? IIRC The HD Remaster version gives you access to the Expert grid, which at the very least gives you a bit more freedom in which direction to take each character. Admittedly the concept as a whole hasn't aged very well, especially with the admin work involved.

I finished Spec Ops: The Line recently...the less I say about the game, the better, in case of spoilers, but overall a solid game. Sometimes I felt it was a bit too difficult but that's what I get for playing it on a PS4 instead of the PC....

Surprising probably no-one judging by the last couple of pages in this thread, I'm now starting a replay of FFVIII. Honestly pressing the R1 button at the right time during Renzokuken is one of my favourite experiences in video games
I'm doing PS2 original baby. I actually don't like the lighting as much from what I've seen on the HD master, and that it weirdly used the PAL version as its base. But idk, I have the entire FF collection from ps1-ps2 so might as well make use of em. Does HD remaster do motion blur as much? Because there's a fuckton in the original, I love how every PS2 dev overused the shit out of it.

Irvine and Zells limit breaks are also pretty fun too. It's just really sick to see how many moves you can get out with Zell. Also fun fact you actually don't need to do any of the Zell moves that the limit break shows you on screen, if you can remember the commands you can pretty much dolphin splash as much as you want for example. But spamming the 2 button inputs over and over along with Meltdown and 255 STR I think does the most possible damage in the game aside from instant kill spells.


Best animation though, cracked me up when I did this to the final boss