Final Fantasy 8 Remastered

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sticky-runes
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Joined: Wed Nov 14, 2012 2:29 pm

Final Fantasy 8 Remastered

Post by sticky-runes »

Well I thought about getting the FF7 remake, but changed my mind after realising it's only the Midgar section and not the whole story.

So instead I got FF8 Remastered. The characters look great with the updated graphics - smooth with no pixelly effects, you can see their faces clearly.
Unfortunately the backgrounds look poor. So you're seeing these crisp looking PS4 characters and vehicals moving around on grainy old backgrounds. I find myself imagining how the game would look with high definition environments.

It's been 20 years or so since I last played the original FF8, and I've come to realise why I didn't replay it as much as other PS1 RPGs.

It's not just the lacklustre story and characters.

It's how bloody repetitive the levels are. The number of times you're exploring a dungeon and keep walking through the same screen - I'm sure FF7 and 9 did not have this. The Tomb of the Lost King with the same passage being used about 20 times. The Desert prison with the exact same layout on every single floor. Galbadia Garden with about 8 copies of the same corridor. How fricking lazy were these designers??

And it takes way too long to upgrade weapons. Not only do you need to find magazines to discover each character's new weapon, but you have to find the bits and pieces to make them as well. The characters are members of a mercenary organization, shouldn't there be weapon upgrades available at the Garden where they live and train??

And the "love story" between Squall and Rinoa sucks. Why is everyone trying to set him up with her when he obviously can't stand her? When Rinoa was about to be eaten by the lizards that Edea woke up during the parade, it was Irvine who wanted to rush over and rescue her, Squall just stood there saying "we need to get on with the mission..."

At least in games with a silent protagonist, you can let your imagination fill in blanks. FF8 gives us a protagonist who spends more time talking to himself than anyone else in the game. He even makes hand gestures during his solo conversations, I'm surprised all of Squall's friends haven't abandoned him or murdered him or had him committed to a nut house.

Oh well, at least the Remastered version has added a couple of helpful touches. You can deactivate random encounters, so that at least if you get lost entering the same screen 29 times you don't have to deal with monsters. And with the touch of a button you can instantly heal your party and make them virtually invincible, with unlimited uses of their limit breaks.
Jowy Atreides
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Re: Final Fantasy 8 Remastered

Post by Jowy Atreides »

The main downside for me, with any PS1-era remaster, is not being able to use save/load states. That is, not being able to save the game as it exists (at any moment, not just at a savepoint) and load it if things don't go your way. And, as with almost all other games from that time period, there's a lot in this game that's random. Card rules, item drops, Selphie's limit break, the list goes on and on.

The tradeoff of not being able to game the system at will is looking at a game that's been cleaned up. Graphics, quality of life, built-in hacks, that kind of thing. But, in the case of this one, they really half-assed it and didn't add/change nearly enough to justify not being able to manipulate the game as you please (in my opinion). I've heard that they would have to redraw everything if they wanted it to be widescreen, and that the money/time just wasn't there. That sounds like a good reason to not bother at all.

Finally, Squall looking more overtly feminine / pretty boy / anime-ish didn't sit well with me. He was a handsome guy in the FMVs, but he also had that one clump of hair that would stick it if you turned him to the side. Going from that to the overly polished look in the remaster was too different, for me.
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