FF8 and Vagrant Story

_Godot_

I've been thinking of giving them a try. Are they worth getting off the PSN?

Retr0gamer

Vagrant Story is the one to go for. It's still an amazing game. FF8 is still loads of fun but it's full of flaws like a hateable cast, awful story and writing and a poor battle system. Also if you can get them off the US playstation store so you don't have to deal with black borders and slow gameplay (although Vagrant Story isn't on the US I think so you'll have to make do).

Mark Hamill

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Vagrant Story is the one to go for. It's still an amazing game. FF8 is still loads of fun but it's full of flaws like a hateable cast, awful story and writing and a poor battle system. Also if you can get them off the US playstation store so you don't have to deal with black borders and slow gameplay (although Vagrant Story isn't on the US I think so you'll have to make do).

Eh... what else is there to a final fantasy besides cast, story, writing and battle system?

Xyo

hours of drawing magic of course!

Hercule

vagrant story has hours and hours of replay value - I remember I picked it up on pure fluke the day it came out and played it solidly for months - never gets boring (except for that bloody infuriating forest maze about 70% of the way in)

KerranJast

Go watch Let's Play FF8 on spoonyexperiment.com. It's more fun, takes less time and you won't hate yourself as much

Retr0gamer

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Eh... what else is there to a final fantasy besides cast, story, writing and battle system?

Well it's totally flawed but somehow remains fun. It's a great mystery.

norrie rugger

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well it's totally flawed but somehow remains fun. It's a great mystery.

Where as I, in fact, hated every minute that I played it

Retr0gamer

Well it's not so bad if you learn how to break the game. You don't need to use summons anymore and the game gets a lot faster since you aren't watching the same overlong summon sequences over and over.

norrie rugger

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well it's not so bad if you learn how to break the game. You don't need to use summons anymore and the game gets a lot faster since you aren't watching the same overlong summon sequences over and over.

This is the problem, right here.
It is bad enough all the weaknesses, that you pointed out, without having to "break" it. Too much hard work for a "not so bad" reward

Xluna

Never played Vagrant story. FFVIII is still an excellent game and well worth playing. It's a nicely crafted world and the story starts out well but just becomes disjointed half way through. I personally did'nt hate any of the cast,though they could have been more well developed. Gameplays ok and I did'nt mind drawing magic myself,though I hated the way you upgrade weapons. It's no VII or IX but it's miles better than the "RPG"s Square churns out these days.

Amalgam

Xluna, you should, the mood is totally different from FF, I find. Quite sinister. You do have to grind a fair bit, to level up though.

Xluna

Amalgam wrote: »

Xluna, you should, the mood is totally different from FF, I find. Quite sinister. You do have to grind a fair bit, to level up though.

I wikied it and saw read this:"Vagrant Story is unique as a console action/adventure role-playing game because it features no shops and no player interaction with other characters; instead, the game focuses on weapon creation and modification,..."

It's probably a good game but one of the things I love about JRPGs is how the can be like an interactive novel,as opposed to an interactive movie. I like the dialogue with other characters,character developement and going into different towns.

Retr0gamer

Well the game isn't exactly like FFXIII, it takes place in an empty desolate city where no one lives. It adds to the atmosphere. Anyway there's an excellent weapon fusion system.

For some one that thinks the absolutely horrendous story and characters in FFVIII are passable, well you are really missing out on this game. It's far darker, full of political intrigue and gets rather gruesome towards the end. It's a lot more mature than the usually saturday morning anime that passes for a plot in most of the FF series. In fact I'd say it's the strongest storyline of any Square game and one of the best videogame stories ever. The fact that the translation is absolutely faultless (shock horror) only makes it better with english language professor, Alexander O. Smith providing an excellent olde english translation.

I found there's no need for levelling up. You just have to be careful when comboing not to combo too much so your risk doesn't go too high. There's a sweet point at around 12 hits where your risk starts to go up exponentially. If you max out your risk just keep making swipes then when one hits go for the biggest combo you can. The damage will really add up. You can avoid this though by just fusing weapons properly. You only level up after bosses anyway iirc.

And let's not go into the soundtrack, far and away the best thing Hitoshi Sakimoto has made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJXo70A8kfY

Don't buy it if you want, but you are missing out on a unique and awesome game (even if the battle system is a bit meh).

Amalgam

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I found there's no need for levelling up.

I phrased that wrong. I meant levelling up a particular weapon specific to Human\Undead\Ghost etc..

Xluna

Retr0gamer wrote: »

For some one that thinks the absolutely horrendous story and characters in FFVIII are passable, ...

*Dare say it? Yeah, someone has to stand up to him and defend FFVIIs honour!*

Banned.:P:pac:

Seriously, it's probably a damn good dungeon crawler. And I like the political intrigue aspect,but I'm curious as to how this manifests itself if the city it's set in is deserted. I'm might give it a go in time but I have way to many games to get through right now.

Retr0gamer

I still say you are missing out. The game is probably better than anything you've got in your backlog at the moment waiting to be played. The game is more about the atmosphere really but there's 2 factions warring it out over the ruins, the church and the terrorist organisation protecting the power that destroyed the city and you are stuck in between it all infiltrating the place by yourself. There's also a group sent in by a political faction. Seriously, trust me the storyline is awesome and even without towns and villages the city of Lea Monde and the outside world is far better and more realised than in practically any other RPG and it does it through atmosphere, snippets of info in the dialogue and possibly the best opening of a videogame ever.

But if you want then don't get it. I'll be waiting here for you to tell me how right I was in a few months/years time and that you wasted your time playing star ocean 4.

Xluna

The story sounds interesting alright. Considering our mutual admiration for Suikoden I'm inclined to give it a go based on your recommendation.
As for Star Ocean 4,meh it's enjoyable but nothing spectacular. A lot of cliched charaters that I neither loved nor hated. Gameplays ok,story's not awful and there's some interesting worlds to be explored. Good stuff but there's far better RPGs out there.