FFVIII Community Playthrough
- Thread starter The Twilight Mexican
- Start date
Obsidian Fire
Ahk Morn!
- AKA
- The Engineer
@brian: a few hours maybe? You definitely won't need longer then a day.
If you're playing straight through that is. A lot of us are taking time to work on stats and moves (AP grinding, Triple Triad, etc.) so that the next parts will be a lot easier.
If you're playing straight through that is. A lot of us are taking time to work on stats and moves (AP grinding, Triple Triad, etc.) so that the next parts will be a lot easier.
Ami
Playing All The Stuff!
- AKA
- Amizon, Commander Shepard, Ellie, Rinoa Heartilly, Xena, Clara Oswald, Gamora, Lana Kane, Tifa Lockhart, Jodie Holmes, Chloe Price.
The intro is definitely striking and I think it's unique compared to the others. From the ones I've played, it's showcased things that will happen in the future and we're being teased about it. It's extremely powerful that these images occur during the "training" between Squall and Seifer. Also, the words at the beginning have significance the more you progress through the game.
I ... almost did. But then I've played the game more times than I can remember, so I did get on the study panel to name the GFs (which I just kept to default, anyway) and then got off to head on with the game.
They're definitely in a league of their own. The graphics for the characters may not look great now, but they were back then when the game was originally released. No character is a carbon copy of each other and I really like that.
Honest to God, I really tried to avoid it. I did well until I beat Ifrit, got his card and then saw the guy at the Garden barrier just before the Directory. I challenged him to a match and then thought, BEST OF THREE. Some of my viewers seeing me on Twitch will have found this hilarious.
I think the game is brilliant, but gets complicated when different rules are put in from different regions. It has a tendency to fuck things up if you don't know what you're doing.
I took
I was extremely tempted to pick 10 minutes, but knew I wouldn't. I was choosing between 20 and 30 if I'm honest. Because it'd been so long since I played the game, I chose 30. Now I could've done it in 20 because I timed myself and saw that it only took a little over 10 minutes to finish it, boss battle included.
Thinking back, I did do 20 usually. And I was always successful that way.
Never. I always found it easy, as the game's getting you to grips with basics with this particular one. There was a discussion on my Twitch chat about how easy the Galbadian military is, but then my previous point was made.
I fought it twice. Once at the tower entrance and another at the area just outside the former. I could've ended up fighting it again at the bridge, but I use an old trick of running towards one end and then backtracking when it leaps. And the same again when it jumps back the other end if you know what I mean.
First thing I did when I faced Elvoret, I drew her away from that fiend.
The controls are easy to get to grips with. The exploration is slightly limited right now because Squall and co are only students up to this point in the game. It expands later, but it seems fair for now.
It's one of my favourites. I like drawing magic from enemies, and I spent quite a bit of time doing this throughout the first chapter here and there. The only downside is that I resent the Limit Breaks only activating when your health is quite low, but it's something I'm sure I can (re)adjust to.
Absolutely. The intrigue of the woman at the beginning near Squall's bed, his rivalry with Seifer, school life and the character he is always grips me for this game. I wish I could say more for the others, but there's not an awful lot to go on at this current time.
The GFs (Guardian Forces). They seem more personal in this game than the other summons of the FF series. You get them to learn abilities and they have actual HP when you're in the middle of getting them ready to be summoned. You have to actually take care of them and it's vital if you want to get far in the game.
ForceStealer
Double Growth
Best opening sequence in all of Final Fantasy, hands down. It's got it all, the dramatic, intense song, the foreshadowing you only get on subsequent playthroughs, some things that spark questions, and of course the bitching fight scene that's punctuated perfectly by the aforementioned music.
It's actually a little bit of a letdown when you find out that sweet fight in the dramatic setting and blood and everything was just...two dudes training. I understand that it says things about Squall and Seifer's relationship which is important, but still.
Yeah, I can't remember if I ever poked around in there before. Seeing school rules everything was amusing, they were really pushing the high school/college feeling, huh? I especially liked the part about how you can be expelled for sexual promiscuity. Progressive
More relevantly,
this is the first I ever knew that there was ANYTHING that hinted at the silly memory plot-twist. It's still a little too subtle an optional for me to give the moment much more credence as not an ass-pull..but still, it was interesting to see, glad I checked it out.
It's interesting, especially taken with the knowledge of where they came from with VII and where they will go with IX. Going for as realistically proportioned characters as possible, and even going so far as to have them follow you rather than walk into your disappear, which wouldn't happen again until XII.
The technology...I dunno, it always felt more modern than FF7's kinda-futuristic, but it still has a giant spider robot, so who knows. Driving the car was fun, if difficult.
A little bit. I played the Queen lady to get the Diff rules, trounced her the first time, then kept getting draws... But the rule spread, and I promptly lost all my good cards, so I reloaded and was still only able to Draw the Queen for some reason. So I ran out of patience and quit.
Nah, I been in the Garden before, I knew my way around
I've always been too much of a chicken to pick 10 minutes in prior playthroughs, but I did this time and I didn't really have any trouble. Ifrit loses a lot quicker if you don't pound him with Shiva, turns out.
Nope.
Four. I was never aware you COULD destroy it. Because of this question I tried but I soon realized that I was not powerful enough to do it within the time limit, so I got out of there.
Yes sir.
The controls...look, the FFs switching between O and X being select or cancel is bad enough. Why the hell does VIII mix it around further by making O Menu and △ cancel? Maddening.
Exploration seems par for the course. I don't miss these PS1 loading times for the screen transitions though, lol.
Well it's no secret that I find Draw immensely tedious. All the same I did a lot more of it than I ever have before. I got a maybe two spells up to a 100 over the course of the chapter, I got others decently high, but I simply lack the patience to 100 everything. The gunblade mechanic is amusing, normally I can do it without thinking, but I'll go through stretches where I can't do it to save my life. I think it's just that I happen to miss once, so then I focus and try too hard and keep screwing it up, haha.
I think Junction is a cool idea, and there are a lot of cool things that you can do with it. But I don't like how it actively encourages you NEVER to cast any spells. You could say every FF does considering they limit your supply and in some games Ethers are pricey and/or rare. But none of the others actively weaken your characters' stats if they cast a spell.
The limits are fun too. They're a little easy to abuse, but I like the risk/reward of keeping your characters near-death for maybe getting one more limit in. Also I don't think I've ever used Selphie's before, got to cast two Thundaga's against Elvor....whatever, so that was sweet.
Mm, so far so good. I did forget just how...'90s all the characters sound, haha. But, especially knowing what happens later, it's fun to find all the little hints. Seifer's a primadonna extraordinaire, but it's another example of fun foreshadowing.
And, I can't remember if I have any reason to or not, but I just don't trust those eerie Garden faculty dudes...
Always the fun prerendered scenes. Lol needlessly complex communication dish. No wonder it broke!
Quistis is hot as usual, especially on the mounted machine gun
Selphie Tilmitt
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Maidenofwar
I enjoyed it. The music is what stood out to me this time. Great stuff.
The way the footage was presented, the way things moved with the zooming/zoning between scenes, that thing with the feather, I liked that too. Also the flower field and angel wing things were pretty.
Eh, I don't think I like FFVIII's cast well enough for it to be my favourite though. I think for it's time it was epic, and pushed the limits but I think there are better ones out there now.
I read some of it. Missed the most interesting parts apparently
"Faces on boxes" a friend of mine said recently and I can't get that out of my head
The character models aren't as good as I remembered, I was kind of shocked actually, I am playing it on PS3 though so I don't know if that makes it show up more. The backgrounds still look kind of ok though. Some prettiness in there. I was trying to compare water effects from the fountains/pool in Garden and I thought from a distance it looks ok but close up/the water coming out kind of looks like you'd be taking a bath in blue paint or something The shops and things are cool. I saw one called "Nautilus" in Dollet
And they say FFXIII didn't have FF easter eggs like that 
The technology is quite neat. Cars! Trains! Boats! Well ok haven't been on the train yet, but I did visit the train station (in Balamb). There's a guy there, says imagine if a pretty girl came by with some flowers
Something like that
Yeah! Where did the time go? It's so addictive, and when you're winning you just want to play more and get all the best cards. At first it was kind of frustrating though because I kept losing. I tried playing the guy at the front desk, the guy sitting on a bench, and the library girl with a pigtail but my luck was really bad. I used save/reload to get my cards back though. Then I decided in the front lobby, there's a save point right -there- I'm going to keep playing that little kid jogging and save each time I win/get a good card. Then once I finally won Minimog off him I went to play the Trepe Groupie in the cafe and used save/reload until I won the Quistis card from him. Was a bit annoying having to run back to the cafe all the time though. Once I had the Quistis card though it was great however because I was able to stay in the cafe and use MiniMog and Quistis for wins, plus other cards I won off the Trepe Groupie until I had all his best cards
Got Ifrit from the fire cavern as well so yeah now I have three "top" cards in MiniMog/Quistis/Ifrit.Kept trying to play Zell's mum in Balamb, assuming she has the Zell card if I remember right but she won't play with me.
Yes. I've picked all the "nice" answers so far.
Ten minutes. Yes. Beat Ifrit with around four minutes to spare. Was an easier fight than I remembered, Ifrit went down quick to Squall spamming his limit break and Quistis using Blizzard. I was trying to wait till I was nearly out of time before finishing off the fight but was too spam happy with Squall apparently, oops.
Nope.
Four times. Outside the tower, on the cliff, while coming down the hill, and on the bridge. Destroyed it on the bridge. A L25~ Quetzalcoatl and Selphie/Zell spamming Thunder spells off Double does that. Winning was really nice since I scored 50AP from doing it. Siren learned Life Magic Refine
Aye.
I used Config to set the system to Active, and battle/message speeds to max speeds. I'm used to things being fast now from the most recent FF games.
It's quite fun this way. Elvoret managed to take out Selphie/Zell through the more active pace of it's turns.
I'm not sure about the exploration. Haven't really been able to do too much with it yet. There's things like you can go to Balamb before you do the Fire Cavern, and things like that but I wasn't sure/didn't remember if that would mess with my exam results so I reloaded. Same with Dollet, I didn't like stop to talk to other Squad groups and things like that. Checking out the Garden itself is quite neat though, for cards and things, and you can find Selphie again.
The battle system are Seifer. Left > Left + X. No Mercy! So much spam. No Mercy spam as fun as ever. Spent a while levelling Seifer + GFs up in Dollet while Squall/Zell were at 0 HP and gained no EXP, gained the APs too, got all the abilities for my GFs that I was wanting like Card Mod, HP-J, Fire Mag Refine, Ice Magic Refine, Thunder Magic Refine, Boosts, etc.
Then using the likes of Double later together with things like Thundara that I was able to get from using those abilities/transforming items was fun too.
Before that, right at the start was kind of boring though. Just drawing over and over until stock was full. Might have been more interesting if I'd fought the T-Rex but didn't want to gain any EXP with Squall/Quistis.
I am allowing the rest of my characters to gain EXP now though, now that I'm done with this section (also Squall/Quistis did gain some EXP when I took out one monster in a group, leaving another to draw from, then I ran away but they got the EXP for taking out the one monster anyway
) because I don't want the rest of the game to roll over too much ... oh wait Tents + Life Magic Refine 
Yes. I also like the school life thing, and the importance of the exams to the students, or how seriously or not they take it. For me it's mostly the characters, the way they've been in the story so far, I enjoyed the interactions between Quistis/Squall, her teasing of him, the humour there. Selphie is as cute as ever, the male bonding, like Squall telling Zell not to let Seifer get to him (that was actually pretty nice of Squall, he should be like this all the time
), Seifer asking Squall if he wants to wreak some havoc too, Quistis and Xu's teasing of Seifer as well, his posse with Raijin and Fujin, them showing their support for him and things. Also like how the main plot itself picked up the pace with the Dollet/Galbadia thing, then with meeting the Biggs/Wedge of this game and everything. I joined the Garden Festival committee!
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The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
So, I'm trying to download the game off the PlayStation Network, but I need to add a new credit card because the old information is no longer valid. However, I have to have my password to add a new card. It's been two years since I set up the account. Can't remember the password.
I try getting an e-mail sent to me so I can reset it, but it never comes. It's been hours since I started trying.
Has anyone else had these problems?
I try getting an e-mail sent to me so I can reset it, but it never comes. It's been hours since I started trying.
Has anyone else had these problems?
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
They finally sent an e-mail for all three of my requests about four hours after I went to sleep. Downloading the game now. Will play tonight.
AvecAloes
Donator
Chapter 1
Alright then.
The music is, of course, epic. It's always been one of my favorite FF pieces. So intense! As for the FMV, the "battle" between Seifer and Squall is definitely impressive. I have to say, though, that I'm not quite sure how I feel about seeing all of the glimpses of things that I'm assuming are yet to come (first time playing VIII). I'm sure it would make a lot more sense if I had played the game before.
I read it. All of it.
Coming right after VII, the character models are a huge leap forward, I suppose. Something in me prefers the character models in VII, if only because they're so much clearer. Yes, they're simpler, and let's be honest, they're pretty much just blocks, but I'm not a huge fan of the grainy quality of the models in VIII. I felt the same way about IX, as it was the game that I played after VII. The backgrounds are gorgeous, though. The technology seems more comparative to our 'modern day' than VII's, which was pretty modern, but almost in a rather steam punk way. Well, that's the impression that I get so far, anyway.
I played Triple Triad twice. Once was on my way to do the dorm to get changed into my uniform. I lost, and they took my Ifrit card. I reset the game.
The second time was at the very end of the chapter, after I'd rested in the hotel in whatever port city I was in. I lost, and they took my Ifrit card. I reset the game.
I did, as I'm new to the game myself
I chose 20 minutes, and was wildly successful. I think I finished with almost 10 minutes left, so choosing 10 might not have gone so well, but 20 was more than enough.
I'm assuming you mean the 30 minutes to get back to the beach? No, not really.
I fought him 6 or 7 times. I lost count. I wouldn't say I TRIED to destroy it, but I did lambaste him with Quezacotl. Didn't destroy him, though, and I got tired of fighting him (though I did like the music).
Yes, thanks to Force for telling me to make sure that I did
It took me a second of button mashing to figure out that for some stupid reason, 'menu' was set to O and 'cancel' was set to triangle. What the hell. I then poked around in the settings menu and found that I could manually set the controls to what I want them to be, so I switched those buttons post haste! So for all of you who take issue with the default button settings, take heart! You can change them
As for exploration - I haven't really done too much yet, to be honest. I hung out in the forest outside of the Fire Cave for a while and drew Cures from the caterpillar things, but I haven't really wandered around much yet.
Ah, drawing. For some reason, I compulsively got all of the offensive spells that I had for Quistis and Squall up to 100, as well as Cure, as I didn't want to run short. When I was fighting the boss on the top of the radio tower, I found that I quickly ran out of Thunders for Zell, as I had only drawn maybe 15 from the soldiers in Dollet. That'll teach me to go easy on the drawing. Stupid drawing. I just find it tedious.
Figuring out junctioning and stuff is going to take some time, I think. I understand the basic principles, but there are some things that I haven't seemed to be able to figure out how to set or whatever. I'm not sure how to set everyone's limit break. Is it different for each character?
I also have to remember to frequently check the abilities for the GFs, as I don't want them to just automatically choose which one to learn next. I want to be a little strategic about that.
Alright then.
The music is, of course, epic. It's always been one of my favorite FF pieces. So intense! As for the FMV, the "battle" between Seifer and Squall is definitely impressive. I have to say, though, that I'm not quite sure how I feel about seeing all of the glimpses of things that I'm assuming are yet to come (first time playing VIII). I'm sure it would make a lot more sense if I had played the game before.
I read it. All of it.
Coming right after VII, the character models are a huge leap forward, I suppose. Something in me prefers the character models in VII, if only because they're so much clearer. Yes, they're simpler, and let's be honest, they're pretty much just blocks, but I'm not a huge fan of the grainy quality of the models in VIII. I felt the same way about IX, as it was the game that I played after VII. The backgrounds are gorgeous, though. The technology seems more comparative to our 'modern day' than VII's, which was pretty modern, but almost in a rather steam punk way. Well, that's the impression that I get so far, anyway.
I played Triple Triad twice. Once was on my way to do the dorm to get changed into my uniform. I lost, and they took my Ifrit card. I reset the game.
The second time was at the very end of the chapter, after I'd rested in the hotel in whatever port city I was in. I lost, and they took my Ifrit card. I reset the game.
I did, as I'm new to the game myself
I chose 20 minutes, and was wildly successful. I think I finished with almost 10 minutes left, so choosing 10 might not have gone so well, but 20 was more than enough.
I'm assuming you mean the 30 minutes to get back to the beach? No, not really.
I fought him 6 or 7 times. I lost count. I wouldn't say I TRIED to destroy it, but I did lambaste him with Quezacotl. Didn't destroy him, though, and I got tired of fighting him (though I did like the music).
Yes, thanks to Force for telling me to make sure that I did
It took me a second of button mashing to figure out that for some stupid reason, 'menu' was set to O and 'cancel' was set to triangle. What the hell. I then poked around in the settings menu and found that I could manually set the controls to what I want them to be, so I switched those buttons post haste! So for all of you who take issue with the default button settings, take heart! You can change them
As for exploration - I haven't really done too much yet, to be honest. I hung out in the forest outside of the Fire Cave for a while and drew Cures from the caterpillar things, but I haven't really wandered around much yet.
Ah, drawing. For some reason, I compulsively got all of the offensive spells that I had for Quistis and Squall up to 100, as well as Cure, as I didn't want to run short. When I was fighting the boss on the top of the radio tower, I found that I quickly ran out of Thunders for Zell, as I had only drawn maybe 15 from the soldiers in Dollet. That'll teach me to go easy on the drawing. Stupid drawing. I just find it tedious.
Figuring out junctioning and stuff is going to take some time, I think. I understand the basic principles, but there are some things that I haven't seemed to be able to figure out how to set or whatever. I'm not sure how to set everyone's limit break. Is it different for each character?
I also have to remember to frequently check the abilities for the GFs, as I don't want them to just automatically choose which one to learn next. I want to be a little strategic about that.
Well, yes, but I'm not sure that there has been all that much to get into so far. I'm excited to see more, though.
No XP for boss battles? Lame.
Sprites
Waiting for something
- AKA
- Gems
@Avec: Trust me the EXP isn't important in this game, what is important is the AP you gain to help in learning GF abilities and the bosses are pretty generous with this.
Actually a really good place I usually use in the beginning is the beaches around Balamb to gain AP, you can get into battles with 2-3 of those fastitocalon things at a time and each of them give 3AP once defeated so you can rack up 6-9AP per fight pretty quickly.
Anyways I actually managed to start my playthrough and I'm currently in the middle of my write up. I'm gonna try and keep up to date with these chapters but no guarantees so I apologise if I end up a bit behind.
Actually a really good place I usually use in the beginning is the beaches around Balamb to gain AP, you can get into battles with 2-3 of those fastitocalon things at a time and each of them give 3AP once defeated so you can rack up 6-9AP per fight pretty quickly.
Anyways I actually managed to start my playthrough and I'm currently in the middle of my write up. I'm gonna try and keep up to date with these chapters but no guarantees so I apologise if I end up a bit behind.
Obsidian Fire
Ahk Morn!
- AKA
- The Engineer
This is the second time I'm playing though FFVIII and I'm playing on an emulator, which brings it's own collection of exploits with it. I'll try to spoiler tag things...
As far as the world goes, I think today you would call it an urban fantasy. There's magic, but most people don't, or rather can't, make use of it. The population as a whole feels more passive then in FFVII too. Instead of Weapon Shops, there's now Junk Shops. Instead of the Item Store, it's the Gift Store. There's also more ways of avoiding monsters, either by riding the train or driving. And both are seen as part of normal life.
It seems like she's trying to hard. Siefer... he seems like your average attention getter. He wants to be something great, but doesn't think about how he's going to get there... he's the kind of guy who wonders why people don't like him, when it's obvious to everyone why few people do. Squall knows what's expected of him and does it, the thing is, there isn't a lot of passion from him, even in his internal monologues. Or at least about SeeD/Garden there isn't, his rivalry with Seifer on the other hand...
Very dramatic, they managed to get across the important relationships as well as tease for what was going to happen. It also sortof looks like a set up for a story-within-a-story type thing as it starts with
Rinoa waiting in the flower-field for Squall to come back from Time Compression and the game is her remembering how she and Squall met/got together.
Yep... there's a lot there that makes more sense on the second play-through. I find it interesting that the info on the Study Panel is specifically about Garden rules/life, but there's hardly any mention of Seed rules/life. That said, Squall's "I don't want to have non-professional relationships" thing is almost advocated by Garden, so it's not that surprising that he has such a hard time letting go of it.
I find it very ironic that Squall flat-out ignores a lot of the rules as the game progresses especially, the one about using SeeD skills for personal gain.
This is one of my favorite FFs design-wise. Oddly, a lot of it reminds me of FFXIII design, especially Balam. Only where FFXIII architecture (especially Cocoon's) feels light and new, like it's made out of plastic, FFVII architecture feels dense and old, like it's made out of stone. FFVIII architecture also feels more "lived in" or maybe "built up", then FFXIII architecture does. But a lot of the lines/curves/shapes are similar. Whereas FFVII had lots of sharp angles (go figure), FFVIII feels more Art Nouveau, it's mostly curves, but there still are sharp angles thrown in here and there. I also like how for the most part, places
that aren't ruled by sorceresses feel very open, while places ruled by sorceresses feel closed off.
As far as the world goes, I think today you would call it an urban fantasy. There's magic, but most people don't, or rather can't, make use of it. The population as a whole feels more passive then in FFVII too. Instead of Weapon Shops, there's now Junk Shops. Instead of the Item Store, it's the Gift Store. There's also more ways of avoiding monsters, either by riding the train or driving. And both are seen as part of normal life.
Oh yeah... it's my favorite FF mini-game. It's simple enough that it's not that hard to figure out how the strategy works, but with all the different rules, you can make it a lot harder then it starts out as. And the fact that playing the game actually helps your stats out doesn't hurt either. It's actually funny playing with just the "Open" rule, as in my last game, I usually tried to spread the "Same/Plus/Wall" rule sets. It's really boring just picking out five cards that mange to have high values in the four different directions... instead of pulling out a mix of cards so I can set myself up for good "Same/Plus" combos. I probably spend more time playing Triple Triad then training, especially this early in the game.
Yep, I find it funny though the Squall's "tour" essentially consists of him pointing her to the directory though. Not what I was expecting the first time through...
10 minutes... and then left the naming screen open for another five minutes to get the time bonus for SeeD rank...
Nope! See below.
Only twice, the first time you have to escape, and the second time I destroyed it. Managed to do it by Junctioning 100 Tornado to both Squall and Zell's STR and 100 Thundaga to Elm-ATK. Then I gave Quezacotl to Selphie. I think it repaired itself once though...
Yep... not having Life-Mag Refining is killing me.
I wish they would be consistent with the controls... but it's fine, I'll manage. The exploration is actually pretty good for this early in the game. It take us half an hour maybe to get to the world map and we aren't shoehorned into doing the seed mission. In that time you can explore, refine, upgrade equips etc. It's not like it takes a whole disk like in FFVII, or requires the plaer to go through a several hour long linear "quest chain" like FFIX.
It isn't sluggish, that's for sure. I've learned the Drawing takes less time if you can have everybody draw the same spell all at the same time. Right now, Drawing is a pain in the neck as not everyone has 50+ MAG and can draw 9 spells every time. Right now, the Junction system tend to work best for me if I Junction the high-level spells to stats, but cast the lower level ones. This ends up flipping once the GFs learn enough %stat abilities and then I Junction the lower spells and cast the higher ones. Not to say the FFs aren't tactical, but FFVIII is one of the most fun for me stratgy-wise because there's so many ways to get stronger, so if I get board of grinding on monsters, I can go play Triple Triad which still helps me out a lot, and when I get board of that, I can go back to grinding, as well as switch out everyone's roles whenever I want. This lack of different ways to train ended up being a game-breaker for FFIX for me...
Playing FFVIII though for the second time reveals a lot more about what's going on "behind the scenes". I feel a lot more sympathetic towards Quistis then I did the first time though. The Trepies make her out to be some hot chick, but what she actually likes doing is
being head of the CC group, which apearently no one knows about except those already in the group.
The Garden/SeeD concept feels very non-Western to me. There just isn't that many examples of teenage modern military forces that don't end up messed up somehow in Western Literature. It's almost always considered not to be a good thing. In particular, this has to do with just how modern (but not too Sci-Fi) FFVIII's world actually is. If it was Medieval, or High Fantasy, or some variety of 'Punk on the other hand, it wouldn't feel as out of place.
brian
Onchu
- AKA
- ??
So I've noticed there's a lack of MP in this game! I gotta say I was in a panic during the 30-minute withdrawal.. because I totally forgot about it when I was eager to set the new player ability I unlocked after boss. By the time I remembered there's a nice cut-scene of this mech-spider attacking me. I only had 1 game-over so far which was at the fire cavern (I overconfidently put 10 minutes, hahaha...)
Due to the lengthy amount of time it takes to disable + retreat repetitively, I thought I wasn't going to make it but I luckily had about 4 minutes to spare.
And I've only been able to use limit break once so far with Zell and I failed terribly, I thought I only supposed to put in one attack sequence so it was just a mach kick ;_; more like fail kick.
If I wasn't supposed to stop playing yet after the exam, with the exception of grinding AP, please let me know!
Due to the lengthy amount of time it takes to disable + retreat repetitively, I thought I wasn't going to make it but I luckily had about 4 minutes to spare.
And I've only been able to use limit break once so far with Zell and I failed terribly, I thought I only supposed to put in one attack sequence so it was just a mach kick ;_; more like fail kick.
If I wasn't supposed to stop playing yet after the exam, with the exception of grinding AP, please let me know!
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
I haven't finished the first chapter yet. Been playing too much Triple Triad.
Anyway:
To be completed by start of: 11/27/2013
Anyway:
Chapter Two: Duty & Dreams
Target:
Target:
To be completed by start of: 11/27/2013
- What were your exam scores? How do you feel about your performance?
- Did you get the Battle Meter?
- Any trouble finding the "secret area" in the Training Center?
- Did you get the Magical Lamp? Did you use it?
- What rare cards have you gotten so far?
- Did you give the Card Queen the MiniMog card?
- Did Laguna fall asleep while talking to Julia or just talk too much?
- Did you perform the train mission flawlessly or have to do anything over?
- Did you take the cheap way out for the Gerogero boss fight?
- Did you visit Dollet again? What did you do there?
- Did you get the Girl Next Door magazine?
- What were your overall impressions of this chapter?
AvecAloes
Donator
Chapter 2
Conduct: 20
Judgement: 50
Attack: 50
Spirit: 30
Attitude: 30
Rank: 4
Well, given that I honestly have no idea how each of those numbers are calculated, I guess I feel alright about them?
I have since ranked up, so I'm now at Rank 5. I love that money just automatically shows up every now and then!
Yup.
No, actually, which kind of surprised me. But geez, was Squall an absolute dick to Quistis during that scene. I can't believe she's even trying with him. I wouldn't. I'm not a big fan of Squall so far.
Also, I was in the middle of fighting the T-Rexsaur or whatever it's called when my power went out. Luckily, I had just saved before that happened, but still. I went back and found another one to fight as soon as the power came back
I did get the Magical Lamp, and I did use it.
Umm...I'm honestly not sure. I haven't been paying too much attention to the cards, although I did finally start having some success at playing Triple Triad during this chapter! I played many people in Timber.
I know not who the Card Queen is, nor do I have a MiniMog card to begin with.
He just talked too much. There's a way that he could fall asleep? How? What determines that?
By the way, freaking LOVE Man with the Machine Gun. It is one of my favorite FF songs, and I'm so glad that I can now associate it with the actual game.
I messed up once, during the very first time you have to input the codes. I didn't get up to the top of the train car fast enough, and the guards saw me. Other than that, I didn't have any issues.
I just had to ask Force what this meant.
Nope.
Haha, yes, I did, although I wasn't looking for it.
I enjoyed it. I liked the bits with Laguna, though I have no idea what is going on with them. I like him a lot better than I like Squall so far, so bring on more of that, haha.
The train sequence was a lot of fun. At first, I was afraid that it was going to give me a lot of trouble. I don't have a great history with mini games (although, I don't know if that's really the best term for this), such as the part in VII where you have to get past the Shin-ra guards by timing your movements so they don't see you when you're running from pillar to pillar...the game actually took pity on me after I failed miserably over and over again and just skipped ahead for me...but yeah, I didn't really run into any major issues with it.
Not quite sure how I feel about Rinoa yet. I suppose I'll have to save my opinions for when they're more fully fleshed out.
Also, how freaking corny was it that Squall magically became the best dancer ever halfway through the song. I know that he was 'supposed' to know how to dance (according to a conversation about having to be ready to infiltrate anything, right?), so was he just putting on an act in the beginning? Or should I really just want to punch someone in the face right now for thinking that making him the best dancer ever halfway through the dance would be the cutest thing in the world?
Also, I giggled when Selphie made her "love and peace!" declaration, because it made me think of Vash the Stampede
Conduct: 20
Judgement: 50
Attack: 50
Spirit: 30
Attitude: 30
Rank: 4
Well, given that I honestly have no idea how each of those numbers are calculated, I guess I feel alright about them?
I have since ranked up, so I'm now at Rank 5. I love that money just automatically shows up every now and then!Yup.
No, actually, which kind of surprised me. But geez, was Squall an absolute dick to Quistis during that scene. I can't believe she's even trying with him. I wouldn't. I'm not a big fan of Squall so far.
Also, I was in the middle of fighting the T-Rexsaur or whatever it's called when my power went out. Luckily, I had just saved before that happened, but still. I went back and found another one to fight as soon as the power came back
I did get the Magical Lamp, and I did use it.
Took 3 or 4 times to beat Diablos. I only had 9 Blinds, which I split between my party. The first time I fought him, I hadn't split them between the party, nor did I have anyone with "Item" equipped, and of COURSE the one person on my team who had all the Blinds was killed almost immediately, and I had no way of reviving her (it was Selphie). So I reset. There was one time after I split the Blinds that none of them took, so I reset, and another time when it finally took but Diablos connected his physical hits anyway and wiped out my entire party. Ah, but the 4th...the 4th one stayed up! attempt was successful.
Umm...I'm honestly not sure. I haven't been paying too much attention to the cards, although I did finally start having some success at playing Triple Triad during this chapter! I played many people in Timber.
I know not who the Card Queen is, nor do I have a MiniMog card to begin with.
He just talked too much. There's a way that he could fall asleep? How? What determines that?
By the way, freaking LOVE Man with the Machine Gun. It is one of my favorite FF songs, and I'm so glad that I can now associate it with the actual game.
I messed up once, during the very first time you have to input the codes. I didn't get up to the top of the train car fast enough, and the guards saw me. Other than that, I didn't have any issues.
I just had to ask Force what this meant.
Phoenix Down, apparently? No, I didn't do that, although I did cast cure a bunch.
Nope.
Haha, yes, I did, although I wasn't looking for it.
I enjoyed it. I liked the bits with Laguna, though I have no idea what is going on with them. I like him a lot better than I like Squall so far, so bring on more of that, haha.
The train sequence was a lot of fun. At first, I was afraid that it was going to give me a lot of trouble. I don't have a great history with mini games (although, I don't know if that's really the best term for this), such as the part in VII where you have to get past the Shin-ra guards by timing your movements so they don't see you when you're running from pillar to pillar...the game actually took pity on me after I failed miserably over and over again and just skipped ahead for me...but yeah, I didn't really run into any major issues with it.
Not quite sure how I feel about Rinoa yet. I suppose I'll have to save my opinions for when they're more fully fleshed out.
Also, how freaking corny was it that Squall magically became the best dancer ever halfway through the song. I know that he was 'supposed' to know how to dance (according to a conversation about having to be ready to infiltrate anything, right?), so was he just putting on an act in the beginning? Or should I really just want to punch someone in the face right now for thinking that making him the best dancer ever halfway through the dance would be the cutest thing in the world?
Also, I giggled when Selphie made her "love and peace!" declaration, because it made me think of Vash the Stampede
Selphie Tilmitt
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Maidenofwar
Just posting this here in case I forget -
Conduct - 30 Pt
Judgement - 50 Pt
Attack - 100 Pt
Spirit - 30 Pt
Points Deducted - 80 Pt
Bonus - 100 Pt.
SeeD Rank - 7
Conduct - 30 Pt
Judgement - 50 Pt
Attack - 100 Pt
Spirit - 30 Pt
Points Deducted - 80 Pt
Bonus - 100 Pt.
SeeD Rank - 7
The Twilight Mexican
Ex-SeeD-ingly good
- AKA
- TresDias
I imagine that Squall had been taught to dance, as he said, but was clumsy at first because, well, puberty.
Kuja9001
Ooooh Salty!
- AKA
- roxas9001, Krat0s9001, DarkSlayerZero
What were your exam scores? How do you feel about your performance?
Conduct- 100pt
Judgement-50pt
Attack- 0pt
Spirit-50pt
Attitude- 80pt
SeeD Rank- 5
Did you get the Battle Meter?
Yes
Any trouble finding the "secret area" in the Training Center?
No
Did you get the Magical Lamp? Did you use it?
Yes, I defeated Diablos on my first attempt.
What rare cards have you gotten so far?
Not many
Did you give the Card Queen the MiniMog card?
No
Did Laguna fall asleep while talking to Julia or just talk too much?
He talked too much
Did you perform the train mission flawlessly or have to do anything over?
Flawlessly
Did you take the cheap way out for the Gerogero boss fight?
Yep, I didn't have a choice.
Did you visit Dollet again? What did you do there?
No.
Did you get the Girl Next Door magazine?
No
What were your overall impressions of this chapter?
The dance fmv is one of my all-time fav FF cutscenes.
Conduct- 100pt
Judgement-50pt
Attack- 0pt
Spirit-50pt
Attitude- 80pt
SeeD Rank- 5
Did you get the Battle Meter?
Yes
Any trouble finding the "secret area" in the Training Center?
No
Did you get the Magical Lamp? Did you use it?
Yes, I defeated Diablos on my first attempt.
What rare cards have you gotten so far?
Not many
Did you give the Card Queen the MiniMog card?
No
Did Laguna fall asleep while talking to Julia or just talk too much?
He talked too much
Did you perform the train mission flawlessly or have to do anything over?
Flawlessly
Did you take the cheap way out for the Gerogero boss fight?
Yep, I didn't have a choice.
Did you visit Dollet again? What did you do there?
No.
Did you get the Girl Next Door magazine?
No
What were your overall impressions of this chapter?
The dance fmv is one of my all-time fav FF cutscenes.
Sprites
Waiting for something
- AKA
- Gems
Geeze I actually managed to start this. YAY
I love this opening sequence, it's action packed, got a beautiful theme song and is just very pretty to look at. My brother isn't the biggest fan of FFVIII but he says the opening is one of his favourites and I have to agree with him on that, it's very interesting because you wonder what the deal is with the two women, Squall and Seifer and all the images it's showing you.
Yeah, I always like to read the information in the beginning and some of the stuff on the panel is quite funny, I like the little messages some of the students send to one another over the panels.
Overall Aesthetics when I first played FFVIII I honestly thought the graphics were such a leap from VII, you went from blocky, pixelated characters with no mouth and boxes for hands to properly proportioned characters and I also like the little added footstep sound effect.
In terms of in battles, I like that there's no change in character proportions but I do think the backgrounds are a little grainer and less smooth looking that their predeccesors.
It also feels like the most modern setting in terms of time period in an FF yet. Balamb garden is more technologically advanced looking in terms of a school but Balamb the town for instance looks like a typical seaside down that you'd see anywhere these days really and I quite like that about it, the same with Dollet.
I really dislike Triple Triad and I can honestly say I've never gotten the hang of it which is weird because it's easier than Tetra Master I think but yet I can play Tetra master no problem. I think it's because Triple Triad incorporates all these rules that I find it a bit harder. I tend to stay away from Triple Triad unless I know there's a certain card that will come in handy later for card modifying later, for that reason, I use the Card ability a lot later on so that I have some better cards later when I do need a good card and have to play about a billion games to get it. The card explanations in the tutorial section of the menu are pretty cool though, I like how they thought to put a little bit of background info in there about it’s origins instead of making it just an optional mini-game where you can get some pretty nice items and there's no origina about it.
Always do, I like the interaction between Squall and our insanely hyper transfer student during this so I always choose to show her around even though it's probably a very un-squall like thing to do
20 minutes, I've done the 10 minute time limit before with extreme difficulty and just about finishing it whereas 20 mins is just comfortable.
In terms of this boss fight itself it wasn't hard at all, but I'm attempting to get 100 of each spell for each team member as soon as it appears so there's a lot of drawing involved and Esuna with Biggs was a pain in the arse because Zell's attempts at Drawing were awful (I'm pretty sure Drawing is related to a stat but I can't remember which one) Anyways Selphie was the best at Drawing usually stocking 6-8 spells at a time and then Squall but Zell had several failed attempts at drawing or just stocked 1-2 which meant it took ages but it was worth it to have 100 Esuna spells and then 100 Double spells for each character.
Nah I really didn't and I also beat Spider Bot (I'm calling it that because its quicker to type than that stupid name), I fought it twice, first time was the compulsory battle, dodged it up until the bridge and finished it with twelve minutes to spare and made it to the beach with 9 minutes to spare, you're better trying to kill it as close to the 'finish line' as possible though as you tend to get into random encounters with soldiers after, I had plenty of time so it was fine to beat them but it's just something to bear in mind if it's your first attempt.
I honestly think if you've never beaten Spider bot before you should give it ago, 50AP plus I got an Orihalcon (Vit+ 40% ability) I believe the item you get is random but it's related to the Spirit, Vitality, Magic or Strength stat. I've beaten him before and I think I got a different one but I can't remember...Can anyone who's beaten it confirm did they get the same item or a different one?? Oh and you get a bonus in your exam statistics which is nice for a rank and money increase I guess. I think it's worth it even if you don't get to see a very cool FMV but you have to be prepared to do some griding before hand.
It's important you've learned learned Sum magic+ 10,20 and 30% and Boost for Quezacotl and Shiva helps too I guess. I pretty much just used them, a good spot to get 6-9 AP per battle is the beach around the Balamb area so you can get the abilities quicker as you pretty much need to build up around 300 AP to learn all of them. Spiderbot can't recover itself after a couple of rounds and if you have the aforementioned abilities, increase the battle speed to max in the config menu, change the ATB to active and depending how fast you can button bash for Boost you can do between 2700-3700 damage with Quezacotl and 1200-1900 with Shiva, a couple of rounds and it's out. I would have been quicker but during the first battle I pissed about trying to draw a few protects, obviously timed battles are going to be nearly impossible to get 100 spells for each character but I had them all draw at least twice. Oh when I was grinding I went on ahead and learned the Card ability too, it is pretty handy to have later on.
In terms of exploration I love that there's a lot to see in Garden and a lot of people to talk to and the first time I ever played it I was genuinely shocked at how quickly you were able to go onto the world map. FFVIII was the second FF I ever played after VII so you can imagine after spending a lot of time in Midgar before getting onto the world map to going into VIII and being able to go straight onto the world map, I thought "this is great" until I realised you couldn't really go very far in the beginning.
Dollet itself is always nice to come back to later in the game and explore when you're not in the middle of fighting spiderbots or soldiers.
I really like VIII's battle system, I found it the first time I played it a little disconcerting that you had to equip a GF in order to use magic and stuff but these days I love that there's so much choice. As for the junction system, it's one of my favourites and I find it a lot of fun to experiment with. I think the important thing with VIII you need to realise is that EXP really doesn't mean much and it's all about the junctioning and AP. I like that when summons are called into battle they kind of act like a temporary shield . I also like how they’re a nice build on FFVI’s earlier summon/stat system, it’s good that you can equip more than one GF to get variety of stat boosts and similar to FFVI I think they come in handy for dealing damage earlier in the game but they aren't necessary for this later and instead it’s all about the stat boosting.
The story in FFVIII initially has a very high school feel to it despite the military aspect. At this point you don’t know much about what’s going on as such or what it means to be a SeeD, you just know that Galbadia is the enemy and take it at face value and you also hear the odd rumour of a sorceress.
The characters; Well I think Squall definitely takes on the 'loner' very well but you kinda want to know why he's so stand offish at times. I like Quistis a lot, she's one of my favourite characters in the game because she's got a great 'no nonsense attitude, she's able to keep a level head and it seems like everyone has a great deal of respect for her and she's probably the most sensible character out of everyone. Zell in beginning irritates me for probably most of the first disc because he allows himself to get worked up over everything, granted Seifer being a little shit during the exam doesn't help but he allows his emotions and his personal feelings towards Seifer get the better of him. Selphie...just way to happy for her own good. I think when they made the decision to make Selphie the happy character, they kinda took it too far. She does have some great moments later but right now she bothers me with her major happiness. Seifer is an arrogant piece of shit but he has some very good one liners so I can't help but like him despite his attitude, he's that guy that even though you really should hate him, you can't help but like him.
The tutorial section of the menu, sometimes when there are tutorials in games you forget things quickly and can't always go back to review them, so it's nice that there's one to access and look through especially if you're a first timer on this.
Limit Breaks are ridiculously easy to access and even more ridiculous later in the game.
How any magic you acquire in the time you have Seifer in your party automatically tranfers to Selphie and yet levels in FFVIII aren't averaged when you meet a new character unlike other FFs, they seem to be more of a set level, then again actual levels don't matter so much in this game.
Squall so far is the only character able to renamed and interestingly enough the other characters second names are mentioned, I think that's a first as before that I don't remember any of the other games before FFVIII mentioning the characters names actually in the game and not just in the manual or anything.
it's nice how FF's kind of build on each other in terms of some of their battle features. FFVIII is like an improved version of FFVI's stat building system, FFV was a better version of FFIII's job system and FFX clearly builds on FFVIII's summon's learning abilities and having their own HP stat system.
Finally in terms of who has what GF right now, I gave Squall, Shiva and Siren, Selphie has Quezacotl and Zell has Ifrit, once I get my next GF I might do a little bit of re-arranging again.
I love this opening sequence, it's action packed, got a beautiful theme song and is just very pretty to look at. My brother isn't the biggest fan of FFVIII but he says the opening is one of his favourites and I have to agree with him on that, it's very interesting because you wonder what the deal is with the two women, Squall and Seifer and all the images it's showing you.
Yeah, I always like to read the information in the beginning and some of the stuff on the panel is quite funny, I like the little messages some of the students send to one another over the panels.
Overall Aesthetics when I first played FFVIII I honestly thought the graphics were such a leap from VII, you went from blocky, pixelated characters with no mouth and boxes for hands to properly proportioned characters and I also like the little added footstep sound effect.
In terms of in battles, I like that there's no change in character proportions but I do think the backgrounds are a little grainer and less smooth looking that their predeccesors.
It also feels like the most modern setting in terms of time period in an FF yet. Balamb garden is more technologically advanced looking in terms of a school but Balamb the town for instance looks like a typical seaside down that you'd see anywhere these days really and I quite like that about it, the same with Dollet.
I really dislike Triple Triad and I can honestly say I've never gotten the hang of it which is weird because it's easier than Tetra Master I think but yet I can play Tetra master no problem. I think it's because Triple Triad incorporates all these rules that I find it a bit harder. I tend to stay away from Triple Triad unless I know there's a certain card that will come in handy later for card modifying later, for that reason, I use the Card ability a lot later on so that I have some better cards later when I do need a good card and have to play about a billion games to get it. The card explanations in the tutorial section of the menu are pretty cool though, I like how they thought to put a little bit of background info in there about it’s origins instead of making it just an optional mini-game where you can get some pretty nice items and there's no origina about it.
Always do, I like the interaction between Squall and our insanely hyper transfer student during this so I always choose to show her around even though it's probably a very un-squall like thing to do
20 minutes, I've done the 10 minute time limit before with extreme difficulty and just about finishing it whereas 20 mins is just comfortable.
Of course, she was the first thing I Drew from Elvoret. Siren as a GF may not be one of the most powerful but her stat abilities are some of the best for defences against status attacks which in FFVIII are real killers, infact I think getting inflicted by a status in FFVIII is one of the more dangerous aspects of the battle system.
In terms of this boss fight itself it wasn't hard at all, but I'm attempting to get 100 of each spell for each team member as soon as it appears so there's a lot of drawing involved and Esuna with Biggs was a pain in the arse because Zell's attempts at Drawing were awful (I'm pretty sure Drawing is related to a stat but I can't remember which one) Anyways Selphie was the best at Drawing usually stocking 6-8 spells at a time and then Squall but Zell had several failed attempts at drawing or just stocked 1-2 which meant it took ages but it was worth it to have 100 Esuna spells and then 100 Double spells for each character.
Nah I really didn't and I also beat Spider Bot (I'm calling it that because its quicker to type than that stupid name), I fought it twice, first time was the compulsory battle, dodged it up until the bridge and finished it with twelve minutes to spare and made it to the beach with 9 minutes to spare, you're better trying to kill it as close to the 'finish line' as possible though as you tend to get into random encounters with soldiers after, I had plenty of time so it was fine to beat them but it's just something to bear in mind if it's your first attempt.
I honestly think if you've never beaten Spider bot before you should give it ago, 50AP plus I got an Orihalcon (Vit+ 40% ability) I believe the item you get is random but it's related to the Spirit, Vitality, Magic or Strength stat. I've beaten him before and I think I got a different one but I can't remember...Can anyone who's beaten it confirm did they get the same item or a different one?? Oh and you get a bonus in your exam statistics which is nice for a rank and money increase I guess. I think it's worth it even if you don't get to see a very cool FMV but you have to be prepared to do some griding before hand.
It's important you've learned learned Sum magic+ 10,20 and 30% and Boost for Quezacotl and Shiva helps too I guess. I pretty much just used them, a good spot to get 6-9 AP per battle is the beach around the Balamb area so you can get the abilities quicker as you pretty much need to build up around 300 AP to learn all of them. Spiderbot can't recover itself after a couple of rounds and if you have the aforementioned abilities, increase the battle speed to max in the config menu, change the ATB to active and depending how fast you can button bash for Boost you can do between 2700-3700 damage with Quezacotl and 1200-1900 with Shiva, a couple of rounds and it's out. I would have been quicker but during the first battle I pissed about trying to draw a few protects, obviously timed battles are going to be nearly impossible to get 100 spells for each character but I had them all draw at least twice. Oh when I was grinding I went on ahead and learned the Card ability too, it is pretty handy to have later on.
Controls are fine, I generally customise the controls so that the menu is triangle, confirm is X and cancel is O, no biggie really. I like the little R1 trigger control although I do actually find the timing with Seifer much more difficult to pull off than Squall's.
In terms of exploration I love that there's a lot to see in Garden and a lot of people to talk to and the first time I ever played it I was genuinely shocked at how quickly you were able to go onto the world map. FFVIII was the second FF I ever played after VII so you can imagine after spending a lot of time in Midgar before getting onto the world map to going into VIII and being able to go straight onto the world map, I thought "this is great" until I realised you couldn't really go very far in the beginning.
Dollet itself is always nice to come back to later in the game and explore when you're not in the middle of fighting spiderbots or soldiers.
I really like VIII's battle system, I found it the first time I played it a little disconcerting that you had to equip a GF in order to use magic and stuff but these days I love that there's so much choice. As for the junction system, it's one of my favourites and I find it a lot of fun to experiment with. I think the important thing with VIII you need to realise is that EXP really doesn't mean much and it's all about the junctioning and AP. I like that when summons are called into battle they kind of act like a temporary shield . I also like how they’re a nice build on FFVI’s earlier summon/stat system, it’s good that you can equip more than one GF to get variety of stat boosts and similar to FFVI I think they come in handy for dealing damage earlier in the game but they aren't necessary for this later and instead it’s all about the stat boosting.
The story in FFVIII initially has a very high school feel to it despite the military aspect. At this point you don’t know much about what’s going on as such or what it means to be a SeeD, you just know that Galbadia is the enemy and take it at face value and you also hear the odd rumour of a sorceress.
The characters; Well I think Squall definitely takes on the 'loner' very well but you kinda want to know why he's so stand offish at times. I like Quistis a lot, she's one of my favourite characters in the game because she's got a great 'no nonsense attitude, she's able to keep a level head and it seems like everyone has a great deal of respect for her and she's probably the most sensible character out of everyone. Zell in beginning irritates me for probably most of the first disc because he allows himself to get worked up over everything, granted Seifer being a little shit during the exam doesn't help but he allows his emotions and his personal feelings towards Seifer get the better of him. Selphie...just way to happy for her own good. I think when they made the decision to make Selphie the happy character, they kinda took it too far. She does have some great moments later but right now she bothers me with her major happiness. Seifer is an arrogant piece of shit but he has some very good one liners so I can't help but like him despite his attitude, he's that guy that even though you really should hate him, you can't help but like him.
The tutorial section of the menu, sometimes when there are tutorials in games you forget things quickly and can't always go back to review them, so it's nice that there's one to access and look through especially if you're a first timer on this.
Limit Breaks are ridiculously easy to access and even more ridiculous later in the game.
How any magic you acquire in the time you have Seifer in your party automatically tranfers to Selphie and yet levels in FFVIII aren't averaged when you meet a new character unlike other FFs, they seem to be more of a set level, then again actual levels don't matter so much in this game.
Squall so far is the only character able to renamed and interestingly enough the other characters second names are mentioned, I think that's a first as before that I don't remember any of the other games before FFVIII mentioning the characters names actually in the game and not just in the manual or anything.
it's nice how FF's kind of build on each other in terms of some of their battle features. FFVIII is like an improved version of FFVI's stat building system, FFV was a better version of FFIII's job system and FFX clearly builds on FFVIII's summon's learning abilities and having their own HP stat system.
Finally in terms of who has what GF right now, I gave Squall, Shiva and Siren, Selphie has Quezacotl and Zell has Ifrit, once I get my next GF I might do a little bit of re-arranging again.