| JWeinCom said: Eh.... if the point of this is to go through the game without worrying about battle, why not just use the feature they give you that makes you close to invincible? Or better yet watch the scenes on youtube. |
You can’t interact with the game on youtube. But if all you care about is watching, then by all means, no one is stopping you. This guide isn’t made for you if this is the case. It’s made for people who care about the building, the extreme power, and maintaining the interactivity with FF8’s stunning world.
FF8 comes from a time when RPGs were more than just a linear on-the-rails story with battles. That mostly began in the PS2 era. Part of the fun of any RPG is building up powerful characters. What this guide does is it provides the player with a strong base of resources to begin that journey.
FF8 was one of the first games with a robust crafting system. Certainly the first major title to do so... Though crafting had become a popular mechanic by the mid 1990s in lesser Japanese RPGs and action adventures: some of the more notable games include Harvest Moon (Story of Seasons), Secret of Evermore, and Terranigma. While those earlier games typically used the mechanic to forge consumable magic and food items, FF8 used it to forge not just magic, but items, skills, and weapons and on a far larger scale.
The misfortune of FF8 being the first major game with a robust crafting system is a lot of people ignore it. While the most regular way to use the crafting system is to use enemy drops (in my playthroughs, I’ve found the game is balanced toward an optimal route + fighting every random enemy and crafting their drops into magic and auto-junctioning them). BUT, if you are looking for a more ferocious party, cards are the best source of materials for the crafting system. From the beginning, players have access to cards that can be converted into items that the player won’t have regular access to from enemy drops until disk 2 and 3.
If you don’t want a party that can crush your enemies, see them driven before you, then this guide isn’t meant for you.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
