The part in Shining Resonance Refrain you brought up irritated me, too. Fortunately I had used the two characters enough that they were strong enough to get through it after a few times but it still frustrated me that they forced us to used those characters.
I love FF8 and its junction system. I love that the summons serve a good purpose. Grinding is actually there, but it comes more in the form of grinding for materials to get better weapons, limit breaks, junction magic, and teaching GFs abilities, and get all of the summons for their abilities.
Final Fantasy VIII has to be the best example of putting all of your eggs in one basket. They went all in on the cutscenes and everything else paid the price. Plus, a game that actually discourages you from fighting makes me bored af.
FF8 was my first game on PS1 and it will always have special place. It was nice that this game also had its own triad card game. I also have not completed this game. I am almost in the end where you need to go to final castle and I noticed that I had too few health potions.
LOL, if you ignore the junction system, you are missing out on how to make your characters feel like level 999 instead of 99. The stat boost potential is off the charts. Step one: draw 99 of some spell Step two: attach it to some stat on some character. If you want to hate the system, hate it for making you draw 99 spells, and hate it for punishing you for using magic which then decreases your stats. Attach 99 Ultimas to a stat and then sweat it out knowing if you cast ultima you will decrease your stat. Look up a few tricks about it(there is one in particular related to level and doing one of the "dream" sequences as the soldier guys where you can draw a spell from an enemy to MEGABOOST your stat, along with several other tips like that) edit: the magic you want to draw with Laguna is Meltdown, which will make you have invincible level vitality stat early in the game. FF8 may be the last game in the series that lets the players abuse mechanics to their whim to mess with difficulty in a way that can't be programmed in. The story is a lot better the second time through when you gain the reference from the later events you see the first time. It helps to know the characters personalities because it took Square a bittoo long to show them in the game progression.
You explained why you weren’t able to overpower enemies in FF8 in your own description, Erick lol The junction system you ignored is much more OP than any GF (also don’t sleep on Limit Breaks).
FF8 is the best mature FF of them all. No questions or doubts about it. FF love story, loved the draw ability yes, all combat, music, best waifus, everything is here. The first FF I ever bothered to platinum. Second one was FFXV, the one that had all the potential. Still great with the royal edition and perfect with anime, movie and book.
And that's why FF8 need a remake, to make the gameplay easier for people since everyone always complain about it, they also had some holes in the story. Should of let Squall ask Laguna if they're related or not, could of defiantly did something with that part of the story. They also should of showed how squall healed when he was hit by the ice, The last thing is ultimecia, defiantly need to know more about her. Besides that, FF8 is still one of my favorite FF games.
It would be awesome to give ff8 the remake ff7 is getting, but that will probably never happen. Imo, my only complaint was that the battle system hamstrings you into using common items to bolster your attack power....but if you want to use those items than it decreases your attack. That....and some special attack strength relies on chance and timing.
Final Fantasy VIII wasn't meant to be finished by overleveling. ^^U It actually asks you to invest in junctioning GFs abilities and any extracted magic into your stats. Done it properly and having a huge collection of cards (which you can convert into items and magic) and it makes all your teammates already overpowered before you finish disk 1 in PS1. ^^U I really loved Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. The game gets incredibly hard the less you use the Plume. The game seems to design itself highly difficult to provoke you to use the plume in the first walkthrough. Once you get the New Game+, you would carry over several of the previous playthrough's items and you could do the second and third playthroughs without using any plume to get the best ending. I was one of the hardcore ones who did the Ending A (the best one) without using the Plume in the first playthrough. And it was hell, I know. Getting Endings B and C were a breeze in the subsequent New Games. XD
I have a love/hate relationship with Final Fantasy VII Remake. Beautiful graphics, a gorgeous soundtrack, and a tough but rewarding battle system. At the same time, I hate that it’s action-based because I much prefer turn-based combat, and the story is nonsensical. They didn’t need to change things like they did. By the end, instead of leaving me with a sense of semi-closure while I wait for the next instalment, I was left baffled by Zack suddenly showing up alive, the heralds of fate or whatever they were called wreaking havoc on Midgar just to prevent the story from deviating from the original, which it does anyway…it all just felt stupid and overblown, and I feel like it could only have alienated people who have never played the original and wanted to experience FFVII in modern graphics. There is no way they could understand what’s going on, and Remake simply isn’t FVII. It doesn’t retain the core identity of the classic game.
Ff8 will always be special to me as my first jrpg.....but even now it still has the best romance between a MC a other character. I also loved the school/soldier aspect.
The early Fire Emblem games are some that I both love and hate. I love the strategic combat, building up your army, and the stories are good for the time the games were made. The rage inducing issue I have is permadeath, your characters missing their attack, and enemy critical hits. What bothers me about all that is you'll have a perfect strategy with the right character attacking the right enemy at the right time, but the RNG gods will cause your attack to miss, leaving the enemy alive to kill one of your party members forever. Also enemies can randomly crit one of your units and one-shot them. They're gone forever through no mistake of your own. I get that the development team was trying to replicate the high stakes of actual war, but the game can be broken if enough of your better units are killed and the ones left aren't strong enough to finish the next battle. There is no way to grind xp for them to catch up. You might as well start the game over at that point unless you kept and old save.
Funny thing is I had the same problem with FF8, but on the opposite. I got to the end at level 20 and was unable to beat her. It would seem that the whole Level System was broken period. I am sure there is some Sweet Spot, but like you I have a hard time wanting to go back to it. Just like FF2 they tried something new, but it just didnt work. I really hope if we ever get a true Remake of 8 they will just go with a Classic Enemy Level System.
I loved Torna, personally. Not just for the snappy combat, but so many of the side quests had a story and lesson to them. It offered great character moments and growth... whereas Xenoblade 1 was rife with fetch quests. "Kill x number of bunnits." "Slay the piranhax." "Get Reyn to put on pants." etc. I'd encourage you to give Torna another try someday.
I actually disagree with the Torna criticisms, though I think the quests should have been spread out more and made available earlier. I absolutely despise any sort of progression locks in the Xeno series, but I found doing the side quests in Torna less frustrating than the field checks in Xenoblade 2 which came out of nowhere at the most pivotal points in the story. I feel like the plot in Torna depended on interaction with the community characters to be impactful. Also the final boss (Not including the epilogue boss) was the best in the series, and one of the best JRPG bosses I've ever experienced. By that time the combat was so fast paced and frantic and just the scale of everything going on was phenomenal.
I love Torna to death, it's easily a masterpiece imo. And while i completely agree that the side quests were done in a way to help give the world it's own identity to make it feel alive. I still think forcing people to do them in order to progress the main story is awful. It may not have been so bad if it was just a small hand full of quest. but they wanted you to do dozens, and that's just way too much.
@@domfabio8850 I think if I didn't know about it prior it would have been a huge issue for me. Similar to how I ran into the field checks at the end of Xenoblade 2 and up until then had never put any thought or effort into leveling field skills. In Torna's case I knew it was coming so used gathering points all the time and crafted everything I could which made the entire side quest section only take about an hour to get to level 2 and another hour for 4. The game should almost give you a disclaimer when your first side quest becomes available to try and gain field skills and gather items because they will be required for later progression. I think I'd also be more annoyed if I'd played it as a DLC alongside Xenoblade 2. I purchased it as a standalone and went in thinking of it as a short spin-off game, so a little bit of padding didn't bother me as much.
FF8 is amazing. At the time it felt like such a mature game. Of course because the characters were older than me when I first played it. But it had romance, complicated villains. Loved it. But I also never finished it on Playstation. Only when I got the Switch version with cheating. 😄
I don't remember having any issues with Rogue Galaxy but it's been years since I last played it. But I was struck by its similarities to Final Fantasy XII. Even some of the costuming was similar. I haven't gotten very far in Monark because it just feels a little too slow in its pacing. I loved the ideas in 7th Saga were great but even after maxing my levels I couldn't beat it. I wish we could get a remaster on modern consoles. Even if all they do is tweak the difficulty. Final Fantasy VIII remains a personal favorite that I play at least once a year. I've pretty much mastered the junction system and found Selphie to be invaluable due to her healing limit break. I haven't played the rest.
FFVIII has amazing music...but the game mechanics are so backwards and the story is so nuts that it's hard for some people to like the game unless you're a sucker for nostalgia, or you love "breaking" a video game's system (i.e. keeping your level as low as possible and dominating the game).
For me, that would be Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold. What kills for me is how the game is actually designed around Fafnir Knight being THE damage dealer of the party for story mode. In your party, you got a Sovereign who provides buffs and slow healing, a Protector who acts as your average pure tank, a Survivalist who does ailment infliction, and a War Magus who is a jack of trade on healing and damage but the damage part is only available when your enemy is inflicted with ailments and your Survivalist isn't very reliable against enemies immune on blind and paralysis
The remaster of Final Fantasy VIII might have fixed some of the problems. I played it recently, and I enjoyed it more than the 1st time I played. It might be great if someone could release a patch for 7th Saga that fixes its problems
There are probably quite a few games that I could mention here, but at the top of the list I would have to say Astria Ascending, Bravely Default, Final Fantasy 4, Final Fantasy 13, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I was in love with Astria Ascending up until it stopped me from seeing the ending because I hadn't completed every side quest, at which point I removed the cart from my Switch and put it away forever. The "ending" of Bravely Default was infuriating, and the devs should have known better, but I loved the job system and overall narrative. I have played all the way through Final Fantasy 4 multiple times, because I love that world and its characters, but it took me 20 years to beat that game for the first time, because both on the Final Fantasy Chronicles PS1 port and in the DS remake (and in an unofficial way prior to the PS1 port 🤫😝), I would make it to the final battle against Zeromus with every character in the mid 80s to early 90s level range and wearing all of their best equipment, and still get completely wiped out because the RNG would allow Zeromus to nuke my party twice before I would be able to act once, and that happened to me dozens of times in both versions, causing me to rage quit multiple times with both, only culminating in me finishing that game for the first time in 2020 when for the first time in 20 years I was able to reach Zeromus (there's no autosaves in the PS1 or DS versions, so when I died I had to run through the entire final dungeon from the only save point over and over again in order to get to Zeromus) and have him only nuke my party a single time before getting a chance to act and actually heal between assaults. For all the hate it gets, FF13 was a solid game that I enjoyed up until the point that I tried completing all of the hunts and realized that the extra content was designed for masochists, punishing anyone who didn't spend dozens of hours farming gil in the parts of the game where enemies commonly drop items that could be sold for decent amounts. And I'm aware of the trapezohedron (or whatever it was called) farming trick, but the moment all of the Adamantoises got replaced with Long Guis, that trick became nearly impossible to pull off without absolutely miraculous RNG on your side, which as my FF4 story demonstrated, I am not blessed by. XC3 is a great game, but the side quest overload burned me out so bad that I had to put it down for 2 months before finishing it, after reaching the final chapter within the first month of it releasing.
XC3 has a post-game that lets you pick up where you left off and do the side content after the final boss, without having to start NG+. I'm surprised to hear that about FF IV, since I found Zeromus to be one of the easier FF final bosses, and I beat him on my first try (DS version).
For a love hate type game, final fantasy 15. So many good things in that game. But, I felt so much potential left untouched. I truly think that game started as a serious new age remake of FF6, and they discovered the true scope of that project and abandoned it, then created a new story and setting to use the assets that had completed. And because the change of direction happened after a good ways into development, it then became rushed and we got what we got. if you play the game as intended, run around and explore with your buddies for the begining and don;t worry about the plot until you run out of things to explore, the game is very enjoyable. not intuitive to do it that way, but it works, especially when you do decide to push into the story as you have gotten to know the characters pretty well which is important to get the emotional connection to the story as it moves on. it is designed to let you be a bit more worry free about the seriousness of the story and the role the main crew has in it, and just run around and do side quests instead. It was an odd choice, when the entire series had done it the other way around, and it threw people for a loop and many didn;t like it. But there are so many awesome moments, like the behemoth at the chocobo farm, the scene is just intense. It is the type of game you need to be a completionist with, and it is designed to start on that path right out the gate, not after you unlock the last dungeon. It is unique and enjoyable in it's own way, but i hate it when I think of what could have been, and even more when i think of how a true FF6 remake in that world could have turned out(if they gave it another ten years to develope!) as FF6 is my favorite in the series. It really is an odd feeling for a FF game when the story takes you onto an inescapable path to your destiny, and offers no reprieve. It won;t do that until you decide to go for it. Adventure awaits, side quests everwhere, pictures to laugh at, places to see, treasure to find. And when you think you have seen it all and decide you are ready, it hits you with a powerfully contrasting seriousness, and removes the options to explore as the story demands the focus now and you are pushed down your path to your destiny as both the player and the main character. The design philosophy was sound, the execution left people wanting something more like something was missing.
Ff8 is actually ridiculously easy to break. If you know what you're doing with the draw and card system you can essentially break the game few hours. So I'm not really sure what you're referring to about not being able to be overpowered. You totally can be it's just not in the traditional method of grinding away level after level.
I understand the problem that ff8 enemies scaled up with you. But the junction system is pretty broken and very abuseable, it can make your party so strong the enemies wont be able to keep up with you, regardless of levels. And the gf are mainly equipped for the junctions stats and skills, people dont really summon them in battles much (holy shit very long animations and not much damage it will make battles takes forever) and instead abuse the limit break.
Eternal Sonata is that one JRPG that I have a love-hate relationship. It's absolutely gorgeous, great soundtrack, and nice story. Yet it's also grindy, you die you get tossed to the title, and it gets harder after you level up.
The only problem that FF8 ever had is to be born after FF7. 7th was the entry game for the vast majority of western players to FF franchise and even if I haven't played all FF, I can objectively say it's the most incredible of all FF. It age poorly on some points, but if you put thing in perspective, it have everything from great story, incredible graphics (for it's time), mini games all around, secret stuff and characters, gold saucer and OC the magic OST of master Uematsu. For people unfamiliar with FF series, they all expected FF8 to be FF7-2, while every FF are their own story. FF8 faced this disappointment born from peoples ignorance mostly. On top of that, even if great, FF8 couldn't reach the stellar level of FF7. For people that begin with this one and touch the sun, playing the excellent game that FF8 felt like a downgrade. But it is an excellent game. My biggest problem was how long was the last boss + final cinematic. I can remember it took me 1h30-2h. God damn too long for one single fight (my characters weren't 99 and I had good stuff like orbital and final weapons, so I had some punch).
The JRPG I both love and hate is Phantasy Star III. I know it’s a very old game, but I still think about that era of JRPGs all the time. Have a nice day everyone!
I love Covenant of the Plume. I was never a fan of Valkyrie profile series since I wasn't able to finish the 1st one in the PS1 and it got me frustrated however when I tried Covenant of the Plume on a DS emulator, I got hooked on its narrative and really enjoyed it much to get all the endings replaying.
I feel exactly the same about Monark. It's grind is so uninspired given the same enemy designs over and over and the maps are dull. I got 60 hours in and just couldn't take anymore. Maybe one day i'll finish it
Probably both of the SMT IV games for me. The original SMT IV has a great story, a super unique setting, interesting endings, etc... but so many quality of life issues with the gameplay and exploration that I almost dread going back to it. In the case of SMT IVA it's the complete opposite, since that game fixed all the QoL issues and greatly improved the gameplay, but has a story that at times feels like an insult to the SMT series itself.
there is actally really easy way to beat ff8. just get item from odin card with gives ur whole team immunity to all attacks for caople turn and use them and at last boss
For me Last Remnant comes to mind. I lived the story and battle system. But the leveling system and difficulty made it impossible for me to finish it. I’m not too skilled so I like to over level but that’s impossible with this game. Trying just makes the game impossible.
There is a way to massively over level your team in last remnant, but it requires doing certain things at very specific points, the first point is in the very first dungeon and then again when in a dungeon after picking up the cat dude with four arms if you intend to use him, I can't remember the specifics myself because it's been a lot of years since I played this on the 360 but you can definitely turn your team into a powerhouse.
I'm thankful my friend warned me about the forced character use when I started Shining Resonance Refrain per his recommendation. I definitely wouldn't have liked the game as much as I did if I was blindsided by that. Same goes for Torna's sidequests
Overlevel in FF8? thats the most stupid idea u could have. spam summons? nobody uses them except for junctions... u just didnt understand its junction system to make it easier for u. I would say around lvl 35-40 its perfect to clear it. enables some nice draws from enemies but they dont get too powerful. if u ever learn about junction properly and try it again, u will notice u can just spam atk to kill almost anything.
The bosses in FF8 have level caps. The last boss is capped at 65, so it's absolutely possible to overlevel them. Normal enemies level up with you, yes, but as they level up you can draw more powerful magics from them that will help you. Also, enemies leveling up doesn't make them that much stronger, they're still going to die in a few hits anyway. Not to mention that the clever use of the junction system can turn you into an almost immortal killing machine, so enemies leveling up with you is not a problem at all, so you are really exaggerating the problem.
they def do not have level caps. The way you overpower them is don't level early until you get all your GFs and the good abilites that make you stronger when you level up
I recently played Final Fantasy VIII on Nintendo Switch and enjoyed it a lot. It was the first time I played it in years. Graphics got a nice update so they don't feel as dated. I believe there might have been some cheats too, but I never used them. Refining spells from objects makes everything so much easier. Man, you should give it another shot! Also, I'm currently playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for the first time, and I think you just saved me from buying Torna.
If you like xenoblade 2 get torna, it is still excellent, even better than the base game imo, sure the side quests are annoying but it far from takes away from the awesome experience
FF8 is my favorite FF still to this day. No one seems to give it any love. FF7 prob rocked too many ppl and is still remembered bc of the death at the end :( but from the music to the characters to the story, 8 has to rule! I don't even remember why we needed the alternative characters in the past sequences but i loved it. Another love story twist for who knows why? :D In any case. it's still my favorite. Thanks for this list!
you totally missed the point in FF8 part 1.the leveling system was implemented to discourage grinding/overleveling thus save time. 2.GF is rarely used cuz its long animation and low damage output 3. Junction system is what made FF8 stand out , it literally breaks the game if you know how to use it properly. I think you should play thru the game properly before casting your hammer of judgement ERic.
Never felt any problem with the difficulty of shining resonance refrain, but I take my time with jrpgs and explore everything before moving on to whatevers next although it's been a long while since I've played this I don't remember it being hard. I've found octopath traveller has the perfect rise in difficulty to test tactical approaches especially some of the bosses. Team formation, equipment, job and skill set ups can massively change how to handle bosses which I enjoy, really nicely balanced to provide a challenge for the noodle without just auto smashing everything down, it's a rarity in present day RPGs.
FF8 is still my favorite game to date because of the mechanics. I actually really enjoy the junction system and enemies leveling with you even if I felt the characters were probably my least favorite overall cast in a FF. I was immensely disappointed with 9 precisely because of how much they dumbed down and simplified the mechanics after 8.
Breath of Fire III. On the whole, I love the game, but there are several sections of it that just drain my will to play it every time I get to them. By far the worst is crossing the ocean. Sidequests that do nothing but unlock the next sidequest in the chain, aggravating minigames that need to be completed. I've had at least two playthroughs that ended at the tug of war on the beach because I couldn't stand trying that bullshit one more time.
hahahaha, yeah that game was a masterpiece with certain fatal flaws. If I get in the way back machine to when it released and I played the first time, I got in a bit of a hurry because I wanted to move the story forward. I got to the part where you fight in the tournament and then have to battle the horse brothers after. THERE IS NOWHERE TO GRIND XP. I was underleveled by like 5-6 levels at least. I had gotten through the tournament by sheer RNG luck. No amount of Garr was going to get me through the fight. I ended up giving up and restarting the game after about 6 hours of trying to beat those guys. but I love the game and characters. I played it recently and beat it again. The ocean is a PITA, but it is similar, you need to grind for it to be prepared. The dessert I thought was a really cool concept the first time, now I wish I could skip it. I wish they would restart the series as an action RPG like the tales series.
10:34 When i first played Covenant of the Plume i had a hard time understanding the Gameplay, would give up when going with the Hardest path, now after many Years i can beat it with no problem whatsoever
Popful Mail is a challenging game, especially at the beginning. (Made me dislike it when I first tried it 20 years ago.) But once you get over the initial hump, it gets easier. I gave it a second chance 4 years ago, and loved it. It’s now one of my favorite games on any Sega console.
Final Fantasy 8 was my first Final Fantasy game and I believe it was also my first RPG game and really started my interest in RPG games, I have the enhanced version for the PS4 and still play it from time to time
I actually really enjoyed Monark but I totally agree that there was a lot of wasted potential but I think that was due to budget reasons. I'd love to see the devs have a chance to expand on their ideas. Another game that I love/hate is The Technomancer. It 100% suffered due to not having the means to really flesh out their ideas. I loved the story and the combat was fun. With some more polish, it could of been amazing tho.
People will hate me for this but I have a love-hate relationship with Ys VIII. Love: - The twists were absolutely superb. - Dana was an absolute treasure of a character. - The island itself was very enjoyable to explore and have memorable spots. - Some of the characters that I thought that I would hate turned out to be very likable. Hate: - The weight of your attacks feels odd therefore it doesn't feel satisfying to hit enemies. - There are enemies and bosses that don't react to your attacks making you think that you're not hurting them unless you look at their health bar. - There are a couple of characters that I grew to despise and one of them is in your party (Laxia the annoying tsundere). - Side quests feel generic and even unfulfilling at times. - Raids are feel very repetitive and bloats the game's pacing for a side activity.
Zoids Legacy for me. It has several interesting systems, but it's overshadowed by the fact it's just an advertisement for the toys and anime. Painfully easy and handing you more units and pilots that you will know what to do with since it's crossover of entire Zoids universe.
Oh boy, FF8 has a grind, but it's not a level up grind but rather a card game grind. You can be an overpowered god before graduating from Balamb garden lmao. Quick question, what made you change your videos from spanish to english (I noticed you mentioned something like that on your channel) I've been wondering myself if I should keep on with spanish or change it up
For me, Final Fantasy 7 remake graphics are brilliant, but the combat holds it back. It should have been turn based, and the ending isn't great. hope the sequel is better.
Final Fantasy VIII is either my fourth favorite game in the series or my fifth depending on my mood. My biggest annoyance is the insane idea that enemies should level up with you (One of my least favorite ideas ever created in gaming) The second is that you can lose ranks if you don't move fast enough thus decreasing your income.
Man, I personally LOVE Rogue Galaxy. Its also one of the rare games that I can replay all over again, but yeah I totally agree that party members dying is a HUGE problem, and you really gotta babysit them, though everything else about the game makes it one of the best jrpgs on PS2. FFVIII is also my favorite FF, and I never got why people hate the junction system so much, or enemies leveling with you. I finished the game when I was like 11yo and the only truly hard boss I remember was the secret one, Ultima Weapon I think. Anyway, theres not many jrpgs I hate but one that comes to mind is Cold Steel. Its a jrpg that has everything that I like, but they went waaaay too hard with the world building, and the story takes forever to pick up, which really made me feel bored most of the time. Basically I think its too long for its own good. Another one is Shin Megami Tensei 1, 2, and Strange Journey, JUST because I absolutely HATE first person dungeon crawling. Its by far the most boring gameplay for me. I would rather just read text in a visual novel form than walk step by step through a maze in first person and being interrupted by random encounters. Oh yeah, and most games in the Tales Of series. That is a jrpg series that I always get disappointed with, but I cannot stop playing and finishing every game in the series because I really like the battle system, anime graphics and characters.
Valkyrie profile covenant of the plume is hard although you have to kill every enemy and max the points or you'll suffer the next battle with OP ghost enemies that will kill you very easily. I beat that game when I was like 16 or 17 years old, after you beat the final boss the second playthrough is very easy since you're OP. You just have to be a good strategist tbh
100% on DQ7, I played like 5-6 hours, at least half of the time was consumed by backtracking or searching quest items with no real explanations and logic. 30% time random encounters, 20% story... Yeah, way to time consuming 😅
Foe me it's basically whole final fantasy series. I love jrpgs and I can't remember how many of them I've played in last 30 years, but final fantasy (any) I never finished. I have them all, some multiple times on different systems even, I always try to play them and see what people are seeing in them. But I never been able to finish even one of them. Closest to final fantasy that I finished and enjoyed were bravely default, second, default 2. Even tho I love hate default 1 for that stupid "true ending" grind. If I think about it I only realised how to get true ending on 3rd play through in second. The way is too obtuse. And in BD2 when I got first normal ending I just said "ok, it's 60 hours on the clock, I'm good". And never beat it on true ending. So when ff7r came out I instead just bought Trials of Mana. And strangely enough had so much fun with that game, that I decided to give a ff7r a chance since they were giving it in ps+. Yet I never gone deeper than 4 hours in it. Just got bored out. It's something about me and my intrinsic intolerance of final fantasy franchise I believe.
Ah, I had to comment on this: Erick: "I grinded up my characters to lvl 99! Sweet!" Game: "Hi, the bosses are now at lvl 99." Erick: NAICE. Also Erick: WHAT THE ASS WHERE THEY THINKING?!?!
Final Fantasy VII Remake. The music and presentation are S-tier, but the combat! I can be mowing through enemies one moment, and the next they're kicking my ass. Boss battles are huge difficulty spikes because they're damage sponges. I rage quit on the last boss for my first playthrough. I decided to run through it again while hitting all of the side quests and leveling up more. I did finally beat it the main story, but the final boss in Yuffie's side story was obnoxious. I really hope Part 2 gets a balance rework, because I absolutely hate the combat.
In my case i love/hate Tomba! 2. I found that game a hard one to be analized, i simply can't make a clear diagnosis of what i really feel about it most of the time.
3DS version of DQVII is flawed as well as PS1/PSX. I looked up woodus website Dragon Den and I will say both versions never had a Kazoom or Tazoom(Kazoom but it's time travel spell) to even bother the grinding to reach where you have you go which would shorten the time length of beating the game though SE didn't do that which is a huge shame. Also PS1/PSX version had dark humor rather then the 3DS version. Guess time flies when it's another mix result then could've been approved though it's a length to develop. I would like a Remaster of DQVII PS1/PSX with improvements of few from 3DS version as well as that spell I mentioned. However I do love at least ¾ of the game it's Libra sheesh I just felt confuse spell from enemies don't work at all(I don't understand the direction because I mean no enemy confuses party members till Libra's Boss fight). Also why Libra and after wasn't great was the fact I got very confused with not enough information of the past to build up the story just a bit though.. What purpose was the Ra's Mirror at the end of the last dungeon? How many heroes died or at least where they go since I was confused about Clay leaving a town that unfortunately was doomed to be saved. Seriously it's like trying to use memory card game and try to remember what you already know though there's too much. Glad 3DS tells you the continue story every time you quit so you know what happened without forgetting.
I agree 100% on FF8. I dislike Squall's emo attitude, "Ugh Rinoa, stay away, ugh, ugh, I LOVE her I must got to the moon to save her, ugh Rinoa, stay away, ugh ugh".. but the overall story is amazing, so many fan theories, but the game mechanics suck.. P.S. I fanboy tf outta the, "Squall died at the parade", theory.
For me, I think my love/hate title would be Unlimited SaGa. I am a huuuuge fan of the SaGa series as a whole, and I also like D&D so it seemed like this game would be a good match for me, but boy was I wrong. I enjoyed certain aspects, like the field actions (searching for chests, disarming traps, picking locks) and growing stronger by doing quests, but... So much else was just not fun. Once you finish all your character's optional quests, that's it. You have no way of powering up or learning new Arts. The skill panel concept was just bizarre and confusing, and to make the most out of anything you almost NEED a guide (which I hate relying on). The stories were interesting and I liked the overall style of the game, but the gameplay ruined it for me. Strange that something called "Unlimited" was actually VERY limiting. Thankfully, many of the elements I DID like were resurrected in the Minstrel Song remake of Romancing SaGa 1 that soon followed...and THAT game did damn near everything right - a shining example of what a remake (and SaGa game in general) should be.
I love FF8, its my favorite, but it's just too easy. Seifer is a pushover every time you fight him, but somehow cuts Odin in half lmao. Sorceress Edea isnt challenging enough. Even with her leaching Rinoa's health, Sorceress Adel isnt challenging enough. Ultimecia isnt challenging enough. Only the two secret super bosses Ultima and Ultimate Weapon offer any decent challenge and even they are a bit too underwhelming. It feels good to break the game and demolish everything with the flashy limit breaks and OP junctions, but yeah...a bit more pushback would've been nice. I've finished the game with everyone at lvl 99 several times, still a cakewalk so I dunno what your deal is.
JRPG that I love but also hate goes to Bravely Default 2, it's my first Bravely series so I don't know if in the previous entries have the same problem or not, but I don't like the counter system in BD 2 and I'll end up spamming godspeed strike on every boss.
If you didn't like BD2, then unfortunately the rest of the series may not be for you. But if you're okay with emulating the 3DS games, you could always give the first game a try to fully make a decision on your own.
Play Bravely Default 1 and Bravely Second, Bravely Default 2 is just so much worse than the other 2. I can't even remember if the first 2 games have counters, the probably do, but man did they overdo it in BD2, so many bad design choices.
Chrono Cross.Loved the soundtrack, character design, graphics,lore and Serge/Kid/Harle/Lynx. The story is problematic,not because it was so different from Chrono Trigger but because they cut Magus just to give space to trash 40+ characters. About Popful Mail did you ever tried the other versions ?The PC 8801,PC 9801 and PC Engine had a totally different gameplay (the SNES version is similar to the Sega CD). Dragon Warrior VII has a special place for me.Yes,the pacing was awful,but the atmosphere ,sense of mystery and challenge were great- the very first Dragon Quest I finished (more than 200+ hours!). Final Fantasy VIII I hated at the time I first played it (2001),now Iove for what it is.
2:49 thats trolling of the devs: of course you put the waifus in your party and not the ugly dudes at 2:37 and then the game forces you to use the underleveled guys ;) but seriously, i always hate this when every jrpg has this one character no one likes or is useless in combat yet you always have this one scene where you have to use him/her...
My love/hate rpgs: All the disgaea games Shadow hearts Final fantasy X-2 Final fantasy XIII-2 Gungnir Rogue galaxy Fire emblem echos/ fates Tales of graces
You're overstating the problem with level scaling in FFVIII. Most of the time it's trivially easy to compensate, with only a few enemies really being problematic (notably the Wendigos and their thrice-damned Shoot move). As regards bosses, there's actually a cap for them, though I forget the exact margin, so I highly doubt Ultimecia was at max level. Love story is one of exactly two in the series I would consider well-written (Zidane/Garnet is the other).
FF13-2 for me, gameplay i had a blast with (although there were a lot of times where it would randomly drop to 2fps, no exaggeration. But then again i've heard that this game is basically broken especially on PC, i played the Xbox360 version on the Series X) Also the main villain was super lame and story kinda sucked. There's a lot wrong with the game, but the gameplay did make many improvements compared to 13, and was very enjoyable in that aspect. And on a sperate note. I will never understand why people defend level scaling, it's a very lazy way to "balance" difficulty. It doesn't balance it, it just makes it more tedious. it's the same with how developers keep making higher difficulties by increasing enemies health/damage and doing nothing else. It doesn't make battles harder, it just makes them longer.
Personally I disagree on Monarch gameplay admittedly there a decent amount of problems mainly grinding. I do think the leveling system was kind of cool but I also like those kinds of systems in general.
I played FFVIII when it released. I was younger and didn't grasp the story so it wasn't my favorite. I have since replayed and beaten it 3-4 times. I never knew the enemies leveled up with you. It sounds to me like you should give it another try and use the games mechanics properly. It's not a game you can brute force your way through apparently.
Yeah I have to put Xenosaga 2 on this well for me. Great story that I loved but man that game design was awful. It also took me more then half the game to finally figure out how that battle system worked.
Yeah and the tutorials are horrendous. It took me a good while to figure out the combat too. In fact i didn't completely understand it until i replayed it. And yet it's still my fave game of all time lmao Also this kinda happened to me with the first game too. XC3 though was so much easier to understand. And thankfully now i know how to abuse the shit out of all battle systems. lol (Edit: dumbass me, just realised you were talking about Xenosaga 2, and not Xenoblade 2. I've not played the Xenosaga games yet. lol My brain completely autocorrected itself when i saw Xeno and 2 together. My Bad.)
I love and hate FF X! I love the music, the world building and mostly the combat and level system, but I can´t stand its main character! The game is also obnoxiously linear but still requires grinding for some of its bosses since they are pure DPS-checks, so even if I´m invested in the linear story and want to get on with it, I still have to stop and grind for the next wall of a boss that´s in my way! Other love-hate relationships are Ni No Kuni 2, which is a wonderful game, beautiful world and music and interesting characters, but the story and its reliance on fetch-quests which the young blue-eyed overly kind and optimistic prince does without blinking can drive me up a wall sometimes! But all of that pales in comparison every time I enter one of the games´ wonderfully crafted main dungeons... Chrono Cross is another one of these. I have started and quit the game twice before my PS2 died on me and I no longer could play it, which saddened me even though I had a hard time getting into it. But the story, setting and not least the MUSIC always brings me back. One day I WILL finish it, I promise... And lastly Bravely Default. This is a cute game with interesting combat system and characters, but the story is way too cliché (so far as I have come at least), and the characters feels more like archetypes more than personalities. But I love the job system, and the story so far is interesting enough for me to keep on playing. The fact that it´s on a handheld console is a big plus for me as well, since I can keep playing even on vacation! 🙂
you have to go back and do a low level run on ff8 where you grind the card system instead. seriously, it will be revenge for all those years. you will stomp and crush the bones of your enemies, it will feel like karmic justice.
The part in Shining Resonance Refrain you brought up irritated me, too. Fortunately I had used the two characters enough that they were strong enough to get through it after a few times but it still frustrated me that they forced us to used those characters.
I love FF8 and its junction system. I love that the summons serve a good purpose. Grinding is actually there, but it comes more in the form of grinding for materials to get better weapons, limit breaks, junction magic, and teaching GFs abilities, and get all of the summons for their abilities.
Final Fantasy VIII has to be the best example of putting all of your eggs in one basket. They went all in on the cutscenes and everything else paid the price. Plus, a game that actually discourages you from fighting makes me bored af.
FF8 was my first game on PS1 and it will always have special place. It was nice that this game also had its own triad card game. I also have not completed this game. I am almost in the end where you need to go to final castle and I noticed that I had too few health potions.
you can do it and recover all the summonings dont worry
LOL, if you ignore the junction system, you are missing out on how to make your characters feel like level 999 instead of 99. The stat boost potential is off the charts.
Step one: draw 99 of some spell
Step two: attach it to some stat on some character.
If you want to hate the system, hate it for making you draw 99 spells, and hate it for punishing you for using magic which then decreases your stats. Attach 99 Ultimas to a stat and then sweat it out knowing if you cast ultima you will decrease your stat.
Look up a few tricks about it(there is one in particular related to level and doing one of the "dream" sequences as the soldier guys where you can draw a spell from an enemy to MEGABOOST your stat, along with several other tips like that) edit: the magic you want to draw with Laguna is Meltdown, which will make you have invincible level vitality stat early in the game.
FF8 may be the last game in the series that lets the players abuse mechanics to their whim to mess with difficulty in a way that can't be programmed in. The story is a lot better the second time through when you gain the reference from the later events you see the first time. It helps to know the characters personalities because it took Square a bittoo long to show them in the game progression.
You explained why you weren’t able to overpower enemies in FF8 in your own description, Erick lol
The junction system you ignored is much more OP than any GF (also don’t sleep on Limit Breaks).
FF8 is the best mature FF of them all. No questions or doubts about it. FF love story, loved the draw ability yes, all combat, music, best waifus, everything is here. The first FF I ever bothered to platinum. Second one was FFXV, the one that had all the potential. Still great with the royal edition and perfect with anime, movie and book.
And that's why FF8 need a remake, to make the gameplay easier for people since everyone always complain about it, they also had some holes in the story. Should of let Squall ask Laguna if they're related or not, could of defiantly did something with that part of the story.
They also should of showed how squall healed when he was hit by the ice, The last thing is ultimecia, defiantly need to know more about her.
Besides that, FF8 is still one of my favorite FF games.
It would be awesome to give ff8 the remake ff7 is getting, but that will probably never happen. Imo, my only complaint was that the battle system hamstrings you into using common items to bolster your attack power....but if you want to use those items than it decreases your attack. That....and some special attack strength relies on chance and timing.
*should have, could have
Final Fantasy VIII wasn't meant to be finished by overleveling. ^^U It actually asks you to invest in junctioning GFs abilities and any extracted magic into your stats. Done it properly and having a huge collection of cards (which you can convert into items and magic) and it makes all your teammates already overpowered before you finish disk 1 in PS1. ^^U
I really loved Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. The game gets incredibly hard the less you use the Plume. The game seems to design itself highly difficult to provoke you to use the plume in the first walkthrough. Once you get the New Game+, you would carry over several of the previous playthrough's items and you could do the second and third playthroughs without using any plume to get the best ending. I was one of the hardcore ones who did the Ending A (the best one) without using the Plume in the first playthrough. And it was hell, I know. Getting Endings B and C were a breeze in the subsequent New Games. XD
I have a love/hate relationship with Final Fantasy VII Remake. Beautiful graphics, a gorgeous soundtrack, and a tough but rewarding battle system. At the same time, I hate that it’s action-based because I much prefer turn-based combat, and the story is nonsensical. They didn’t need to change things like they did. By the end, instead of leaving me with a sense of semi-closure while I wait for the next instalment, I was left baffled by Zack suddenly showing up alive, the heralds of fate or whatever they were called wreaking havoc on Midgar just to prevent the story from deviating from the original, which it does anyway…it all just felt stupid and overblown, and I feel like it could only have alienated people who have never played the original and wanted to experience FFVII in modern graphics. There is no way they could understand what’s going on, and Remake simply isn’t FVII. It doesn’t retain the core identity of the classic game.
Ff8 will always be special to me as my first jrpg.....but even now it still has the best romance between a MC a other character.
I also loved the school/soldier aspect.
Mine are Wild Arms 3, Suikoden Tactics, Xenosaga 2, FF12, Grandia Xtreme.
The early Fire Emblem games are some that I both love and hate. I love the strategic combat, building up your army, and the stories are good for the time the games were made. The rage inducing issue I have is permadeath, your characters missing their attack, and enemy critical hits. What bothers me about all that is you'll have a perfect strategy with the right character attacking the right enemy at the right time, but the RNG gods will cause your attack to miss, leaving the enemy alive to kill one of your party members forever. Also enemies can randomly crit one of your units and one-shot them. They're gone forever through no mistake of your own. I get that the development team was trying to replicate the high stakes of actual war, but the game can be broken if enough of your better units are killed and the ones left aren't strong enough to finish the next battle. There is no way to grind xp for them to catch up. You might as well start the game over at that point unless you kept and old save.
Funny thing is I had the same problem with FF8, but on the opposite. I got to the end at level 20 and was unable to beat her. It would seem that the whole Level System was broken period. I am sure there is some Sweet Spot, but like you I have a hard time wanting to go back to it. Just like FF2 they tried something new, but it just didnt work. I really hope if we ever get a true Remake of 8 they will just go with a Classic Enemy Level System.
I loved Torna, personally. Not just for the snappy combat, but so many of the side quests had a story and lesson to them. It offered great character moments and growth... whereas Xenoblade 1 was rife with fetch quests. "Kill x number of bunnits." "Slay the piranhax." "Get Reyn to put on pants." etc.
I'd encourage you to give Torna another try someday.
I actually disagree with the Torna criticisms, though I think the quests should have been spread out more and made available earlier. I absolutely despise any sort of progression locks in the Xeno series, but I found doing the side quests in Torna less frustrating than the field checks in Xenoblade 2 which came out of nowhere at the most pivotal points in the story. I feel like the plot in Torna depended on interaction with the community characters to be impactful.
Also the final boss (Not including the epilogue boss) was the best in the series, and one of the best JRPG bosses I've ever experienced. By that time the combat was so fast paced and frantic and just the scale of everything going on was phenomenal.
I love Torna to death, it's easily a masterpiece imo. And while i completely agree that the side quests were done in a way to help give the world it's own identity to make it feel alive.
I still think forcing people to do them in order to progress the main story is awful. It may not have been so bad if it was just a small hand full of quest. but they wanted you to do dozens, and that's just way too much.
@@domfabio8850 I think if I didn't know about it prior it would have been a huge issue for me. Similar to how I ran into the field checks at the end of Xenoblade 2 and up until then had never put any thought or effort into leveling field skills. In Torna's case I knew it was coming so used gathering points all the time and crafted everything I could which made the entire side quest section only take about an hour to get to level 2 and another hour for 4. The game should almost give you a disclaimer when your first side quest becomes available to try and gain field skills and gather items because they will be required for later progression.
I think I'd also be more annoyed if I'd played it as a DLC alongside Xenoblade 2. I purchased it as a standalone and went in thinking of it as a short spin-off game, so a little bit of padding didn't bother me as much.
FF8 is amazing. At the time it felt like such a mature game. Of course because the characters were older than me when I first played it. But it had romance, complicated villains. Loved it. But I also never finished it on Playstation. Only when I got the Switch version with cheating. 😄
I don't remember having any issues with Rogue Galaxy but it's been years since I last played it. But I was struck by its similarities to Final Fantasy XII. Even some of the costuming was similar.
I haven't gotten very far in Monark because it just feels a little too slow in its pacing.
I loved the ideas in 7th Saga were great but even after maxing my levels I couldn't beat it. I wish we could get a remaster on modern consoles. Even if all they do is tweak the difficulty.
Final Fantasy VIII remains a personal favorite that I play at least once a year. I've pretty much mastered the junction system and found Selphie to be invaluable due to her healing limit break.
I haven't played the rest.
Bro how you get time to play the same long jrpg every year with other older and new games out there
Great video! I was expecting to see Xenosaga P2 but Torna, although a pain in the ass sometimes is well worth doing all the side quests
Love-hate relationships are always the most difficult relationships.
FFVIII has amazing music...but the game mechanics are so backwards and the story is so nuts that it's hard for some people to like the game unless you're a sucker for nostalgia, or you love "breaking" a video game's system (i.e. keeping your level as low as possible and dominating the game).
For me, that would be Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold. What kills for me is how the game is actually designed around Fafnir Knight being THE damage dealer of the party for story mode. In your party, you got a Sovereign who provides buffs and slow healing, a Protector who acts as your average pure tank, a Survivalist who does ailment infliction, and a War Magus who is a jack of trade on healing and damage but the damage part is only available when your enemy is inflicted with ailments and your Survivalist isn't very reliable against enemies immune on blind and paralysis
The remaster of Final Fantasy VIII might have fixed some of the problems. I played it recently, and I enjoyed it more than the 1st time I played. It might be great if someone could release a patch for 7th Saga that fixes its problems
Fixed some and caused others.
There are probably quite a few games that I could mention here, but at the top of the list I would have to say Astria Ascending, Bravely Default, Final Fantasy 4, Final Fantasy 13, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
I was in love with Astria Ascending up until it stopped me from seeing the ending because I hadn't completed every side quest, at which point I removed the cart from my Switch and put it away forever.
The "ending" of Bravely Default was infuriating, and the devs should have known better, but I loved the job system and overall narrative.
I have played all the way through Final Fantasy 4 multiple times, because I love that world and its characters, but it took me 20 years to beat that game for the first time, because both on the Final Fantasy Chronicles PS1 port and in the DS remake (and in an unofficial way prior to the PS1 port 🤫😝), I would make it to the final battle against Zeromus with every character in the mid 80s to early 90s level range and wearing all of their best equipment, and still get completely wiped out because the RNG would allow Zeromus to nuke my party twice before I would be able to act once, and that happened to me dozens of times in both versions, causing me to rage quit multiple times with both, only culminating in me finishing that game for the first time in 2020 when for the first time in 20 years I was able to reach Zeromus (there's no autosaves in the PS1 or DS versions, so when I died I had to run through the entire final dungeon from the only save point over and over again in order to get to Zeromus) and have him only nuke my party a single time before getting a chance to act and actually heal between assaults.
For all the hate it gets, FF13 was a solid game that I enjoyed up until the point that I tried completing all of the hunts and realized that the extra content was designed for masochists, punishing anyone who didn't spend dozens of hours farming gil in the parts of the game where enemies commonly drop items that could be sold for decent amounts. And I'm aware of the trapezohedron (or whatever it was called) farming trick, but the moment all of the Adamantoises got replaced with Long Guis, that trick became nearly impossible to pull off without absolutely miraculous RNG on your side, which as my FF4 story demonstrated, I am not blessed by.
XC3 is a great game, but the side quest overload burned me out so bad that I had to put it down for 2 months before finishing it, after reaching the final chapter within the first month of it releasing.
XC3 has a post-game that lets you pick up where you left off and do the side content after the final boss, without having to start NG+. I'm surprised to hear that about FF IV, since I found Zeromus to be one of the easier FF final bosses, and I beat him on my first try (DS version).
For a love hate type game, final fantasy 15.
So many good things in that game. But, I felt so much potential left untouched.
I truly think that game started as a serious new age remake of FF6, and they discovered the true scope of that project and abandoned it, then created a new story and setting to use the assets that had completed. And because the change of direction happened after a good ways into development, it then became rushed and we got what we got.
if you play the game as intended, run around and explore with your buddies for the begining and don;t worry about the plot until you run out of things to explore, the game is very enjoyable. not intuitive to do it that way, but it works, especially when you do decide to push into the story as you have gotten to know the characters pretty well which is important to get the emotional connection to the story as it moves on. it is designed to let you be a bit more worry free about the seriousness of the story and the role the main crew has in it, and just run around and do side quests instead.
It was an odd choice, when the entire series had done it the other way around, and it threw people for a loop and many didn;t like it. But there are so many awesome moments, like the behemoth at the chocobo farm, the scene is just intense.
It is the type of game you need to be a completionist with, and it is designed to start on that path right out the gate, not after you unlock the last dungeon. It is unique and enjoyable in it's own way, but i hate it when I think of what could have been, and even more when i think of how a true FF6 remake in that world could have turned out(if they gave it another ten years to develope!) as FF6 is my favorite in the series.
It really is an odd feeling for a FF game when the story takes you onto an inescapable path to your destiny, and offers no reprieve. It won;t do that until you decide to go for it. Adventure awaits, side quests everwhere, pictures to laugh at, places to see, treasure to find. And when you think you have seen it all and decide you are ready, it hits you with a powerfully contrasting seriousness, and removes the options to explore as the story demands the focus now and you are pushed down your path to your destiny as both the player and the main character. The design philosophy was sound, the execution left people wanting something more like something was missing.
Ff8 is actually ridiculously easy to break.
If you know what you're doing with the draw and card system you can essentially break the game few hours.
So I'm not really sure what you're referring to about not being able to be overpowered.
You totally can be it's just not in the traditional method of grinding away level after level.
Erick, it's a bit out of topic but, what's the name of the game in a clip that you used in the beginning, the knight lady in blue cape? Thanks
I understand the problem that ff8 enemies scaled up with you. But the junction system is pretty broken and very abuseable, it can make your party so strong the enemies wont be able to keep up with you, regardless of levels. And the gf are mainly equipped for the junctions stats and skills, people dont really summon them in battles much (holy shit very long animations and not much damage it will make battles takes forever) and instead abuse the limit break.
Eternal Sonata is that one JRPG that I have a love-hate relationship. It's absolutely gorgeous, great soundtrack, and nice story. Yet it's also grindy, you die you get tossed to the title, and it gets harder after you level up.
The only problem that FF8 ever had is to be born after FF7.
7th was the entry game for the vast majority of western players to FF franchise and even if I haven't played all FF, I can objectively say it's the most incredible of all FF. It age poorly on some points, but if you put thing in perspective, it have everything from great story, incredible graphics (for it's time), mini games all around, secret stuff and characters, gold saucer and OC the magic OST of master Uematsu.
For people unfamiliar with FF series, they all expected FF8 to be FF7-2, while every FF are their own story. FF8 faced this disappointment born from peoples ignorance mostly. On top of that, even if great, FF8 couldn't reach the stellar level of FF7. For people that begin with this one and touch the sun, playing the excellent game that FF8 felt like a downgrade. But it is an excellent game.
My biggest problem was how long was the last boss + final cinematic. I can remember it took me 1h30-2h. God damn too long for one single fight (my characters weren't 99 and I had good stuff like orbital and final weapons, so I had some punch).
Didn't expect you to have issues with FFVIII level system and junction but I'm glad you liked all you mentioned 😀
The JRPG I both love and hate is Phantasy Star III. I know it’s a very old game, but I still think about that era of JRPGs all the time. Have a nice day everyone!
I love Covenant of the Plume. I was never a fan of Valkyrie profile series since I wasn't able to finish the 1st one in the PS1 and it got me frustrated however when I tried Covenant of the Plume on a DS emulator, I got hooked on its narrative and really enjoyed it much to get all the endings replaying.
I feel exactly the same about Monark. It's grind is so uninspired given the same enemy designs over and over and the maps are dull. I got 60 hours in and just couldn't take anymore. Maybe one day i'll finish it
Probably both of the SMT IV games for me. The original SMT IV has a great story, a super unique setting, interesting endings, etc... but so many quality of life issues with the gameplay and exploration that I almost dread going back to it. In the case of SMT IVA it's the complete opposite, since that game fixed all the QoL issues and greatly improved the gameplay, but has a story that at times feels like an insult to the SMT series itself.
there is actally really easy way to beat ff8. just get item from odin card with gives ur whole team immunity to all attacks for caople turn and use them and at last boss
For me Last Remnant comes to mind. I lived the story and battle system. But the leveling system and difficulty made it impossible for me to finish it. I’m not too skilled so I like to over level but that’s impossible with this game. Trying just makes the game impossible.
There is a way to massively over level your team in last remnant, but it requires doing certain things at very specific points, the first point is in the very first dungeon and then again when in a dungeon after picking up the cat dude with four arms if you intend to use him, I can't remember the specifics myself because it's been a lot of years since I played this on the 360 but you can definitely turn your team into a powerhouse.
Unnecessary date: the Growlanser's art si from Satoshi Urushihara. And then, Growlanser and Langrisser have the same art than adult manga and animes.
I'm thankful my friend warned me about the forced character use when I started Shining Resonance Refrain per his recommendation. I definitely wouldn't have liked the game as much as I did if I was blindsided by that.
Same goes for Torna's sidequests
Overlevel in FF8? thats the most stupid idea u could have. spam summons? nobody uses them except for junctions...
u just didnt understand its junction system to make it easier for u. I would say around lvl 35-40 its perfect to clear it. enables some nice draws from enemies but they dont get too powerful.
if u ever learn about junction properly and try it again, u will notice u can just spam atk to kill almost anything.
Every mandatory boss in the game has a level cap in Final Fantasy VIII. You can outgrind the bosses
The bosses in FF8 have level caps. The last boss is capped at 65, so it's absolutely possible to overlevel them. Normal enemies level up with you, yes, but as they level up you can draw more powerful magics from them that will help you. Also, enemies leveling up doesn't make them that much stronger, they're still going to die in a few hits anyway. Not to mention that the clever use of the junction system can turn you into an almost immortal killing machine, so enemies leveling up with you is not a problem at all, so you are really exaggerating the problem.
they def do not have level caps. The way you overpower them is don't level early until you get all your GFs and the good abilites that make you stronger when you level up
@@dominiquerichard1342 wrong, absolute most of the bosses have level caps and they're not that high.
I recently played Final Fantasy VIII on Nintendo Switch and enjoyed it a lot. It was the first time I played it in years. Graphics got a nice update so they don't feel as dated. I believe there might have been some cheats too, but I never used them. Refining spells from objects makes everything so much easier. Man, you should give it another shot!
Also, I'm currently playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for the first time, and I think you just saved me from buying Torna.
If you like xenoblade 2 get torna, it is still excellent, even better than the base game imo, sure the side quests are annoying but it far from takes away from the awesome experience
nooo, torna is very good! the battle system is more fun and the story is great. just do some side quests as you go.
@@randomzombie5579 Honestly, Xenoblade 2 is feeling like a slog, so I might not even get to Torna. It's a shame, bc I really loved XC 1 and 3.
FF8 is my favorite FF still to this day. No one seems to give it any love. FF7 prob rocked too many ppl and is still remembered bc of the death at the end :( but from the music to the characters to the story, 8 has to rule! I don't even remember why we needed the alternative characters in the past sequences but i loved it. Another love story twist for who knows why? :D In any case. it's still my favorite. Thanks for this list!
you totally missed the point in FF8 part
1.the leveling system was implemented to discourage grinding/overleveling thus save time.
2.GF is rarely used cuz its long animation and low damage output
3. Junction system is what made FF8 stand out , it literally breaks the game if you know how to use it properly.
I think you should play thru the game properly before casting your hammer of judgement ERic.
Never felt any problem with the difficulty of shining resonance refrain, but I take my time with jrpgs and explore everything before moving on to whatevers next although it's been a long while since I've played this I don't remember it being hard. I've found octopath traveller has the perfect rise in difficulty to test tactical approaches especially some of the bosses. Team formation, equipment, job and skill set ups can massively change how to handle bosses which I enjoy, really nicely balanced to provide a challenge for the noodle without just auto smashing everything down, it's a rarity in present day RPGs.
This is a great concept of a list!
FF8 is still my favorite game to date because of the mechanics. I actually really enjoy the junction system and enemies leveling with you even if I felt the characters were probably my least favorite overall cast in a FF. I was immensely disappointed with 9 precisely because of how much they dumbed down and simplified the mechanics after 8.
Breath of Fire III. On the whole, I love the game, but there are several sections of it that just drain my will to play it every time I get to them. By far the worst is crossing the ocean. Sidequests that do nothing but unlock the next sidequest in the chain, aggravating minigames that need to be completed. I've had at least two playthroughs that ended at the tug of war on the beach because I couldn't stand trying that bullshit one more time.
hahahaha, yeah that game was a masterpiece with certain fatal flaws.
If I get in the way back machine to when it released and I played the first time, I got in a bit of a hurry because I wanted to move the story forward. I got to the part where you fight in the tournament and then have to battle the horse brothers after.
THERE IS NOWHERE TO GRIND XP. I was underleveled by like 5-6 levels at least. I had gotten through the tournament by sheer RNG luck. No amount of Garr was going to get me through the fight. I ended up giving up and restarting the game after about 6 hours of trying to beat those guys.
but I love the game and characters. I played it recently and beat it again. The ocean is a PITA, but it is similar, you need to grind for it to be prepared. The dessert I thought was a really cool concept the first time, now I wish I could skip it.
I wish they would restart the series as an action RPG like the tales series.
Love FF8 and everything about it
I feel like this video should've been titled "10 JRPGs that I Love But Are Too -HARD- BRUTALLY UNBALANCED!"
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had the exact same rpg sin in my book that Dragon Age Inquisition had. Forced side quests to progress main story.
Very objective, and interesting points. Great video!
10:34 When i first played Covenant of the Plume i had a hard time understanding the Gameplay, would give up when going with the Hardest path, now after many Years i can beat it with no problem whatsoever
is there any game suggestions similar to suikoden, where you have to recruit several people to progress
FFXII. For everything it does great, it does one thing bad.
Popful Mail is a challenging game, especially at the beginning. (Made me dislike it when I first tried it 20 years ago.) But once you get over the initial hump, it gets easier. I gave it a second chance 4 years ago, and loved it. It’s now one of my favorite games on any Sega console.
I hate it when reserve party members dont gain exp, that why I could never get into Star Ocean
Final Fantasy 8 was my first Final Fantasy game and I believe it was also my first RPG game and really started my interest in RPG games, I have the enhanced version for the PS4 and still play it from time to time
I actually really enjoyed Monark but I totally agree that there was a lot of wasted potential but I think that was due to budget reasons. I'd love to see the devs have a chance to expand on their ideas.
Another game that I love/hate is The Technomancer. It 100% suffered due to not having the means to really flesh out their ideas. I loved the story and the combat was fun. With some more polish, it could of been amazing tho.
People will hate me for this but I have a love-hate relationship with Ys VIII.
Love:
- The twists were absolutely superb.
- Dana was an absolute treasure of a character.
- The island itself was very enjoyable to explore and have memorable spots.
- Some of the characters that I thought that I would hate turned out to be very likable.
Hate:
- The weight of your attacks feels odd therefore it doesn't feel satisfying to hit enemies.
- There are enemies and bosses that don't react to your attacks making you think that you're not hurting them unless you look at their health bar.
- There are a couple of characters that I grew to despise and one of them is in your party (Laxia the annoying tsundere).
- Side quests feel generic and even unfulfilling at times.
- Raids are feel very repetitive and bloats the game's pacing for a side activity.
Zoids Legacy for me. It has several interesting systems, but it's overshadowed by the fact it's just an advertisement for the toys and anime. Painfully easy and handing you more units and pilots that you will know what to do with since it's crossover of entire Zoids universe.
Rouge Galaxy I loved playing through a second time on the PS4. I still own my PS2 copy as well!
Your channel has become my favorite gaming channel.
And I’m with you on ff8.
Oh boy, FF8 has a grind, but it's not a level up grind but rather a card game grind. You can be an overpowered god before graduating from Balamb garden lmao.
Quick question, what made you change your videos from spanish to english (I noticed you mentioned something like that on your channel) I've been wondering myself if I should keep on with spanish or change it up
For me, Final Fantasy 7 remake graphics are brilliant, but the combat holds it back. It should have been turn based, and the ending isn't great. hope the sequel is better.
Yeah I remember the last boss of FF8 being really hard. And Squall and Rinoa was a well done romance imo.
... you remember something very different from the product they actually released.
Love FF8 for story and music! But the Junction system...
Final Fantasy VIII is either my fourth favorite game in the series or my fifth depending on my mood. My biggest annoyance is the insane idea that enemies should level up with you (One of my least favorite ideas ever created in gaming) The second is that you can lose ranks if you don't move fast enough thus decreasing your income.
these are pretty interesting games, ive never heard of them, i wanna play monark
rogue galaxy is the best do
@@sanane66543 i will try it
Man, I personally LOVE Rogue Galaxy. Its also one of the rare games that I can replay all over again, but yeah I totally agree that party members dying is a HUGE problem, and you really gotta babysit them, though everything else about the game makes it one of the best jrpgs on PS2. FFVIII is also my favorite FF, and I never got why people hate the junction system so much, or enemies leveling with you. I finished the game when I was like 11yo and the only truly hard boss I remember was the secret one, Ultima Weapon I think.
Anyway, theres not many jrpgs I hate but one that comes to mind is Cold Steel. Its a jrpg that has everything that I like, but they went waaaay too hard with the world building, and the story takes forever to pick up, which really made me feel bored most of the time. Basically I think its too long for its own good.
Another one is Shin Megami Tensei 1, 2, and Strange Journey, JUST because I absolutely HATE first person dungeon crawling. Its by far the most boring gameplay for me. I would rather just read text in a visual novel form than walk step by step through a maze in first person and being interrupted by random encounters.
Oh yeah, and most games in the Tales Of series. That is a jrpg series that I always get disappointed with, but I cannot stop playing and finishing every game in the series because I really like the battle system, anime graphics and characters.
Valkyrie profile covenant of the plume is hard although you have to kill every enemy and max the points or you'll suffer the next battle with OP ghost enemies that will kill you very easily. I beat that game when I was like 16 or 17 years old, after you beat the final boss the second playthrough is very easy since you're OP. You just have to be a good strategist tbh
100% on DQ7, I played like 5-6 hours, at least half of the time was consumed by backtracking or searching quest items with no real explanations and logic. 30% time random encounters, 20% story... Yeah, way to time consuming 😅
Foe me it's basically whole final fantasy series. I love jrpgs and I can't remember how many of them I've played in last 30 years, but final fantasy (any) I never finished. I have them all, some multiple times on different systems even, I always try to play them and see what people are seeing in them. But I never been able to finish even one of them. Closest to final fantasy that I finished and enjoyed were bravely default, second, default 2. Even tho I love hate default 1 for that stupid "true ending" grind. If I think about it I only realised how to get true ending on 3rd play through in second. The way is too obtuse. And in BD2 when I got first normal ending I just said "ok, it's 60 hours on the clock, I'm good". And never beat it on true ending. So when ff7r came out I instead just bought Trials of Mana. And strangely enough had so much fun with that game, that I decided to give a ff7r a chance since they were giving it in ps+. Yet I never gone deeper than 4 hours in it. Just got bored out. It's something about me and my intrinsic intolerance of final fantasy franchise I believe.
Ah, I had to comment on this:
Erick: "I grinded up my characters to lvl 99! Sweet!"
Game: "Hi, the bosses are now at lvl 99."
Erick: NAICE.
Also Erick: WHAT THE ASS WHERE THEY THINKING?!?!
I also fell prey to Ultimecia, I love ff8 with a passion but have never killed her.
I also grinded everyone to level 99 in FF8, even though I had a strategy guide I did not pick up on how that was the wrong way to play.
The insect game in Rogue Galaxy drove me nuts, of and the draw system FF8 blauuuuh !.
Final Fantasy VII Remake. The music and presentation are S-tier, but the combat! I can be mowing through enemies one moment, and the next they're kicking my ass. Boss battles are huge difficulty spikes because they're damage sponges. I rage quit on the last boss for my first playthrough. I decided to run through it again while hitting all of the side quests and leveling up more. I did finally beat it the main story, but the final boss in Yuffie's side story was obnoxious. I really hope Part 2 gets a balance rework, because I absolutely hate the combat.
What an awesome list.
valkyry covnant plume had many how many times already saved locked on a multi boss map that i cant defeat unless i sacrifice my characters. man,
In my case i love/hate Tomba! 2. I found that game a hard one to be analized, i simply can't make a clear diagnosis of what i really feel about it most of the time.
3DS version of DQVII is flawed as well as PS1/PSX.
I looked up woodus website Dragon Den and I will say both versions never had a Kazoom or Tazoom(Kazoom but it's time travel spell) to even bother the grinding to reach where you have you go which would shorten the time length of beating the game though SE didn't do that which is a huge shame.
Also PS1/PSX version had dark humor rather then the 3DS version. Guess time flies when it's another mix result then could've been approved though it's a length to develop.
I would like a Remaster of DQVII PS1/PSX with improvements of few from 3DS version as well as that spell I mentioned.
However I do love at least ¾ of the game it's Libra sheesh I just felt confuse spell from enemies don't work at all(I don't understand the direction because I mean no enemy confuses party members till Libra's Boss fight). Also why Libra and after wasn't great was the fact I got very confused with not enough information of the past to build up the story just a bit though..
What purpose was the Ra's Mirror at the end of the last dungeon?
How many heroes died or at least where they go since I was confused about Clay leaving a town that unfortunately was doomed to be saved. Seriously it's like trying to use memory card game and try to remember what you already know though there's too much. Glad 3DS tells you the continue story every time you quit so you know what happened without forgetting.
I agree 100% on FF8. I dislike Squall's emo attitude, "Ugh Rinoa, stay away, ugh, ugh, I LOVE her I must got to the moon to save her, ugh Rinoa, stay away, ugh ugh".. but the overall story is amazing, so many fan theories, but the game mechanics suck.. P.S. I fanboy tf outta the, "Squall died at the parade", theory.
What game was the first 3 seconds?
Granblue fantasy relink, looks awesome but it's not out yet.
For me, I think my love/hate title would be Unlimited SaGa. I am a huuuuge fan of the SaGa series as a whole, and I also like D&D so it seemed like this game would be a good match for me, but boy was I wrong.
I enjoyed certain aspects, like the field actions (searching for chests, disarming traps, picking locks) and growing stronger by doing quests, but... So much else was just not fun. Once you finish all your character's optional quests, that's it. You have no way of powering up or learning new Arts. The skill panel concept was just bizarre and confusing, and to make the most out of anything you almost NEED a guide (which I hate relying on). The stories were interesting and I liked the overall style of the game, but the gameplay ruined it for me. Strange that something called "Unlimited" was actually VERY limiting.
Thankfully, many of the elements I DID like were resurrected in the Minstrel Song remake of Romancing SaGa 1 that soon followed...and THAT game did damn near everything right - a shining example of what a remake (and SaGa game in general) should be.
I love FF8, its my favorite, but it's just too easy. Seifer is a pushover every time you fight him, but somehow cuts Odin in half lmao. Sorceress Edea isnt challenging enough. Even with her leaching Rinoa's health, Sorceress Adel isnt challenging enough. Ultimecia isnt challenging enough. Only the two secret super bosses Ultima and Ultimate Weapon offer any decent challenge and even they are a bit too underwhelming.
It feels good to break the game and demolish everything with the flashy limit breaks and OP junctions, but yeah...a bit more pushback would've been nice.
I've finished the game with everyone at lvl 99 several times, still a cakewalk so I dunno what your deal is.
JRPG that I love but also hate goes to Bravely Default 2, it's my first Bravely series so I don't know if in the previous entries have the same problem or not, but I don't like the counter system in BD 2 and I'll end up spamming godspeed strike on every boss.
If you didn't like BD2, then unfortunately the rest of the series may not be for you.
But if you're okay with emulating the 3DS games, you could always give the first game a try to fully make a decision on your own.
Play Bravely Default 1 and Bravely Second, Bravely Default 2 is just so much worse than the other 2. I can't even remember if the first 2 games have counters, the probably do, but man did they overdo it in BD2, so many bad design choices.
Chrono Cross.Loved the soundtrack, character design, graphics,lore and Serge/Kid/Harle/Lynx.
The story is problematic,not because it was so different from Chrono Trigger but because they cut Magus just to give space to trash 40+ characters.
About Popful Mail did you ever tried the other versions ?The PC 8801,PC 9801 and PC Engine had a totally different gameplay (the SNES version is similar to the Sega CD).
Dragon Warrior VII has a special place for me.Yes,the pacing was awful,but the atmosphere ,sense of mystery and challenge were great- the very first Dragon Quest I finished (more than 200+ hours!).
Final Fantasy VIII I hated at the time I first played it (2001),now Iove for what it is.
2:49 thats trolling of the devs: of course you put the waifus in your party and not the ugly dudes at 2:37
and then the game forces you to use the underleveled guys ;) but seriously, i always hate this when every jrpg has this one character no one likes or is useless in combat yet you always have this one scene where you have to use him/her...
My love/hate rpgs:
All the disgaea games
Shadow hearts
Final fantasy X-2
Final fantasy XIII-2
Gungnir
Rogue galaxy
Fire emblem echos/ fates
Tales of graces
You're overstating the problem with level scaling in FFVIII. Most of the time it's trivially easy to compensate, with only a few enemies really being problematic (notably the Wendigos and their thrice-damned Shoot move). As regards bosses, there's actually a cap for them, though I forget the exact margin, so I highly doubt Ultimecia was at max level. Love story is one of exactly two in the series I would consider well-written (Zidane/Garnet is the other).
Yeah, Dragon Quest 7 for 3DS is massive improvement over the original PS one and it deserves to be finished. You won't regret it.
FF13-2 for me, gameplay i had a blast with (although there were a lot of times where it would randomly drop to 2fps, no exaggeration. But then again i've heard that this game is basically broken especially on PC, i played the Xbox360 version on the Series X)
Also the main villain was super lame and story kinda sucked.
There's a lot wrong with the game, but the gameplay did make many improvements compared to 13, and was very enjoyable in that aspect.
And on a sperate note. I will never understand why people defend level scaling, it's a very lazy way to "balance" difficulty.
It doesn't balance it, it just makes it more tedious. it's the same with how developers keep making higher difficulties by increasing enemies health/damage and doing nothing else. It doesn't make battles harder, it just makes them longer.
Personally I disagree on Monarch gameplay admittedly there a decent amount of problems mainly grinding. I do think the leveling system was kind of cool but I also like those kinds of systems in general.
I played FFVIII when it released. I was younger and didn't grasp the story so it wasn't my favorite. I have since replayed and beaten it 3-4 times. I never knew the enemies leveled up with you. It sounds to me like you should give it another try and use the games mechanics properly. It's not a game you can brute force your way through apparently.
Shining resonance refrain was great but flawed
Yeah. I played it too.
It just feels like emo garbage to me
Everything is flawed... nothing is perfect dude
Endwalker would like a word.
Yeah I have to put Xenosaga 2 on this well for me. Great story that I loved but man that game design was awful. It also took me more then half the game to finally figure out how that battle system worked.
Yeah and the tutorials are horrendous. It took me a good while to figure out the combat too. In fact i didn't completely understand it until i replayed it.
And yet it's still my fave game of all time lmao
Also this kinda happened to me with the first game too. XC3 though was so much easier to understand. And thankfully now i know how to abuse the shit out of all battle systems. lol
(Edit: dumbass me, just realised you were talking about Xenosaga 2, and not Xenoblade 2. I've not played the Xenosaga games yet. lol
My brain completely autocorrected itself when i saw Xeno and 2 together. My Bad.)
I love and hate FF X! I love the music, the world building and mostly the combat and level system, but I can´t stand its main character! The game is also obnoxiously linear but still requires grinding for some of its bosses since they are pure DPS-checks, so even if I´m invested in the linear story and want to get on with it, I still have to stop and grind for the next wall of a boss that´s in my way!
Other love-hate relationships are Ni No Kuni 2, which is a wonderful game, beautiful world and music and interesting characters, but the story and its reliance on fetch-quests which the young blue-eyed overly kind and optimistic prince does without blinking can drive me up a wall sometimes! But all of that pales in comparison every time I enter one of the games´ wonderfully crafted main dungeons...
Chrono Cross is another one of these. I have started and quit the game twice before my PS2 died on me and I no longer could play it, which saddened me even though I had a hard time getting into it. But the story, setting and not least the MUSIC always brings me back. One day I WILL finish it, I promise...
And lastly Bravely Default. This is a cute game with interesting combat system and characters, but the story is way too cliché (so far as I have come at least), and the characters feels more like archetypes more than personalities. But I love the job system, and the story so far is interesting enough for me to keep on playing. The fact that it´s on a handheld console is a big plus for me as well, since I can keep playing even on vacation! 🙂
Yea, Wayfarer of Time will kick your ass, and you'll have to redo battles a lot........I love it to death.
you have to go back and do a low level run on ff8 where you grind the card system instead. seriously, it will be revenge for all those years. you will stomp and crush the bones of your enemies, it will feel like karmic justice.