Magic

Bambi

Bambi

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FFXIV
Bambi Branford
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Lamia
Stocking magic was like TORTURE. Have you ever spent a good half an hour stocking away only to die in the next battle? I sure have and omg it made me want to go on a rampage

Now I'm not much of a magic user, never have been I just tend to hack away and use curative spells. Although annoyingly FFVIII is the only game where I actually try to use some magic (meltdown & aura being the main culprits there)

Why oh why did they think that it was a good idea to use magic to increase your stats? Well, not so much the magic, but the amount you have to have to stock to maximise the use of it. It's so infuriating. I didn't even KNOW about it til the last playthrough I did because someone told me >_< I always wondered why I could never beat Omega lol, but once I knew and went on a magic stocking mission the game suddenly became rather easy

I love FFVIII but bugger me before the GF's learn all their abilities stocking magic is a time consuming pain in the arse.

Was this poorly thought out you think?
 
Yeah, stocking magic was quite annoying and keeping it in stock without using it is diffulcult as well. If you use too much it'll decrease your stats.

But, in regards to that, it makes you think and stratagize accordingly. At least I think so.

Only problem was that it took FOREVER to stock magic...but, actually, it became easy once your GF's learned how to Refine items into magic. That way you can just acquire items and get magic junctioned that way. It's way more simpler.

So, it's not totally bad off, ya know?
 
to get your gfs to learn abilities, go kill some cactaurs, 20ap each
i never had any trouble with the magic though, i just flew from island closest to heaven and hell, with encounter none, and doesnt take too long
 
I know but that's after getting the Ragnarok for BOTH of those places mentioned. It just stunk for a while before your GF's actually learned said abilities especially for the first few hours

It felt like most of my game hours were going on stocking on the first, once Id gotten the Ragnorak I pretty much had 100 of most magics anyway

It made me want to punch my control pad repeatedly
 
Yeah...I kinda hate the fact that you had to stock up 100 spells in order to attain the maximum stats. Not saying it's entirely flawed, but it's rather annoying because then it made me not want to use my magic spells...therefore, I did not really get to experiment or enjoy most of my magic spells. Its main purpose was for me to stock, stock, stock...and build my stats to the max.

Sure, stocking was pretty easy...but still, the purpose behind it (magic) became kinda flawed, in my opinion. =/
 
I hated Stocking magic... I ended up getting most from area's with strong enemies who used strong magics...as well as the cards... And the one thing I hated about magics was when you get to the end and Ultimecia breaks your magics >__< I hated that after trying so hard to stock them she breaks usually the ones that were the most hard to get and most useful... she killed my ultima which was on my STR I believe v.v It sucked... and most of them your kinda scared to use after you get them, cus you know your stats will start to decrease and no one wants that >__>.
 
i didnt use magic in the game really except for cure cura etc and full life.
i used meltdown aura for bosses, but i didnt use magic to do damage, so i never had to worry about the stats decreasing
 
Yes, I agree with Suki. Stocking the magic to increase stats is good and all but it made the user not want to cast any spells so therefore most of the magic in this game was useless and never used unless it was cure spells or if the fiend had a special weekness. Mehhh...
 
Well if you did use magics it wouldn't have as much use in the game unless you used double or trile or something like that but using magic wasn't really worth it either it was just... well there.
 
Having Double or Triple really didn't affect much anyways. lol. It rarely ever helped.

Well, I guess you could say magic was used sometimes. I forgot about Draw --> Cast. I do that sometimes instead of stocking the magic. Like one battle between Rajin and Fujin I had drawn protect then casted it instead of stocking it. So, I guess you don't really have to use your stocked magic.
 
I really didn't have a problem with it, at the beginning of the game I just junctioned 100 sleeps to my ST Attack and just drew magic while the enemies were asleep. Then when my GFs learnt how to refine, it just made it easier, I kinda liked how the stats depended on the magic, I found it fun to customize them them like that and I didn't feel like I had to hold back on which magic I used, if the got too low I'd just draw more, mind you it was pretty different with some of the rarer magic
 
The 100 Sleeps to Atk from the Grats(?) in the Balamb Garden training center was the cheapest and easiest way to get early high stats...
Refining made the whole process so much easier... By about the time I had the refine wind magic (from Pandemona) I had enough items to get 100 Tornado's for EVERYONE!!! so I had some kickass atk and mag stats then...
Another easy way at the start was to draw 100 Waters from those Fish things on the beach (+items from them) and then you had some good stuff too...
My main annoyance was Aura...
Damn that was annoying to obtain...
 
I only get really annoyed if my characters are only stocking a small amount each time (like 2 each turn ¬¬), but thats usually remedied by raising the Magic Stat first so each turn they stock the maximum of 9 spells. Doesn't seem to long after that :P It was annoying but a fresh approach to the series that I enjoyed the first few playthroughs, now its more of a chore.
 
I have used magic, but most often I just junctioned whatever was necessary to what stats I want to increase; usually I just used an auto ability sorting for that.

A lot of high power magic like "Triple" and "Ultima" I just use for increasing stats. Squall had 100 Stops and I never used them in battle.

Most healing spells are automatically junctioned first is what I've noticed.

Half the time I'm using the Draw-Cast ability.
 
You know what the best part of any battle system is? Finding ways to abuse it.

Seriously, guys, there are so many ways to cheat the system in Final Fantasy VIII that it isn't even funny. I went through the entire game without drawing a single spell from a single enemy. Before the Dollet mission, I had 100 Regen, Tornado, Meltdown, Death, Aura, and Blizzaga Junctioned to each of my characters. How, you ask? The answer is simple: I did it through the magic of Triple Triad. For example, Abyss Worms can be Modded into Windmills, which can be further turned into 20 Tornado spells. Abyss Worms can be obtained by playing cards in Balamb Garden.

It might seem tedious at first, but just think about it. You will then get to go through pretty much the whole game without ever needing to stock up on magic. It's a beautiful thing, not needing to worry about the Draw command. Even better yet, so long as you stay at a reasonably low level, the game itself is ridiculously easy. Square really messed up on this one. Once you figure out the Junction System and the secrets of Triple Triad, there's literally nothing stopping you from blowing through the game's bosses in a few hits. The ONLY time you'll have to restock is towards the end of Disc Three, and then you can just go to the Island Closest to Heaven/Hell to stock up on Ultima, Meteor, and Flare.

In essence, the difficulty of Final Fantasy VIII is entirely dependant on nobody figuring out how the hell the Junction System is supposed to work. But we gamers are a smart people. Through hours of obsessive devotion, we've managed to decipher the intricacies of this overly-complicated battle system. Is Drawing Magic annoying? Of course. Those long hours of drawing -Aga spells from those monsters were...were...*weeps* DAMNIT SQUARESOFT! I WANT THOSE TEN HOURS OF MY LIFE BACK! *cries in a corner*...*sniff*

...

...

I'm sorry you guys had to see that.

But yeah, Drawing is unneccessary.
 
The_Oathkeeper said:
You know what the best part of any battle system is? Finding ways to abuse it.

Seriously, guys, there are so many ways to cheat the system in Final Fantasy VIII that it isn't even funny. I went through the entire game without drawing a single spell from a single enemy. Before the Dollet mission, I had 100 Regen, Tornado, Meltdown, Death, Aura, and Blizzaga Junctioned to each of my characters. How, you ask? The answer is simple: I did it through the magic of Triple Triad. For example, Abyss Worms can be Modded into Windmills, which can be further turned into 20 Tornado spells. Abyss Worms can be obtained by playing cards in Balamb Garden.

It might seem tedious at first, but just think about it. You will then get to go through pretty much the whole game without ever needing to stock up on magic. It's a beautiful thing, not needing to worry about the Draw command. Even better yet, so long as you stay at a reasonably low level, the game itself is ridiculously easy. Square really messed up on this one. Once you figure out the Junction System and the secrets of Triple Triad, there's literally nothing stopping you from blowing through the game's bosses in a few hits. The ONLY time you'll have to restock is towards the end of Disc Three, and then you can just go to the Island Closest to Heaven/Hell to stock up on Ultima, Meteor, and Flare.

In essence, the difficulty of Final Fantasy VIII is entirely dependant on nobody figuring out how the hell the Junction System is supposed to work. But we gamers are a smart people. Through hours of obsessive devotion, we've managed to decipher the intricacies of this overly-complicated battle system. Is Drawing Magic annoying? Of course. Those long hours of drawing -Aga spells from those monsters were...were...*weeps* DAMNIT SQUARESOFT! I WANT THOSE TEN HOURS OF MY LIFE BACK! *cries in a corner*...*sniff*

...

...

I'm sorry you guys had to see that.

But yeah, Drawing is unneccessary.
Click to expand...
Exactly, they should have put restrictions on Junctioning to be honest.

I can never sit and play through too much TT to just buff up my characters, only to make the game harshly easier than it already is, but it if thats the way some people like to do things then go for it. >_<
 
I loved Triple Triad and actually never had to worry about drawing. Actually, I never really minded drawing when I did. It was kinda relxing I guess.
I've always had anger problems and sitting doing something tedious and slightly productive (I don't know how productive you count FFVIII, haha) just worked for me.

Oooh, chocolate!
 
@The_Oathkeeper

I did it through triple triad as well. It was *really* easy if you went to the card queen in balamb first and got her to spread the 'diff' or 'all' trading rules.

Tonberry's Lv Up skill is particularly useful for picking up hard to refine magic early as well. Case in point is meteor - you can get it by levelling up the ruby dragon you fight in one of laguna's dreams.
 
I liked using Tonberry's lv up skill just for a tougher fight...never really thought about getting better spells and stuff out of it.

Magic was...unique in it, but because of that, it made it a little confusing at first with the whole junctioning stuff. Between that and trying to get the right mixture of summons early on so your main characters have the right magic junctioned and stuff...

Quite annoying, to say the least. Once you understand it, life gets a little easier, but for the time it took to understand it, Squaresoft could have come up with an easier to understand system with the same principles. I mean, never mind that your characters never had a permanent base of magic (If you ran out, you ran out and had to figure out where you got the stupid magic from in the first place!), you also had to try and work out some of the intricate details of the junction system. And when you'd gone and got loads of fires and thought you were doing well, a new monster with Fira would appear, and you'd get really annoyed. (Fire just being an example, it wasn't that hard to get :P)

Anyway, not my favourite system out of the Final Fantasy series.
 
Vincent Crescent said:
And when you'd gone and got loads of fires and thought you were doing well, a new monster with Fira would appear, and you'd get really annoyed. (Fire just being an example, it wasn't that hard to get :P)

Anyway, not my favourite system out of the Final Fantasy series.
Click to expand...

That really got up my nose.

@Loch Refining and playing card games is all well & good but you have to piss about learning said abilities. Getting the all rule from the Queen of Cards was always a good move but either way you look at it, getting 100 of each magic just took far to effing long >_>
 
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