Deep Look: Final Fantasy 8- Item Refining

Hey Bomberinos!

Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found interesting. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes (maybe I should have called them actual quick looks).

In this Deep Look I show off the different ways you can refine items in FF8 and how refining items makes the game COMPLETELY BROKEN. I also look at FF8's card game, Triple Triad, and show how to turn cards into items into profit! This will be my last look at the junction system so I hope you enjoy it. As always feedback is greatly appreciated!

Final Fantasy 8 was a great game that was way too easy to completely break. So many fond memories of Triple Triad though. Probably my favorite Final Fantasy mini game of all time.

I knew the junction system could break the game.
but I didn't know it could break it this fast and easily thats pretty crazy!

you also seem to be way smarter then me at that card game i would always try to convert every card and end up losing to dumb moves.

The card game gets a lot more annoying later on with all of the rule changes that can be implemented.

@shikon: Really Degenerator is the only thing you need to run through the game (except for bosses), everything else is a plus. I have played a ton of the card game so I know how to game the AI pretty well.

@excast: Yep, that's why it's best to strike early! Almost every valuable item/card can be found in Balamb or Galbadia so you don't really have to contend with the more complex rules.

Are you playing this on console or using an emulator?

The transitions into battle/between screens is pretty fast!

I remember trying to replay FF9 on PS3 and every battle had a long load in time.

@bistromath: I'm playing the steam pc version and I have a pretty good rig. Though I needed some mods for the graphics and the audio. The audio on the steam version is all midi otherwise.

Hey these videos are really awesome! I remember figuring out how awesome degenerator was on Isle Heaven/Hell while grinding for draw spells.

@thatpinguino: Didn't know they put 8 out on Steam, looks like a good version. Might have to give it a whack.

I was wondering because I really want to replay FF9, but the transition times kill me and I think they're hard coded, so a more powerful system wouldn't do anything to help them.

Maybe they'll put FF9 out on Steam (tweaked), but... somehow I doubt it.

Nice vids btw.

The grinding for spells always seemed like a broken system, and I recall reading about the Tornado method on some game walkthrough. Isn't true that you can also get Squall's 'Lion Heart' on disc one?

@discoman: Yeah you could get most of the components for the Lion Heart on disc 1. I think you need to wait till disc 2 to get dragon fangs, but everything else is available through card refining if you want to spend a ton of time grinding cards.

@bistromath: FF7 and FF8 both had pc versions a little after they both came out. So bringing them out on steam was not that much work. Like in the case of FF8, the soundtrack for the steam version is all midi because old sound cards couldn't always handle the CD quality audio from the original soundtrack. I doubt Square would put in the work to make a pc version of FF9 since all they added for the steam version of FF8 was achievements and a magic trainer to get 100 magic of any type. I wish they would make a pc version of FF9 though, it is my favorite game in the series and a pc version would make doing a deep look of it way easier.

@voxus: Thanks! The earlier you get degenerator, the more useful it is. You can go T-Rexaur hunting once you get degenerator which makes getting gf abilities pretty fast early on.

Cool watch. I love FF8. Just bought it on Steam for 4.00 and am currently installing it. Maybe I'll put some of this to use in my upcoming playthrough

@afabs515: If you are going to play the pc version I recomend the roses and wine soundtrack mod and the sweetfx graphics enhancement. The soundtrack mod puts the real soundtrack back instead of the midi pc soundtrack and the graphics mod adds some shaders and scan lines to hide the crappy resolution of the pre-rendered backgrounds. I didn't expect that I would need to mod a ps1 game to have it look acceptable on my new pc, but the default stuff that comes with the steam game is not great.

@thatpinguino: Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely do that.

Nothing new with Junctioning... I mean if you guys didn't know then you never took the time to learn about it. Though I never did spend much time on Quistis and that's pretty cool.

@gamefreak9: Yeah I learned about degenerator after a few runs because it seemed like an ability that HAD to miss occasionally, like a death spell. Once I found out that it always works I added Quistis on to my default party.

"Deep Look" sounds like the title of a creepy-ass porno movie...

@thatpinguino: Welp I bought this today. largely based off this video actually, since that seems like an easy way to power through the game.

FF Viii holds the dubious distinction of being the first video game I ever burned myself out on because of my completionist tendencies, it'd be cathartic to actually see it through. Assuming I actually make myself play it. :)

@slag: Good to hear! If you really want to power through you should get Diablos as soon as possible and learn Enc-None to avoid all random battles. Just doing that shaved 10 hours off my play time when I finished the game with my girlfriend. I might do another video on FF8 somewhere down the line on the world map design in that game, but I don't think I'll be doing any more junction pointers.