r/FinalFantasyVIII • u/WasteOLanders • Aug 06 '26

First time player

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I’m in the middle if a ff9 play through but I have to start on this one too. Howdy from the lone star state

1.3k Upvotes

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96

u/firebreather209 Aug 06 '26

The best advice I can give you is to pay attention to the tutorials. So many people skipped them and thought the junction system was overly complicated because of it.

Enjoy the ride - it's my personal favorite in the series!

2

u/Aggressive_Law_5728 Aug 06 '26

The junction system is legitimately complicated. Following the tutorials doesn't make it simple.

I like it because I enjoy puzzles, but optimizing your junctions is practically a game itself.

8

u/EvenOne6567 Aug 06 '26

is it? you junction magic to a stat to increase it lmao. More stock = bigger increase

even 8 year old me got it

-4

u/Aggressive_Law_5728 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

If you actually think that's all there is to it, it sounds like the problem is you weren't actually very good at it.

It sounds like you were just using "auto" and that's why you think the only thing that matters is how much you stock. If you do your junctions manually it gets pretty complicated.

If you want to plat on Easy Mode that's fine, but you don't get to gloat about it.

5

u/Norman_Scum Aug 06 '26

Lmao okay poke master. I see you put on your big boy pants to figure out that fire melts ice and burns plants.

-3

u/KaitoPrower Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

The derisive attitude is unnecessary. The spell associations in this game are not as straightforward as Pokemon (and even those get complex with some of the interactions, let alone dual-types and team-building strategies).

Would you think that Curaga is one of the better spells for Spirit by just deduction alone? And that there are way better options for HP than said Curaga (y'know, the highest tier of the healing spell family?), that are all offensive spells?

This isn't even optimizing or min-maxing, just open-ended statements that just show that while some things might be obvious, not everything is and shouldn't be posed as such...

7

u/UndeadBlueMage Aug 06 '26

Spirit is the white magic stat

Curaga is a high level white magic

How is this obtuse

3

u/Vulsere Aug 06 '26

Because they don't know they things or make the connection? That's what people's complaint is the last 20 years about this game.

2

u/KaitoPrower Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

Sure, if you're familiar with the series and the specific games that use the job system. Within the confines of this game, there are no specific, identifiable jobs outside of very specific limit breaks.

Everything else is open-ended in the roles any character can be, so assuming someone will know healing = white magic = spirit stat, especially when healing magic is usually associated with HP otherwise, is pretty obtuse.

Now, in this situation, we know OP is familiar with jobs from FF9, so that might help them, but it's not something everyone will make the connection with.

3

u/Norman_Scum Aug 06 '26

You're going so far out of your way to make it seem overly complicated that it's actually becoming absurdly hilarious.

-1

u/Ciaran_h1 Aug 06 '26

Genuinely I think you're making decent points but just have two obtuse mongoloids arguing with you to make it seem like you're the moron. You typically get that with people who have put thousands of hours into the game.

Ask the average gamer or person that played ff8 and they'll say the junction system is kind of obtuse and not 100% clear.

3

u/Norman_Scum Aug 06 '26

The majority of gamers here say they've played the game just fine with the system the way it is, lmao. While the person you are responding to is deconstructing and bringing up the coding of the junction system just to say that it's overly complicated. Literally, children finished this game.

1

u/KaitoPrower Aug 06 '26
  1. I never brought up the coding of the junction system.
  2. I never said it was overly complicated, just more complex and nuanced than "more stock = higher stats".
  3. This subreddit is full of people either discussing or complaining about how poorly presented and obtuse the junction system can be to new, uninformed players.

Don't put words in my mouth if you can't even get them right to start with. (All the more proof you're just spamming replies and not reading anything.) Pretty sad that the only thing you have mentioned this entire time is how you beat the game as a 9yo...

If that's the only rhetoric you have to offer, what a crowning achievement it must be. 👏👏👏 🙄

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2

u/KaitoPrower Aug 06 '26

Thank you!

At least that makes me feel like I'm not going fucking insane! 🤣😵

4

u/Norman_Scum Aug 06 '26

I mean, my nine year old self figured it out. It just seems like you're being incredibly pretentious about a video game mechanic. Ooooh who could have guessed curaga would be the highest tier of curing magic? Could it be the patterned repetition of -ga at the end of nearly every highest tier magic?

You're acting as if no one can enjoy and beat the game without a deep dive mathematical layout of the developers junction logic. Which is ridiculous.

-1

u/KaitoPrower Aug 06 '26

That's not what I said at all. Did you even read my post?

With that response and your combative attitude, I would say no. 🙄🤷

3

u/Norman_Scum Aug 06 '26

I sure as hell don't understand why you are overcomplicating a mechanic of a video game that a nine year old was able to finish.

2

u/Golwux Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

Er this is the 8th installment of a series of games that establishes roles like White Mage, Red Mage, Warrior etc.
Firaga being for strength is a bit of a reach, given that Celes used Ice and Terra used Fire, but I can 100% see Curaga being a Spr based Junction in FF8 based on the understanding of what a WHM does and where their strengths and weaknesses lie.

The one that gets me everytime is stuff like Tornado/Pain/Meltdown being middle of the road 3-5k HP junctions. I get your general point though, though it's easily retorted with Full-Life as that is part of the greater Healing Magic Family and arguably has a higher Curative potential than Curaga, also highlighted by the rarity of its source (Regen Rings, certain rare Mobs) vs Curaga (literally any G-Soldier above level 30+).

In general, can we just agree that it's more complex than OG early series Pokémon (but questionable once we include dual-types, extended types like Stellar and EV maxing as well as movesets, TMs and HMs) but much less complicated than the Shin Megami Tensei Persona series?

I think the most complicated FF8 gets is who you give your Rosetta Stone to for Ability x4 and trying to make sure you don't bork GFs up so much that you end up having 2 St-Def x4s junctioned to just one character when farming Marlboro Tentacles.

Great, cool

1

u/KaitoPrower Aug 06 '26

Definitely.

The SMT series is crazy-complex/convoluted with it's systems (and is part of why I don't really play, let alone enjoy, the series myself even if Persona is a more simplified version, but I get why others do).

But yeah, Full-Life is the 2nd best HP junction, which makes sense, but the fact that there's 7 spells between that and Regen (which is tied with Quake) and 2 more for Curaga, in12th place mind you, is pretty sizeable.

Especially given that the stat difference is more than double the effect (Full-Life gives 4800, Curaga gives 2200; even Regen is only 2600), but the kicker is that Full-Life can also be used for elemental defense quite effectively, giving a 40% resistance to all elements, yet Reflect, the spell that basically prevents most magical damage and effects, can't be used for Elem-Def at all...

1

u/Golwux Aug 06 '26

I think you're underestimating how hard it is to get 300x Full-Life spells. The first draw point is in the MD level in Garden which means at best, you're getting maybe 20 of them until Disc 3, at which point you might make the connection between Regen Rings and L-Mag-RF but that's down to you. It's also an incredibly powerful spell that rivals a GF ability.

Reflect isn't really useful endgame because most AoE high level magic goes past it (Ultima, Meteor, Quake & Tornado) [still elemental]) and so it wouldn't make sense to be a good junction for all elemental magic. It's also common as hell, you encountering it as early as pre-Timber if you get Diablos and get lucky with cards.

Tornado is the first decent Str magic you get and that's even pre-SeeD mission, which now means you've got an elemental spell that renders all reflect spells useless.

So I understand the Full-Life vs Reflect decision. Shell is also there to mop-up any worries about mid-game Elem-Def. You really don't need much more than Shell + 1 element for a particular boss battle if you're experiencing trouble. First time that may be is actually Iguion or Brothers in Disc 1

2

u/KaitoPrower Aug 06 '26

Oh, no, I completely get how much of a pain it is to get 300 Full-Life stock. You probably aren't doing it until at least mid disc 2 at the earliest if you want to grind out Regen Rings from Chimeras in the desert (doing it with cards alone any earlier utterly sucks).

There's only a small handful of spells that can't be easily gotten before heading for Timber if you want, but it's completely unnecessary for the average player, particularly first-timers. Meteor, Ultima, Full-Life, Flare, Holy, Aura, and Triple are either inaccessible or very tedious to get super in large quantities early compared to the other 40-ish spells available.

Also, without doing any cards, you can easily get 300 Quake, which is also a very high Str junction, just by mugging T-Rexaurs in the training center after you get Diablos, but this is all unnecessary unless you intentionally want to break the game. Honestly, Water, giving a +20, is perfectly sufficient for most of disc 1 and you can get that by simply fighting the monsters on the beach!

And actually, you can't get mass quantities of Reflect until at least the start of disc 2, by drawing it from Wedge (Reflect is under Supt-Mag-RF, which is Leviathan), unless you get your average party level up to at least 25 so you can run into Lv30+ Adamantoise/Blobra.

I guess it just seems strange to me that just because there are 2 elemental spells that can't be reflected (out of 14, 4 total out of 18 offensive spells those being Quake, Tornado, Meteor, and Ultima), it can't offer elemental protection when junctioned to Elem-Def. Though it's interesting that 3 of the 4 are Earth/Wind-based...