Final Fantasy VIII: Remastered (PC/PS4/XB1/NSW) - September 3, 2019

[Tyrath]

It's only good for the nostalgia if you wanna play at 3x speed.

Incidentally I was just finishing up the game and I'm perfectly happy because this is what I wanted.

[Xno Kappa]

How big is the modding community for 8? I’ve seen some work done but never really looked into it. I know for 7 there’s mods that clean up the pre-rendered backgrounds, CGI’s, framerate, and up the ratio/resolution.

Would be dope if they can do the same by just ripping the HD models out to make better use of them.

[arus2001]

There was a better mod pack for IX, so give this a bit of time and I imagine it'll happen. Of course, far as FFs go, this one tends to range from favorite to worst depending on who you ask.

[KuroTsuki]

How big is the modding community for 8? I’ve seen some work done but never really looked into it. I know for 7 there’s mods that clean up the pre-rendered backgrounds, CGI’s, framerate, and up the ratio/resolution.

Would be dope if they can do the same by just ripping the HD models out to make better use of them.

This shows a comparison for the first 6 minutes between current mods of FFVIII vs the remaster. You can clearly see that the modded version has smoother backgrounds. Curious if they could take that mod and apply it to the remastered version for a best of both worlds.

3:12 to skip the opening cutscene


Luckily, I have a huge backlog (recently traded a crap load of shitty game's keys in exchange for a few goods ones like Sekiro and Nioh to add to the list lol), so I won't be playing this for a while. It should be modded to hell by then.

Edit: Looks like the main modder is working on porting the mods over. His reply to someone's question on his steam page:

@NecrolyteSoul -- no, not yet. I've got a couple mods working for the remaster, but not the world textures or the field backgrounds so far.

[BWYuko]

Everything Arus and Kuro said is correct.

Mod community is active but not thriving like it is for FF7 and FF9.
I'm told 2013 Steam FF8 was not easy to mod.

2016 iOS FF9 had far more modifiable assets than 2013 Steam FF8.
Tbh the FF9 pack is really incredible on its own laurels.
The textures they used for the background overlays make it look like you're adventuring through an impressionist oil painting.
Imagine trekking Gaia through the artistic lens of What Dreams May Come.

Anyway, they'll def build on FF8 Remaster as the new definitive version to mod.
I'm sure they'll appreciate the work Dotemu and Access Games did under the hood.
I'd wager they cleaned up a lot of the original code.

[Anoat]

Been playing through this, 3X speed and god mode makes this a much more fun nostalgia trip, especially since drawing a full 100 spells can be done in like a minute or two. I don’t recommend using the god mode for any first timer though. Spent last night doing the first legs of the triple triad card queen quest and wondering how I ever had the patience to do this shit in 1999. I must have lived on gamefaqs or something.

[Tyrath]

Just remove random rule and Triple Triad aint that bad.

[Byrthnoth]

I've read that this game lacks Chocobo World, random NPCs, and they blurred backgrounds for some reason.

Feels halfassed. I'll just run an emulator and play the original if I want to go through it again.

[BWYuko]

Nah brah. This is still the definitive version of FF8.

No choco world?
You're correct, definitely concede this.
It's a shame they couldn't make this happen considering the third parties they hired for the original 2000 PC and 2013 Steam ports figured it out so easily. Sucks.

Rando NPCs missing?
Whaa? Which? Where? This isn't a thing. Where'd you hear this rumor?
The tasks SE gave the devs it hired for the Remaster didn't involve those kind of core mechanics. All NPCs have behaved as they did in 1999 in all subsequent releases. This has never been a thing.

Blurred backgrounds? No, the backgrounds were always this bad they just didn't do the diligence of face-lifting them to the standard they did the character models, battle effects, and menu UI.
The mod community figured out what to do np for the Steam 2013 backgrounds, give them a little time and we'll see a huge, all-encompassing third party mod tool for the 2019 Remaster that will inject higher res backgrounds as but one of its features.

That's not to say there aren't real bugs, though.
E.g. In the last month, some users (even on the PS4 version) are reporting the Remaster music audio files are suddenly and inexplicably swapped with the very poor quality Steam 2013 MIDIs (which are a copy/pasta of the 2000 PC's MIDIs, which themselves were an extremely poor conversion of the superior 1999 PSX audio).

Anyway, you're not gonna be able to achieve what the Remaster has with mere mod facelifts to Steam 2013, and especially not with ePSXe or PCSXR to a PSX rom.

Take Tyrath, Anoat, and others' advice - a Remaster playthrough at 3x speed is still the best way to revisit this game currently.

[Byrthnoth]

My emulator can also do 3x speed and doesn't take $20 or miss content.

[BWYuko]

Agreed. Stealing makes things cost no money.

[Byrthnoth]

I know the Napster precedent is a thing, but I would be shocked if a judge found me guilty of playing ROMs that I ripped from a set of disks I bought for a system that is no longer supported by the manufacturer.

In fact, we lack case law to reference for this situation because the tons of people that do it openly (even for games they don't own) don't get sued.

If FFVIII remastered was better than the original, I would have bought it for the experience. Instead, it gets "mixed" reviews on Steam (basically as low as you can go) with people complaining about a wide variety of issues, has a few upscaled models, and has a fraction of an emulator's additional functionality.

I played through disk 1 of Xenogears at 4x speed yesterday after finding out that the FFVIII remaster was trash. Took me a few minutes to rip it to my computer and then I was good to go.

[Byrthnoth]

If they had fully left FFVIII's content/graphics alone and just re-localized it, that would have been enough for me to buy it again.

[Tyrath]

Who the fuck is shaming someone for playing roms. Stfu lol

[Xno Kappa]

I would pay all the monies for a remastered Xenogears with a redone second disc.

[Byrthnoth]

I would pay all the monies for a remastered Xenogears with a redone second disc.

This is the truth. I almost don't want to do that part of the game again. I will maybe just leave it as one solid disk.

It is so obvious replaying it that they hit a deadline and just put it out the door. The first village has so much more hidden shit than anywhere else in the game.

[BWYuko]

Who the fuck is shaming someone for playing roms. Stfu lol

Nobody. All of us pirate constantly, me definitely included.

Was just boiling down panda guy's position for what it was worth, and he jumped to a bunch of embarrassing conclusions.

[KuroTsuki]

I will say, one thing I like about the remaster versions of speed boost is that the music speed stays the same, so you can still enjoy it while speeding through. Xenogears has one of my favorite OSTs, so a proper remaster of that would be awesome just for that reason.

[Delayed]

Is there any word on a mobile release for this? Its the last one left to get a port

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[Niiro]

Recently replayed this (regular PC version but whatever) and I gotta say the gameplay balance is even worse than I remembered.

Even playing the game fairly straight (no avoiding exp, no Card/Card mod, simply drawing magic as it comes) there is absolutely no challenge to be found. I can only assume they spooked themselves with how complicated the Junction system was and balanced the game around the assumption that people just wouldn't know how to use it.

Really wish when they re-released games like this they took a second whack at the gameplay instead of just prettying it up, lord knows this one needed it.