[FF8PC] Judgment score possibly bugged? Help!

[thendcomes]

Hello quimm, first time poster. Thanks so much for the wonderful FF8 graphical mods!

I was directed here by a gamefaqs user but I'm not sure if this is an appropriate topic for your forums. If not, I'm sorry!

TLDR: Does anyone know how to score 100 on the Judgment portion of the SeeD exam on the PC version?

I was following the PS guides that recommend waiting on the Ifrit naming screen to let the clock run down for a perfect 100 score on Judgment for the SeeD exam. I started the caverns on a 10:00 timer, got to Ifrit at around 7 minutes and quickly killed him with 5 minutes to spare. I finished the battle and stopped at the Ifrit naming screen, finally proceeding after about 6 minutes (I used to the Windows clock to make sure).

I was surprised to find later that my judgment score on the SeeD exam was a ZERO.

I've been googling like a madman to figure out why this happened, and many people confirmed that this "bug" (waiting on the naming screen) doesn't work on the Steam version. That would be fine -- I could adjust my tactic to wait out the timer and perform the killing blow with a few seconds to spare. However, many people were ALSO getting 0s without the use of the exploit, i.e. waiting until the last seconds to finish the battle.

Furthermore, the 0 score doesn't make any sense. Per the guides out there, a score of 0 indicates that there remained more than 15 minutes left on the clock. I only started with 10!

Does anyone know how to reliably score a 100? For the record, I know the results of the test are practically worthless, however I am really interested in getting a perfect score.

Thanks!

[DLPB_]

You gain points in that test for killing Ifrit with seconds to go... not minutes. The guide you have read is wrong.

Edit:

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Walkthrough:Final_Fantasy_VIII/Haveanicedays/SeeD_Field_Exam

First result I got for google "Seed exam".

[thendcomes]

Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry I was unclear.

I'm aware of how the score is supposed to be calculated.

What I'd like to know is why the PC version is scoring it incorrectly and how to get a perfect score. As I said in my OP, I killed Ifrit with 5 minutes to go and waited at the naming screen for 6 minutes. This got me a score of zero, which can't be unless there is a bug.

I started the caverns on a 10:00 timer, got to Ifrit at around 7 minutes and quickly killed him with 5 minutes to spare. I finished the battle and stopped at the Ifrit naming screen, finally proceeding after about 6 minutes (I used to the Windows clock to make sure).

Furthermore, the 0 score doesn't make any sense. Per the guides out there, a score of 0 indicates that there remained more than 15 minutes left on the clock. I only started with 10!

[alexfilth]

You got 0 points because the timer reached 0:00, it needs to be between 0:07 and 0:01 to get 100. I don't know if it was always like this in the PC version or something they added on the steam edition.

[thendcomes]

Cool. That's kind of strange that they'd flunk you despite you completing the task, but I guess it makes sense from a coding perspective.

When does the timer stop exactly? I've read the following from people on the web:

"I had the same issue and I swore that the time last said 0:07 seconds and i quickly went through the EXP AP page, but I still got 0 on my judgment score. I have tried twice and each time it comes up as 0."

"i had the same issue too,apparently this ver would give u a zero if u just go beyond 0:00. I dont use ur naming method,i do it the legit way n still got me a zero"

I'm sorry for the pedantry. I'm afraid to do it all over again and still get hit with a 0.

[alexfilth]

It stops the moment you confirm Ifrit's name, personally i just wait on that screen and use an external timer to check how much time is left.

[thendcomes]

Awesome. That would validate all the reports I've seen.

I'm going to test it myself just to double check before I do all my hardcore exam prep.

I really appreciate your help Alex.

[alexfilth]

 

[thendcomes]

To add closure to the topic, I did exactly as you said Alex and set up a timer on my phone. I killed Ifrit and left it on the naming screen, then hit confirm when there was one second left. I got 100 on Judgment as expected!

Mildly interesting was that my phone timer and the in-game timer grew increasingly out of sync. By the time I killed Ifrit with 2 minutes left, it was already a whole 3 seconds out of sync! I'm not sure why that happened but thankfully I was able to play around it.

[Question]

Kind of late, but i got 100 points on my first try just by leaving it at the naming screen for ages. Is it possible that you alt-tabbed out and the game didnt run in the background, so the timer wasnt continuing?