[FF8PC - Steam] Succession Mod (v.1.0)

[Percival]

Just a quick question in regards to compatibility with ragnarok:

You mention several times to install ragnarok and then overwrite with your "field.fs files"

would this be ONLY field.fs, or all three of field.fs, field.fi, and field.fl that would be needed for the overwrite?

Yes, sorry. That can be confusing when using these files for the first time. Whenever someone refers to the field, the main, the menu, the battle, or any other files, they always mean all three. I should be more specific.

[Percival]

I haven't read all the comments earlier so I apologize if this has been asked before, I didn't want to spoil myself on anything, but I was curious if this was a straight up retranslation that's accurate to the original Japanese script or the original translation rewritten with your own flavor to it?

  It is DEFINITELY rewritten with my own flavor. But I went out of my way to maintain the original sound and characterization of each of the main characters. All of the characters have a greater degree of depth and maturity than the original, but they still maintain their original identity. As I mentioned in the description, the greatest deviations were with Headmaster Cid and Seifer. Rinoa has also received a lot of attention, but that is primarily in terms of adding to her backstory and motivation, not her personality.

  I do not speak Japanese, but I had originally attempted to use a number of 'more accurate' versions of the script for reference and inspiration. But everything I found was so strikingly similar to the original that I gave up on that very quickly.
  The version we received was remarkably faithful as a translation. I would only argue that it was fairly poor as a localization.

  And also, despite what you may have heard, the great Ted Woolsey did not actually appear to me in a vision, providing me with his own immaculate localization. That was a joke.

[Percival]

Real life is probably busy for them atm.
But i still have hope that this will continue to be updated eventually in the future! lol

  I love this mod, and I always appreciate the support from all of you, but yes, lots of real life, unfortunately. Also I have largely moved on to my next writing project, and I am trying to devote my free time to that.
  Also, my CPU finally died, and I lost most of the next update I was planning on posting. It wasn't large, mainly small typo fixes. And I lost my small progress on the Remaster. Not the end of the world, but still sad.

[Venturer]

  It is DEFINITELY rewritten with my own flavor. But I went out of my way to maintain the original sound and characterization of each of the main characters. All of the characters have a greater degree of depth and maturity than the original, but they still maintain their original identity. As I mentioned in the description, the greatest deviations were with Headmaster Cid and Seifer. Rinoa has also received a lot of attention, but that is primarily in terms of adding to her backstory and motivation, not her personality.

  I do not speak Japanese, but I had originally attempted to use a number of 'more accurate' versions of the script for reference and inspiration. But everything I found was so strikingly similar to the original that I gave up on that very quickly.
  The version we received was remarkably faithful as a translation. I would only argue that it was fairly poor as a localization.

  And also, despite what you may have heard, the great Ted Woolsey did not actually appear to me in a vision, providing me with his own immaculate localization. That was a joke.

Ah that makes sense, to be honest I got the sense of that as well when I began translating some of the text with DeepL, it didn't to me that it needed much improving as I played on. I hope you get a lot of eyes on this mod, I could only imagine all the work you've put into this, and I'm also glad there's dedicated people that have worked to make FF8 improved since it's releases on Steam. Hope your future endeavors work out for you.

[AbsoLootAaron]

  I love this mod, and I always appreciate the support from all of you, but yes, lots of real life, unfortunately. Also I have largely moved on to my next writing project, and I am trying to devote my free time to that.
  Also, my CPU finally died, and I lost most of the next update I was planning on posting. It wasn't large, mainly small typo fixes. And I lost my small progress on the Remaster. Not the end of the world, but still sad.

Noooooo, sad times indeed.
Well... I still have some hope left! I won't give up on you just yet. lol

[Percival]

*NEW VERSION 1.07 UPDATE*

  Hello, everyone!

  At long last I finally have a meaningful update. It’s nothing large, so don’t get too excited. I had recently received some quality feedback from someone who just finished the mod. It was about the scene in the Ragnarok conference room immediately after the team returns from space.

  I never quite felt like that scene captured what I had originally wanted, and I never thought the original had captured what the writers were hoping for, either. I am specifically talking about the dynamic between Squall and Quistis. Without going into too much detail, I changed my whole approach to the scene, and I rewrote almost the entire thing. I think it flows much more smoothly, now. It also makes more sense in light of how Squall and Quistis should be feeling at the time, as well as taking into account the changes I made with regard to Rinoa.

  Whenever any of you get around to playing through it, let me know what you think!

[gunner_1207]

ooooh you beauty , i shall take a gander thank you

[DiscoCokkroach]

Hey, Percival. I'm planning on using this mod the next time I play FF8 (which is very soon), but how do I use it in conjunction with your Martial Law gameplay mod? They seem to replace the same three files in the lang-en folder, so I don't know how to use both at once.

EDIT: While I'm still curious about how to use both mods simultaneously, I'm going to move forward and play Succession by its lonesome. I've read several comments in this thread about how good it is and really want to see what the fuss is all about! I also think I would prefer the vanilla gameplay balance since it's been a while since I've played FF8.

[Percival]

  Hey, DiscoCokkroach!  The files should not be the same. The Succession files are the 3 Field files, and the Martial Law files are the 3 Main files. And the 3 different files for each should be: FS, FL, and FI.

  While I would highly recommend trying out Martial Law, or even Ragnarok, I also totally understand wanting the vanilla experience. I tend to be the same with the graphics. I love all the visual mods, but I still end up going back to the vanilla look.

  I'm confident that you'll enjoy Succession, and feel free to let us all know what you think when you're done!

[Goth]

I hope this will see a version for the remastered too, because I'm one who wouldn't mind even big changes to the story. Anything which makes the game fresh is welcome, and it sounds like a ton of effort went into this project.

[Castilho]

Hello Percival,

I was looking for mods for the remastered edition I had purchased earlier this year when I stumbled upon your mod. Safe to say I ended up grabbing the older steam version just so I could play it and the remastered edition will be collecting dust for some time

My story aside, I just finished a whole playthrough and I wanted to summarize it while quoting someone else's opinion, who wrote "I never once felt it was better than the original story". My thoughts on it however are these: Never once did I feel like your mod was in any way inferior to the original work and I actually like it better. And make no mistake, I love FF8. I always used to say the best FFs were always the even ones before 9 came out.

I really like the overarching plot, removing amnesia and adding more war oriented elements to the story. Backstory regarding Hyne was well done as well and I really liked it.
However, what I liked most was how better some characters were, such as the obvious Cid, Seifer, Quistis and even NORG (Like, NORG's claim is making sense? If there was choice there I might have sided with him lol). Also, lack of nonsense decisions/motives, such as Quistis'

Spoiler: show

reasoning for abandoning her post and going back so she could make sure Rinoa wouldn't try to escape and not just apologizing.

Only negative thing I can really think of is that the whole game screams "I need more content" now, since everything is more interesting. Most characters, such as Quistis, could really use more screen time, though I am sure it goes beyond the scope to add new events and scenes. I really wonder what you could do with all needed resources.

All in all, I just wanted to thank you for the amazing experience. Congratulations on the incredible mod.

Edit: Grammar

[Percival]

Hey, Castilho!

  Thank you so much for your feedback. I'm sincerely humbled by the positive response.

  I worked really hard to produce a story that both ardent fans and ardent critics would appreciate, since I often find myself in both camps. While I acknowledge it isn't perfect, on the whole I'm very satisfied with the general standard of quality I was able to maintain. And I'm very excited to see that you don't disagree. This mod may not be for everyone, but it does manage to fill a niche for some fans (including myself and now you) who always saw the potential for a richer story that was never quite realized within the bounds of the original.

However, what I liked most was how better some characters were, such as the obvious Cid, Seifer, Quistis and even NORG (Like, NORG's claim is making sense? If there was choice there I might have sided with him lol).

Spoiler: show

  For NORG in particular, I followed my general policy for all villains. We don't need to believe what they think, but we do need to accept that THEY believe it. The bad guys need to have a logical reasoning we can follow. This was actually pretty fun, because it allowed me to indulge in some of the most scathing criticisms out there for the plot in the first disc, and then frame them as NORG’s reason why Cid was incompetent and needed to be removed. It’s the only way I could think of within the given time to make NORG compelling in any meaningful way.

  I did something similar, to a lesser degree, with the pacifist mayor and his wife in FH. Their perspective gave me an opportunity to voice the concerns of many fans who see Cid’s treatment of the Garden students as bordering on highly abusive. (After all, he did raise an army of child soldiers, knowingly exposing them to magical entities that, while raising their combat potential, also produced severe adverse mental effects. And he did this entirely to serve his own goals, all while making exceptional personal profits.) And, while I like indulging in these alternative perspectives, I did my best to challenge both of these possible interpretations of Cid with my own revisions of the actual plot, as well as Cid's own words accounting for his actions.

Only negative thing I can really think of is that the whole game screams "I need more content" now, since everything is more interesting. Most characters, such as Quistis, could really use more screen time, though I am sure it goes beyond the scope to add new events and scenes. I really wonder what you could do with all needed resources.

Spoiler: show

  With regard to more content, I understand the sentiment. While it is technically possible to add extra scenes (and possibly even far more) I decided early on that it was not realistic in terms of time investment. It would require a solid understanding of the syntax of the coding language, and a lot of testing to determine the practical limits of what the game could handle. And from my experience the results quickly became a little unstable. I did make about half a dozen small edits to the code, mainly music changes, but much more than that may have been to open Pandora’s box. And besides, as you said, I thought it was far more within the spirit of my mod to focus on revising what already existed, rather than begin creating something new from scratch.

  Also, I admit to having a bias toward Quistis as a character, to an extent that rivals Rinoa, and that has helped lead to the extra attention I devoted to her whenever possible. This can result in a certain amount of dissatisfaction when left with a lack of any meaningful resolution to her arc. I would like to apologize for this, but my bias won't allow me to confess that I did anything wrong, only that I lacked the means to complete something that I had at first done right.

  Thanks again, Castilho, for your post. It’s always deeply encouraging to hear that my labor of love has been enjoyed by others as much as it was a joy to create!

[Castilho]

Hi Percival,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to me.

I might have said "negative thing" but what I really meant is that the whole mod is just so great to me there's always that lingering feeling of "I want more", which is something I personally feel whenever there's a game I end up loving.

While it is heartbreaking to read you lacked the means to fully materialize your vision of the Succession mod, you sure did/are doing a great job with it and I am positive I am going to go back to it on my next playthrough of FF8.

Again, thank you so much for the mod!

[agnitriers1]

..I just finished a whole playthrough and I wanted to summarize it while quoting someone else's opinion, who wrote "I never once felt it was better than the original story". My thoughts on it however are these: Never once did I feel like your mod was in any way inferior to the original work and I actually like it better...

I created this account, to echo what Castilho wrote above - I have been absolutely blown away, by the quality of this mod!
I have played through the entire story, 4 or 5 times now, with a combination of Succession, Martial Law and Ragnarok - and I can't imagine doing a playthrough without Succession.
While I wholeheartedly approve of some of the bigger changes to the script, the attention to detail and 'smaller' dialogue changes are what really makes it shine, for me.

@Percival - please do consider posting a paypal, buymeacoffee, patreon or similar service, to accept donations for this fantastic effort