The old patch from Kranmer is still working (only changes 1 byte) on the recent 2013 Steam release. You just need to rename FF8_DE.exe, FF8_EN.exe, FF8_ES.exe, FF8_FR.exe and FF8_IT.exe to FF8.exe and patch one by one. Rename them back to the original filename after patching. In-game you can save anywhere, but at the beginning there seems to be the mentioned bug, that all grayed-out menu options become the save option. I will see later, if it's working 100%, after I got some ability etc.