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« on: 2021-12-30 16:26:34 »
[Spoiler warning]
I just finished Omega Weapon/ Ultimecia and damn isn't this mod the best way to re-live this masterpiece. Overall, Ragnarok surely solved a tons of existing problems with FF8 gameplay, giving a much smoother and more enjoyable experience. However, there was quite a few new issues that took place instead (please note that I'm using FF8R Lionheart mode as a benchmark, and I'm aware that it is behind on releases so some points might be overlapped and redundant). Below are my detailed reviews of each character and some problems I encountered with the mod (Lionheart mode), also a few tips for people who have not been able to best the X-atm092 in Lunatic Pandora:
- MAG users feel much more appreciated with cap removal. Selphie's LB wheels in particular feels more useful in early-mid game with less useless spells appearing (getting Flare during Elvoret fight or Ultra Cure during Edea is a god send ). With the updated status resistance though, she doesn't really do much in late game, even for farming (most of the time Rapture is a miss, and Triple Renew/ Heroes is often time more reliable than scrolling to find Fortification). In my entire playtime I got Catastrophe maybe 2 times? And both were against regular mobs. This is why I dropped her at the end of disc 3, since the random nature of her skill is no longer rewarding enough to bring into big fights. If I ever used her, its for support duty (spamming Mega pots with x2 healing) so I'm kinda feeling a wasted potential here (maybe up the number of casts to x4-x5 and having her break dmg limit like Angelwing? Or give her the Fight/ Flight wheels with one cater to supporting and one for fighting).
- Rinoa: All the talk about her being op with Angelwing in the regular version/ previous patch suddenly became irrelevant in Lionheart mode. Every Angelo move is so underwhelming, well, except for her awakening heal, which is less reliable than Quistis' Whitewind anyway. Mages in general go back to spamming triple Meteor (with exception to Quistis and her nearly 40k hit Shockwave Pulsar at the highest crisis level), which is not what I desire personally. Changing Rinoa Angelwing spell stocks into random spells is an awesome idea, but honestly what ever good is Zombie/ Sleep during the Weapon fights? Those useless status spells unfortunately are occurring way too much for my taste, and serve as several turns wasted. Rinoa's strength multiplier (if you go the natural way she got about 130-150 str with junction at the end?) is kinda negligible, even for her final move, "Wishing star", which again, should have its strength enormously complemented by its random nature (Selphie you here?). Her awakening heal could use some additional effect too (curing Doom could be an option since it was removed from Remedy+).
- Quistis: The best mage of the 3. Damage? You have it. Support? You have it. She's just too good to pass on in hard mode, with White Wind heals through Shell, Ray-bomb inflicting Vit-0, homing missiles inflicting Sleep, micro missiles often hitting for 20k and the insane Shockwave Pulsar move. I have no complaints about her since she served her exact purpose with Blue magic, especially with increased status resistance making her not as op as it sounds.
- Onto the physical attackers: While the mod solved the problem with the game's Magic usage, physical attacks became kinda bland and feels very underpowered compared to their Mage counter-part (at least during early-mid-early late game). 2 things stand out, Darkside and Irvine. Irvine benefited immensely from the cap removal allowing him to hit for 70-80k per LB at Omega with decent luck stat and imo is the best of the 3. Darkside is an interesting option to both deal a huge amount of damage and getting to crisis level faster. For me however, I don't like having my attacker to use darkside all the time throughout the game, nor do I want uncontrollable characters with Mad Rush/ Berserk. I think a couple of spells in older FF titles could solve this problem (Drawing - casting Double Hit, Triple Hit, or some Monk's abilities with high crit rate for Zell) but it might be too much work.
- Squall: Lionheart no longer feels like an insta-kill move even at 255 str, which makes sense. His whole kit feels pretty balanced with other finisher doing cap-breaking damage.
- Zell: The over-nerfed char in my book. All of his finisher, at max strength does so little, with the reduced time to input combo makes him irrelevant throughout the WHOLE game for me. The only time I brought him into party was for completionism sake. He and Irvine alone beat Ultimecia's final form no problem, but most of the damage comes from Irvine and his Final Heaven hits for at most 14-15k. Imo with that much work to put into spamming button his finishers could use a boost. Take Squall for example, when he hits 40-50K for absolutely no work at all. I understand that in the mod previous versions/ base game, Zell is too strong for anyone's taste, but right now with his punch rush hitting for 1-2k, its really not worth using Duel, as even using GF is much better and safer in late game if you have high compatibility.
- GFs: Greatest change of all time that I ever dreamt of. Dmg cap breaking and much more useful ability like Return Damage. I appreciate that you took time to shuffle through and reassign their abilities, which make progression much more enjoyable. Having Bahamut hitting for nearly 40K is hella satisfying. Some others, like Cactuar, still needs a complete rework as hitting for 8k at level 100 is not good at all, maybe when he appears he can cast haste on all member, like Cerberus with Double-Triple. Tonberry is in the same department, unless I missed some of his mechanics?
- Bosses: Diabolos fight in particular is more punishing (as he should have been) and feels much more rewarding for overcoming the challenge (his counter Stop/ Pain move when you draw the precious Demi). I love that you can no longer miss a GF by forgetting to bring Draw, and can actually choose to live dangerously by not drawing for a deserving reward. I beat Ultima and only then found out that by not drawing Eden, he has Auto-Shell and Auto-Protect, which is a pain. Bosses in general feel much more like a threat compared to Vanilla, with additional bonus hidden bosses are much of a puzzle (e.g: Fire Caverns fights/boss), albeit with generic/re-used design.
- There are two bosses that I don't like: X-ATM (hidden boss version at Lunatic Pandora) and Omega weapon. Their pattern is easy to spot, with Omega's moves getting more complicated at the end (instantly move 2 times/ Shockwave Pulsar when near death, Terra often after Gravija). However, Omega kinda forces you to use Hero/Hero Wars/ Aura stones with Megido Flames CAN kill my chars at max health. I don't know what is the formula for this move but its kinda annoying that it can hit that hard and ignore defense, most of the time pushes me to use 2 Full-lifes only to be caught up by Terra break. I also have a feeling that Terra break, for a planned move every few turns, is kinda overtuned? I know that Zombie can mitigate the damage along with protect, but the timing is still REALLY tight for my chars at 80-90 Spd. I love that he's now a true Super Boss but a few rooms to breath wouldn't hurt (maybe lower the occurrence of Dispelga for this purpose? as it can eat through Invincible status. That or making Megido Flame the usual 9998 HP hit like the base game did). The infamous X-ATM, which in the document stated that you can only fight him the first time you entered Lunatic Pandora, suffered the same problem with an over tuned SPR stat, making your spell hits basically for nothing. There are 2 ways I used to fight this Mecha Spider, the turtle way with 1 member (with damage return for its 30K single target move) + edea on support duty + 1 phys atker spamming Atk/Darkside over and over again until it dies. OR using the friendship to summon Moomba (I dont know if its intended since the boss is supposed to be immune to gravity attacks, but I guess the item bypass this description with the effect of setting enemies HP to 1) dealing 20k each. The moomba method can also be used with other Gravity-immune bosses but I'm not a fan of spamming it. I tried to complete all the fights without Return damage or Moomba, only in this case of X-ATM since its not hard but time consuming. Not even Omega gave me this much trouble for a missable boss, so I think you should make him available to fight even at disc 4.
Some final words: While it still has some issues, this mod is exactly what I'm looking for to wind up playing FF8 the sixth time. For this, I'm incredibly grateful of the work you put in Callisto, and I wish you and your family the best in the upcoming year 2022. Maybe when everything settled down we can go back to building this mod to perfection, but in the mean time, if you ever come back to Qhimm to take a look at Ragnarok, just remember you have a big fan right here. Stay well my dude!
P/s: For other people who are having errors installing/running the mod, try downloading the older depot of FF8R (before the patch), you can find it on Qhimm discord server. The newest patch messed with both Demastered and the mod itself. While Demastered has been fixed/updated by Maki, you gotta wait for Callisto to get the mod files up-to-date, which might not be anytime soon.
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