Started playing FF8 on the Vita. I had trouble with it last year when I had L2/R2 assigned to the rear-touch pad which would make some text unskippable if you accidentally pressed them. I've gone and moved those inputs over to the touch-screen now and the problem has gone. I haven't played the game since release (and back then I played the godawful PC version in slow-motion) so I hardly remember a thing. The game is giving me a lot of difficulty and is far more grindy than I remember (draw grinding, not exp). I just finished FF7 last year and I have to say the jump up in terms of body language the characters can convey is really amazing; you walk past groups of girls who break in giggles and excitedly chatter to one another. You are on a boat and all the developer has done is make the screen shake a little to convey the motion of the sea (simple but very effective). And the animation is simply incredible. I am not sure if the character animations are 60FPS or 30 but the quality of the animation itself is easily fighting game standard (FF9 is a slide-show in comparison). This is the one FF that I always had a hate-dislike relationship with so I want to see if giving it another chance now that I am a better RPG gamer is going to help.Articuno76
If it wasn't for the weird junction and draw systems, the balance issues, the early overeliance on GFs (which drag out the battles), and the under-developed story (the time compression concept need WAY more time in the oven), I would probably like FFVIII better than FFVII simply because its world is so much more interesting, it is sooooo much better looking with much more creativity in the visual design, the pacing is more exciting, it's not filled with bad mini-games, it controls alot better (FFVII has really weird molasses-like controls), and I actually find the characters to be more developed. For instance, Rinoa has far more development/personality than Tifa or Aeris, even if she has a rather childish personality.
But when it comes down to it, FFVII simply plays better in combat situations and the materia customization system is far superior to the draw/junction systems.
Although the battles in FFIX do seem slower than the other 2 PS1 FFs (probably because you can have 4 characters is battle), I think that it is easily the best of the 3 simply because it has the good looks of FFVIII (actually, it looks noticeably better) and a simple customization system similar to materia, but a little better IMO. It combines polish with high playability while FFVII lacks polish and FFVIII is lacking in terms of playability.
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