Junction System

[Xanatos]

Yes, drawing magic can be tedious to say the least, on the other hand you don't need to level up at all, in fact the game encourages you not to.

The junction system itself is brilliant, fun to mess with. Thanks to magic and it's placement, not to mention GF's and their abilities, you can approach any battle in dozen different ways at least, experimenting with junction system can yield some truly fascinating results. It's fun to come up with various ways to tackle down Omega Weapon. You can build your character any way you want, with right tweaking you can even make Selphie your powerhouse. I found it to be way more complex and fun to use than materia system, although it's true that both can be exploited.

[Nox Aeternam]

I love the Junction system. Absorb 3 types of Elemental magic? I think so! Mwahahaha. Inflicting Silence, Darkness, and Poison as on-hit effects doesn't suck either. Materia system frustrates me (currently on Disc II of FFVII), it takes WAY too long to get second- and third-tier magics, and it's often FREAKING EXPENSIVE! O.o

[Fluffy]

I didn't like it. It encourages you not to use your spells.

On the other hand, I liked not needing to level up. I usually play the game with Encounter None.

[Rowan]

I didn't like it. It encourages you not to use your spells.

Many final fantasy games suffer from this one way or another. I tend to think the card system more than makes up for it, having access to create lost magic at any point with the simple refinement of items which is furthar refined from cards. Equipping pain on status attack was such a great way to go about fighting. Being able to have the freedom to also choose what status/elements would be inflicted with a physical attack is one of the great aspects of ff8's battle system. I thouroughly enjoyed the junction system, especially breaking it early game. I could have 1 shot ultima be the end of disc 1 with my setup (trying not to brag, but im not gonna lie).

Anyone agree that the limit break system in ff8 was imbalanced? I mean , you can spam renzokuken for multiple instances of damage ranging between 4 - 9 hits with a lucky ultimate. Zell has one of the best, you can smack out a 25 hit combo for 9999 per attack if you buff him enough.

[Heartless Angel]

Yeah, the limits were broken as shit considering you could use them every turn.

Overall I liked the junction system. Junctioning a full stack of drain to status attack is always fun. I guess the refinement kinda made up for the discouragement of using the spells, but i guess that did kind of irritate me with high level spells like ultima and meteor that I didn't have a bunch of shit to refine to all the time. Though by the time you were at a point where you could use those spells, there was shit to draw it from available. As a rule, I wouldn't cast a high class spell unless the target was carrying some for me to draw back.

[Alpha]

I liked how much leverage it gave you to customise and muck around with combinations (although I still think FFVII got it better there... it would've been cool if there were special abilities unlocked with specific combinations or something, or maybe just like a certain colour aura if you have [insert spell] junctioned to, say, defense).

I hated refining cards. The collector in me just couldn't do it. I wasn't too anti-drawing for hours on end, and the game wasn't hard enough to justify refining to get good spells before the enemies stocked them (also because I've never played this game while avoiding leveling up).

I hated how it therefore discouraged me from using spells. I only ever used them as Draw > Cast.

[Cyanist]

I wanted to marry the Junctioning system.

Yeah, the limits were broken as shit considering you could use them every turn.

Only if you don't heal your characters (purposeful in my case) <.<

Renzokuken is still my favorite, cuz I could get a perfect in my sleep. U.U

[Heartless Angel]

You could do it at full health if you had the aura spell on hand.

[Cyanist]

You could do it at full health if you had the aura spell on hand.

Oh yeah! I forgot that!

I also liked junctioning high-level spells to spd. After casting haste, that character was ultra fast.

[Heartless Angel]

Actually you could do it at full health even without aura, but you'd have to cancel your turn a few hundred times every time lol. But you can do it reliably with it. That's one thing I disliked about 8, the limit system was more than a little bit broken.

[Leon]

I loved it. It's fun to see which spells can increase what parameters and by how much. In my case, though, I still loved using spells against bosses and such. I don't like finishing battles the easy way unless it was the only way provided for me or just simply because I was in a hurry to grind.

When you have a difficult boss like Omega Weapon, I think that itself makes up for the brokenness of the Limit Breaks. Also, not getting the right amount of spells can make difficult in the end. The main reason I had to restart after my first time was because I didn't take the time to level up and suffered because of it in the final battle. That was a bummer x.x

[markandrewkinzett]

Its good in some respects but not so good in others but in general it is fine by me.

Please try to be more precise! -Freya