The Draw System...

[! V v :]]

I feel like I'm the only person deeply bothered by this setup. It is boring and time consuming as hell. I'm not TRYING to hate, honestly. I know that FF8 is probably a top tier Final Fantasy as I have heard, but in over 10 years of me occasionally trying to play through this game, I cannot do it. I have played and beaten almost every Final Fantasy game (with the exception of this and some spin-offs) and this is the only one that bores me to tears before I even get half-way through disc 1.

I want to like this game, I want to play it, but I do not want to spend time drawing spells for 5 minutes just to cast them in the same battle or the one after it. I am having zero fun doing this, it's insanely tedious and I just want to understand how you guys feel about this system. How do you have fun with it? What makes it fun for you?

I'm seriously asking these questions because I want to know how I can look past this and enjoy the game. And no, I will not use the magic booster, I don't want to have to cheat to beat any Final Fantasy game.

[Delta 1038]

Yeah I consider the draw system a negative because I have spent 30 mins drawing Doubles so I can convert them to Triples and as you can guess it's pretty boring. You can try the card game as an alterantive. Just don't spread the Random rule.

[Qhogavati]

I don't mind the system on a level where it add's, for me, a new layer to enemies. It's nice to think, I wonder what magic this new enemie has, what's behind the ???? etc. Plus I like the idea of drawing GF's from enemies.
What let's it down is the time it take's to stock 100 of a magic at the start of the game and for me, it was only at the start.
The above post mentions trying to get Triples, well I drew 300 Triples from Odin within a few minutes and it was done, It wasn't tedious in anyway. Once you junction strong magic onto your magic stat, I found drawing to be fast and bearable.
The issue I have, is it make's you feel as if you can't use your best magic for fear of getting weaker.

[LilG]

The system is tedious, I mainly refined magic from cards/items since drawing 100 spells during fights got annoying after a while.

The draw system did make me avoid using powerful spells since your stats would suffer if they're junctioned.

The fun part for me was experimenting with adding a newly drawn spell from a monster onto my characters status-attack. I had fun seeing what status effects monsters were vulnerable to.

[Odeon]

Honestly I never used it much.

At first you draw from everyone, just to get rid of the ????.

Then you get Guardian Forces, cards, and the ability to turn items into magic. Aaaand you're pretty much done ^^...

Before long you get magic far beyond what you can draw from ennemies, and the only reason to draw magic is to cast something (healing spell, usually) without depleting your own supply.

I should add though, that I don't. EVER. play magic. Simply because it's not worth it. Magic is for the stats. ONLY for that. I use Squall, Irvine, and I tear through ennemies with physical attacks alone (and limit breaks, obviously). I use Cura (Cure 2), Life, Esuna, and very late game, Aura. That's about it. I never need anything else.

[LuckyMouse4864]

I understand your frustration. Fortunately, you can get all the magic you'll ever need without drawing from an enemy a single time thanks to refine abilities, cards, and draw points. If you don't like drawing magic then just don't do it. It does however save time from trying to find particular spells later on and saves items for refinement when you start to get low (fire everyone worried about the stat decreases).
One last thing I'll mention, the magic booster is amazing if you already beat the game and don't want to draw all that magic all over again. So do keep that in mind

[! V v :]]

Thanks guys, it's good to know that drawing becomes pretty unnecessary later on. I'll just power through it until that point

[UncleRabb]

the major downside I saw to it was there was no use for "magic." Like in all other FF you use magic in battle to help you, you don't do that in 8, Etiher because it's attached to your GF making it badd ass, or the spell is just not worth casting. Their str in battles are non exsistant. Other than that it was a neat idea. But it's for the GFs, and your own personal stats... that's about it.

[ikki5]

The magic booster did help with that and later in the game you can get stuff which allows you to not need to dray so much by turning stuff into magic. It was just the early part of the game that was the killer for me but with the magic booster right at the start, it fixed that.

[bloodomenad1]

Now if you really want to power through the game and really make life easy enough you can just win in near record time is at your seed test, kill your team cept siefer and junction your str gf to him (ifrit) and the split the other 2 to the dead guys so they still get split exp. On the bridge during your test, just limit kill off the group of 3 with seifer alone and get him to about 70ish? (took me 3 hours? while multitasking/catching up on breaking bad) and then you should check your enemys and they should have thundga/blizzaga/ firaga, to draw. Get those, your done really, items will carry you to mod the rest of the game. Did i forget to mention your 3 gf's will be 100? thats insta-gib for most things seeing as how zell or squal didnt get one level suring that whole thing. (not taking credit, this was from a guide i read 10ish years ago)

[PM]

Originally posted by Odeon:

Honestly I never used it much.

At first you draw from everyone, just to get rid of the ????.

Then you get Guardian Forces, cards, and the ability to turn items into magic. Aaaand you're pretty much done ^^...

Before long you get magic far beyond what you can draw from ennemies, and the only reason to draw magic is to cast something (healing spell, usually) without depleting your own supply.

I should add though, that I don't. EVER. play magic. Simply because it's not worth it. Magic is for the stats. ONLY for that. I use Squall, Irvine, and I tear through ennemies with physical attacks alone (and limit breaks, obviously). I use Cura (Cure 2), Life, Esuna, and very late game, Aura. That's about it. I never need anything else.

Pretty much this.

Use draw to CAST magic, not to STOCK magic!

Every GF you get in the game can convert common items to magic. I think there is one or maybe two spells in the entire game that required drawing it from an ennemy, but it's been a long time since I played this game.

I'm in the forum looking if Square-Enix has finally made a audio patch. Let's hope! (I have the physical PC version of FF8, but I would really want the Stream version if they have added the quality audio.

EDIT:
Damn, looks like they didn't do it. :(

[tawnos76]

Google Hyne 1.8 and just give yourself 100 of whatever magics you need. It is a save file modifier program that still gets your achievements with on steam.