Controller button names

[Xaho]

Is there any way to get the game to use other names for the buttons?
I really hate the fact that in tutorials they tell you to press B1 or something like that,
at the very least A B X and Y could be used instead of the horrible B1-4 names...

Anybody know a way to change, fix or "hack" this so it becomes a lot more user friendly?

[Verlyon]

I totally agree with you. They could have put the XBOX 360 buttons at least, B1 etc. means nothing. If you played like me on Playstation before those are the same buttons, but my girlfriend is lost and Zell's limit break is useless if you don't know the correct buttons. We need a fix Square Enix.
Oh and also fix the sound for it is very ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Warrior of Right]

there already posts about this and i've posted the conversions look them up, you can just up down and forward back zells limit don't need more buttons.

[Xaho]

Yeah, that's all great and stuff, but I wasn't only worried about Zells limit...
Every tutorial says B something which is horrible annoying.

I have searched for other posts and conversations but I was under the impression most of them were trying to achieve something slightly different.

I have found another post which was a bit unclear at first, but I managed to get it to work eventually,
to save other people a possible headache I will do my best to share my solution in better detail then the above linked post.

[Xaho]

Using this post on the steam forums and this post[forums.qhimm.com] from some other forum I managed to get a better experience in FF8.

How to:

• 1. Install Pinnacle Game Profiler (Download[pinnaclegameprofiler.com])
  
• 2. Replace the file ff8input.cfg found in "C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Square Enix\FINAL FANTASY VIII Steam" with this[pastebin.com]
  (Make sure FF8 is completely shutdown to avoid problems)
  
• 3. In Pinnacle Game Profiler create a new profile for FF8, I used an empty template and set it up like this[imgur.com]
  (Mind the L joystick is mapped to arrow keys! )
  (Pinnacle Game Profiler might ask if you want to install a so called hook, I chose to do so, not sure if it works without it)

Make sure you run the FF8 Pinnacle Game Profile when you are playing FF8 else it won't work :)

When you look at the FF8 settings it should look like this[imgur.com] for the keyboard and like this[imgur.com] for the controller.

Result:

In game tutorials will now look like this[imgur.com].

Personalizing

You can ofcourse change the characters if you prefer,
to do so you have to change the buttons in Pinnacle Game Profiler to a different character on your keyboard AND change the bound key in the FF8 settings.
The file supplied in step 2 is how I mapped it,
for mapping it yourself here is a little table I made to make things easier:

Name in FF8		Emulated Keyboard	Xbox controller
Select			A			A
Menu			B			B
Card Game		X			X
Cancel			Y			Y
Rotation Left		L			LB
Rotation Right		R			RB
Toggle Display		P			Back
Pause			N			Start
			1			LS
Switch POV		2			RS
Escape Battle		1+2			LS+RS

If you have any questions feel free too contact me or leave a reply :)

[Kris]

It is annoying. After starting the game I put a heavy book on the keyboard so that it presses one button down all the time (in my case, the pause button which is next to scroll lock button). For some reason it then shows the actual buttons instead of B1 etc.

[Xaho]

You get shown the name of your current input devices button.

So say you don't have a controller connected it will show x c v g h etc. because those keyboard keys are currently bound to those actions.
If you have a controller connected when starting FF8 it shows the B1-10 names,
if you however then press a key on your keyboard it shows the keyboard version of the B1-10 key which are things like x c v etc.

When using the method above it doesn't register your controller and thus always shows your keyboard bindings which if you change them to a b x y etc. is a lot more readable and won't require you to place heavy objects on your keyboard :).

So you could press the A on your keyboard or the A on your controller which is turned into the A of your keyboard by the Pinnacle Game Profiler.

[Verlyon]

Thank you Xaho I'll try that right away!

[Luftwaffle]

It's really easy on a 360 controller for me since almost nothing ever refers to b5/6/7/8/9/10, it's really only important to know the face buttons which I believe are a=1 b=2 x=3 y=4. Either way, not a massive issue to me for the most part.

[Xaho]

Gunblade trigger isnt a b x or y, same goes for escaping battles, pausing, etc.
I just want to enjoy the game and not have to lookup what every button is if I forgot which button it is bound to.
This makes it so much easier to play.

[Luftwaffle]

The game almost never references those buttons. Ever. Hence the reason it's really only important to know which ones are the face buttons because those are used in everything.

Use Zell's limit, nothing but face buttons and directions. All the various mini game things that they throw at you, all face buttons. Vehicle movement, face buttons. There's like three instances in the game that reference non face buttons. Do you really need the game to tell you which buttons are for escaping or the trigger?

[Verlyon]

Yes. We're not all as 'intelligent' as you. YOU are NOT everybody. End of the discussion.

[Xaho]

Agree with Dr Gravity, some people just like to have a more straight forward and more obvious name for their buttons instead of having to think at every weird name in the tutorial "oh what button was that?..."

This topic is exactly for those people so if you dont feel the same: shoo :D (P.S. happy new year)

[Niceprophet]

for those of you who can do the Pinnacle fix go low tech take a little paper and make a button map

[Xaho]

You should try looking on your button map every time when you are executing Zells limit break, good luck with that.

Should be clear by now that this is a topic for people who DO want to make their life a bit easier with a little bit of work,
if you think you are not part of that group,
you have nothing to do here so you could also just move along :).

[Yeloazndevil]

wow this was actually useful I never would of thought of doing this. I ended up using xpadder since you can set the arrow keys on both the left analog stick and d-pad. I also set the 2 buttons for escaping battle on the triggers. I wonder what to set to the right analog stick