{"id":5817,"date":"2019-11-14T16:30:34","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T14:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/playlab.uta.fi\/?p=5817"},"modified":"2019-11-14T16:30:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T14:30:34","slug":"one-triple-triad-to-go-please-a-final-fantasy-viii-remastered-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/one-triple-triad-to-go-please-a-final-fantasy-viii-remastered-review\/","title":{"rendered":"One Triple Triad to Go, Please! \u2013 A Final Fantasy VIII Remastered Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Final Fantasy VIII<\/em> Remastered<\/em> is a Japanese role-playing game where a group of young cadets of a mercenary school, led by the main character Squall, are sent on missions all over the globe, leading them to ultimately have the fate of the world in their hands. It\u2019s a game about friendship, politics, magic and time-bending sorceresses. It has a touching story, intricate game mechanics and most of all it has a vast number of items to hoard. The remaster has upgraded all the 3D models and smoothed out the pre-rendered background images, but the best feature of the Switch port is that you can play it anywhere!<\/p>\n

Other improvements include the option to speed up the game by three times, make the characters invincible and block all random encounters. Some games may force players to grind levels and items for them to progress but there\u2019s never any fear of getting stuck in the remastered version. To most grinding is a tedious chore but for me it\u2019s relaxing.<\/p>\n

However, the best feature in the game is the addictive mini game called Triple Triad, which most of the inhabitants of the game world play. A simple card game where the player needs to flip the opponent\u2019s cards to their side with stronger cards. Depending on the applied rules and score the winner may get all the loser\u2019s cards. I think it is the best way to grind in the game! Cards are also are a part of a larger and complex game mechanic: The Guardian Force junction system.<\/p>\n

The GF\u2019s are powerful entities which the player can summon in battle to aid them or use outside of battle in a more passive way. The player can use certain GF-abilities to improve their characters\u2019 stats by junctioning a GF to the character and assigning a magic to the desired stat. Because I want powerful characters, I must get powerful magic, and I want them now.<\/p>\n

\"Guardian<\/a>
A late game GF with a refining ability for powerful magic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Luckily in the very start the player acquires a GF who has two special card related abilities, Card and Card Mod. With the Card-ability, monsters can be turned into their corresponding cards in battle. With Card Mod these cards can be turned into items, which can be further refined to magic with other GF-abilities.<\/p>\n

Early in the game the best way to get cards is to play Triple Triad. Most of the cards can be won early on, even rare ones. This mechanic enables the player to become quite overpowered in the beginning of the game. Later in the game, when one needs to get items reliably, carding enemies proves more fruitful than Triple Triad.<\/p>\n

The new features make grinding so much more cost-effective \u2013 it\u2019s three times faster! I\u2019ve now only spent 20 instead of 60 hours on Triple Triad and carding. The game can be easily finished in about 60 hours playing normally but it is rather the journey than the goal that is important.<\/p>\n

I do recommend playing it at least once without grinding \u2013 it\u2019s a magnificent game!<\/p>\n

Publisher: Square Enix
\nDeveloper: Square Enix, Dotemu, Access Games
\nPlatforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One
\nRelease date: 03.09.2019
\nGenres: Role-playing
\nPEGI: 16<\/p>\n

Screenshot via MobyGames http:\/\/www.mobygames.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FinalFantasyVIIIRemastered offers wonderful tools to better optimize your grinding needs!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":5819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[206,223,245],"class_list":["post-5817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews","tag-digital-games","tag-nintendo","tag-rpg","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}