Hapanpappa

A while back on the ID forums I was the one raising a ruckus about Celes and how I felt her role-fantasy as a knight wasn't fulfilled to the extent that I'd hoped.. Shortly after though, esper on-equip bonuses were added and if I'm correct one of them buffs her melee DPS. Has this addressed the aforementioned issue at all? Vig Celes any more.. fulfilling these days?

FF8 being really close to my heart despite its flaws, I find this project to truly be a godsend. Especially after Segachief already sexed up FF7 to such remarkable heights, I can't help but count days until this thing becomes a reality. I'm really curious as to the current gameplan/verdict on some of the more fundamental aspects and mechanics of the game.. Is the current plan, or more profoundly, the starting point and philosophy of the mod more along the lines of: -Attempting to preserve some of the more unique aspects of FF8 and bringing attention&focus on balancing said aspects or.. -Creating whole new systems/taking a merciless axe to the mechanics that made the game "broken" in the first place and then implement something entirely original and/or tried&true in their place? For context, here's some of the more interesting aspects about the systems and how they could contribute to the game, were they working as intended... 1. Junction system (=Giving players freedom to spec the characters&the strategic choice of using spells in favor of the stats they yield and vice versa) 2. Limit Breaks (=The option to go for a high risk, high reward playstyle&the possibility of Limit Breaks happening more often due to crisis system, giving way to challenge runs such as only Limit Breaks) 3. Refinement&Card Mod system (=An alluring option for old school Farmaniacs such as myself, high amounts of one item refines to better ones&the obvious benefits of Triple Triad and card collecting[though none of this should be mandatory, just a bonus/alternative method for those who want to indulge]) 4. Drawing magic (=To risk it and draw high level magic from a hard boss, or not to risk it and draw high level magic from a hard boss? Sadly, this is about as far as this mechanic can go as-is.) 5. GFs... Well, this is one I never much cared for in FF8. How they worked, that is. I suppose them unlocking stuff is neat, but it'd be more strategic if they only unlocked a few stats, for example, so you'd have to think which ones you want junctioned&buffed for each character instead of being able to buff every stat for everyone. Anyways those are some of the things that make FF8 what it is, methinks, and differentiate it from the rest of the series. Personally I hope you've opted for retaining the uniqueness, however unbalanced the systems might've been and simply work to realize those intended goals in a more successful way than the original game.

I thought randomly running into him wasn't a thing anymore? Well, I assumed since there's the shortcut option.. I for one have always loved randomly running into scary freaking enemies in games and getting my ass handed to me. Maybe people just prefer their games predictable and perfectly "fair" like that, without surprises. But indeed, it just boils down do how more superbosses would be awesome to see, one way or another.. Doomgaze and Phunbaba come to mind first as the prime contenders for that.

Cheers for the fast reply. I had totally forgotten about which esper he gave and how essential it was for some characters. I suppose it's unavoidable to keep him relatively weak as long as there's a critical item behind him. I take it it hasn't been a point of consideration to move the esper elsewhere/change other stuff to allow for a harder Doomgaze? I mean, it'd be rad after all, wouldn't it? 1.9 seems to be worth waiting for. It's been on my mind for so long to rerun this thing. How far into the beta are we?

Yo, where can I find the changelogs for past updates? I feel silly for not taking the time to figure it out but I just gotta know, as a stalker of the old forums - I remember this thing about esper on-equip bonuses that caught my eye and I wonder if it actually became a thing at some point? No mention of it in the latest patch, at least.. I first played BNW well over a year ago and I never got around to commenting on some things that bugged me most - while I absolutely LOVED the long boss fights and how challenging they can be (pls don't start nerfing them, I know there has been talk of them having too much HP, which I disagree with) there were 2 enemies in particular that either are actually weaker than in vanilla or I just got really really unlucky (or lucky, depending on how you look at it). Firstly Intangir - was my version bugged or is he not supposed to be way stronger than other enemies at that point in the game? It felt weird when he just died like anyone else. Totally killed that *oh sh1t* feeling that you got in vanilla upon meeting this mega behemoth out of nowhere. I always loved that about FF games, the sense of exploration when you found rare epic monsters hidden in some corner of the world that were hard to take down, but maybe gave something extra nice if you managed to figure out how to beat them. The other being Doomgaze. I was psyched to see how strong he'd be in BNW - he's one of the two enemies hailed as pseudo-superbosses on FFVI wiki, the other being the scrapped Kaiser. I couldn't hold it in my pants when I started looking for him, expecting something along the lines of emerald/ruby/omega weapons from later entries - only to beat him during the second encounter without any difficulty. I must've gotten really unlucky or something, maybe my setup just happened to be super strong against him. I tried to make it harder for myself, too: I had only finished one WoR dungeon prior to Doomgaze, so I was kinda hoping for him to utterly humiliate me. Alas, no. Any plans to buff him up to superboss levels maybe someday? Pretty please? Sorry for the random rant, but it's telling that nothing else comes to mind as I recall the things that I didn't like and wanted to ask about. Truly a magnificent experience playing your mod - keep it real guys!

Oh yes, sweet Mary and Joseph. I was starting to get depressed when I couldn't find these sprite patches anywhere now that the old site is down. I remember the old long thread where they tinkered with Celes' armor sprite for quite some time and finally perfected it - it truly became a thing of beauty. Thanks for recovering these. ps. it's been so long since I fiddled around with sprite patches, I've forgotten if this is the correct one to use with BNW? https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/87/