FFVIII Crystal is a gameplay mod designed to give a new way to play Final Fantasy VIII by making each playable character more distinct, strengthening and redesigning enemies, and adding new content.
Required to apply changes made to data within FF8_EN.exe.
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File credits
Programs Used: Doomtrain by alexfilth, Maki, and JWP Deling by myst6re Ifrit by Gjoerulv Ifrit AI beta by JWP Cactilio by JeMaCheHi Quezacotl by JWP Rinoa's Toolset by Maki MnGrpEditor by Nightshade JunkShop by alexfilth Roses and Wine/Hext Tools by DLPB
Many thanks to everyone involved in creating these tools.
Thanks to Sega Chief for showing me how to fix enemy data files; to JWP for many of the exe edits used in this mod and for sharing them publically; to Callisto for locating and sharing the SeeD salary values; to Colly for the mngrp.bin Thingy tables; and a huge thanks to UpRisen, goodmorninpluto, Nikkolas, and Dorklord for feedback and bug-finding.
Lastly, a huge thanks to everyone in the FFVIII modding community. I couldn't have made this without you and your efforts.
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Made certain enemies immune to Stop and/or Sleep in order to prevent them from interfering with enemies' death AI. In some cases, enemies were given lowered resistances to other status effects to compensate.
Removed Stop effect from GIM52A's Snipe Laser.
Irvine's [Gun] Parts items now describe the guns' properties.
Version 1.5.8
Slightly increased the effect of Darkness, Silence, Slow, and Defend on Crisis Level.
Slightly increased all standard GFs' HP.
Fixed an issue in which the gain from Str+25% was set to +20% instead of +25%.
Increased power of Lv?Curse at all Crisis Levels and changed the divisor at Crisis Level 1 from 4 to 3.
White Wind now functions as standard curative magic when determining the amount of HP healed.
***Crisis Level 1: Slightly stronger than Pray and slightly weaker than Cure.
***Crisis Level 2: Slightly weaker than Cura.
***Crisis Level 3: Slightly weaker than Curaga.
***Crisis Level 4: Stronger than Curaga.
Slightly increased Quistis' STR in the early game and the STR and/or base power of some of her weapons.
Added Slow to Aurabolt's list of status effects and increased the chance of inflicting an effect.
Increased Tonberry (summon)'s power.
Increased the following enemies' chance to drop an item: Bomb, Hexadragon, Blood Soul, Armadodo, Wendigo, Death Claw, Grand Mantis, Adamantoise, Vysage, Tonberry, Funguar, Eliminator, X-ATM092.
Increased the chance of successfully Mugging the following enemies: Adamantoise, Mobile Type 8
Changed high-level Bombs' most common drop to Bomb Spirit.
X-ATM092 will now drop a Megalixir at low levels.
Lowered Mesmerize's STR at high levels slightly.
Lowered Grand Mantis' HP and increased weakness to Thunder to 200%.
Changed Righty's Mug/Drops at high levels.
Fixed an issue in which a Confused Adamantoise would cast Haste and Reflect on itself instead of a player character.
Mid-level Adamantoises are more likely to yield Whisper than before; it now occupies the third Mug slot and the second Drop slot.
Made Adamantoises more likely to appear on the beach on Winter Island.
***Mid-level Admantoises can be found on the beach on Winter Island as well as the isolated beach in the southeastern part of Centra.
Fixed a crash that would occur in the NORG fight when Right Orb attempted to dispel Aura.
Changed Seifer (3)'s extra attack while under Aura status to a regular attack instead of a crit.
Changed Seifer (4)'s first two Mug slots to Holy Water x10 and Remedy x5; the last two slots contain Megalixirs as before.
Lowered Seifer (4)'s Slow and Confusion resistance.
Lowered Omega Weapon's max HP from 256,000 to 224,000.
Lowered Red Giant's Poison and Zombie resistance.
Lowered Tiamat's Slow resistance.
Increased number of Chef's Knives that can be Mugged and Dropped from Tonberry.
Added a note about Irvine's weapons when he joins the party; also, one of each [Weapon] Parts item is added to your inventory when he joins.
Added a message displaying how much the player has donated to the Trabia Garden fund to make the sidequest's objective clearer.
Changed NPC dialogue in Shumi Village to hint at stronger monsters being found on the western side of Winter Island.
Changed NPC dialogue in Esthar to hint at stronger monsters being in high, Ragnarok-only locations on the world map.
Changed NPC dialogue in the Presidential Palace post-Lunar Cry to hint at stronger monsters being found at Tears' Point (post Lunar Cry, pre-Disc 4 only).
Version 1.5.7
Reduced the number of fixed encounters when using Zell to open the door to Deep Sea Deposit.
Included more chances to encounter Adamantoises in the Deep Sea Deposit.
Version 1.5.6
Fixed an issue in which Flare would damage Edea(3) when cast on herself under Reflect status.
Placed the mod's lang-en folder inside of a Data folder for easier installation.
Version 1.5.5
Removed Mobile Type 8 battle from Zell's stint as party leader on Disc 3.
Fixed a crash that occurred when starting the last Laguna dream.
Version 1.5.4
Changed the Elastoid in the final battle of the second Laguna dream to an Eliminator, preventing a crash that would sometimes occur when killing the Elastoid.
Version 1.5.3
Fixed an issue in which using a Scan Stone on Seifer would cause a softlock.
Version 1.5.2
Fixed a crash that could occur when fighting "Sorceress" (1) under certain conditions.
Version 1.5.1
- Early Strength growth of Squall, Quistis, Zell, and Rinoa increased.
- Rinoa's Luck increased.
- Increased Crit Bonus of all of Rinoa's weapons except Shooting Star.
- Darkside's AP cost decreased from 100 to 80.
- Changed the required crafting materials for various weapons, also fixing an oversight in which Zell's second weapon wasn't able to be made until later than intended.
- Added weapon upgrade requirements to the included info document.
FFVIII Crystal is a gameplay mod designed to give a new way to play Final Fantasy VIII by making each playable character more distinct, strengthening and redesigning enemies, and adding new content.
Junctioning has been de-emphasized in favor of more meaningful stat gains from leveling and each character is assigned a GF with abilities tailored to them (more details on this can be found in the included info document). New enemies have been added and existing ones have been reworked with new abilities and gimmicks. New sidequests have been added and existing ones are more meaningful, sometimes rewarding items that teach abilities that can't be found anywhere else. The mod's difficulty level is intended to make fights challenging and engaging without being too harsh.
The 2013-Steam and Remastered versions are 99% the same, though the Remastered versions have some differences in the strength and function of some abilities.
(Some screenshots include graphical mods made by MCINDUS and Fated Courage and are not included with FFVIII Crystal.)
