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Which platform are you playing the Remaster on?

  • Switch

    Votes: 540 43.0%
  • PS4

    Votes: 461 36.7%
  • Steam

    Votes: 200 15.9%
  • Xbox One

    Votes: 55 4.4%

  • Total voters
    1,256

BrucCLea13k87

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,945
I'm in love with this game. I've juncitioned curaga to all my party members and their HP is bananas for this early in the game. (I'm in Timber) It's so fun how this game is so hackable, it just went all over my head. The writing is punchy and fun...sure, Squall's a huge dick but I'm trying to be less of an ass with my dialogue choices. I know he'll grow. I think the game looks really good, the models are smooth and the animations really hold up. Plus 3X is a godsend for battles and running around areas like Balamb garden.


Edit: Holy fuck I just realized I bought this game when I was 12...and now I'm 32. Where does the time go?!
 

Whittaker

Member
Jun 21, 2018
806
RE: The Forest Owls Contract

Teen Whittaker: "Well of course we have to liberate Timber!"
Old Whittaker: "I, too, know the acute pain of finding out you've been fucked over by your boss over-promising to a client…"


I kind of love hearing stuff like this.

If she really gets into the game you need to update the thread on her reaction to other big scenes lol

Will do! She's already yelling at Zone every time he gets stomach cramps. When she first saw him, she took in his blue zipped up collared cardigan and half pants and remarked, acidly, "He looks like he's running late to his first college freshman math class."
 
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Wazzy

Wazzy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,070
Heads up(I'm going to check other peoples playthroughs) but it looks like The Landing bug is unavoidable in the
Battle of Gardens

The song doesn't play long and will fix when The Oath plays but really weird that this only seems to affect The Landing. That poor song has been through enough already SE.

; ;

Will do! She's already yelling at Zone every time he gets stomach cramps. When she first saw him, she took in his blue zipped up collared cardigan and half pants and remarked, acidly, "He looks like he's running late to his first college freshman math class."
LMAO that is so accurate.
Finally started playing! The models (except Squall) look great! 3x speed up is a god send! Really makes grinding a breeze, although nothing will make 20 Elnoyle easy.

Would've got a perfect SeeD exam score except I forgot to kill 75 enemies :(
I didn't even bother with perfect other than avoiding X-ATM because I'm going to try for a perfect run on my second playthrough. xD
 

Meows

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,399


"In our initial plan, we were going to keep the graphics as-is for the most part, and simply release it for the modern hardware," he says. "But it's been 20 years since the release of the original game, and televisions have evolved from CRTs to SDTVs and onto LCD high-definition TVs, so we decided that we needed to update the quality of the character renders. So even though development was very close to mastering the build, we had to pivot at the last minute and started work on refining the characters." He adds that a number of key members from the original team worked on this, including character modeler Tomohiro Kayano, designer Tetsuya Nomura, and Hiroshi Harata, who was a battle programmer on the 1999 release but served as game director on the remaster. "It was challenging," he says of the rebooted development process. "But in the end, we feel it was a good decision."

Interesting. It sounds like making the high quality character/boss/field models was a last minute decision.

On Final Fantasy VIII gameplay being controversial and appreciation for how fans have shifted in the years since:
"The gameplay elements of Final Fantasy VIII that we were unable to convey properly at the time have started to become more understood through fans interacting with each other online," he explains. "I feel that this may have led to more people reevaluating and appreciating the title." And given how different the game was from past entries in the series, that initial controversy wasn't entirely unexpected. "During the development, we did anticipate there being mixed reactions," he says. "But we are satisfied with what we accomplished, especially since we took on the challenge."
 

Phantom

Writer at Jeux.ca
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,446
Canada
Had never played this entry before and I kind of hate it. Junction system is confusing, same for Triads. No equipment (apart from one weapon) sucks. Story is a mess. Drawing from monsters is not fun. Only redeeming factor is the music. A bottom tier FF to me with the likes of FFX13 and FF15.
 
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Wazzy

Wazzy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,070
Had never played this entry before and I kind of hate it. Junction system is confusing, same for Triads. No equipment (apart from one weapon) sucks. Story is a mess. Drawing from monsters is not fun. Only redeeming factor is the music. A bottom tier FF to me with the likes of FFX13 and FF15.
Probably won't change your mind but where are you in the game and what specifically are you struggling with on Junction and Triple Triad?




Interesting. It sounds like making the high quality character/boss/field models was a last minute decision.

On Final Fantasy VIII gameplay being controversial and appreciation for how fans have shifted in the years since:
Wait did they just translate that interview today or is it a repeat with new information?

I think Silliconera had already done it but I would have to look for the original article lol

 

Cerulean_skylark

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account.
Banned
Oct 31, 2017
6,408
Had never played this entry before and I kind of hate it. Junction system is confusing, same for Triads. No equipment (apart from one weapon) sucks. Story is a mess. Drawing from monsters is not fun. Only redeeming factor is the music. A bottom tier FF to me with the likes of FFX13 and FF15.

Junction system is really just -> put magic on your stats to buff yourself. certain magic is better for certain stats and more magic = bigger boost.
The weapon system is a shame.
Cards are more fundamental than it may seem, and should be communicated better to the player. It's possible to get end-game weapons and magics with good cards very early.

I actually think Junctioning and cards is it's strongest feature since i appreciated how broken early jrpgs could get. But that's me. But what REALLY sucks about Triple Triad is that you HAVE to save-scum since there are some game-breaking rules you can accidentally pass around that make it basically impossible to win.
 

Meows

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,399
Probably won't change your mind but where are you in the game and what specifically are you struggling with on Junction and Triple Triad?

Wait did they just translate that interview today or is it a repeat with new information?

I think Silliconera had already done it but I would have to look for the original article lol

Oh, I never even saw your thread lol, I thought that this was from that new Famitsu article from this week but it seems to cover the same points?
 

fourfourfun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,678
England
I didn't use the junction system the way the game anticipated. From the tutorial, it implies that it wants you to give a GF to a character and leave it there, building up a relationship. That's not the approach I took. Instead, every party change, I took them all off and put them on again, with the aim of unlocking as many junction slots per character as possible. Ideally with all of them at least having a Str-J available so I could smack the opponents into oblivion as a base option.
 

fourfourfun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,678
England
Had never played this entry before and I kind of hate it. Junction system is confusing, same for Triads. No equipment (apart from one weapon) sucks. Story is a mess. Drawing from monsters is not fun. Only redeeming factor is the music. A bottom tier FF to me with the likes of FFX13 and FF15.

I agree with these points, but accept them as part of the game. Drawing is a grind, but I always just bite the bullet and do it once. Certain characters draw better than others, so I get them harvesting while the others fight, then I distribute afterwards. Once I hit 100, everything is great. This time round, I'm going to see if I can take advantage of Card Mod a bit more.

The weapon thing took a while for me to reconcile, but I accepted it as the way the world worked. As I generally do with every FF I come to. New FF, new rules.
 

Phantom

Writer at Jeux.ca
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,446
Canada
Junction system is really just -> put magic on your stats to buff yourself. certain magic is better for certain stats and more magic = bigger boost.
The weapon system is a shame.
Cards are more fundamental than it may seem, and should be communicated better to the player. It's possible to get end-game weapons and magics with good cards very early.

I actually think Junctioning and cards is it's strongest feature since i appreciated how broken early jrpgs could get. But that's me. But what REALLY sucks about Triple Triad is that you HAVE to save-scum since there are some game-breaking rules you can accidentally pass around that make it basically impossible to win.
I lost a game against Queen and she stole all my cards. That is just dumb. I don't have time nor motivation to save/load.

I'm still on Disc 1 and it feels like a chore. Even getting something as simple as a card using the command is annoying because it misses all the time.

I also hate how you can spam GFs, really make them feel not special. Then you weep unless you turn on 3x speed.
 

Whittaker

Member
Jun 21, 2018
806
Drawing from monsters is not fun.
I agree with these points, but accept them as part of the game. Drawing is a grind, but I always just bite the bullet and do it once. Certain characters draw better than others, so I get them harvesting while the others fight, then I distribute afterwards. Once I hit 100, everything is great.

Honestly, I've said it elsewhere in the thread but in Config set your cursor to 'Memory', start a battle, choose the spells you want to draw from the enemy on the first turn, turn on 3X speed and at that point onward hold down the confirm button and, like, check the internet on your phone for 90 seconds and you'll be done.
 

Orion

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
6,766
Zell: Yo Squall! We ever gonna go on this mission or...?
Squall: .....not until your mom coughs up your card.
 
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Wazzy

Wazzy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,070
I lost a game against Queen and she stole all my cards. That is just dumb. I don't have time nor motivation to save/load.
I'm curious about your card setup. Do you already have Zell, Quistis, Minimog and Ifrit? They should steamroll any early matches and are quite easy to get in the order of Ifrit-->Minimog-->Zell--->Quistis

I also think if you don't have patience for the Queen of Cards quest then you should just skip it. You can still acquire all cards at the end of the game.


I'm still on Disc 1 and it feels like a chore. Even getting something as simple as a card using the command is annoying because it misses all the time.
It misses because there is requirements to get an easy card. You need to lower the enemies HP for the success rate to go up.

I also hate how you can spam GFs, really make them feel not special. Then you weep unless you turn on 3x speed.
Now this is a personal issue so if you feel that way not really anything I can say about it. GF are tied directly to stat and ability progression so they are more important than just being damage output.
 

Meows

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,399
I always draw the basic magic on Balamb and Dollet to 100, use Quetzalcoatl's Mid-Magic to make those all mid-level magic, then start refining items via different abilities. If I come across a rare spell early on, like Zombie, I'll try to draw as much of that as I can but otherwise, I stop the mass-drawing after Timber. If you want to cheaply have insane health, buy a bunch of Tents from a shop and refine them into Curagas via Siren's L Magic-RF.
 

ZeroX

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
21,266
Speed Force
Haha aww Phantom is making all the newbie mistakes

You really don't need to draw, even early game it's more of a convenience thing

Just focus on getting those refine abilities ASAP
 

stan_marsh

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,688
Canada
Had never played this entry before and I kind of hate it. Junction system is confusing, same for Triads. No equipment (apart from one weapon) sucks. Story is a mess. Drawing from monsters is not fun. Only redeeming factor is the music. A bottom tier FF to me with the likes of FFX13 and FF15.

So much garbage in this post. FF8, FF13, and FF15 are all great.
 

Meows

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,399
While I was playing yesterday, I made the mistake of grinding to level 25 while trying to max out my attack score for the SeeD exam on Dollet and, omg, I got the most wipes from Diablos that I've ever gotten before. No one had learned HP-J yet, so Diablos was just wrecking me with these devastating physical attacks while Selphie was desperately mixing between Full-Cure and Demi. First time I've had a real challenge in awhile with this game lol.

But of course, that will probably all go away now that I have HP-J.
 
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Wazzy

Wazzy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,070
While I was playing yesterday, I made the mistake of grinding to level 25 while trying to max out my attack score for the SeeD exam on Dollet and, omg, I got the most wipes from Diablos that I've ever gotten before. No one had learned HP-J yet, so Diablos was just wrecking me with these devastating physical attacks while Selphie was desperately mixing between Full-Cure and Demi. First time I've had a real challenge in awhile with this game lol.

But of course, that will probably all go away now that I have HP-J.
Cast blind on him so he can't hit you :D
 

Dragon1893

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,446
I lost a game against Queen and she stole all my cards. That is just dumb. I don't have time nor motivation to save/load.

I'm still on Disc 1 and it feels like a chore. Even getting something as simple as a card using the command is annoying because it misses all the time.

I also hate how you can spam GFs, really make them feel not special. Then you weep unless you turn on 3x speed.

At least you have the option of 3x speed. Imagine playing it when it was released (and in my case it was the PAL version which was even slower). The longest summon in the game was almost 2 minutes.
 

Orion

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
6,766
While I was playing yesterday, I made the mistake of grinding to level 25 while trying to max out my attack score for the SeeD exam on Dollet and, omg, I got the most wipes from Diablos that I've ever gotten before. No one had learned HP-J yet, so Diablos was just wrecking me with these devastating physical attacks while Selphie was desperately mixing between Full-Cure and Demi. First time I've had a real challenge in awhile with this game lol.

But of course, that will probably all go away now that I have HP-J.

Yeah I've already got Squall at 25 too and I haven't even left for Timber.

I was feeling pretty confident that my childhood self had imagined certain battles being difficult until I had my first T-Rexaur fight and suddenly felt 12 again. You can get fucked up quick if you aren't ready to spam Shiva.

Fortunately I only lost to Diablos once lol.
 

Inugami

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,995
Had never played this entry before and I kind of hate it. Junction system is confusing, same for Triads. No equipment (apart from one weapon) sucks. Story is a mess. Drawing from monsters is not fun. Only redeeming factor is the music. A bottom tier FF to me with the likes of FFX13 and FF15.
Don't draw from monsters, in fact take draw command off of two of your characters. You need it on one for drawing GFs from bosses, but otherwise use GF refine ability to make magic from items.

You don't need to grind every single magic spell from monsters, it's very very unnecessary.
 

Meows

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,399
Yeah I've already got Squall at 25 too and I haven't even left for Timber.

I was feeling pretty confident that my childhood self had imagined certain battles being difficult until I had my first T-Rexaur fight and suddenly felt 12 again. You can get fucked up quick if you aren't ready to spam Shiva.

Fortunately I only lost to Diablos once lol.
I was grinding T-Rexaur for Lion Heart before I fought Diablos and got wiped a couple of times, again, the lack of HP-J is absolutely killer (and I'm sure half-playing on 3x while browsing my phone didn't help either). Especially if you get back attacked and then he gets to attack once. I worked my way around it by junctioning 100 sleeps to Squall's attack and kept rotating my attacks so he'd sleep while Selphie tried to Card him.
 

Nestunt

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,300
Porto, Portugal
Now this is a personal issue so if you feel that way not really anything I can say about it. GF are tied directly to stat and ability progression so they are more important than just being damage output.

And they are neatly tied to the narrative, and revelations about the characters' story and the world's rules. When that connection between gameplay and narrative hit me as a kid I was converted to videogames :P
 

Deleted member 419

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,009
It's absolutely incredible how far they lean into tying GF to the narrative through gameplay elements. Even the level-scaling builds on that, enemies scale with your level but not with your junctions, so the only way to get ahead is to increasingly rely on your junctions more and more to make up the difference between enemy stat gains and your own meager natural stat gains. You develop a dependence on them more and more which all ties back into their role in the narrative. The game has so many facets like that and is just brilliant in that way.
While I was playing yesterday, I made the mistake of grinding to level 25 while trying to max out my attack score for the SeeD exam on Dollet and, omg, I got the most wipes from Diablos that I've ever gotten before. No one had learned HP-J yet, so Diablos was just wrecking me with these devastating physical attacks while Selphie was desperately mixing between Full-Cure and Demi. First time I've had a real challenge in awhile with this game lol.

But of course, that will probably all go away now that I have HP-J.
Damn if you had grinded up another 5 levels before fighting Diablos you would've been able to draw Flare and Holy from him, of course he also would've been even harder though so I suppose it's a moot point haha.
 

asmith906

Member
Oct 27, 2017
27,355
Found my old Strategy Guide I bought from Toys R Us around the original game release.
I saved up my allowance for weeks to be able to buy this and Ninja Shadow of Darkness.

FDs9OqJ.jpg

ctwQYro.jpg
 
Oct 27, 2017
8,639
So I'm kind of confused how to even start interacting with the Queen of Cards. Do I pay her? Play against her? I don't want to screw anything up.
 

Asian Oni

Member
Oct 27, 2017
276
Urgh, in my haste, I forgot to:
steal Alexander, so that means no Med+, no Doomtrain until disc4... :(
I realized that way too late and no second save backup. Thank god its card is not obtained that way.
 

Deleted member 419

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,009
Found my old Strategy Guide I bought from Toys R Us around the original game release.
I saved up my allowance for weeks to be able to buy this and Ninja Shadow of Darkness.

FDs9OqJ.jpg

ctwQYro.jpg
Nice! Love this guide, so much color and art. In terms of content I think I prefer the UK Piggyback guide but this Bradygames one has my favorite presentation.
So I'm kind of confused how to even start interacting with the Queen of Cards. Do I pay her? Play against her? I don't want to screw anything up.
It's been a while since I did this sidequest, but my understanding is that the only thing that advances her quest is losing specific cards to her. So I guess the short answer is yea you just have to play her. I don't know the specific cards to lose off the top of my head but here's a list/guide.

It's pretty unintuitive so I've only done the sidequest once, but having at least one super obtuse sidequest is sort of an FF tradition I suppose.
 
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Cerulean_skylark

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account.
Banned
Oct 31, 2017
6,408
I lost a game against Queen and she stole all my cards. That is just dumb. I don't have time nor motivation to save/load.

I'm still on Disc 1 and it feels like a chore. Even getting something as simple as a card using the command is annoying because it misses all the time.

I also hate how you can spam GFs, really make them feel not special. Then you weep unless you turn on 3x speed.

Yeah. The shortened summon animation option in FFIX was a direct response to the lengthy summon animations in VIII.

The thing about FFVIII is that every system is really integrated to the point where if you don't like one, the whole thing falls apart. Cards are integral to really exploiting magic and items, GFs are integral to getting and using cards and magic, magic is integral to stats which help get you more cards etc. I personally liked it because i like triple triad.

It should be noted that other than Junctioning, you can just ignore cards and GF summons altogether. They're not necessary to win. Turn on 3x speed, draw all your magic, junction it and you can beat the game. When i was a kid, i didn't even upgrade weapons my first playthrough/
 
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KalBalboa

Member
Oct 30, 2017
7,927
Massachusetts
What's Square's track record with patches/updates for remasters like this?

I'm this close to buying, but I already have the PS1 classic version on my PS3 and Vita, and there are just a few too many wrinkles I wish they had ironed out for this release.
 

BrandoBoySP

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,176
What's Square's track record with patches/updates for remasters like this?

I'm this close to buying, but I already have the PS1 classic version on my PS3 and Vita, and there are just a few too many wrinkles I wish they had ironed out for this release.

Takes a while, but could definitely happen. The music bug, at least; they're probably not going to change the backgrounds or textures.
 

KalBalboa

Member
Oct 30, 2017
7,927
Massachusetts
Takes a while, but could definitely happen. The music bug, at least; they're probably not going to change the backgrounds or textures.

Rumble was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, personally. Some of the analog complaints caused pause for me, too. Considering I'm currently playing FFVII for the first time on my PS3/Vita combo and it only cost me $4 on a PSN sale this summer, I'm probably going to wait for FFVIII to hit $15.

The backgrounds and textures were a bit of a bummer, considering how relatively simple an update they would have been, but for $20 I wasn't too upset.
 

Slaythe

The Wise Ones
Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,828
Rumble was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, personally. Some of the analog complaints caused pause for me, too. Considering I'm currently playing FFVII for the first time on my PS3/Vita combo and it only cost me $4 on a PSN sale this summer, I'm probably going to wait for FFVIII to hit $15.

The backgrounds and textures were a bit of a bummer, considering how relatively simple an update they would have been, but for $20 I wasn't too upset.


Buy it on Steam and use reshade, with a combination of advanced CRT, levels, advanced sharpen, and magicbloom filters, the game will look really solid.
The world map and battles should be improved greatly once the game can be modded.

Analog and Rumble can not be patched it, it was erased from the code of the version they used as the base for this.
 

Whittaker

Member
Jun 21, 2018
806
Analog and Rumble can not be patched it, it was erased from the code of the version they used as the base for this.

Unfortunately I think you're probably right on this.

Playing more of the game, I think one of the reasons controlling with the stick feels so bad is it's literally treated exactly the same as the d-pad. Some field screens have down and up going at skewed directions to fit with the geometry of the scene. In the PS1 original, the DPad would occasionally mean movement in a tilted direction but the analogue stick was always absolute directions.

So playing this port, the character is sometimes misaligned to where the stick is pointing.
 

Fisty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,207
I love the little things in this game. Stuff like there being a hidden Curaga draw point in the room where Raine nurses Laguna back to health is so great.
 
Oct 27, 2017
8,639
Nice! Love this guide, so much color and art. In terms of content I think I prefer the UK Piggyback guide but this Bradygames one has my favorite presentation.

It's been a while since I did this sidequest, but my understanding is that the only thing that advances her quest is losing specific cards to her. So I guess the short answer is yea you just have to play her. I don't know the specific cards to lose off the top of my head but here's a list/guide.

It's pretty unintuitive so I've only done the sidequest once, but having at least one super obtuse sidequest is sort of an FF tradition I suppose.
Thanks, but isn't she needed to keep the card rules at a basic/default level? I've read of people trying to send her to new areas to spread the rules but don't quite understand. If I knew the first step, I'd be more inclined to leave for the ball lol. Maybe that guide has the answer.

Edit: Ok, I think I get it. The idea is to send her to a closer town with rules that are easier to abolish and work back and forth between those towns?
 
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Deleted member 1102

Account closed at user request
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,295
Just spent the last two hours trying to beat that fucking asshole in the D-District Prison trying to get the Rosetta Stone, didn't even get it. Fuck man, why make it basically impossible to get smh
 

IDreamOfHime

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,420
Digital Foundry ran a lawnmower over this port, I can't believe they repeated all the same mistakes as previous ports in the series and hoped the shiny character models would distract from them.
16fps menus in battles when the PS1 was 60? How was such a thing allowed?
 

Meows

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,399



+ Beautiful remade character models, summons, and monsters
+ Boosters
+ Higher quality FMVs
+ Higher quality music

- No rumble
- No analog controls
- Backgrounds and world map not given same attention to detail as characters

+/- Runs identical to the original PC release (battles are both 15 fps; PC version battle menu is capped to this as well, unlike the PS1 version which is at 60fps)
 

Deleted member 426

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,273
Digital Foundry ran a lawnmower over this port, I can't believe they repeated all the same mistakes as previous ports in the series and hoped the shiny character models would distract from them.
16fps menus in battles when the PS1 was 60? How was such a thing allowed?
Because the PS1 source code is lost, so all they had was the PC version to work off.
 
Apr 19, 2018
6,806
16fps menus in battles when the PS1 was 60? How was such a thing allowed?

This was my biggest fear. I was able to forgive most of the shortcomings with the FFIX port (and I suspect I'll be able to do the same with VIII), but the sticky, laggy input delay was such a nuisance.

I really missed that instantaneous snappy feel of the 60fps menus from the PSOne original.
 
Oct 25, 2017
5,876
Las Vegas
I've always hated how Squall's limit break just murders everyone elses. I know Selphie has a one hit kill limit break that's super rare and random to get, but beyond that - in terms of quality limit breaks, I think Squall, Irvine and Zell are the best?

Which sucks because I always use those three characters when I played this game (I think twice before).

I also hate how fucking long it takes Rinoa to hit something.
 
Oct 25, 2017
5,876
Las Vegas
This was my biggest fear. I was able to forgive most of the shortcomings with the FFIX port (and I suspect I'll be able to do the same with VIII), but the sticky, laggy input delay was such a nuisance.

I really missed that instantaneous snappy feel of the 60fps menus from the PSOne original.

Yup. It's why I'm playing on WAIT ATB. I can't cycle through the battle menu's with confidence because of it being at 16 fps.