2013-STEAM ↔ REMASTERED PARITY

• The following changes are already present in the 2013-Steam version, but are newly added to the FF8 Remastered version:

• The cap for Drawing spells has increased from 9 to 15.
• Reduced SeeD salary payouts. (Both versions now reduce payments by a flat 20% except in the case of some of the low ranks in the 2013-Steam version.)
• Lowered Darkside's damage multiplier from 3x to 2x.
• Made the MiniMog command usable at all times; Chocoboy now sells Mog's Amulets for 20,000 gil each.
• Cover no longer mitigates the damage taken by the defender.
• Return Damage now inflicts damage equal to 1/2 of the damage taken.

CHARACTERS

• Altered Rinoa's stat growth: she now has the highest Magic stat but lower defenses than before.
• Altered Selphie's stat growth to give her the second-highest Magic stat and higher defenses.
• Significantly increased Irvine's Luck at low levels; increased his natural Luck cap as well.
• Made various other stat growth changes.

GFs

• Reintroduced all missing GFs to the mod.
• GF acquisition works largely the same as in vanilla FF8 except for Diablos, Alexander, and Doomtrain.
• Reintroduced all of the missing SumMag+X% abilities as well as GFHP+10%.
• Made many changes to GF HP, power, and ability lists.

ITEMS/SHOPS

• Added a weak Confusion effect to Noiseblaster and a weak Darkness effect to Sunbeam.
• Added a Confusion removal effect to Soft.
• Changed Holy Water's description to include Doom removal.
• Removed Valiant Parts, Ulysses Parts, Bismarck Parts, and Exeter Parts.
• Added G-Potions, G-Hi-Potions, and Cottages to some shops.
  
• Made GF Scrolls available from Deling City's shop.
•  Added refinement items to Winhill Shop.
  
• Rearranged Esthar shop inventories.
• Made Johnny's Shop in Esthar less likely to display the "Closed" message.
• Mist Ring now teaches SumMag+25%.
• Renamed Seraphicaller to Evoker's Horn and Evoker's Horn to Nirvana.
• Changed Gysahl Greens attacks to deal fixed damage and increased the item's price from 600 gil to 1000.
• Renamed Combat King 004 and Combat King 005 to 001 and 002, respectively, to avoid confusion.
  • Issues of Pet Pals remain unchanged because I would still like to add Angelo Search back into the mod at some point.

WEAPONS

• Irvine's guns now upgrade in a linear fashion like the other characters'. His weapons' Strength/attack power are overall a bit lower than other characters', but have a much higher critical hit bonus.
• Removed the [Gun] Parts items.
• Made Selphie's weapons deal physical damage.
• Made various adjustments to weapon stats.

MAGIC/JUNCTIONS

• The elemental defense of two- and three-stage elemental spells is now fixed at 30% each.
• Increased the status affliction power of most ST-Atk-J-eligible spells to 60%.
• Increased the following spells' refinement yields from 5 to 10: Dia, Water, Aero, Bio, Break, Drain, Slow.
• Switched Crystal Eye --> Apocalypse refinement from BLK-RF 3 to ForbidMag-RF.
• Thunder refinement item changed to M-Stone Piece; refinement ratio changed to 1:20 since M-Stone Piece is also used for Cure.
• Increased Waterga's power from 54 to 60.
• Increased the status affliction power of Pain from 160 to 168.
• Esuna now gives resistance to every status ailment when Junctioned to ST-Def-J.
• Renamed the stronger versions of Aero, Holy, and Flare used by some enemies to Aeroga, Holyga, and Flarega, respectively.

ABILITIES

• Increased status affliction power of Shock from 168 to 180.
• Lowered Crisis Level effect of Defend from 50 to 40.
• Increased Pray's power from 10 to 12.
• Restored Kamikaze's original animation/targeting scope and increased its attack power.
• Slightly increased Nightsword's power; increased the amount of HP it drains.
• Increased power of Aurabolt to match that of Nightsword.
• Added Petrify, Gradual Petrify, and Vit 0 to the list of effects Chakra can heal; increased HP healing amount from 5/16 to 3/8.
• With the exception of HP, tier 2 [Stat]+X% abilities now increase their respective stat by 30%.

LIMIT BREAKS

• Increased the power of White Wind at Crisis Levels 1-3.
• Modified Selphie's Slot spells to include more healing/supportive magic; made adjustments to the Slot array.
• Renamed Percent to Hurricane, increased the damage it deals from 1/2 current HP to 3/4, made it capable of breaking the damage limit, and changed its animation to that of Tornado.
• Made various adjustments to the base power and critical hit bonus of Irvine's Shot attacks.
• Decreased the power of most of Zell's Duel attacks; made the Duel timer scale with Crisis Level.

ENEMIES

• Overhauled the following enemies/battles:
  • Sacred & Minotaur
  • Iguions
  • Edea (1)
  • Oilboyles
  • Fujin & Raijin (1)
  • Cerberus
  • Edea (2)
  • Diablos
  • Propagators (all)
  • Behemoth (Aberrant)
  • Fujin & Raijin (2)
  • Ultimecia (1)
  • Griever

• Mobile Type 8: Reintroduced the fight with it when controlling Zell on Disc 3 and gave it unique AI for this fight.
• Ruby Dragon (Laguna dream): Added unique behavior to the Ruby Dragon fought by Laguna in the fourth dream sequence.

• Other enemy adjustments:

• Updated some enemies' Scan info to provide tips and/or clarify mechanics.
• Reduced the elemental resistances of many enemies to no more than 30%. Exceptions still exist, such as flying enemies being immune to Earth and mechanical enemies being immune to Poison, and strong enemies/bosses.
• Reduced the elemental weaknesses of many enemies, particularly those encountered in the first third or so of the game, to lessen the gap between physical and magical damage.
• Increased some enemies' HP and/or defensive stats.
• Seifer (2): Fixed an error in Seifer (2)'s AI that prevented him from using Demon Slice more than once or twice; adjusted the way in which Poison is inflicted when Seifer uses Demon Slice; poison infliction now ignores Poison immunity.
• Abyss Worm (Aberrant): Made immune to Vit 0 and percentage-based damage (the latter applies to the normal Abyss Worm as well); now uses Remedy to heal status effects instead of Esuna to prevent interference from its magic-immune status during the fight (this applies to the normal Abyss Worm as well).
• G-Soldier: Fixed an issue in which the visual indicator that high-level G-Soldiers had gained Double status at the beginning of a battle failed to display.
• Wendigo: Added Dispel to its Draw list at all level ranges.
• Odin: Fixed an issue in which Odin would sometimes fail to use Zantetsuken when the timer hit 0.
• Iron Giant: Restored Sleep susceptibility.
• Bahamut: Made immune to Sleep.
• Red Giant: Removed Auto-Reflect status; increased the number of spells and abilities that won't trigger a "That's useless!" message.
• Tonberry King: Further reduced the number of Tonberry kills needed for it to appear from 12 to 5.
• PuPu: The fight works basically the same as in previous versions, but each PuPu now counters and punishes with Light Pillar instead of an assortment of abilities. The fight should also be less janky now.
• Tiamat: Made susceptible to percentage-based damage.
• Geezard (Aberrant): Added messages to make the fight's progression and intended strategy easier to understand.

AREAS

• The player can no longer escape from battles during the sequence in which Zell's party attempts to board the Lunatic Pandora.
  • Instead of a Megalixir, the player can now collect a Nirvana during this sequence that is located in a different place than before.
• The timer in the Missile Base is now fixed at 15 minutes, and the door leading from the command room to the entrance is always sealed.

MISCELLANEOUS

• The Information section of the menu now contains Crystal-specific game info.
• The included info document "FF8C Game Data" now contains enemy Mug/drop/Draw information.
• The player will now receive SeeD rank points for completing sidequests as well as each Disc.
• Updated the Trabia Garden Fund sidequest to show the total amount needed to get all of the rewards.
• Edea can now be switched out of the party when choosing who will go to Esthar with Zell after Lunar Base. (She still defaults to being in the party during selection, but can be replaced with another character.)
• (2013-Steam) Fixed an issue in which unrelated dialogue would appear when the player didn't have enough money to buy Mog's Amulet in Chocobo Forest: Forest of Solitude.
• Fixed camera angle in Trauma/Droma fight.
• Restored the scrolling message present near Timber's outdoor TV that was removed from the international versions of the game.
• Made minor alterations to certain scenes to account for the lack of tutorials and other changes.
• Changed the second Shumi Village quest reward to a Nirvana.
• The player will now receive a Friendship item when Zell goes to retrieve the party's weapons in D-District.
• Changed the way the player accesses the Virtuous Weapon fight. You can now find an item called Seven Virtues Card where the Rosetta Stone in Ultimecia's Castle used to be, and speaking to the Queen of Cards with the item in your inventory will trigger the fight.
• Various bugfixes, text corrections, etc.

KNOWN ISSUES

• (FF8 Remastered-specific) Tutorials shown to the player early in the game display the wrong text and, in some cases, cause a softlock. I've prevented the tutorials from showing up during regular gameplay (something I'd planned to do regardless), so this issue is easily avoided by not selecting the tutorials in the menu (this one).
• Minor issues with text in Pet Pals magazines (example).
• (FF8 Remastered-specific) When receiving a SeeD salary payout, the text at the bottom of the screen will sometimes display the vanilla FF8 rank payout amount instead of the reduced one. This doesn't affect the actual amount of gil received, however.
• As in previous versions, Virtuous Weapon's normal attacks lack a sound effect.