Tips & Hints

Experience

Increasing the levels of your characters is now far less important than it used to be. It won't give you much of an edge on the overland monsters as they will level up and gain new abilities as you do.

Increasing the levels of your Guardian Forces, however, is very important. Unlike you, they won't be able to junction 100 Full-Life spells to their Hit Points and tack on the HP +80% ability to get 9,999 Hit Points at level 20. GFs get the same amount of experience as you do, but there is a catch. If you have multiple GFs junctioned to a character, they have to split the difference. Thus, the more GFs you have on one character, the slower they will level up. When possible, try to keep GFs as evenly divided as possible.

Ability Points

Ability Points are the real goods to be gained in this game. Whenever you find a tough enemy that gives out plenty of AP, and you find a cheap way to kill it, keep on fighting for a while and pick up new GF abilities.

Draw

Whenever you come across new magic, be sure to draw 100 spells of it for each of your party members. It can be an arduous task at times, but when you see the difference that it makes to junction a new spell type to your characters' attributes, you'll be ready to go out and do it all over again.

Always check enemies for new spells, even the ones that you've fought a dozen times. As you go up in experience, your enemies do as well. At level 20, most monsters will start to upgrade their old spells and gain new ones, so be sure to check for new spells on old enemies when your party's levels start to average close to 20. Monsters with basic elemental magic will usually just upgrade to the next level. Fire and Cure, for instance, will become Fira and Cura. Enemies with status attack magic will usually get one or two new spells at level 20. At level 30, creatures start using the "-aga" magics, like Firaga and Curaga.

Limit Breaks

Unlike FFVll, the characters in FFVlll all have very different Limit Breaks and means of acquiring new ones.

Squall: Squall gets new Limit Breaks by upgrading his weapon. There are four in all.
Quistis: Quistis needs items to learn new Limit Breaks. She has 16 in all. If you use the Sort command at the Items menu, all of her Limit Break items will be clustered together.
Zell: When Zell's Limit Break is activated, he has a certain amount of time to pull off fighting game-styled moves. He can learn five new skills in additions to the ones he already knows by reading Combat King issues 001-005.
Selphie: Selphie's Limit Break is the simplest of them all. When it is activated, some type of magic pops up randomly. If you continually select the Do Over option, you will eventually get to one of her specials, like Full Cure or The End. Whenever you cast a new magic type unique to her, it will show up on her status screen.
Rinoa: Rinoa has a total of 6 Limit Breaks that can be learned by reading Pet Pals volumes 1 through 6.
Irvine: Irvine's Limit Breaks are determined entirely by his ammo. He can get a total of 8 different types. Most of his ammo types can be easily purchased or refined, but you will need to Refine Energy Crystals and Laser Cannons to get the powerful Pulse Ammo.

Boost

This is probably the first ability you should pick for GFs to learn as it is extremely cheap to learn at 10 Ability Points and will allow you to add some pretty serious power to your attacks. To use Boost, just hold down the Select button when a GF summoning animation begins. The moment a symbol of square button and the number 75 appears in the lower right hand corner, start hammering away at the identical button on you PlayStation controller to raise the number. The second a red X flashes over the square button depicted on the screen, you will have to stop tapping and wait until X dissapears. If you hit the button too many times when the X comes up, the number will go all the way back down to 75. The number represents the percentage of the GF's summoning attack. At 75 you will only be at three quarters of the strength of a regular summons. By using Boost, you can get most of your earlier GFs' strength up to 150 percent. The GFs you pick up later on will be able to get boosted up to 200 and eventually 250 percent.

Item GFs

These are not true Guardian Forces as they are activated through the use of an item rather than a summons. Their primary advantage is that they don't require any casting time. There are two Item GFs in the game: Phoenix and Mini-Chocobo.

Limit Breaks VS. GF Summons

Summoning Guardian Forces will carry you through the bosses all the way up to the middle of the game. Once you've started junctioning powerful spells to all of your characters' attributes, however, Limit Breaks will become your deadliest attacks. Towards the middle of the game, Squall's Renzokuken alone can easily hit enemies for over 10,000 points of damage ( not including damage incurred from the follow up attacks ), whereas teh majority of GFs max out their damage potential at 9,999. Eden is an exeption for this. Using Eden's Boost ability, it is possible to nail enemies for well over 30,000 points of damage. Of course, if you get Squall's Lion Heart, which usually hits for anywhere from 7,500 to 9,999 points a good 18-20 times ( very rough estimate ), you will see that Limit Breaks are definetly the way to go when you can afford to use them.

If you find that your HP levels are beyond what they need to be at any point in the game, it never hurts to leave one of your characters with a fraction of their full health so they pull off Limit Breaks more easily. If you get your hands ona significant number of Aura spells at an earlier point in the game, save them for bosses and powerful enemies.

The Limit Break Switch Trick

When a character's Hit Points are down to about a quarter of their full health, keep on the circle button to switch between characters like mad until your injured character gets a Limit Break. If there aren't any characters to switch over to at the moment , this will still work. In fact, it usually pays to have the other characters do their action first, so you can just keep on jammingthe switch command on one character.

Status Attack Junctions

Status Junctions can mean the difference between a long and difficult battle and a happy jaunt through the land of chocolate. Just using Blind and Silence on enemies will seriously reduce their threat value. When you face multiple opponents, spread your status attacks evenly among the enemies first before focusing on one. Pay attention to what kind of attack strategies enemies use. Powerful enemies like the Iron Giant or T-Rexaur can be reduced to near harmless with one silly Blind attack, while enemies that use nothing but magic will be completely screwed by Silence. When you start getting more than one GF with a status junction, never give the same status attack to two characters unless you know what ot expect from the enemies in the area. Variety is key.

Death and Break are both extremely powerful status attacks that will slay enemies outright. Just make sure you have 100 Confuse spells junctioned to any character using this attack. Death is preferable to Break, as petrifying enemies will eliminate any items you might have earned at the end of battle. Don't expect Death to work every time. Weaker enemies will usually perish with one blow, but stronger types tend to be more resistant. The strongest of enemies, like Ruby Dragons, are often completely immune to Death and Break. The key to making the best use of status attacks is to try everything. Sometimes even the most powrful enemies will be susceptible to something. Ruby Dragons appear to be immune to everything except for Sleep spells. Blind is surprisingly effective on most enemies and will even work on certain bosses like Diablos.

Status Defense Junctions

When deciding what spells to put in status defence, it's best to focus on magic that prevents you from recovering first. Magic that causes you to lose control of your character, like Berserk and Confuse, should be top priority. After that, should be Silence because it removes the ability to cast recover magic and is permanent until removed with Esuna or Remedy. Silence can be countered with the Item ability. Next, you should defend against magics that instantly disable characters like Death and Break. These could be put at a higher priority but you won't come across too many enemies that are capable of using Death or Break on multiple characters until later in the game. When you start seeing Toramas after the Lunar Cry, it's time to put Death at the top of the list for defence as these nasty creatures will sometimes hit you with an attack that casts Death on every character.

Elemental Attack and Defence Junctions

Junctioning elemental magic to your attack is a mixed blessing. It will give your attacking power a boost and cause a great deal of damage to enemies who are weak against it, but you will eventually run into an enemy that is either immune to an element or will actually get healed by it. The most ideal way to deal this issue is to junction more exotic elements like Water and Holy. It also helps to have one of your characters using a different element than the rest.

When considering which elements to junction to your defence, the best choices are alwaysthe most common ones: Thunder, Fire, and Blizzard. Fire magic in particular seems to be the most common choice among enemies who have other options.

Refining Items and Spells

Any time a GF has a chance to learn a refining technique, it is recommended you get it as soon as possible. By using your GFs to refine items into spells, you can get a hold of some pretty serious magic that would be otherwise unavailable until later in the game. Card Mod is an excellent skill that allows you to turn Cards into items. You will be able to get over half of Quistis' Limit Break items using Card Mod and it's a great way to get items for weapons upgrades as well. Experiment with this. One hundred "-aga" spells of any type will go a long way on Disc One.

The SeeD Test

Unlike previous FFs, monsters do not mysteriously wander around the world with large sums of money in their wallet. You will be awarded a certain amount of cash after you've walked a certain distance. To make more, you will need to upgrade your SeeD level. You will awarded higher ranks for moving through the plot quickly, making massive amounts of AP in a short period ( Cactuar Island ), and taking the SeeD test at your tutorial. Here is a complete list of answers for the test.

1. Y, N, Y, Y, Y, N, N, Y, N, N

2. Y, N, Y, Y, Y, N, Y, Y, N, N
3. N, N, Y, N, Y, Y, Y, N, Y, N
4. N, Y, Y, Y, N, N, Y, Y, N, N
5. N, N, N, Y, Y, N, N, Y, Y, Y
6. Y, N, Y, Y, N, N, Y, Y, N, Y
7. Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, N, Y, Y, N
8. N, Y, N, N, Y, Y, N, N, Y, N
9. N, Y, N, N, N, N, N, N, Y, Y
10. Y, N, N, N, N, N, N, N, Y, N
11. Y, Y, N, Y, Y, N, Y, N, N, Y
12. N, Y, N, N, Y, N, Y, N, Y, N
13. Y, N, N, N, Y, N, N, N, N, N
14. Y, Y, Y, Y, N, Y, Y, N, Y, N
15. Y, Y, N, N, N, N, N, Y, N, Y
16. Y, N, N, Y, N, Y, N, N, Y, N
17. Y, N, N, N, Y, N, N, Y, N, N
18. Y, N, N, N, Y, N, N, N, N, N
19. Y, N, N, Y, N, N, N, N, N, Y
20. Y, Y, N, Y, N, Y, Y, Y,N, N
21. Y, Y, Y, Y, N, N, Y, Y, Y, N
22. N, N, N, Y, N, N, N, Y, Y, N
23. Y, N, N, N, N, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y
24. Y, Y, N, N, Y, Y, N, N, N, Y
25. Y, N, Y, Y, Y, N, N, Y, N, N
26. Y, Y, N, Y, N, Y, N, Y, N, N
27. N, Y, N, N, N, N, Y, N, Y, N
28. Y, N, N, Y, Y, Y, N, Y, N, N
29. N, N, N, Y, Y, N, N, N, Y, N
30. N, Y, N, N, N, N, Y, N, N, N