FFVIII Advice & suggestions.

Here's some advice:

1. Don't level up. The enemies will level up with you, becoming stronger and making it more difficult.

2. Avoid using spells. You can junction spells to you, making you stronger. If you use spells, just draw from the enemy and cast from there.

3. Draw from every boss. They may have a GF. If you miss drawing a GF from a boss, you wouldn't be able to get that GF until disk 4.

4. To easily obtain AP for your GFs, go to the southernmost continent when you get a vehicle that can do so. On that continent is a desert. In the desert, you can fight Cactuars. Cactuars give off 20 AP, and very little Exp.

5. You can upgrade your weapons without finding the proper magazine. Just get the required materials.

 

Yeah, it's true.

 

You won't be at level 1 forever. It's impossible to stay that low a level. I believe the lowest level you can beat the game at is 6.

And you don't want to level up because the enemies will level up with you. They become stronger. And when you level up, the stat changes aren't very good. Just know this now: Leveling up doesn't really improve your characters. Your main source of stat raising is through junctioning. Which is why I said don't cast your own magic. Through junctioning, you can make your characters awesome quickly. You junction magic to a stat to raise it. And the more uses of that magic you have, the better the stat raise is. Heck, on my current file my characters are around level 10 and the enemies barely do any damage at all.

 

Get Diablos. You get him in that Magical Lamp Cid gave you. To easily beat him, draw and cast Demi. It lowers his health very quickly.

Diablos is incredibly useful. An ability he learns is mug, so you can attack enemies and get those items required to get better weapons.

And to stop leveling up, run away from every fight you can. You can still get AP from boss battles. And once you're on disc 2, you'll get something to cross the ocean with. Then go to the southernmost continent and find the desert (Yes, there will be some walking included). Once in the desert, fight Cactaurs. Each killed Cactaur gives off 20 AP. So kill two, and get 40 AP. The main problem with Cactuars is that they run away. So what I do is in another battle, attack Squall until his health is yellow. Then against the Cactuars, use his Renzokuken. It will kill off any Cactuar.

To use it, wait till Squall has an action. Then keep on pressing triangle until a little arrow pointing to the right appears next to attack. Hold right, and select the action. That works for any character's limit break.

And for gaining GF abilities, I prefer to learn boost, then every type of juction the GF has first. And get Quetzicotl's (sp?) Card Mod ability. It can turn your cards into items. Extremely helpful.

Boost is great. During a GF's attack animation, hold down select and press square as many times as you can. It will make the attacks stronger.

 

Its been a while since I last played,but I would suggest getting as many Aura spells as possible.I dont know what their junction function is (hehe),but they make using your special attacks way easier

 

Certain GFs don't have Boost (Diablos, Carbuncle, Cerberus, and Cactuar to be exact). They don't have it because their attacks work differently. The damage from Diablos is based on something concerning his level. Carbuncle casts Reflect. Cerberus casts Double and Triple. And Cactuar does 1000 damage for every 10 levels. So if he's at level 40, he does 4000 damage.

It takes 1000 Exp to gain a level. Every level is like that. But since you seem to want to keep gaining levels, get Squall a better Gunblade. He will have more Limit Break finishers the better his Gunblade is.

 

To get Gilgamesh, you have to lose Odin. And to get Pheonix, you have to use a Pheonix Pinion. All three of those GFs don't act like normal GFs. They all randomly appear during a battle.

Odin will only appear at the start of a battle. He uses Zantezuken (sp?). It will instantly kill all enemies. Does not work on bosses.

Gilgamesh can appear at any point in the battle. He has 4 attacks. Zantezuken (sp?) does the same as Odin. Masamune does alot of damage. Excalibur does alot of damage. Excalipoor does 1 damage. Gilgamesh can appear during boss battles, but Zantezuken (sp?) will not work on bosses. Trust me. Gilgamesh once used that attack on Adel, and it missed.

Pheonix, I'm not completely sure. I've never actually used it. But I think it harms enemies, and revives any fallen members.


More advice

You're gonna lose Edea soon enough, so don't get too attached to her. Do not beat disk 3 until you've done everything you want to do. Such as getting GFs, getting everybody's ultimate weapon, etc. And also, why only the Flame Saber? I got the Twin Lance on disk 2.

Make sure to have Diablos's Enc-None ability. Then find the Island Closest to Heaven and the Island Closest to Hell. You are gonna want to have the Enc-None ability active because the enemies at those islands are automatically at Lv. 100. And a Lv. 100 Marlbro is not fun to fight. Trust me. I've tried several times. Still haven't killed one. Except Odin killed one once. Anyways, the islands are useful because they are loaded with draw points. But not just any draw points. They have the best spells. Ultima, Holy, Triple, Aura, Quake, Tornado, Meteor, Flare. I think those are all the spells.

Gilgamesh... To get him you must already have Odin. Then you do the last battle in disk 3, against Seifer. Once the battle starts, Odin will appear, and then Seifer will kill Odin. Do not kill Seifer. Just keep drawing Aura spells from Seifer. Eventually, Gilgamesh will appear and finish the battle.

As mentioned before, do not beat disk three until you've done everything. Once you beat disk three, you cannot enter any town or do just about anything.

 

You will get to use Rinoa again before the end of disk 3. You can still travel around the world with everybody before beating the disk.

You don't need the Move-Find ability on the two islands. Just equip the Enc-None ability and run around, constantly pressing X. I usually walk around the edge of the islands, and then go about the middle of them.

And once again: You didn't need to raise levels. There is no need to. It is better to not do so.