======================================================================== 88888888888 8888888888 8888 8888 88888888888888 88888 88888 8888 8888 88 88 888 8888888 8888888 88888888 88 88 888 88888 88888 888888 88 88 888 88888 88888 8888 88 88 888 88888 88888 88 88888888888888 ======================================================================== F I N A L F A N T A S Y V I I I ======================================================================== Final Fantasy VIII (Japanese/Import) Version 1.16 (Final) Part I For Sony Playstation By Scott Ong E-Mail: vaynard_x11x@yahoo.com Online version: http://www.risland.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------ <<< Disclaimer >>> - please read this! This FAQ is meant for personal usage only. It cannot be altered and it can only be reproduced in electronic form only. It cannot be published in magazines, articles and any other form of reproduction. The FAQ is not meant for sale. Any offenders will be severly dealt with This FAQ is made by me, Scott Ong (vaynard_x11x@yahoo.com) This is an unpublished work of Scott Ong 1999-2000. If you want to use this FAQ for your website or webpage, please seek the author's permission and link it to my site. You are allowed to print the FAQ out, but make sure that you did not sell it for cash! All my FAQs are not meant for sale! This is Part I of Final Fantasy VIII FAQ for the Japanese version. Final Fantasy VIII Logo, characters are copyright of Squaresoft. If you want to find information regarding item list, weapon list, monster list or any other besitary data, please look up at Final Fantasy VIII FAQ Part II which is available at GameFAQs. This is meant for the Japanese version. <<< References >>> Official Final Fantasy VIII Website - http://www.ff8.com Official Squaresoft Website - http://www.squaresoft.com <<< Note to Webmasters >>> If you want to use this FAQ for your site, make sure that you keep on checking GameFAQs for latest revisions. Otherwise, I will have to answer questions that already answered in the latest editions. ___ / I \___________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------ <<< Demo >>> That's right, the eagerly-awaited FF8 finally hits the stores. The game is much better and more realistic. You will take the role of the super cool Squall whom is led by Seifer, his rival to recapture the city of Dollet. The city has fallen into the hands of the evil President Deling, the dictator of the warlike nation, Galbadia.... <<< Final Fantasy VIII >>> The hero Squall, trained as a mercenary at a military academy, meets a girl named Rinoa at a party. Gradually influenced by her bohemian lifestyle, Squall rejects family and friends for people as yet... strangers. Meanwhile, at that while, the continent of Galbadia suddenly turns against the whole world and declares...war. Standing beside the President as he delivers this speech, is the figure of a witch who disappears from the memories of the people... ____ / II \__________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Revision History ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Version 1.0 Contains the main document. Version 1.1 I have finished Disc 1 Walkthrough. I have make the Disc 1 walkthrough more detailed and correct some errors. Completed the Controls section. Version 1.2 Added a partial Disc 2 walkthrough. Also added the BOSS Diablos' facts. Version 1.3 Completed Disc 2 walkthrough and make some corrections. Start working on Part II. Added information on Chocobo Riding. Make more corrections on Disc 1 walkthrough. Version 1.4 Added Disc 3 walkthrough [partial] and make more corrections. Make some spelling corrections on the Leviathan, Quezacotl and Cerberus. I have added information on getting Phoenix and Odin. Version 1.5 Completed Disc 3 walkthrough including information on GFs Tonberry, Bahamut and Cactuar, plus the last GF Eden, thanks to Steven Bruck! Add more corrections in spelling and errors. Version 1.6 Added and complete Disc 4 walkthrough except for the ending FMV, don't want to spoil the fun ^_^; Added corrections/logo to the FAQ. Complete the list of gameshark codes. Version 1.7 Make mystical corrections. Miscellaneous information on Omega Weapon and the draw list from Tonberry, thanks to Hahaha Hahaha. I have added more information getting fragments of the pot and attaining full marks for the Dollet's SeeD examinations. Thanks to ChaRle5! I have added more information on getting GF Doomtrain. I have added information on Ward and Kiros. Correct most gramatical errors. Version 1.8 Edit some of the data and correct more errors. Added the correct way to get the Phoenix Pinion from Shumi Village's Subquest, thanks to Jerry Ng! Version 1.9 I have correct some of the previous errors. I had added ways to get the Pet Pals and Combat King Issues, with the courtesy of Lynn Tse. More information on the D-District Prison have been added, including a move that could save your life! Thanks to Markweb Jimenez. The list of items that can been obtained in Balamb Garden during Disc 2. The basic controls section have been expanded and ASCII maps have been added on it. More information regarding the Pocketstation have been added, thanks to Zane Merritt. Thanks to Crystal Power for that outstanding strategies to fight against the Ruby Dragons and the Bahamut. Thanks to Ciovo for telling me the usefulness of the Tonberry's Level Down. Draw an ASCII image of the Pocketstation! Thanks to Crystal Power for the correction on the lyrics "Eyes on me". Version 1.10 Some corrections have been made for the Esthar Shopping List. I have made corrections to lyrics "Eyes on Me", thanks to Hahaha Hahaha/Yee Seng Fu/ Franksiskus Febrainto ^0^. More information has been added regarding the Chocobo Mini-Game, thanks to Zane Merritt. I have made some magic spell corrections between Flare and Aero. I have made more corrections at certain areas. I have expanded the methods on getting GFs. I have been trying to correct gramatic errors and sentence structures. I have also find a way to get back lost cards. I have added more battle strategies against BOSS: Brothers, Jumbo Cactuar, Diablos and the final battle. A new strategy against the Omega Weapon have been added. Version 1.11 I have added the lyrics for the opening song. Thanks to Marco "vegeta" Colombo for the lyrics. Changes have been made to most parts of the FAQ. I had also added more information on the Controls section. I had added the list of items which can be won from BOSS fights [partially]. I had also added more miscellaneous information such as getting Occult Fan Part I, Pet Pals Vol. 2nd Issue and much more. Battle Tips are included to most parts of the walkthrough. I have added the type of spells, which you can draw from the Draw Points. [partially complete] Version 1.12 The remaining of Draw Points have been added (until Disc 3). I had also added list of items that you can won from BOSS fights, applies until Disc 3. (partially) I have added more battle tips until Disc 3 (partially). I made some corrections to the Basics section. I had also added informatiom about solving the Clock Puzzle. Thanks to Stephanus Rudiyanto Natari for his solutions. I have also added information about trading the Girl Next Door with Zone in the White SeeD Ship. Thanks to Marbweb Jimenez for the valuable information. I have added more information on hacking gameshark codes. Version 1.13 I have added information about the Chocobuckle. I have also added the remainding Draw Points (excluding those that are found at the World Map) [until fighting the Ultima Weapon.] I have also added more battle tips. [until Disc 3] I have also added the list of items which can be won from BOSS fights. [until Disc 3]. The list of monsters that are found at Deep Sea Research Center have been added, including how to tackle them. I have found another secret FMV, refer to Section 5.10 for more details. It's regarding Adel. Version 1.14 I have added the remainding Draw Points and BOSS stats thanks to Markweb Jimenez. The Japanese FF8 Debug Code has been added, thanks to Alex M. I have also added some strategies about the BOSSES in the final dungeon. I have also make some changes to the Magic translations according to Final Fantasy VII magic. . Heal (restore HP) -> Cure . Cure (fixed status ailments) -> Esuna . Life 2 (restore life and HP to full) -> Raise I have also correct some errors regarding the spelling with Cactuar and Pandemona. I have change all "Magic Stones" to "Draw Points". Version 1.15 I have managed to correct some of faulty errors such as translation problems and game errors. I have also ammend the layout and make it similar to the North American Version. I have also added the Sub-Quests that are excluded previously. A translation list has been added to provide help if you haven't gotten the FAQ. Version 1.16 For this update, I replay the Japanese version of FF8. [well, can't let the game to collect dust ^_^;]. I have made some corrections to the errors and adding stuff, which I have previously left out. Plus a mini- guide on clearing the area before I begin the walkthrough [i.e. which areas need to focus on]. I had also included an exclusive junctioning guide in the FAQ! (refer to Junction section for more information). The Areas-To-Focus-On section has been added to highlight key points for section. [It is been completed!] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This FAQ can be found at the following addresses: GameFAQs http://www.gamefaqs.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Check the above sites for latest revisions of this FAQ. _____ / III \_________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Author's Note ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After receiving a lot of e-mails regarding translation errors.. Hey! I thought I have also added another walkthrough! It is labelled with a NA [North Amercian Version] and that's meant for the English version. Err.. Japanese users stick to this one as it has provided descriptions about the places compared to NA version. If you want to use this walkthrough for the NA version, make sure you refer to the "Changes" Section found at the bottom of the FAQ. I have added the list of translations. BTW, please note that both FAQs can be found at GameFAQs. Version 1.16 For this update, I had made an attempt from a point of view for someone who completely do not know Japanese. I have make some errors to the gramatical corrections [of course, spelling errors]. I have added a new section to the walkthrough called ATFO [it means "Areas to Focus On"], which will highlight some of key events. Hopefully, this could really help those who trouble in playing the Japanese version of FF8. Check out the Junction guide found in the Junction Section. I have also expanded the characters bestiary portion. Plus, a lot of corrections have been made. [well, it was like a moment of hell for me ^_^;] ____ / IV \__________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Characters Bestiary 2. Controls and Basic Tutorial 3. Walkthrough for Disc 1 4. Walkthrough for Disc 2 5. Walkthrough for Disc 3 6. Walkthrough for Disc 4 7. Gameshark codes 8. Translations Differences 9. Credits ________________________________________________________________________ Begin with the show! _____ / 1.0 \_________________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Characters Bestiary ======================================================================== In this section, I would give you a brief preview of the game's crew, including the limit breaks they own and the general method in gaining them. For certain characters, I had even briefly describes what the Limit Break does. If you want to know more about weapon upgrading and limit breaks, please refer to Part II, which is a separate FAQ from this FAQ. * those marked with asterik are initially gain limit breaks. These are the characters who will depart on your strange adventure... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Main Crew ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In FF8, you will get the chance to use this crew of people and of course, you are entitled to play as the bonus characters. These characters will join Squall [the main character], through the course of this epic RPG. >>>>> Name: Squall Leonhart Age: 17 Sex: Male Height: 5'10" [177 cm] Birthdate: August 23 Blood Type: AB Weapon: Gunblade Description: The story's hero unsociable and expressionless. The hero of the game, a cadet in the SeeD special forces attached to Balamb Garden. Antisocial and stone-faced. Besides his aloof personality, he is very self centered and a person who hates influenced deeply by strangers. List of Limit Breaks: Name Type Rough Divide* Single Fated Circle Area Blasting Zone Area Lion Heart Single Note: Typically, Squall's Limit Breaks are attacking Limit Breaks and carries no elemental. How to gain Limit Breaks/ Notes: You need to upgrade Squall's gunblade through gaining items requirements for his gunblade. The better the gunblade, more of the new limit breaks will be gained. To tune up his gunblade, refer to weapon upgrading guide in my Part II FAQ. In FF7, you can control the type of Limit Breaks that you want by selecting the Limit level. But for Squall, his limit breaks occur randomnly based on his statistics opposed his enemy. The more HP of enemy to his HP ratio is the higher chances that he will execute the advanced Limit Breaks. It may not worked as it is based on my assumption. In other words, you can execute the Lion Heart Limit Break with his Lion Heart gunblade every time. For more details regarding Limit Break execution, please refer to Part II for more details. ATFO: . Tune up his gunblade to the Lion Heart. . How to execute his Limit Breaks >>>>> Name: Rinoa Heartilly Age: 17 Sex: Female Height: 5'4" [163 cm] Birthdate: March 3rd [thanks to Rinoa Heartilly's Shrine] Weapon: Blaster Edge Description: A beautiful and enigmatic woman, kind-hearted and driven to succeed. A cheerful girl who possesses a "mood-making" liveliness and gentleness that touches people without discrimination. She's honest about her feelings and readily speaks what she thinks. However, in time, she ends up becoming warped... By the way, Rinoa has a pet dog called Angelo. Limit Breaks: Name Type What it does? Angelo Rush* Single Min. Damage Angelo Search n/a Search for items Angelo Recover* n/a Restore lost HP Angelo Reverse n/a Revives one dead ally Invisible Moon Allies Cast "Invinsible" on all allies Angelo Cannon* Area Max. Damage against all enemies Angelo Strike Single Max. Damage against one enemy Wishing Star Area Max. Damage against all enemies Angel Wing 'depends' Cast a random spell** ** This Limit Break is special. But there are several tradeoffs. Rinoa can cast a spell once when she get to her turn. The spell is not necessary from her inventory. She can even cast Apocalypse except for the remaining six hidden spells: The End, Catastrophe, Prasento, Wall, Rapture and Full-Cure. But you will lose control of Rinoa, until she was killed/ KO'd in the battle. How to gain her Limit Breaks/ Notes: To gain her Limit Breaks, you need to obtain a book item called "Pet Pals" series. Upgrading her weapon does not give her the chance to learn new Limit Breaks, instead it increase her hit rate and attack power [but in FF8, you depends on Junctioning for those two factors]. These item can be gotten via your quests while playing FF8 or you can buy them from Shops. But that's not all! You can only officially use them if the guage is full. Rinoa needs to take Angelo for a walk. I.e. walking on the field. To do this on the world, equipped Enc-None [an ability from GF Diablos]. Once the gauge is full, Angelo learnt the Limit Breaks. A special Limit Break called Angel Wing, can only be obtained in Disc 3. [You don't need to do any extra stuff to get that.] Once again, her Limit Breaks execution is based on luck and chance. Her Limit Breaks occur very randomnly. It is more hard to predict compared to Squall's Limit Breaks. ATFO: . Getting her Pet Pals Volume to learn Limit Breaks. . How to build up Angelo's learning gauge? >>>>> Name: Zell Dincht Age: 17 Sex: Male Height: 5'6" [167cm] Birthdate: March 17th Blood Type: B Weapon: Glove Description: A master of comprehensive wrestling skills whom was admitted to the Garden. He has entered the Garden when he was only 13 years old out of admiration of his grandfather, who was an excellent soldier. He is the type who does everything with enthusiasm, but the reason is his weak point. However, at heart he is gentle and has a serious personality. Limit Breaks: Name Type What it does? Punch Rush* Single Minimum damage Booya* Single Minimum damage Heel Drop* Single Minimum damage Mach Kick* Single Medium damage Dolphin Blow Single Medium damage Meteor Strike Single Medium damage, gravity effect Deathblows Burning Rave* Area Medium damage Meteor Barret Single Maximum damage Different Beat Single Maximum damage My Final Heaven Area Maximum damage How to gain Limit Breaks? The method of gaining Zell's Limit Breaks is similar to Rinoa's except you need to get Combat King instead of Pet Pals. Combat King will only make its first appearance in Disc 2. You can execute them by keying in the button configurations while executing his Limit Breaks. They can chain during the given time [the length of time depends on Zell's crisis level, the more HP that enemy against Zell's HP.]. For more about his Limit Breaks, please refer to Part II. Armageddon Fist is not a Limit Break, in fact it is named by someone, who has start off with this combo. [heck, it is just a switch between Rush Punch and Booya.]. This move is invented by Kaze Yagami. ATFO: . Getting his Limit Breaks, i.e. location of Combat Kings . Executing his Deathblow Limit Breaks . What's Armageddon Fist? >>>>> Name: Selphie Tilmitt Age: 17 Sex: Female Height: 5'1" [157cm] Birthdate: July 16 Blood Type: B Weapon: Nunchaku Description: A naive girl with flightily nature and capable character. A girl with skilled personality to the extent that you can't believe that she's a student at the military academy. Usually she has a carefree way of speaking and is frequently disturbed by the pace of her surroundings. Limit Breaks Name Effect What it does? Full-cure All Fully restores all HP for all allies Wall All Cast Protect and Shell on all allies Rapture Single Cast Float on one foe and remove it from battlefield [may not work all times] The End Single Instantly kill the enemy. Works on any enemies, BOSSES [even Omega Weapon] except for undeads. How to gain her Limit Breaks/Notes Selphie has typically the ability to cast any spells that the game has, except for those two spells that are locked [Prasento and Catastrophe, only available if you unlock using gameshark.] The four spells are the spells that only she can use it. To gain them, you need to get into her Slots Limit Break. Keep on chosing the top option [Do over] until you had find the spell. Next choose Use [2nd option] and Selphie will automatically learn the spell! But remember that these spells occur randomnly and it is based on luck and critical status [the more endanger Selphie is, the higher the rate of getting these spells.]. The End is the most damaging spell that you can find in the game. AFTO: Getting her Limit Breaks. >>>>> Name: Irvine Kinneas Age: 18 Sex: Male Height: 6'0" [185cm] Birthdate: November 24th Blood Type: O Weapon: Shotgun Description: A young man, well-liked by women whose strongest point is his marksmanship. A cadet at the Galbadia Garden, he self- styles himself as the "No. 1 gunslinger in the Garden" His shooting arm seems sure and he is the girls' favorite because he is full of confidence. He seems callous to simple men, but in truth, he is unexpectedly sensitive and seems to have a serious personality. Limit Breaks Name Effect Normal Shot Single, requires Normal Ammo Scattered Shot All, requires Shotgun Ammo Dark Shot Single, requires Dark Ammo, causes Blind/Sleep/Poison Fire Shot All, requires Fire Ammo, causes Fire elemental damage Canister Shot Single, requires Demolition Ammo Quick Shot Single, requires Fast Ammo Armor Shot Single, requires AP Ammo Hyper Shot Single, requires Pulse Ammo How to get his Limit Breaks/ Notes Irvine's Limit Breaks is relatively easy to get. To get them, you need to get the Ammo. [refer to the list above]. Different Ammo gives Irvine different types of attacks. Ammo is relatively easy to get as you can buy most of them from item shops. But please remember that you need to get Ammo-RF before you can refine items into ammo. That ability is a menu ability. To get it, refer to the GF section in Part II. ATFO: How to use the Ammo-RF to refine into Ammo Getting Pulse Ammo >>>>> Name: Quistis Trepe Age: 18 Sex: Female Height: 5'6" [172cm] Birthdate: October 4 Blood Type: A Weapon: Chain Whip Description: An Elite who serves as Squall's advisor. She has joined SeeD at the age of 15 and is now the guidance instructor of Squall and his friends. In opposition to her cool spirit and strong facade, she gets depressed easily about trivial matters since she is unused to setbacks. Limit Breaks Name Effect What it does? Item Laser Eye* Single Minimum damage n/a Ultra Waves All Minimum damage, causes Slow Spider Web Electrocoute All Average electric damage Corel Fragment LV? Death All Causes instant Death Curse Spike Degenerator Single Removes foe from battlefield Black Hole Aqua Breath All Average water damage Water Crystal Micro Missile All Average damage + gravity Missile Acid Single Average damage + Meltdown Mystery Liquid Gatling Gun Single Strong damage Running Fire Fire Breath All Strong Fire damage Inferno Fang Bad Breath All Causes status ailments Malboro Tentacle Mighty Guard All Support magic on allies Barrier White Wind All Restores HP based Quistis' HP Whisper Homing Laser Single Strong damage Laser Cannon Shockwave Pulsar All Devastating damage Dark Matter Ray-Bomb All Strong damage Power Generator How to gain her Limit Breaks/ Notes As you observed from the above list, most of Quistis' Limit Breaks are locked. You can unlocked them by using the items [they are known as Blue Magic items] through the item menu. But remember that these items are pretty hard to get [most of them can be obtained through your course of playing the game, but some of them requires a harder process.] Her Limit Breaks works actually like the Enemy Skills system in FF7. But the method of gaining is different. To gain them, refer to Limit Breaks section in Part II for more information. ATFO: Getting Dark Matter Getting Power Generator Getting Malboro Tentacle Getting Laser Cannon ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LAGUNA'S PARTY ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this game, you will get a switch sequence between the past and present. In the past, you will get to control of an ex-Galbadia Soldier called Laguna Loire and his friends [Kiros and Ward.] They appears only in certain parts of game. They have only one Limit Breaks each. BTW, they are pretty strong as they have same statistics as the current party. >>>>> Name: Laguna Loire Age: 27 Sex: Male Height: 5'11" [181 cm] Birthdate: January 3rd Blood Type: B Weapon: Machine Gun Description: A hot-blooded man who fights with a pen instead a sword. Kind out of compassion for humanity, he's a man full of courage who helps the faint-hearted and crushes the arrogant. A journalist of military origins, he swapped his sword for a pen and fights boldly against the evils of the world. Laguna has rather a sad story, as he lost his wife in saving the world and has become the President of Esthar. By the way the mystery has been solved, it was actually Ellone whom causes Squall to meet Laguna in his dream. His intelligence and leadership were unmatched. ATFO: n/a >>>>> Name: Ward Zaback Age: 25 Sex: Male Height: 217 cm Birthdate: February 25th Blood Type: A Weapon: Harpoon Description: Ex-Galbadian 08 soldier. He is one of Laguna's best pals. You can only use him in battles during Laguna's Scenario. Don't look down on him, as he looks huge and scary. Ward is actually one of the most strongest guys in FF8, have high strength stats. Now Ward has become a minister for the President of Esthar. >>>>> Name: Kiros Seagul Age: 23 Sex: Male Height: 191 cm Birthdate: July 6th Blood Type: O Weapons: Daggers Description: Ex-Galbadian 08 soldier. He is one of Laguna's best pals. You can only use him in battles during Laguna's Scenario. He is rather a helpful lad in Laguna's friend. He is rather agile and swift in his movement. He has very cool weapons. Kiros had also became one of Laguna's right hand man. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Other Characters ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here, you will find the list of other characters that are in the game and possess great importance to the game. Name: Seifer Almasy Age: 18 Sex: Male Height: 6'1" (188 cm) Birthdate: December 22nd Blood Type: A Weapon: Gunblade Description: A troublemaker who views Squall as his rival. A SeeD cadet who is treated as a problem child because he lacks composure and the ability to follow orders, even though he has the disposition to excel. On the other hand, he appreciates Squall's abilities highly and adamantly considers him a rival. Notes Seifer is only usable for a short period of them and you can only use the first edition of his Cross Sword Limit Breaks: No Mercy. This Limit Break does damage to all enemies and can be executed once Seifer's HP is low or received consecutive hits. He has only one limit break. ATFO: . The secret R1 Trigger ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are a lot more characters in the game, but I decided not to add them as it may lead to serious spoilers. _____ / 2.0 \_________________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Controls and Basic Tutorial ======================================================================== This section is created for begineers for FF8 and those who have experienced problems with the Junction System. The game system is pretty hard to understand and it may takes a while before you fully understand the meaning of it. Therefore, please: *Read this section before you proceed to the main walkthrough.* _____ / 2.1 \_________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stuff That You Should Know.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is the stuff that you should know when playing FF8. These can also be found in your manual. * Playing the Game from the Beginning Point the cursor at the first Option [NEW GAME] and enter your decision with the Circle button. * Continue from Save Data When you want to play using SAVE DATA to continue from the previous point, select the 2nd option and press Circle and you can now select the slot with the Circle Button. BTW, you can save up to the maximum data of 15 game saves. * Changing Disc Warnings As you proceed through the adventure. Do NOT turn off your Playstation Console. Just open the Playstation Lid and pop in the next disc and the game will automatically resumes itself. _____ / 2.2 \_________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Main Menu ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Main Menu is a very important section as it allows you to use items, view stats of your characters and GFs, thus saving your game, adjust game settings, etc. Remember to read this if you have any enquires/doubts about the gameplay. ======================================================================== NOTE: All the settings are use in default settings. ======================================================================== MAIN MENU ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Junction: Allows you to set up your Guardian Forces and abilities Item: Allows you to use items or rearranged your items Magic: Allows you to use and trade magic with other characters Status: Allows you to view the stats of your characters. GF: Allows you to view the Guardian Force levels, and to develop your GFs' abilities. Ability: Allows you to use the abilities learned by the GF Switch: Allows you to change your party at the World Map or at the Save Point. Cards: Allows you to view the cards that you have. Config: Allows you to adjust your game settings. Tutorial: A very precise learning guide on how to play FF8. However, it is in Japanese ^_^; Save: Allows you to save your game. This option will only be selectable if you have approached a Save Point and at the World Map. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here is an ASCII art of the Main Menu [for those whom does not know Japanese]. A brief Diagram of Menu Screen ____________________________________________________________________ |Help | | |__________________________________________________| Junction | |STATUS | | | Zell LV 22 HP: 2411 / 1922 | Item | |--------------------------------------------------| | |STATUS | Magic | | Squall LV 31 HP: 2415 / 2551 | | |--------------------------------------------------| Status | |STATUS | | | Rinoa LV 20 HP: 1100 / 1930 | GF | |--------------------------------------------------| | | Irvine Quistis | Ability | | LV 20 HP 977 LV 22 HP 1059 | | | --------- --------- | Switch | | | | | Selphie | Cards | | LV 17 HP 824 | | | --------- | Config | | | | | | Tutorial | | | | | | Save | |__________________________________________________|_________________| _________________________________________________ | PLAY 24:15 | | || S.LV 30 | | B-Garden - Training Center || 446470 G | |_________________________________________________||_________________| _______ / 2.2.1 \_______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Junction Menu ======================================================================== Therefore, after you had activated the menu, select [Junction] sub- heading and you will see the following menu. ** JUNCTION MENU ** _______________________________________________________________ | [Junction] [Remove] [Auto] [Ability] | Junction | |__________________________________________________|____________| _________ __________ | Photo | Squall | COMMAND | | OF | | Attack | | SQUALL | Lv 31 |^| | Magic | | | | GF | |_________| HP 2415 / 2551 | Item | _______________________________________________________|__________| | [ HP ] Blizzaga 2551 [ST ATK] [ST DEF] [E ATK] [E DEF] | | [ STR ] ------------- 78 [ SPD ] --------------- 25 | | [ VIT ] ------------- 20 [ EVA ] --------------- 2 % | | [ MAG ] ------------- 45 [ HIT ] --------------- 225 | | [ SPR ] ------------- 35 [ LUCK ] --------------- 17 | |__________________________________________________________________| LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Squaresoft has used a lot of abbreviations in the game and below is the list of abbreviations. [BTW, these are the abbreviations used for the English version of FF8] _________________________________________________________________ | | | | | | STR | Strength | Hit | Hit % | | VIT | Vitality | LUCK | Luck | | MAG | Magic | ST ATK | Status Attack | | SPR | Spirit | ST DEF | Status Defense | | SPD | Speed | E ATK | Elemental Attack | | EVA | Evade | E DEF | Elemental Defense | |________|_____________________|________|_________________________| What is their purpose? ** Strength ** This factor affects the attacking power of your character. The higher the stats, the more damage your character will inflict with the Attack Command. ** Vitality ** This factor effects the defensive power of your character. The higher the defensive stats, the lesser the amount of damage inflicted by your opponent. ** Magic ** This factor effects the magic attacking power of your character. The higher the stats, the more damage your character will inflict when using magic. ** Spirit ** This factor effects the magic defensive power of your character. The higher the stats, the lesser the amount of damage inflicted by your opponent when it uses magic. ** Speed ** This factor effect the speed of your time bar or ATB (also known Active Time Bar]. The higher the stats, the faster the ATB is. ** Evade ** This factor effect the rate whether your character will escape from an enemy's attack [causing a MISS in the opponent's attack]. The higher the stats, the more chance your character will dodge from an attack. ** Hit ** This factor effect the rate whether your character will hit your opponent with the Attack Command. The higher the stats, the lesser chance that your character will miss an attack [great against Cactuars] ** Luck ** For this one, I'm not quite sure. But I think that it will effect the rate whether the Odin will appear. It also effect the rate whether your character could escape from status ailments such as Death. If you have the luck stats of 100+, you will be able to see the Gilgamesh in between battles! It also affects the rate of criticals while using the Attack Command. [Critcials are high damaging normal attacks.] ** Status Attack ** This is similar to FF7's Elemental combo on your character's weapon Your character will inflict damage and also causes status ailments on your opponent. For example if you want to cause sleep with your character by attacking, junctioned Sleep to your Status Attack. ** Status Defense ** I myself prefered this than status attack. This works like FF7's Elemental combo on your character's armor. Your character will receive protection against the elemental that you have junctioned. For example if you want your character to be protected against Confusion, junction Confuse to your status defense. It would be better if you have acquired the Ribbon [prevents any status disorder, it's a secret GF ability which only available through the Pocketstation.] ** Elemental Attack ** This will cause more harm if you misuse it.. If you want to do more damage against Fire-based monsters such as the Bomb, junction Blizzard to your junction as Blizzard works well against Fire. However, ice-based monsters will absorbs the attack, thus you are helping them to restore lost HP! ** Elemental Defense ** This is much preferred against Elemental Attack. As you can recieved no damage from elementals or absorbs it and hence restores HP. This ability could make your life easier. If you junction Ultima to your Elemental defense, you will be able to nullify any kind of magic. For example, if you want your character to protect well against Fire, junction Fire to the character's Elemental defense. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JUNCTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Once you have chosen Junction, you will have this menu. Press Circle and choose the "JUNCTION" tap. The top tool bar will have the following options: ___________________________________________________ | | | JUNCTION | < GF > < Magic > |_____________|_____________________________________ < GF > This allows you to set the GF monsters that you would like the character to use and this will lead to the Optimize and Ability Menu. After selecting this command you will have the following screen: I think perhaps due to space constraint, the name for the following GFs were shortened for the English version: Quezacotl - Quezalcoatl Pandemona - Pandemonium ______________________________________________ | Well, let's get started. G.F Page No. 1 G.F Page No. 2 | Here is the layout of _________________ __________________ | all the GFs. [] |Quezacotl [] | |Brothers | | represents a character |Shiva | |Diablos | | has already picked the |Ifrit [] | |Carbuncle | | GF. If you point the |Siren | |Leviathan | | cursor next to it, you |_________________| |__________________| | will see the name of | the character that the G.F Page No. 3 G.F Page No. 4 | GF is currently _________________ __________________ | equipped with. Press |Pandemona | |Bahamut | | D-Pad right or left |Cerberus | |Cactuar | | to change pages. |Alexander | |Tonberry | | Press Circle to select |Doomtrain | |Eden | | the GF. Press X after |_________________| |__________________| | you have finished | equipping your GFs. ______________________________________________| --> Optimize Menu. < Magic > If you have acquired junction abilities [icons with "J"], you will find out that you can junction magic to bolster your character's stats. This is rather difficult and here is a part of it. Press Circle and you will see the Magic Page on the right of character's photo ________ __________________ | | |MAGIC P1 NUM | I have "cut" the screen to a small | PHOTO | |Fire 100 | part as what I am saying will be | OF | |Blizzard 100 | focusing on within this area. For | SQUALL | |Thunder 100 | example if you want to junction 100x |________| |Blizzaga 100 | Fire to your Strength [provided that ________|__________________| you have acquired Str-J]. Select | <-- A ATK/DEF | [ STR ]and select the magic from the |___________________________| character's magic pages [1~8]. Press Left and you will see the following screen [below] ELEMENTAL ATTACK/DEFENSE JUNCTION WINDOW ------------------------------------------ ___________________________ Tip: Press Right to change back to |<-- ST ATK/DEF ABILITY >| Status chart. |___________________________|_______________________ | Fire --- 30% Poison --- 0 % | E ATK ----- | Ice --- 0 % Wind --- 0 % | |>E DEF Fire | Thunder --- 0 % Water --- 0 % | E DEF ----- | Earth --- 0 % Holy --- 0% | |____________________________________| STATUS ATTACK /DEFENSE JUNCTION WINDOW ------------------------------------------ ___________________________ Tip: Press Right to change back to | AT ATK/DEF-->| Elemental chart. |___________________________|__________________________________ | Death --- 0% Zombie --- 0% | ST ATK ----- | Poison --- 0% Sleep --- 0% | ST DEF ----- | Petrify --- 0% Slow --- 0% | ST DEF ----- | Darkness --- 0% Stop --- 0% | | Silence --- 0% Confuse --- 0% | | Berserk --- 0% Absorption --- 0% | |_______________________________________________| I have missed out one of them and I am rather tired in redrawing the table. That one is Curse [I could counter that 100% when I junctioned Aura to it]. That applies to Status Defense only. Ocassionally, if you junction 100x of a spell to the characters' elemental defense, you will see a green-colour star. This marks that the spell being cast on the equipped character will be absorbed. A green star marks 100% protection against the spell [which means it does 0 HP damage.] Over 100% will instantly absorbs the spell. * Thanks to fuuie for his precise guide on magic junctioning. If you need more help on junctioning, refer to his FAQ for more details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ REMOVE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Removes all the spells are set using the Junction Menu. Your character stats will change back to it's original. The numbers of the stats also decreases. You will be given a message box, if you have junctioned magic to the character's maximum HP through HP-J [HP Junction]. Removes all equipped Commands [GF command, Magic command, Item command, Draw command, GFs command such as Recover that is by junctioned through Junction Option. And of course the magic spells that are junction to your character's stats. It removes the equipped GF. This option works well when you want to transport all GFs to another character. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AUTO ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Optimizes the spells by configuring according to the attacking power. The character's attacking stats are the highest. Optimizes spells for the highest magic attack and defense. Junction better magic [also giving you better results] to the magic. Optimizes spells for highest defensive power. Junction the better magic [also giving you better results] to the character's Vitality. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ABILITY ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This option is the only way to configure what other actions, that your character could perform besides the normal attacks and special attacks. Once you have equipped a GF, you will have 4 four commands being set. Here is the list of "BASIC" commands [all GFs have it!]. For information regarding the remainding commands, refer to Part II [JP] < Magic > Allows your characters to cast the spells that you have drawn from opponents or Draw Points. Must have the draw command in order to draw magic! < GF > Allows you to summon the GF monsters. There you will see the HP of the GF replacing the HP of the commanding character. There is a time bar in blue. The monster will automatically being summoned as all the blue bar has been used up. This can be cancel if the monster's HP reaches zero, being cast a Confuse spell or Silence spell. |One of the most important commands used in the game. With this command, |you can "draw" magic such as Fire, Thunder and much more from enemies. |NOTE: You must have this command in order to draw magic from the Draw | Points [purple translucent bubbles]. | |----[Stock] |Saves the magic for later use. Up to the maximum number of 9 spells |that can be drawn, this will depend on the level of your opponent, the |level of your character and your luck and not forgeting the Magic |attributes of the character. | |----[Cast] |One charge can be drawn in this way, but the spell will immediately |expelled. The spell is being used at half of the damage. But this |situation is good for if you want to cast a spell that you have not |drawn before. There is a high possibility for you to draw question |marks from enemies. [as the spell haven't been uncovered.] Allows you to use items such as Potions, Phoenix Downs when engaged in combat. This are pretty handy when your character is unable to use magic [e.g. being silenced]. Also allows you to summon some special monsters such as the Phoenix. You can remove Magic by choosing the spell that you wished to remove by pressing Square instead of Circle to use it. Note that you will remove the entire pile of magic. For the usage of other commands, refer to Part II for more details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Getting Started on Junctioning ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Oh boy... I had missed this importance section of explaining on how to use the Junction system. Here is a step-by-step mini guide on how to enfuse magic into the statistics through Junction. But there may be some questions in your mind... IMO, the Junction is pretty hard to understand. Why there is a need to junction? Depending on the character's growth (in other words, levelling up), the attributes bonus aren't that great. In fact, only a bonus of +1 ~ +3 as compared to other FF series. That explains why the attacking power does not does that much damage as compared to other characters in other FF series. The only way to boost up the statistics is by junctioning. What is needed for junctioning? First of all, you need to have the following requirements before you can start a junction: 1. GF Without them, the Junction screen will be unaccessible. If you don't believe me, try to activate the menu before you start to claim GF Quezacotl and Shiva. The menu will be greyed out. Therefore, it is necessary to assign a GF to each battling character. [i.e. party members that are currently available in that the party that is currently used.] 2. Junction Abilities Almost every GFs, starts off with at least one Junction abilities. These words are marked with "-J" and a J icon. But before you can use them, you need to have them mastered by going into battles. Once it is mastered, then they are usable. You can modify your GFs by using GF items that gives Junction ability. More of these will be discussed in Part II. 3. Magic Yep. Without them, there will be no "junction" effect on the character. You need to get magic by drawing from enemies, draw points or through magic refinement menus. You can only do these if you have already start junctioning ^_^; Magic boost up statistics differently. [see junctioning chart in Part II for some interesting statistics]. Some magic can only work for certain junctions. For example, Fire can be used for Elem Def-J but can't be used for ST Def-J. The effect of junction is based on the following factors: Number - the more spells you have, the better the junction will be. Type - the stronger the type of spell, the better the junction will be. Now I guessed you should have a brief idea about junction. Now here are steps to get a quick junction. --- A Quick Junction Walkthrough --- (by Scott Ong) After you have gotten GF Quezacotl and Shiva from the Balamb Garden Student Network, do the following: Starting a Junction Step 1: Activate the Menu [press Triangle] Step 2: Select the Junction header and then select Squall Step 3: Select Junction command in the Junction Menu. Step 4: Select GF(s) to junction with Squall. Press X after you are done with the selection. Note that you can have up to 16 GFs junctioned to one character. Junction both Quezacotl and Shiva. Step 5: Now you will be brought to Optimize Menu [if you have magic] or Ability Menu. Next select the empty slots in the Command box and choose the command abilities from the Ability List. Make sure Draw is in the Command list. If you move down the cursor, you can add any character/party abilities to the characters. Press X once you are done. Step 6: Exit from Junction Menu [press X] and press X again to exit from the main menu. Now you will have other command besides the Attack command. Proceed to 1F and move towards south past the Save Point in the main area. Go out the gates and proceed to the fountain. Press Circle at the Draw Point and choose Squall to draw Cure for Squall. Now you have the magic and it's time to enfuse magic to Squall's statistics via junctioning. * Assumption: Assume that you have only gotten 1x quantity of spell from the draw point. Enfuse Magic using Junction Step 7: Activate the menu [press Triangle] and select [Junction] Step 8: First of all, please note that some of the attributes [Spd-J] are being greyed out as there is no Junction Abilities for that catergory. Therefore, select a junction ability [HP-J] by pressing Circle button Step 9: Select "Cure" from the magic menu. Next you will find out that Squall's HP has been raised by +2. [Let's says that Squall's HP stats is 102 (after junction)] Step 10: Exit from the menus. Now you should have understand that the effect of Junction. Okay, let's go for another example. Proceed back inside Balamb Garden and proceed to the Library. Next move between the shelves until you get a camera change. You should find a draw point. You can draw Esuna magic from it. Replace Magic on an ability through Junction Step 11: Activate the main menu and select [Junction] Step 12: Select HP-J which is currently junctioned with Cure. Step 13: Select Esuna from the magic menu and you will find out that Squall's HP-J has been raised by +5 instead of +2. [Now the strength stats should be 105] Step 14: Exit from the menu. See the effect of stronger magic? The more powerful the magic, leads to the better effect of the junction. Well, there is nothing much for you do besides going out to the battlefield and start drawing magic like crazy. Keep on stocking up magic, Cure from Caterchipillar [caterpillar that you can find in the forests] until you have 100x Cure in Squall's magic inventory. Next, try to doing the following: Effect having more Magic Step 15: Activate the menu and select [Junction] Step 16: Select HP-J which is currently junctioned with Esuna. Step 17: Select Cure from the magic menu and use it to replace it with Esuna. Note that Squall's HP has been raised by +200 instead of +5] Step 18: Exit from the menu. This time, the examples illustrates on the effect of having more quanity of magic. In short, this phrase comes handy "the more, the better". Now go and start drawing 100x Fire from Bite Bugs (blue flies found at the grasslands of Balamb continent.) or 100x Thunder from Caterchipillar. Now, the basics of normal junctions have been taught. But do you want to repeated the above steps to junction Fire into another ability? But is this a bit too tiring for repeating the steps for other attributes such as Str-J and Mag-J? Function of Auto Here comes the function of the Auto Command in Junction Menu. If you select Auto, it will junction better magic to the category you will prefered most [there are three categories and they are Attack, Magic and Defense]. But in this way, the computer will do it for you. It will only works if you have at least one magic spells. Okay folks, that's the end of the mini-Junction walkthrough. --- End of Quick Junction Walkthrough --- For more information about elemental/status junction effects, please refer to the sections above. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ More Stuff that you need to know about Junctions ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Gasps* That's a lot more for me to cover! Here I have added the catergories of Junctions, including on how to use them [generally]. --- Character (C) Abilties Information Guide --- A short introduction to... Character Abilities: These abilities are abilities that boosts up the character's attributes by percentages [differently as compared to Junction, which boost up statistics by quantity of magic, e.g. gain 20% more strength stats by equipping Str +20%] or give characters special bonuses [eg 1: Auto Potion - ability that allows the character to use Potion when he/she is being attacked, eg 2: Mug - ability which allows the character to steal an item while attacking a character.] How to equip them? Here are the steps: Step 1: Activate the menu Command. [press Triangle] Step 2: Select [Junction], choose character, then to proceed to Junction Menu Step 3: Select the Junction command in the Junction Menu. Step 4: Select a GF(s) to junction, press X once you are done. Step 5: If you have magic, you will be brought to the Auto menu, pick any one that you preferred and press X and you will be brought to the Ability menu [i.e. if you don't have any magic, you will be brought automatically to Ability menu] Step 6: At the Ability menu, select the type of commands that you want to equipped for the character. Step 7: Next the cursor will point to the ability slots [the number of slots differ based on the GF. (i.e. certain GFs have Ability x3 and Ability x4, whereas a default GF allows you to equip 2 abilities.). Choose the ability you want to use and you will can enjoyed the effect! Step 8: Exit the menu. For more information about Character Abilities, please kindly refer to the GF Ability List: Character Abilities found in Part II FAQ. --- Party (P) Abilities Information Guide --- A short introduction to... Party Abilities are abilities that have the effect on the field. [i.e. the effect takes on the World Map, field terrain (the cities, the houses, etc are considered as field terrains). There are only a few abilties. Abilities like Enc-Half are pretty useful as it reduces enemy encounter rate by 50%. The steps to equip a Party Ability is similar to Character Ability. For more information about Party Abilities, please kindly refer to GF Ability List: Party Abilities in Part II FAQ. --- Guardian Force (GF) Abilities Information Guide --- A short introduction to... GF Abilities are abilities that gives bonus attributes such as more hit points and more damage done by their Summon Attack. These abilities does not needed to be equipped in order to take effect. Once they are mastered, they take immediate effect for that GF that owns the ability. There is a special ability called "Boost" that takes effect during battles. For more information about GF Abilities, please kindly refer to GF Ability List: GF Abilities in Part II FAQ. --- Menu (M) Abilities Information Guide --- A short introduction to... Menu Abilities are abilities that allows you to refine items [or cards] into magic and other items. All menu abilities end with a "-RF" are refinement menus. There are four menu abilities that gives you special bonuses for shopping [yup! that's right] It allows you to access to shops, even you are not in town! You don't need to equip these abilities for it to take effect. Once a menu ability is learnt/mastered, it will be added to the Ability Menu in the main menu. Below are the steps to use a menu ability: Step 1: Activate the main menu and select [Ability] Step 2: Select the menu that you want to use. Step 3: You will be brought to three different paths [based on the type of menu ability] - Items inventory if it refines items into magic or better items. You can even refine items to magic. - Magic inventory Menu abilities [Hi Mag-RF and Mid Mag-RF] will direct you to the magic inventory. But you need to select the character who you want to upgrade the menu.] - Cards inventory Use the cards that you have won from other card players to be refined into items inventory. Step 4: Select the item/magic/card and you will be able to refine it into the item/magic that is being listed in the refinement lists. Step 5: Press X to exit from menu and again to exit from the menu. Please to refer to the Menu refinement list found in Part II FAQ for the list of conversion rates. --- End of Junction Section --- _______ / 2.2.2 \_______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Item Menu ======================================================================== Items apparently are one of the most important factors in Final Fantasies. They will help you to restore HP, cure status disorder and helps in battles. I have classified them in six key groups/categories: --- Catergories of Items --- MEDICINE : Restorative items such as Potions, Phoenix Downs and Elixirs. Also includes status-effect restorative items such as Remedy. JUNK : Items such as M-Stone Piece, Magic Stone and Screws These items can not be use through the item command, however some of them provides some special desperation moves for Quistis and Weapon Upgrading. They can also be converted in materials for making Magic through Abilities Menu GF : Item used in restoring GF's lost HP or Life and allows GFs to learn new abilities. Provide that you have enough slots... BATTLE : Items that are only useable through the item command. One good example is the Phoenix Pinion. However, there are some exceptions... FIELD : Items that are group-based type, and only useable at Save Points, examples are Tents, Pet Houses and Cottages. MAGAZINE : Useful booklets which tells you requirements on Weapon Upgrading, new moves for Rinoa and new moves for Zell. BULLETS : This item are battle-type items and are used through Irvine's Limit Breaks. Drawing a full ASCII Art of the Item menu requires, time so I only draw out the Tool Bar. __________________________________________________________________ | < Use > < CUSTOMIZE> | ITEM | |_______________________________________________________|__________| This will enable you to use the items directly from the item menu. Only healing items such as Potions can be used from here. You can also view books, activate the item to fight the Diablos from here! To summon GF Doomtrain, use the Solomon's Ring through this command. [make sure you have met the requirements. You can also use items to let Quistis to learn special moves, improve GF affection by using GF affections items, upgrade character's stats with sources and allows you to read magazines. Allows you to arrange the items in your preferred way. Doing this will be much easier while in searching for the items that you wished to use. You can arranged the items by switching places and placing them in a blank space. There are about 25 item pages. This will cause the computer to arrange the items. Useable and important ones will be the top at the menu, while those unusable ones will be arranged at the lower section. Practically it is arranged in this order: [MEDICINE]-[GF]-[BATTLE]-[FIELD]-[AMMO]-[JUNK]-[MAGAZINES] < Command > This section allows you to arrange what you want to appear at the item pages [through item commands] Allows you to arrange the items in your own peference. Well look something like this: ________________________ |ITEM P1 NUM. | To change it's position, just simply |Potion 100 | the item on the top left screen and select |Phoenix Down 20 | another item [the spot where you want to |Remedy 6 | place the first item] There are about 10 |Gyshal Greens 1 | pages for items. You can use stones such |________________________| as Holy Stone as you are casting Holy! Refer to Part II FAQ for items bestiary. I have also included their translations and what they does. _______ / 2.2.3 \_______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Magic Menu ======================================================================== Magic apparently is an important factor in battles. Magic does decent amount of damage and some does massive amount of damage to a group of enemies, e.g. the Ultima Magic. Well here is the ASCII Toolbar of the Magic Menu. ______________________________________________________________________ | < Use > | MAGIC | |___________________________________________________________|__________| Allows you to use magic from the menu directly. NOTE: You can't use attacking magic such as Thunder, Fire, Blizzard, etc. You can only use all healing magic except for Regen. Usable magic will have white-color Japanese fonts. |Allows you to trade magic even a particular member is not currently in |your present party. There are a total of 3 commands from this section | |----[Hand over all] |Gives all the amount of a particular magic from an existing character |to the selected character in the lower row. Firstly select your |character and then select the magic spell you want to trade and then |select the character you want to give to and select the space where |you want to put the magic [All the amount of the current magic will be |given to the other character, e.g. If Squall has 3 Cure magic and you |trade Cure with Quistis, Quistis will have all the 3 Cure magic] | |----[Receive All] |Gives the top character to receive the amount of a particular spell |from the character at the bottom row. E.g. Squall is the top character, |and Quistis is the lower character. Select Quistis and the spell you |want to trade to Squall. Squall will have all the selected spell that |Quistis originally has. | |----[Divide] A better command. This option allows you to specify the number of magic that each of the character will recieve. The character must already has that spell in his/her own inventory. Allows the above character to receive all the magic from the bottom character. Very useful if you want to transfer all the spells from a character whom isn't in your party to the other character. A very common command used in arranging placing your magic in order for easy access during combat. Each character has 8 magic pages for Magic. To remove magic, just select the chunk of spells and press Square. ___________________ |MAGIC P1 NUM | |Ultima 45 | The ASCII art diagram on the left illustrates how |Thundaga 100 | the magic inventory box looks like. |Aura 100 | |Triple 100 | |___________________| _______ / 2.2.5 \_______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Characters' Status Window ======================================================================== This menu allows you to view the various abilities of your characters. Press the Circle button to open the Status Window. You can switch your characters with L1 or R1 buttons. Press Square to skip between status windows. --- Status 1st Window --- This allows you to get to know your character's basic abilities points like your character's name, level, current HP vs. its Maximum HP, the amount of EXP your character has gained, the experience points needed to reach the next level, attributes, the weapon that they are currently equipped with and the ability that they have acquired. --- Status 2nd Window --- This allows you to view the character's resistance against elements such as Poison and Fire. It also allows you to view their resistance against magic that causes status disorder such as Sleep and Darkness. Occasionally you will see a star at your character's attributes defense stats and status defense stats. That means that your character can absorbs that kind of elemental damage or protect from the status ailment 100%! ======================================================================== Elemental Chart ======================================================================== Elemental Resistence This tells how well the character is able to guard against the enemies' attack based on elemental. The higher the percentage, the lower the damage that the character will receive from the enemy. ______________________________________________ | | | | FIRE | POISON | | BLIZZARD | WIND | | THUNDER | WATER | | EARTH | HOLY | |______________________|_______________________| Here is a breakdown of the eight key elements.. FIRE : Fire magic is weak against Fire-based monsters, but is good against Cold/Ice/Water-based monsters. BLIZZARD : Blizzard magic is weak against Cold/Ice/Water-based monsters, but is pretty good against Fire-based monsters. THUNDER : Thunder elemental is weak against Thunder-based monsters, but great against mechnical beasts. EARTH : Earth elemental is useless against flying creatures but great against standing opponents except for Earth-based monsters. POISON : Poison elemental is useless against mechnical beast but great against humans except for Poison-based monsters. WIND : Wind elemental is great against flying creatures, but weak against wind-based monsters. Sometimes, Wind does not work well against flying creatures. WATER : Water elemental is great against monsters located at desert and mechnical beasts. Water works well against Fire-based monster. HOLY : Holy elemental works well against the undead ["false HP"]. Heal is an example of Life/Holy Magic. If you junction this to your character's Elemental attack.. you will make full use of it! ======================================================================== Status Disorder Chart ======================================================================== Status Disorder Resistence: If it is 100%, the character will be completely guarded against the status effect (i.e. the status disorder has no effect) ________________________________________________ | | ZOMBIE | | SUDDEN DEATH | SLEEP | | POISON | SLOW | | PETRIFY | CURSE | | DARKNESS | STOP | | SILENCE | CONFUSION | | BERSERK | ABSORPTION | |________________________|_______________________| Here is a breakdown of the status disorder (It should be quite familiar for those who have played Final Fantasies before. Unfortunately, they have remove the minature and frog status from FF7) SUDDEN DEATH: Your character will be killed instantly, HP drops to zero. This is very damaging and it's advisible to guard against it. POISON: A green cloud appears on head of your character. HP drops in chunks as the character reaches his turn. This status aliment WILL remain even while on the field. PETRIFY: The character becomes a solid stone and ATB stops [which means that you can't used that character. DARKNESS: A black cloud surrounds the forehead of your character. Your character will misses his/her attacks frequently. SILENCE: A tiny bubble speech that says "..." Your character can only use Attack Command and the GF's Abilities Command. BERSERK: Steam rushes out from the red-hot character. You will lost the control of the effected character as the character just attacked with the ATTACK COMMAND. ZOMBIE: The character becomes dull green in colour. Becomes an undead where vulunerable against Cure* and Life*. SLEEP: The character's ATB will stop and "zzzz" appears from the character. The character will only awake when under attack or a Remedy or Cure is used on him/her. CURSE: The colour of the character darkens and thus ATB bar slows down. [There isn't any magic that you can junction to your Elemental attack, that's reason why this status is being left out initially. Cast Aura to remove the status ailment. It also prevents your character from using his/her Limit Breaks. SLOW: The ATB guage [or known as the Active Time Bar] moves slower, thus changes to purple in color. STOP: The ATB guage freezes as the effected character stopped moving [even the super hyperactive Zell stops shaking!] CONFUSE: Your character turns around in circles and will attack your party on himself/herself! ABSORPTION: Finally found the usage. This depends on character's defense against life drain attacks, such as Drain. --- Status 3rd Window --- Allows you to glance through the GF that the characters have currently possessed. Also allows you to view the GF's affection towards the equipped character. The GF affection ratings can be improved by using GF affection items such as Dynamo Stone, refer to Part II for more details. GF affection could also be improved by summonining a couple of times. Regular summoning of a particular GF will improves affection with the character. --- Status 4th Window --- This allows you to view/set the characters' Limit Breaks to auto- function. 1. Limit Break [specials] For the case of Squall, you have trigger into the box, you will receive the amount of hits from 0 to perfect. If Squall has more than one hit, he will then perform his special move. For Zell, you have to input keys to inflict more damage to your enemy. If you want the input to be done automatically, move the cursor to ON, and decide with the Circle button. Refer to Part II for more details. _______ / 2.2.5 \_______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== GF Menu ======================================================================== GF. stands for Guardian Forces. Guardians are just the summoned monsters from FF7 and FFT [Final Fantasy Tactics]. They possesses very powerful strength and devastating magic. Use them wisely. There is a difference between FF7 and FF8. That's the number of times you can summon a GF. Summoning a guardian will requires time and you will find the blue ATB bar will overleap the character's ATB and the HP of the Guardian will be covering the character's HP. Last of all, summoning a monster does not required to use MP anymore! However, the GF menu has other functions. GFs can learn new skills which are similar to Final Fantasy Tactics or AP learning system of FF7's Materia System. Skills includes Str +20%, SumMag +20%, etc. |As you battles, you will gain AP which is mentioned in Part II. AP is |similar to FFT's job points which allows you gain when the job is |being completed. Guardians also gain EXP to level up and AP to gain |new abilities. In this screen, you will be given a list, which |includes the list of skills and how much AP is required. | |--- [Junction]{J} | Allows spells to be selected through the Junction and Magic menu. | This will increases you character's statistics. The more amount of | magic you have, the greater your character's stats will increase. | Note: NOT all characters can be boosted by the same spell. Auto | effect when a GF is being junctioned to the character. | E.g. HP-J and Str-J | |----[Command]{!}* | This can be selected through the Junction and Abilities sub-menu | for the use in combat. More commands in other words. A character | can have up the maximum 4 commands [including Attack command] | E.g. Draw and Mug | |----[Character]{C}* | This can be selected through the Junction and Abilities mainly | but these are selected on the bottoms abilities window. Your | character's ability will automatically in effect when selected. | You can get better results, such as equip Str +40% and Str +20%. | This will result that the character's strength increases by 60%. | E.g. Mag +20%, Spr +20% | |----[Guardian Force]{GF} | No need to be equipped. In fact, it will take effect once they | were learnt. GF skills takes effect immediately. Once you have | learnt SumMag +10%, the GF's summon attack does 10% more damage. | E.g. Boost and GF HP +10% | |----[Menu] {M} | Menu abilities can be selected directly from the main menu. | Different Guardian Forces will serve different functions. Menu | Abilities are being classified two types and they are: | | Select-to-Use: Examples includes refinement abilities such as | GF Siren's Tool-RF and Alexander's Med LV Up. It also includes | Call Item Shop and Call Junk Shop which will bring up the | shopping menu. Select these through the Ability menu. | | Auto-Effect: Examples includes Discount, Sell High, Familiar. | Discount allows you to buy items at a discount of 25% and Familiar | allows you to buy rare items from shops. | |----[Party]{P}* | For the previous update, it seems to me that I forget to add this. | Party ability brings effect to the current party. If you have a | character equipped a party-type ability, you will have the effect | while on the field. * To put these into effect, they needed to be equipped and each character can equipped 2 to 4 abilities, whether the GF has Ability x3 [equipped 3] or Ability x4 [equipped 4] The symbols will be seen in the icon next to the ability. Details about these abilities will be described in detail in FF8 FAQ Part II. _______ / 2.2.6 \_______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Ability Menu ======================================================================== During the begining of the game, the option is being greyed out. To use this menu, learn GF's Menu abilities and you will be able to use it. This menu allows you to make items such as ammo for Irvine and magic and item refinement. It also allows you to change card into items. Refer to Part II for more details. Once you have mastered a menu ability, you will see the option to be selectable. Example: Card Mod-RF - This ability allows you to modify the card into the item. RF stands for refinement. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ So how do the ability works? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Typically in the game, there are six categories of abilities and they are the following: Type 1 (Equip to Character's command/ability) ---------------------------------------------- . Command (!) --> These abilities takes effect if you have equipped them to the command list [but it is quite bad as you can have only a max. of 4 commands which include the attack command.]. These commands take effect once they are being used in battle. Examples include Devour, Draw, Doom and Card. . Character (C) --> These abilities are rather easy to get and they take effect for that equipped character after they have equipped. They can be easily classified into few groups/and here are some of abilities to take note of: . In-battle effect abilities - For example, Mug causes the Attack command to be changed to Mug. i.e the character can steal an item from an enemy once he/she uses an attack command. Counter allows the character to counter with Attack command when attacked. Others include Damage Return, Ribbon, Med Data, etc. . Auto- x (replace x with either Reflect/Protect/Shell/Haste/Potion) - these abilities take effect once the battle starts. . x + 20%/40%/60% - these abilities enhance the character's statistics by boosting through percentages unlike magic which boost statistics based on the quantity and power of magic. . Field-effect abilities - these abilities take effect on the field [ Heck, there is only one ability that have this effect (that's Walk and Recover)] for the equipped character. . Ability slots - there are character abilities that give your characters bonuses ability slots and they are Ability x3 and Ability x4. Character abilities work like Accessories in previous Final Fantasies and they give terrific bonuses. . Party (P) - Equipping them gives the party a field effect. For example, if you equipped Enc-None for Squall, the entire party [as long Squall is in the party] will experience no random battles. Examples also included Rare Item menu ability. Type 2 (Equip GF to take effect) . Junction (J) --> enables your character to junction magic for that catergory. These abilities allows you to boost up character statistiscs. Example includes HP-J, Type 3 (No need equip to have effect) . These abilities generally refer to the GF abilities. They will automatically take effect once the GF learns that GF ability. It only applies to the GF that own the skill. Type 4 (Activate from the Ability Menu) . These abilities are also known as Menu abilities. Once they are mastered, they will be placed with the Ability list. Most of them are ended with "-RF" which stands for refinement. These abilities are really useful. Others [those that does not end with "-RF"] includes Med LV Up, Item Shop, Junk Shop, Haggle, Discount, Familiar, etc. That's all you need to know about Abilities. _______ / 2.2.7 \_______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Switch Menu ======================================================================== Exchanging of party members can only be done at a Save Point or at the World Map. This option is available after Rinoa has joined you. Just select a party member at the stock and choose the character that you want to replace with. Sometimes the character are compulsory, the picture of the character will grey out [which means that you can't have that character's misplaced.] Note: There are special sequences called Laguna Dream Sequence, where you will be transported to the past and you will sometime sees an arrow like which present character [part of Squall's team] is replacing who's in the past [part of Laguna's team, Kiros and Ward] Use the Junction Exchange effectively. It allows you to transfer the GFs and magic to another character. _______ / 2.2.8 \_______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Cards Menu ======================================================================== This section allows you to view the cards that you have in your hand. Cards can be won by defeating BOSS, draw from monsters or by defeating other card players. There is more information included in Part II of the FAQ. For help in completing your collection, refer to Steven Bruck's Card FAQ [of course do not missed out his awesome Guardian Force FAQ]. Refer to Eugene See's Rare Card FAQ on getting the rare cards. [they provide useful and "hard-to-get" items when you have convert them through the Quezacotl's Card Mod-RF] More information about cards: - There are also rare cards found in FF8 [i.e. cards of your GFs, characters and even BOSSES] and they certainly requires a harder time to get them otherwise they will have no practical value ^_^;) Below is a short summary of Character cards and GF cards. The BOSS cards are not quite rare as you can obtained by using the Card command. For the rare cards, you can get additional copies of them until Disc 4 but not during your gameplay in Disc 1 to 3. Refer to the walkthrough for more details. Of course, there are exceptions. BTW, all cards listed here are RECOVERABLE at Disc 4. Watch for it in Disc 4 walkthrough. Cards of Guardian Forces Name of Card Where to Get it? Notes MiniMog Defeat boy in Balamb Garden Disc 1 onwards Chicobo Solve Chocobo Forests Puzzle Disc 2 onwards Angelo Defeat Watts at Train/ SeeD ship Disc 1 & 3 Chubby Chocobo Card Queen Quest (1) Disc 2 onwards Gilgamesh Defeat CC Group King* Disc 2 onwards Quezacotl Defeat Mayor Dobe at Station Disc 2 onwards Shiva Exchange Girl Next Door with Zone Disc 3 Ifrit Won during battle against Ifrit Disc 1 Siren Defeat Card Master at Dollet Disc 2 onwards Sacred Won during battle against Brothers Any disc Minotaur After battle, receive from dead king Any disc Carbuncle Defeat CC Group Heart [Xu]* Disc 2 onwards Leviathan Defeat CC Group Joker* Disc 2 onwards Pandemona Defeat man outside Balamb Hotel Disc 2 onwards Cerberus Won during battle against Cerberus Disc 2 Odin Won during battle against Odin Disc 2 Alexander Defeat Piet at Lunar Base/Crash Site Disc 3 onwards Doomtrain Card Queen Quest (1) Disc 2 onwards Phoenix Card Queen Quest (1) Disc 2 onwards Bahamut Won during battle against Bahamut Disc 3 onwards Eden Won during battle against U. Weapon Disc 3 onwards Cards of Characters Name of Card Where to get it? Notes Ward Defeat Odine in Esthar City Disc 3 onwards Kiros Card Queen Quest (1) Disc 2 onwards Laguna Defeat Ellone at Lunar Base Disc 3 Quistis Defeat Trepe Groupie #2 in B-Garden Disc 1 onwards Selphie Defeat friend @ fountain in T-Garden Disc 2 onwards Irvine Card Queen Quest (1) Disc 2 onwards Zell Defeat Ma Dincht in Balamb Disc 1 onwards Rinoa Defeat Caraway at Deling City* (2) Disc 2 onwards Seifer Defeat Cid at Balamb Garden (3) Disc 2 /Disc 3 Edea Defeat Edea at Edea's House Disc 3 Squall Defeat Laguna at Esthar City Disc 3 * The CC Group is not associated with the Card Queen! You can find them once you got at least 5 rare cards. You can find all of them at Balamb Garden. For information about the CC Group, please refer to Part II. (1) The Card Queen Quest is very tiring and tough. (*recommended for FF8 expert card players*) You need to chase and run after the Card Queen all over the continent and even space! Refer to Part II FAQ for more information about the quest. (2) You need to deliberately loses the Ifrit's Card, so Caraway can uses his Rinoa's Card. Defeat him again to get that. To retrieve the Ifrit's Card, proceed to FH station and go right from the door, you should find Martine fishing at the bay. Defeat him to get Ifrit's Card. (3) You can get this card at two point of time. One is during the first Fisherman's Horizon visit, i.e. before Squall talks to the Mayor. The one is at Disc 3 while at Edea's House. Points to Note about Cards: - To gain cards, you can do the following (does not apply to rare cards) : by using the Card Command on the monster in battle : by defeating other card players : by defeat monsters [rarely] : by questing [does not applies to all quests] - To convert/refine the cards into items, make sure you have the cards and Card Mod-RF [requires prequesite Card Command to appear] Go to Main Menu -> Abilities -> Card Mod-RF - The cards have four status: White - represents that you have it currently on hand. Grey - represents that you haven't gotten any one on hand / (never meet the card in card game before and this applies to rare cards only.] Blue - Indicates current rare card is not in hand. Yellow - Indicates that you have gotten the rare card once, but lost it during a card game. _______ / 2.2.9 \_______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Config Menu ======================================================================== You can now change your settings during the game, but NOT during battles, except for ON/OFF the vibration if you have a Dual Shock controller. Here is the section down the list: 1. SOUND : You can switch between Stereo or Monaural. 2. CONTROLLER: You can set the settings on Normal [default] or Customize [assign the buttons by yourself] 3. CURSOR: Cursor will automatically being placed at the last command. 4. ATB: Switch between [ACTIVE] where they flows normally or [WAIT] where the time stops automatically while selecting a command. 5. LABELER: Choosing the second option, the labeler will appear for those monsters/enemies that have been labeled once. 6. CAMERA: Allows you to regulate from 0 % to 100 %. Higher percentage, the better the camera view is. 7. BATTLE SPEED: Regulates the speed of the battle. 8. BATTLE MESSAGE: Regulates the speed of messages during battle. 9. FIELD MESSAGE: Regulates the speed of messages during on the field. 10. ANALOG INPUT: Regulates the reaction speed of the stick input 11. VIBRATION: Turns the vibration ON/OFF (applies to only Dual Shock controllers.) The controllers vibrates when you are summon GFs. ________ / 2.2.10 \______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Tutorial Menu ======================================================================== A precise guide in playing FF8. Teaches you to play FF8, explain on how play the card games. The TEST will only be selectable after you have received the first progress sheet [the time when Squall is officially an SeeD member.] Unfortunately, it is Japanese ^_^;) The test answers are listed below for your reference: There is a SeeD test at the TEST menu and here are the answers: ________________________________________________________________________ ANSWER TO THE SeeD TESTS (contributed by Qingxiong and Benedict) ________________________________________________________________________ Level 1: Y, N, Y, Y, Y, N, N, Y, N, N HOW TO DO THE TESTS? Level 2: Y, N, Y, Y, Y, N, Y, Y, N, N Level 3: N, N, Y, N, Y, Y, Y, N, Y, N Just select "TEST after Level 4: N, Y, Y, Y, N, N, Y, Y, N, N Squall has become a SeeD Level 5: N, N, N, Y, Y, N, N, Y, Y, Y member [completed the Dollet Level 6: Y, N, Y, Y, N, N, Y, Y, N, Y mission] from the TUTORIAL Level 7: Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, N, Y, Y, N menu. There you will be Level 8: N, Y, N, N, Y, Y, N, N, Y, N receiving a question whether Level 9: N, Y, N, N, N, N, N, N, Y, Y you are doing the test or Level 10: Y, N, N, N, N, N, N, N, Y, N not? Pick the option on the Level 11: Y, Y, N, Y, Y, N, Y, N, N, Y left and you will be able Level 12: N, Y, N, N, Y, N, Y, N, Y, N to take the test. Level 13: Y, N, N, N, Y, N, N, N, N, N __________________________ Level 14: Y, Y, Y, Y, N, Y, Y, N, Y, N |SeeD Test No. 4 | Level 15: Y, Y, N, N, N, N, N, Y, N, Y | Q.2 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | Level 16: Y, N, N, Y, N, Y, N, N, Y, N | xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | Level 17: Y, N, N, N, Y, N, N, Y, N, N | | Level 18: Y, N, N, N, Y, N, N, N, N, N | [YES] [NO] | Level 19: Y, N, N, Y, N, N, N, N, N, Y |__________________________| Level 20: Y, Y, N, Y, N, Y, Y, Y, N, N Level 21: Y, Y, Y, Y, N, N, Y, Y, Y, N Above is an ASCII art on how Level 22: N, N, N, Y, N, N, N, Y, Y, N the screen should look like. Level 23: Y, N, N, N, N, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y Level 24: Y, Y, N, N, Y, Y, N, N, N, Y NOTES: Level 25: Y, N, Y, Y, Y, N, N, Y, N, N Once you input the wrong Level 26: Y, Y, N, Y, N, Y, N, Y, N, N answers, you will not be Level 27: N, Y, N, N, N, N, Y, N, Y, N able to enter the answers Level 28: Y, N, N, Y, Y, Y, N, Y, N, N for that question. You have Level 29: N, N, N, Y, Y, N, N, N, Y, N to reset the test again. Level 30: N, Y, N, N, N, N, Y, N, N, N ________________________________________________________________________ KEY: Y stands for Yes, and N stands for No. [This is taken from the site Final Fantasy 8 Source. Level 6 to 30 are taken from Benedict's and Qingxiong's FAQ.] For any enquires on getting the answers, mail them at narsh@letterbox.com Without them, this section will not be possible! ________________________________________________________________________ These answers will help to promote Squall's SeeD Level by 1. Once Squall is an officially SeeD member, you will be able to receive money through walking around the field. The highest SeeD Level that the test can give Squall is Level 30. To get SeeD Level 31 or A, you can get this by defeating more monsters or proceed in completing the game. The TEST option is only accessible after Squall has finished the Dollet Mission. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NOTES ABOUT SeeD RANKING... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ <> You can only do tests if you have acquired the certain levels [this depends on Squall's level.] For example, to do Test No. 19, Squall must acquired Level 19 and above. <> The higher the SeeD ranking, the more money Squall will receive. SeeD Level 30 allows you to earn 20,000 gil each time. While SeeD Level A allows you to earn 30,000 gil each time. You will hear a ring each time, Squall recieves his salary. <> The levels of the SeeD ranking is unstable. The level will automatically dropped if Squall wanders too much on the field. So it is better to do some than wandering around! To get back the level, get into battles and you will get back that level sooner or later. ======================================================================== ________ / 2.2.11 \______________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Save Option ======================================================================== Saves your game in a Memory Card or Pocket Station. Could only save your game while on the WORLD MAP or at a SAVE POINT [a message will appear, saying that you must select the last option to save your game]. The Pocketstation option will be avalible after you will catch a Chocobo in any of the Chocobo Forests. You have two slots and overwrite the existing saved files, however it does not allow you to delete or manage your memory card. Below is based on my own assumption coz, I don't own the PC version. For the PC version, to excess the Pocketstation doing the following: (applies after you have gotten the Mother Chocobo in the Chocobo Forest Puzzle from Disc 2 onwards) - Locate yourself at the Save Point or World Map and activate menu. - Access the Save menu - Choose Pocketstation and you can played the game in the Pockestation! _____ / 2.3 \_________________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Default Button Configuration ======================================================================== Before I begin with the default button configuration, please note that all button configurations used in this FAQ are used in default settings. BTW, the settings are meant for the Playstation (c) version. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** Direction Pad **** [D-Pad] Field Screen 1) Moves your character in the Field Screen or in the World Map screen. 2) Select your options / messages 3) Select items while in a shop Menu Screen: 1) Moves the cursor. It is used to switch attack, defense status and Junction attribute attacks / Defense menus when Junction Magic is present from the Junction Menu Battle Screen: 1) Use to move your cursor to select your commands during combat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** Start button **** Field Screen 1) Use to pause the game and provides the Help Function and use to turn on/off the vibration Menu Screen 1) N/A Battle Screen 1) Use to pause the game and provides the Help Function and use to turn on/off the vibration ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** Select Button **** Field Screen 1) Turns on the World Map when you have a vehicle. Menu Screen 1) N/A Battle Screen 1) Turn off the command menu display when being pressed only. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** Circle Button **** Field Screen 1) Use to talk to people 2) Use to attempt to draw magic from Magic Stones 3) Selecting your commands. 4) Use to examine items, examine a ladder, press Up to climb up the ladder and Down to climb down the ladder 5) Confirms the selection of the items that you want to sell or buy in the shops. 6) Allows your character to board the elevator. Menu Screen 1) Use to confirmed selected command Battle Screen 1) Use to confirmed selected command ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** X Button **** Field Screen 1) When holding X, it will cause Squall and party to walk slowly, in a serious manner! [Walk] Menu Screen 1) Cancels your commands Battle Screen 1) Cancels your battle commands ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** Square Button **** Field Screen 1) Use to challenge opponents to play the Card Game [available after receiving the cards from the man near the elevator of 2nd Floor of Garden Academy.] Menu Screen 1) Remove magic in stocks, not by single magic. 2) Jumps to next option avaliable. Battle Screen 1) Use to raise the GF's attacking strength when pressed with a good timing, available after learnt GF ability's "Boost" command ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** Triangle Button **** Field Screen 1) Activates the Menu Screen Menu Screen 1) N/A Battle Screen 1) Change to the character who is still be able to accept commands. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** L1 Button **** Field Screen 1) Rotates the camera view Menu Screen 1) Switches target character/GF [right direction] 2) Switches language from Katakana, Hiragana, English during input your character's name. [towards left] Battle Screen 1) Uses to turn on/off the Target window. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** R1 Button **** Field Screen 1) Rotates the camera view Menu Screen 1) Switches target character/GF [left direction] 2) Switches language from Katakana, Hiragana, English during input your character's name [right direction] Battle Screen 1) Trigger [in Squall's special move] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** L2 Button **** Field Screen 1) Rotates the camera view Menu Screen 1) N/A Battle Screen 1) Escape from battles [hold together with R2 button] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **** R2 Button **** Field Screen 1) Rotates the camera view. Menu Screen 1) N/A Battle Screen 1) Escape from battles [hold together with L2 button] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ An additional bonus for PC gamers and here is list of controls [extract from Now you are ready, let's begin with the walkthrough! _____ / 3.0 \_________________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Walkthrough for Disc 1 ======================================================================== I have added information on what kind of magic that you have drawn from the Draw Point and the kind of items, which you can obtained by defeating the BOSS. However, please note that the list of items obtained from the battle will ONLY be available if you did not use the Mug command. The statistics of the BOSS' HP and what kind of magic you will be drawing is variable depends on the statistics of Squall's level. In other words, it means if Squall had attained higher levels, the stats of the BOSS will generally be much stronger. Personally, I did not know much about Japanese. All the translations are taken from a website [mentioned in credits section]. Thanks a lot or this FAQ will not be possible. The CGI/FMVs are SPOILERS, don't read too much about them. Thanks to Macro "Vegeta" Colombo for the lyrics: (They are added for those who don't understand what's going on in the CGI.) ________________________________________________________________________ ****** Liberi Fatali ****** Excitate vos e somno, liberi mei. Cunae non sunt. Excitate vos e somno, liberi fatali. Somnus non eat. Surgite. Invenite hortum veritatis. Ardente veritate Urite mala mundi. Ardente veritate Incendite tenebras mundi. Valetem, liberi, Diebus fatalibus For the english translation of the song, head for the following website http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nova/9862/ This song is the song behind the opening duel... ________________________________________________________________________ ** Starting FMV Sequence ** Squall's lover, Rinoa waiting eagerly for him, is surrounded by a beautiful haze of cherry blossoms and followed by some cut scenes of the battle between Squall and Seifer. Unfortunately, Squall got injured by the powerful Seifer in the process [Seifer has used magic! which is not being allowed during the battle], thus leaving a scar on his forehead. Squall return fires... _____ / 3.0 \_________________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== Familizing with Balamb Garden ======================================================================== --- ATFO #1 --- Well, here comes the first ever Area-to-Focus On section. In this section, there is nothing much to do besides collecting items or save your game. You can find three save points here, one is at the Dormitory, the second one is at the main hall and the third one is found at the Training Center. There are a total of three draw points and they are: . Cure - located in front of the fountain before you reach the main gate. . Esuna - located in between the shelves at the library, it can only be drawn once btw. . Blizzard - located in the Training Center, beware of the danger there. You can get 2 GFs [Quezacotl and Shiva] from the Balamb Garden Student Network [which is located at Squall's desk]. You can get seven cards from the man in the alleyway before the elevator. Don't bother to play cards now as they are pretty weak cards. You can get an Occult Fan I in the bookshelve [before the study area.]. Please follow the Junction Walkthrough under the basic tutorial to get a headstart, otherwise you will have only one command [that's the Attack command]. To save your game, just approach the save point. BTW, don't proceed to the Training Center as there is a fierce monster that's too hard for Squall to handle. You can have a short scene of a girl talking about the guy who she admires at the library study area. To have better mobility, make use of the Directory. Just exit the main hall and proceed to main gate where you will meet Quistis. Exit the area and you will be at the World Map. Cross the forest at the left side and you should find a cave, that's the Fire Cavern. Before proceeding there, make some general preparations and stock up magic from the monsters in the region, using the Draw command. ---------- Squall will be lying unconscious at the Infirmary when he was inspected by the doctor of Balamb Garden [Dr Kadowaki]. Dr Kadowaki will be asking Squall whether he is alright or not, pick any one for Squall's reply and you will be given a chance to name your character [SQUALL]. After a short conversation, Dr Kadowaki will phone Squall's instructor, and you will have another FMV sequence.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ** FMV ** Squall sighs and will be lying back on the bed. A girl dressed in blue, peeped into the Infirmary through the window and leaves as soon as Squall turns his head. This followed a lady wearing a pair of spectacles, dressed in the SeeD uniform, who is entering the Infirmary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ That person is actually Quistis. Next she instructs Squall to follow her to the classroom. Along the walkway, you will be able to talk to her by pressing the Circle button. Next you will have another FMV sequence about the students at Balamb Garden. Just followed her down the path. Next, Squall will be entering the classroom. BTW, noticed how sloppy Squall was! At the back row of the classroom, you will see Squall along with his rival, Seifer. Quistis will talk to the class that they will begin the SeeD final examinations. [The SeeD examinations is cruical for those whom want to be fully-pledged SeeD mercenaries] After the briefing, you will be regaining control of Squall. For this time, you will be able to view your menu [pressing Triangle button] for the first time. Now talk to Quistis who is surrounded by a group of students [they are known as Trepe Groupies]. She will tell you go to the Fire Cavern for the Field Test where you will battle against a Fire GF, Ifrit. [GF stands for Guardian Force]. You can now go back to your seat and watch the tutorial, and tried to get a slight idea on how to use the Junction system. [Balamb Garden Network, Tutorial Menu]. Pay attention to it or you can referred to the basic tutorial [section 2.0] for more details. ______ / 3.0i \________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Balamb Garden Network ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The network is user-friendly and easy to use. Just simply get back to Squall's desk, pressing Circle on the study panel and you will be able access the student's network. Next pick the first option [Tutorial], and you will be able to take your first two Guardian Forces: GF Quezacotl and GF Shiva. You will be asked to name the GF and thus being brought to the screen where you name your characters. Next you can spend your time browsing the other options. Here is an ASCII art of the screen: ___________________________________________ | Balamb Garden Network main index | NOTICE: | ==========================================| | | The School Festival | [ Tutorial ] | Commitee is only | [ The Basics ] | available after you | [ About Garden ] | have gotten the first | [ A Message from Garden ] | copy of the Timber | _____ [ Garden Square ] | Magazines as soon as you | |SeeD | _______________________________ | have recruited Selphie | |Logo | \ School Festival Commitee \ | Tilmitt. It got some | |_____| \------------------------------\ | good stuffs! Applies to |___________________________________________| Disc 2 onwards. NOTE: After collecting the first two GFs, it is time to equip them. You must equipped GFs before you can equip any of the basics commands besides Attack. To equip a GF: 1) First of all, select the character. 2) Select the Junction Menu. 3) Select GF Sub-menu 4) Select the GF that you will want to equip 5) Press X twice after you have finished junctioning the GFs. Note that you must junction at least one GF otherwise, you can't have other commands beside Attack. 6) Next you can equip command and abilities. GFs has acquired some of abilities at the beginning of the game. Hence, utilize it. To exit the tutorial, simply press X and then choose the first option. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Now exit the classroom. At the walkway, head south [towards the screen] a bit... Squall will eventually knocked into a girl and you will given two options. Pick the 1st one and after some chit-chat, you will given another 2 options, pick the 1st one if you are not familiar with the structure layout of Balamb Garden OR the 2nd option will result the girl leaving you. For those who have picked the 1st option: Squall will show the girl around the school and thus head for left where you can get to the elevator. There is a man dressed in yellow, talk to him and you will given 7 cards and instructions. Now you can play cards with your classmates, by going up to them and press the Square button. Now head inside the elevator. The elevator will take you to the 1st floor of the building and there is a short sequence where Squall will explain to the girl about the locations and their purpose. If you don't understand what they are talking about, read the following: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SeeD Academy: 1st Floor of Balamb Garden ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is the layout of the 1st floor of the school. It is arranged in a hexagon-shaped structure with passages leading to different areas. There are a couple of card players found in this main hall and their appearance is random. Note that you can go to the Training Center [but it will be a bit too risky..]. Those colour encoding marked in brackets is actually the colour coding on the ground. Here is the Legend: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ KEY MEANING ------------------------------------------------------------------------ E Stands for the elevator. L Stands for the lobby. [n] Stands for the Areas / Stands for paths Okay, let's get started. Starting in clockwise direction: 1. Dormitory: You can changed your clothes here or sleep [to recover lost HP] when needed. There are three players there after you have completed the fight against the Ifrit [Grey]. There is a Save Point in this area. 2. Parking Lot: The place where you parked the vehicles [Yellow] No significant purpose in the game. 3. Training Center: It's a huge jungle with huge rocks and pipes. The first time that you have entered, you will find two doors. There is a Save Point found here. [Green]. There is also a Draw Point found here. (Blizzard), it is somewhere near the ledge. 4. Library: The place for bookworms. There is a female player whom has very powerful cards. There is a Draw Point located in between the bookshelves You have to examine the bookshelf to find the Draw Point, the man looking at the bookshelf is also another card player. [Blue]. There is a note about the Draw Point, it will not be useable after you have draw from it. This is also the place, where you will find the person whom Zell loves with secretly. You can get the Occult Fan I from the second shelf, search the shelf [no camera change!]. (Esuna) Check here if you want to meet a girl whom secretly loves Zell. 5. Central Gate: The entrance of SeeD school. It does not lead to World Map directly! There is another player at the main gate. A Draw Point is found near the fountain. Found another player, standing near the entrance. [Dark Blue]. (Cure) 6. Infirmary: The place, where you will find the doctor and the room where sick/injured people were attended by Dr. Kadowaki. [Purple] 7. Quad: The School Stage. You can play cards with the girl near the stage [Pink]. 8. Cafeteria: The canteen of Garden. There is another player sitting on the left of the table on the extreme right [Red]. You will meet Seifer and his pals. [Fujin and Raijin], the first time you have been to there. 9. Elevator: This will allow Squall to head for the second floor, where you will find the classroom. You can also access the Tutorial menu. 10. Lobby: The place where you can find a map of Garden 1st Floor. There is a Save point near it. Press Circle to view the map. L stands for Lobby. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tip: Finding more around Garden is very tiring? Here's a way. Examine the map and pick the place that you want to go. Press Circle and your character will be on the path heading for the site that you want to go. This only works during early in the game. [for the entire of Disc 1.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [1] [8] | [2] \ | / [7]- - - E - - -[3] / L \ [6] | [4] [5] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Familiarize yourself with the layout of the school. Here is a frequently asked question about imported/japanese games. ____________________________________________________________________ | Question No. 1 | | Q: How do I save my game ? | | A: Get to a Save Point and choose the bottom most option from your | | menu. You can only save your game at a Save Point or at the | | World Map. At changing Disc intervals, you will be also | | prompted to save your game. | |____________________________________________________________________| There is a Save Point at the lobby, that's located in front of the elevator [Please note that the design of the Save Point is different from those in FF7]. Now just head for the Central Gate and just simply hold forward at the red gate and Squall will knocked open the gate. Now you will reach the garden that's located in front of the school. There is another player somewhere around here. Now head outside the school gate and you will meet a girl dressed in orange, that's Quistis and she will join you. Now you exit out of Garden and now at the World Map. Now at the World Map, there is a very obvious difference between FF8 and FF7, that's the structures appeared much bigger that the marker [Squall]. Make your way towards right, not following the path. Just cut through the forest and you will find a cave located at the southeast from Balamb Garden. Below is a map of Balamb Continent: Legend FC Fire Cavern [Cave of Fire] BG Balamb Garden == Train tracks .. Road tracks ++ Mountains XX Forests - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _________ _________________________________________| |_____________ / | Balamb | ___\ | FC . . . . . . . . . . .|_________|============ | | XXXXXXXXX ___.__ ================_| | XXXXXXXXXXX / \ XXXXXXXXXXX + | XXXXXXXX | BG | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX + | \______/ XXXXXXXXXXXX +++ \ ++++++++++ \+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ____________________________________________________________________ | Question No. 2 | | Q: How do I use Draw Points ? | | A: This is really simple. Firstly you must have equipped GF and | | the command "Draw". Next approach a Draw Point, press Circle | | and you will given two to four options [the number depends on | | the number of members you have in the current party]. The first | | option does not drain the Draw Point. Other options are the | | names of your characters. Simply select the person whom you want| | and if you check at the Magic sub-menu, you will find the gained| | spells there. Certain Draw Points can only be drawn once [one | | good example is the one at the Library]. Draw Points can | | regenerate, they will turn to purple translucent clouds. Note | | that you can't stock any type of magic more than 100 stock. | |____________________________________________________________________| ___________________ | I m p o r t a n t |________________________________________________ | | | For those whom have not played FF7, here is some information about | | the World Map [BTW, do you missed the Begineer's Hall of FF7?] | | | | 1. You WILL encounter random battles whether in forests or | | grasslands. Exceptions are while walking on the road and train | | tracks or within towns/cities. | | | | 2. You can enter structures such as caves, building by moving | | towards them. There are certain cases which allows you to enter | | a structure in a vehicle. | | | | 3. You can save anywhere while on the World Map. | | | | 4. You can find hidden draw points on the World Map. | |____________________________________________________________________| _____________________________ | Tutorial for Battles/Combat |______________________________________ |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | 10 Battle Tips from Scott Ong (kangning@mbox5.singnet.com.sg) | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | 1. Always stock up your spells to its maximum [100 spells] as it | | could help in bolstering up your HP and stats through junction. | | However, never ever doing this when you are given a time limit. | | | | 2. Keep your eyes open on the surroundings. Make full use of | | elementals. You can stock up Thunder from the Caterchipillar, | | Fire from the Bite Bug and Blizzard from the Fastitocalon-F | | [refer to Part II of the FAQ for the descriptions.] You also | | stock up Cure from the Caterchipillar in the forests. Hope that | | this section helps you to get basic elementals. It will be | | better you can find Glaccid Eye [found near the mountains of | | Balamb] as it has spells such as Blizzard and Cure. | | | | 3. Always check the stats of the monster when you first encountered| | them. As this will benefit you from battles. Make full use of FF| | elemental rules [stated in the Basics section above] | | | | 4. Always get important abilities first such as Boost, these | | abilities comes handy during BOSS fights. Get SumMag +10% and | | followed by Junction ability and then switches back to SumMag | | +20%. | | | | 5. As you gained higher levels, monsters have DIFFERENT draw spells| | and BOSSES has new spells. So stock them if there is no time | | refrain. | | | | 6. Silenced monsters that uses magic! [you can get Silence from the| | Grat at the Training Center.] For convinence, I have added the | | list of monsters that you can found in that particular area. | | [Part II only ^_^;] | | | | 7. Get Quezacotl's Mid Mag-RF to lend you a hand early in the game.| | You can get better magic such as Cura, Fira and Blizzara. | | | | 8. This may sounds mad, but it is rather important. Draw special | | spells such as Double [from the Elvoret] and stock up to 100x of| | them. They are good magic to boast up your character's stats | | | | 9. To gain more AP at the begining, fight Fastitocalon-F [found at | | the shores of Balamb] as each will give 3 AP! Take this | | opporunity to master up menus such as Mid Magic-RF and Boost | | | |10. Last of all, good luck.... | |____________________________________________________________________| _____ / 3.1 \_________________________________________________________________ ======================================================================== The Fire Cavern ======================================================================== ____________________________________ | Get Blizzard from the Glaccid Eye | | found in the snowfields of Balamb | Battle Tip | Garden. The monsters in the Fire | #1 | Cavern are weak against Blizzard. | | You can also draw Blizzard from the| | Fokaru Feiku. (shore fish found in | | the shores of Balamb Garden). | |____________________________________| --- ATFO #2 --- This section is pretty straightforward section. Just take of the following: . The Bombs get enlarged once they are hit hard. If they become too big, they will explode [kamikaze will be a better word.] and dies off with either Quistis or Squall. . The Buel are weak against physical attacks but strong against magic, hence take note. . Conserve your limited supply of Potions as make use of Draw and Cast technique on the Caterchipillar (caterpillars that found in the forests of Balamb, outside the Fire Cavern.) The Ifrit BOSS is pretty weak against Blizzard/Ice magic. Summon Shiva and you can easily defeat the Ifrit. Take note of the time limit. About Limit Breaks: To execute your limit breaks, you need to get your characters into critical status (i.e their HP must be low until the colouring of words turned yellow or red). Once they are in that condition, tap Triangle button repeatedly until you see a small arrow pointing on the right side of the Attack Command. Then press right and you will see an additional box along with the name of general Limit Break. Limit Breaks are killer technique that does more damage compared to normal attacks. Hence it is advisible to use them wisely. Once your character can execute the Limit Break, he/she can execute infinite amount of times, until he/she is dead or he/she has passed the critical status (you must have cast a restorative magic or use an item to restore HP.) Quistis - Get a Spider Web by defeating the Caterchipillar and use it on Quistis to learn her Limit Breaks. Last of all, beware of the time limit once you start rampage at the Fire Cavern. -------------- As you reached the cave, Quistis will ask you a question, choose the 1st option to avoid repeating it. [actually that question is telling you whether you have gotten the GFs from the Balamb Garden Network] At the entrance of the cave, you will meet 2 guards wearing yellow caps [Garden Faculty]. Talk to them and you will be given two options, pick the 1st option if you are ready. Now they will give you a time limit 10 minutes 20 minutes 30 minutes 40 minutes Squall and Quistis will be able to enter the cave. Inside the cave, you find Squall's instructor Quistis, rather a nuisance. She keeps on bragging about her ability. The cave has rather a straight-forward layout. Just walk along the path and exit to the next screen. Simply walk up until the path started to split into three. Take the right path and absorb some Magic from the Draw Point. {Fire} Now take the middle path and there you find a fire pit. After some chit-chat, you will have to fight the first BOSS, Ifrit. NOTE: The time goes on whether you are talking or during battles. The time will only stops when you have returned back to the entrance. You must defeat the Ifrit and head back to the entrance within the time that you have chosen. In fact, the layout