<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>This is a very complex game. Keep these in mind, and the journey will be smooth and it'll never be slow.
#1 Not much need to draw a lot in the first few disks. Draw only from enemies you get 9 points from, otherwise kill them and convert any treasures you get from them to magic
#2 ALWAYS attempt to draw from any boss, this is how you get most Guardian Forces in the game, these are important, without them you will not be able to convert. Guardian forces also have abilities which allow you to increase your characters stats drastically.
#3 Card battles aren't necessary, but the card conversion GF ability (I think it's from one of your original GF's) will allow you to convert cards to magic and items (which in turn can be converted to magic
#4 Try to get all the weapons magazines and pet magazines, these will allow you to get upgrades for your weapons and upgrades for Rinoa's Limit Breakers. Other magazines will often grant you limit breaks for certain characters. Squall gets his by upgrading his weapon.
#5 try using certain items on Quistis, they will grant her blue magic.
#6 If you can manage it, go through with very low HP, usingcure 1 spells and potions to stay alive, when you are low on HP you can use limit breakers which easily kill enemies.
#7, once you have the airship, seek the Islands of Heaven and hell, equip on Sirens No Encounter ability, and keep hitting X, you will get draw points all over the place for Ultima, full life, etc.... It takes a few minutes to max out on these. Junction Full life to your HP (which should put you to 9999 with any GF life bonus ability), and junction Ultima to strength (which should put you to 255). Once you have this all, you will have the power to go right through to the end of the game and finish it. I know it's kind of cheap, but it works, the rest of the game should still offer quite a challenge since you are relatively low on levels still. If you need level ups, the Islands of Heaven and Hell have very powerful monsters that can get you from 20-99 within an hour (from what I hear). This will make the regular enemies more challenging, but the boss battles easier.
Believe me, I am very glad I did my homework on this title. Years ago when I first played it, I had not done this, and I did have some fairly hateful rants about the game. I disliked it for the same reason I disliked Final Fantasy 1. However, Final Fantasy 8 actually has all the information I listed above in the game (unlike FF1), it's just that few players take the time to explore the Garden at the beginning, and never check the Tutorials, missing all of that stuff.
Anyways, I highly recomend this game, the amount of detail and careful thought put into the character interactions and the translation truely makes it an enjoyable experience as far as games go. There are only a few Epic Adventure games I would list above it (namely Skies, Ocarina of Time, Vagrant Story, and a few others).</div>
#1 Not much need to draw a lot in the first few disks. Draw only from enemies you get 9 points from, otherwise kill them and convert any treasures you get from them to magic
#2 ALWAYS attempt to draw from any boss, this is how you get most Guardian Forces in the game, these are important, without them you will not be able to convert. Guardian forces also have abilities which allow you to increase your characters stats drastically.
#3 Card battles aren't necessary, but the card conversion GF ability (I think it's from one of your original GF's) will allow you to convert cards to magic and items (which in turn can be converted to magic
#4 Try to get all the weapons magazines and pet magazines, these will allow you to get upgrades for your weapons and upgrades for Rinoa's Limit Breakers. Other magazines will often grant you limit breaks for certain characters. Squall gets his by upgrading his weapon.
#5 try using certain items on Quistis, they will grant her blue magic.
#6 If you can manage it, go through with very low HP, usingcure 1 spells and potions to stay alive, when you are low on HP you can use limit breakers which easily kill enemies.
#7, once you have the airship, seek the Islands of Heaven and hell, equip on Sirens No Encounter ability, and keep hitting X, you will get draw points all over the place for Ultima, full life, etc.... It takes a few minutes to max out on these. Junction Full life to your HP (which should put you to 9999 with any GF life bonus ability), and junction Ultima to strength (which should put you to 255). Once you have this all, you will have the power to go right through to the end of the game and finish it. I know it's kind of cheap, but it works, the rest of the game should still offer quite a challenge since you are relatively low on levels still. If you need level ups, the Islands of Heaven and Hell have very powerful monsters that can get you from 20-99 within an hour (from what I hear). This will make the regular enemies more challenging, but the boss battles easier.
Believe me, I am very glad I did my homework on this title. Years ago when I first played it, I had not done this, and I did have some fairly hateful rants about the game. I disliked it for the same reason I disliked Final Fantasy 1. However, Final Fantasy 8 actually has all the information I listed above in the game (unlike FF1), it's just that few players take the time to explore the Garden at the beginning, and never check the Tutorials, missing all of that stuff.
Anyways, I highly recomend this game, the amount of detail and careful thought put into the character interactions and the translation truely makes it an enjoyable experience as far as games go. There are only a few Epic Adventure games I would list above it (namely Skies, Ocarina of Time, Vagrant Story, and a few others).</div>
-Insert Inspiring Quote-
