The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>and have it saved right before the Cerberus fight in Galbadian garden. I got unlucky in my first attempt fighting him where Cerberus beserked Rinoa (my main caster/healer/dispeller), casted triple on himself, and then proceeded to blast my party to pieces. For fun, i logged onto gameFAQS, wanting to read tips on how to beat him. gameFAQS reccomends to dispel his triple, well duh, i knew that, but my caster got beserked. I decided I'll kick his ass next time when he doesnt get so lucky with a random beserk and i'll even give one of my fighters the item option in case he does it again, last time i had no way to get rid of that damn beserk. Anyways, that isnt the point. The point is that on gameFAQS i noticed the author wrote in his guide his character lvls before each major fight. For the Cerberus battle Squall was 60, Rinoa 56, Selphie 57 or somrthing close to that. Jesus, i thought, my guys are only lvl 25! I havent even used encounter-none one bit, whats the deal?!

This led me to thinking. Its not the random battles in RPG's that bother me, its more the 'sit and lvl' concept that every FF wants you do. This guide guy obviously sat around and lvl'd his guys all to hell every chance he got. Me, i like to keep moving on, to progress the stroy to see what happens next. I'd have to say, now, that this is the single most annoying thing in RPG's for me. You should be able to be strong enough just moving through the game as it is supposed to be played. I think FF10 let me do this fairly easily. I only remember having to sit and lvl once at the end. Atleast in that game lvling was fun because you got to progress yourself on the lvl circle thing. FF8 doesnt let you customize you lvl ups like this and with the magic junction system, why exactly do you need to lvl at all?

My lvl 25 guys are not wusses, however. I did spend 20 minutes or so drawing 200 magics of Thundaga to junction to my STR guys from some random monster once. I also visit that town where you pay to draw ultima frequently to stock up on those. Squall rapes random monsters with his str+20% and str+40% and thundaga junctioned. I dont think i'm below the curve, yet, but i suppose if i dont sit and lvl soon i'll fall behind and even random monstes will kill me... i hate lvling mindlessly. I've found that this is the reason why i cant play MMORPG's either. The 'community' factor doesnt make it fun enough to cancel out the boringness of lvl'ing.

FF 11 was the longest MMORPG i've played to date but now its on the shef after 3-4 months along with DAoC and E&B. Luckily i sold the other 2 for reasonable prices on E-bay. I'll probably hang onto FF 11 for a little while longer, but i wish i bought a new soundcard with that money instead :)</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Hmm...I got tired of FFXI too. I wonder if I could sell it and someone else could use the same key since I canceled my service and all.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Oh man, I forgot something about FF8 that I thought was enormously stupid: you get penalized if you don't fight by having your pay reduced.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>That's what the SeeD test is for. to keep you at the highest possible pay level.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>And those were also completely unnecessary. I don't play videogames to exercise my process of elemination skills. I never bothered to find out how much one effected the other, all I know was that while exploring towns, I'd get my pay reduced. That's dumb. I like the game, but that aspect was silly.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Money's almost useless in FF8 so it's not as bad as it could've been. Besides you can make infinite money by buying/refining/selling</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Level plays very little overall. Besides it's better to level later so you can take advantage of +stats on level ups that you get from GFs.

If you have Full Life, Reflect, Meltdown, Ultima, and Flare, that's pretty much all you ever need.

But it is annoying to have to level up to even get anywhere. FFX did a pretty good job I think. My characters were obviously underleveled since I run from a good deal of encounters, and didn't level up except in High Bridge (before Sigma Natus or whatever) but the game was still beatable.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Just run around with your characters at critical (so you get fast limit breaks too) and your level will raise.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>No offense Don, but unlike you, I try not to exploit a game's loopholes. I find it less fun.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I never did that, I'm just saying you could. There's virtually no point in FF8 you actually need that money anyway except when you need to make everyone's ultimate weapons (for the magazine if you missed it)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>SeeD tests are fairly easy to get an extremely high income. If you don't like them or have trouble completeing them, then that's your problem, you'll just have to do without a lot of money; money is only really one way to help you throughout the game.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Check and see how many tents you have, if you have 10, refine them into 100 Curaga, junction it to Squall's HP (keep his HP low so he has his limit breaker active every turn), this should give you around 6000 HP or so minimum. Also give Squall your most powerful attack magic as his junction for offense. As Don said below, Leveling up (if you choose to do it) is by far most beneficial when you have the +stat modifier abilities junctioned. Until you have those, it is best just to ignore it.

Also, I think Cerberus has Dispel magic on him; draw it and cast it against him if you feel you have to.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>If the battle goes well i'll spend some time drawing triple from Cerberus because its a huge stat modifier. Better than the thundagas that i have on str at the moment. I think it adds .6 per magic, ultima adds 1 and thndaga adds .3. Its a good spd modifier too. I want to get a lot of triples and i'll risk my life to do it!</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Triple is the best speed modifier, soso on str I think. Another alternative is just junction Berserk to S-Defense.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Mad Rush could also be a simple sollution (since you're resistant to spells and beserk is worthless anyways).</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>i womped him the 2nd time. Drew/casted triple on my healer, and triple cura'ed everytime he catsed his 900 damage spell that hit everyone while Squall with haste sliced his face off. I knew it was an easy fight, i just got unlucky the first time.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>My problem was more that I was being penalized for playing the way I liked, rather than it was having an actual effect on me. It was just unnecessary.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>You really just like to argue for no reason don't you? :)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Pfft, I was able to draw every single freakin thing I could out of Cerberus, he's a little punk. Never died once. :)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>No, I realized that my point wasn't clear.</div>