FAQ Version 1.10 January 1, 2006
===============================================================================
Another in a long line of smash hit console RPGs from Squaresoft. Like its
immediate predecessor, FF 7, the game was finally released as a PC port for
Windows a couple of years after the inital console version. (Sadly, it seems
the only future development in this area will be multiplayer online games, of
which I'm no longer a fan.) It struck me as I examined the available guides
that no one had written one dealing with the PC version! I couldn't resist
passing on my evil wisdom to anyone who either digs up this classic or finds
it in the bargain bin--the plot, character development, and unusual combat/
powerup system are well worth repeated replays. This guide will help you
enjoy stomping through the game without breaking a sweat, no matter what
opponents you face.
The Atomic Raven is proud to be known among fellow gamers as a "munchkin":
the kind of player who mathematically minimizes penalties and maximizes
benefits no matter what sort of rules apply to any given situation. Some call
this approach cheap, or cheesy. But let's face it--you're not concerned with
how honorable your victory over the CPU is, you just want to win, right?
Listen to my advice, and your journey from a classroom in Balamb Garden to
the final confrontation with "timeless" (ha ha) evil will be a walk in the
park.
Legal Statements:
The Atomic Raven is not an employee and has no relation to the corporations
who created Final Fantasy 8. Their names and trademarks are entirely their
property.
Copyright 2006 Blair Burroughs. All rights reserved. This text may be not be
reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may
not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without
advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a
part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of
copyright.
The following sites are permitted to host a copy of this document for
public access:
GameFAQS.com
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Supercheats.com
To request hosting permission, make comments, ask questions, or suggest
corrections contact the Atomic Raven at blair@afaproject.org.
INDEX
=====
I. Enlighten Yourself
II. Higher Level Characters DON'T Make Combat Easier
III. Pimp Your Deck
IV. Cheating with Chicobos, or "255 without magic?!"
V. Crush Your Opponents with Cheap Junctioning
VI. Cheap Tricks for More Advanced Users
SECTION THE FIRST
In which the purpose of the guide is revealed.
===============================================================================
For the purpose of this document, I assume basic familiarity with gameplay.
If you see words or abbreviations that are incomprehensible, look through the
manual and check out the in-game tutorial, then start reading again. (The
"Junctioning" system is very non-intuitive, but the tutorial deals with it
quite well.) I have, however, decided to include instructions for Junctioning
as it relates to making a practically unstoppable party. This document is NOT
a comprehensive walkthrough because there were NO plot changes and very few
detail changes other than spelling modification between the console version
and the PC version, and there is no point in duplicating all that
information. On the other hand, with the tactics you're about to learn from
me, you may not even NEED a walkthrough unless you want to make sure you don't
miss any side quests.
[In fact, you will notice a number of players--including some on this very
site--who say it's easier to beat this iteration of Final Fantasy than any
other so far. They have suggested challenges such as "No junctioning magic"
and even "No junctioning GFs" to make the gameplay much harder. Please! You
don't want harder, or you wouldn't be looking for help, right?]
SECTION THE SECOND
In which the inadvisability of gaining experience points is exposed.
===============================================================================
Many who play console RPG-style games engage in a practice known variously as
"borging", "farming", and some even less complimentary terms. This refers to
repeatedly engaging in random encounters or otherwise repeatable battles for
the sole purpose of gaining experience points. The obvious purpose for doing
so is to make your party of characters gain power so that combat becomes much
easier. Do not attempt this in FF 8! Why? Because the power level of the
opponents you encounter, both randomly and in fixed locations, is based
entirely on your party's average character level. The tougher you are, the
tougher THEY are... which is very bad news, since in this game, your
characters' combat statistics do not increase very much each time they gain a
level, but the statistics of most monsters improve substantially with just a
few levels of difference. Higher level monsters also get better physical and
magical attack options, and use the more deadly ones far more often.
"But," you say, "how can I avoid getting experience?! Surely you don't
suggest I run away from every battle! I'd never get anywhere." Too true.
But it is possible to win 99+% of the battles you may be involved in while
gaining 0 XP. And the rest can be arranged to grant minimal XP. Just follow
these instructions:
1.) At the very beginning of the game, make sure that the first ability the
Quezacotl GF learns is [Card]. Equip the [Card] command immediately as soon
as it is gained, because with it you can destroy monsters without receiving XP
for them. Your GFs still receive AP for carded monsters, and the appropriate
items are still dropped, so there is no disadvantage to winning combats in
this manner. You will also occasionally get a really cool card to add to your
collection, such as an endgame boss or a much tougher and rarer monster. It
takes some practice and some patience to card monsters; the command is not
successful all the time. Specifically, it depends on the monster's health--
undamaged beasts practically never turn into a card, while on those which are
almost dead already it almost always works. Especially early in the game you
may want to have Squall, without Strength boosts, attack physically the
monster you wish to card. If you skip triggering his Gunblade, you have a
fairly fine control over how much damage you deal, and can avoid killing the
target and accidentally gaining XP. While using this method it's a good idea
to save often, especially on entering an unfamiliar area. Scan your enemies
before you start attacking to see how much damage they can withstand, too. If
you acquire a {Gambler Spirit} item you can teach another GF how to card
opponents as well, making it much quicker and easier to finish no-XP combat.
2.) The next ability that can be used to avoid experience gains is [Devour].
The Eden GF knows this ability when you [Draw] it from Ultima Weapon late in
the game. Unlike [Card], [Devour] can often destroy weaker opponents with a
single command, especially if the character using it has stats much better
than the monster's defense. A devoured opponent, just like a carded one,
grants no XP; you gain AP normally, but usually no items (guess you ate
them...oh well). Additionally, the character who devoured the monster
experiences a side effect. Monsters which are yummy will heal the character
either partially or fully, whereas monsters that are toxic will inflict damage
or negative status effects. A few types of monsters, if they are high enough
level, will actually permanently increase one of the character's statistics!
If you acquire a {Hungry Cookpot} item you can teach the [Devour] ability to
another GF.
(For those too lazy to look in another FAQ and find out on their own, you
can't get stat boosts from eating monsters until they are at least level 30.
Tonberry's [LV Up] command may prove useful here. Munch on Ruby Dragons for
Hit Points, T-Rexaurs for Strength, Adamantoises for Vitality, Behemoths for
Magic, and Malboros for Spirit.)
3.) Neither [Card] nor [Devour] works on boss monsters or human opponents,
such as Galbadian Soldiers. This isn't a problem with bosses, since those
fights generally grant loads of AP but 0 XP. In the early stages of the game,
you can minimize XP gain from fighting human foes if you finish them off by
summoning GFs (winning combat this way grants less experience for some
reason). Shortly after beginning Disc 2, however, you can obtain the Tonberry
GF through a simple side quest. It comes equipped with the [LV Down] command
ability, which lowers the targeted opponent's level by half (rounded up). Its
best use is against non-cardable/non-edible opponents; simply reduce their
levels until they are level 1 and finish them off with a summoned GF, which
should result in a gain of only 1 XP.
4.) Do NOT perform the Odin side quest in the Centra Ruins. He can't kill
boss monsters, and when he kills normal monsters before you have a chance to
act you get stuck with the XP. If you absolutely MUST get Gilgamesh, I
recommend you wait to do the quest until just before you enter Lunatic Pandora
with the Ragnarok on Disc 3.
5.) You CAN, however, advance 13 of the 16 GFs to level 100 without causing
long-term problems. This should be done near the beginning of Disc 3 when
Rinoa is incapacitated and the party is escorting Edea through the Great Salt
Lake. Simply kill off the other two active members of the party the first
time you enter combat. Finishing every battle with only Edea standing
ensures only she (and the party's GFs of course) will gain XP, and you will
not have her in your party for much longer. If you use Tonberry's [LV Up]
command to make all the Rightys and Vysages you face here level 100 Edea and
the GFs will gain large amounts of XP quickly. (I recommend killing off all
the Leftys before doing so, since they can sometimes [Draw] magic that will
be difficult to restock until after you have the Ragnarok.) Even after she
can no longer advance, however, the party's equipped GFs still divide that
experience among themselves. This process can take several sessions of play
to get all your GFs to level 100, but despite how tedious it may seem the
massive boost in effectiveness for your otherwise low-powered summons is
worth the work.
SECTION THE THIRD
In which the benefit of early card sharking is made clear.
===============================================================================
There's no need to try to get one of every card in your deck right away. In
fact, you simply can't do so until much later in the game. But right at the
beginning, before you've even officially become a SeeD, you can use the
Quezacotl GF's [Card Mod] ability to dramatically power up your beginning
party. All you have to do is play cards!
[Card Mod] is a menu ability that destroys one or more cards from your
collection and transforms them into usable items. These items can be used to
remodel your early weapons into far more dangerous and cooler looking
armaments, increase compatibility with GFs quickly, or teach Quistis some of
the nastier Blue Magic limit break options. Some can also be refined into
spells to boost your magic stock, which is especially handy to get nasty
Junction-boosted stats. There are several excellent FAQs discussing the rules
and strategy of the Triple Triad card game, and I won't go into the topic
here. I have found that the easiest and fastest way to acquire many of the
kind of cards you need is to wait until you have Quistis, Ifrit, and some
Bombs to fill out your starting deck. Then, go to the Card Queen in front of
Balamb's train station and challenge her until her trade rule is "All". After
winning once, go play against your favorite victim (different folks in the area
have different types of cards they use) and win. Poof, five new cards every
time. Note that after you beat the same person several times and take many
cards from them, they will go back to using the trade rule "One". At this
point, just go back to the Card Queen and use her to reset the area's trade
rule to "All" again. This speeds up the process of collecting important cards
immensely.
Cards you should try to acquire and [Card Mod] before the SeeD test (or before
leaving for Timber, at the latest) and what to do with them:
3 Adamantoise --> 1 Turtle Shell, to remodel Squall's weapon. (If you have
extras, use Tool-RF to acquire 10 Protect Stones from each.)
10 Behemoths --> 1 Barrier, to teach Quistis the Mighty Guard attack.
4 Blitzes --> 4 Dynamo Stones, to remodel Irvine's weapon. (If you have
extras, use T Mag-RF to acquire 20 Thundaga spells from each.)
2 Caterchipillars --> 2 Spider Webs, to teach Quistis the Ultra Waves attack
and to remodel Zell's weapon. (If you have extras, use Time Mag-RF to acquire
20 Slow spells from each.)
1 Cockatrice --> 1 Cockatrice Pinion, to remodel Rinoa's weapon. (If you
have extras, use ST Mag-RF to acquire 20 Break spells from each.)
1 Creeps --> 1 Coral Fragment, to teach Quistis the Electrocute attack.
9 Death Claw/9 Grand Mantis --> 9 Sharp Spikes, to remodel Quistis, Rinoa, and
Selphie's weapons.
1 Elastoid --> 1 Steel Pipe, to remodel Irvine's weapon. (If you have extras,
use Tool-RF to acquire 1 Aura Stone from each.)
40 Elnoyles --> 4 Energy Crystals, to remodel Quistis's weapon.
1 Fastitocalon/5 Fastitocalon-Fs --> 1 Water Crystal, to teach Quistis the
Aqua Breath attack. (If you have extras, use I Mag-RF to acquire 50 Water
spells from each.)
1 Gayla --> 1 Mystery Fluid, to teach Quistis the Acid attack. (If you have
extras, use ST Mag-RF to acquire 10 Meltdown spells from each.)
4 Geezards --> 20 Screws, to remodel Squall and Irvine's weapons.
1 Gesper --> 1 Black Hole, to teach Quistis the Degenerator attack. (If you
have extras, use Time Mag-RF to acquire 30 Demi spells from each.)
1 Grendel --> 1 Dragon Fin, to remodel Zell's weapon. (If you have extras,
use Time Mag-RF to acquire 20 Double spells from each.)
6 Iron Giants --> 2 Star Fragments, to remodel Squall's weapon.
1 Mesmerize --> 1 Mesmerize Blade, to remodel Rinoa's weapon. (If you have
extras, use L Mag-RF to acquire 20 Regen spells from each.)
12 Malboros --> 3 Malboro Tentacles, to teach Quistis the Bad Breath attack
and remodel her weapon.
20 Ruby Dragons --> 2 Inferno Fangs, to teach Quistis the Fire Breath attack
and remodel Selphie's weapon. (If you have extras, use F Mag-RF to acquire 20
Flare spells from each.)
1 SAM08G --> 1 Running Fire, to teach Quistis the Gatling Gun attack.
1 Tonberry/1 Master Tonberry --> 1 Chef's Knife, to remodel Squall's weapon.
(If you have extras, use L-Mag-RF to acquire 30 Death spells from each.)
5 Toramas --> 1 Life Ring, to remodel Selphie's weapon. (If you have extras,
use L Mag-RF to acquire 20 Life spells from each.)
1 Tri-Face --> 1 Curse Spike, to teach Quistis the LV?Death attack. (If you
have extras, use ST Mag-RF to acquire 10 Pain spells from each.)
Keep in mind that if you are using any of these cards as part of your deck you
will want to keep the number you need to play your strategy separate from
those you are planning to [Card Mod], otherwise you will find it difficult to
continue winning efficiently. We wouldn't want that now, would we?
While looking for the previously mentioned cards, you probably won plenty of
others. Keep a lookout for these other handy conversions, which can help you
rack up a huge inventory of strong spells and items:
SECTION THE FOURTH
In which the proper usage of flightless birds becomes apparent.
===============================================================================
One of the first side quests you should undertake at the beginning of Disc 2
is the Chocobo Forest puzzles. As soon as you solve even one, you get a
Chicobo of your own, which can be summoned to attack your enemies or can
wander about in Chocobo World picking up items for your party. The
Playstation version of the game included the Chocobo World minigame as a
separate Pocketstation program that had to be physically interfaced with the
main console to give any benefit, so for finding rare items most serious
cheesemonkeys resorted to abusing the Angelo Search bugs. Luckily for the PC
user, turning your Chicobo into a massive bankroll is much easier, since the
minigame is part of the main installation and runs on the same computer.
A perfectionist will want to personally supervise their Chicobo's career
(Event Wait ON) until the meeting with Coco at level 20 and the rescue at
level 50 have occurred. After those two events, though, feel free to allow
Chocobo World to run in the background any time your computer is idle. This
will allow the little guy to pick up all sorts of interesting and valuable
items from his friend Cactuar while they wander around the little pixel map.
Now here's the cheating (or, at least, super cheap) part: look in your FF 8
savegame folder. You'll see an item labeled "ChocoRPG". This is how the game
remembers your Chicobo. Copy it and put the copy in a different folder, then
open FF 8. Access the Save function from the main menu, bring your Chicobo
home and collect the loot before you begin adventuring. IMPORTANT: make sure
you send it back to Chocobo World before you save and quit. Before leaving
your computer, move the copy you made earlier of the "ChocoRPG" file back to
its original position, overwriting the more recent one. Start up Chocobo
World again if you like, and see that your Chicobo's inventory still has all
those items in it you just took! Do this every time you play FF 8 for a few
days and soon every time you load the game and rob your ever-richer Chicobo
you will laugh harder and harder as stat bonus items and GF ability items pop
into your inventory more and more often. Late in the game, doing this in
conjunction with Tonberry's [Familiar/Haggle/Call Shop], Eden's [GF Abl
Med-RF], and Doomtrain's [Forbid Med-RF] menu abilities, you can acquire
enough stat bonus items to make your characters gods compared to the level
10-15 monsters they will be facing if you followed the strategy in Section
II.
Abusing your Chicobo is easy. But don't forget to reset its position within
your saved game to "Chocobo World" each time before you stop playing FF 8. If
you don't, you will lose your ability to access your saved Chicobo and will
have to generate a new one and start all over again.
SECTION THE FIFTH
As if you weren't tough enough already...
===============================================================================
If you use the technique in section IV. above even a few times, you will have
plenty of GF ability items to customize the configurations of your GFs in very
short order. The following recommendations for Junctioning can quite easily
take you from early on in Disc 2 to the very end of the game, minimizing the
hassle of planning your party for most situations.
Character 1 has Shiva, Brothers, and Diablos equipped. (+ Tonberry)
Character 2 has Quezacotl, Siren, and Leviathan equipped. (+ Eden)
Character 3 has Ifrit, Carbuncle, and Doomtrain equipped. (+ Cerberus)
**When Alexander, Pandemona, Bahamut and Cactuar are acquired they can be
placed anywhere. The reason Diablos, Eden, and Cerberus are arranged thusly
is to make sure everyone has Hit-J. This isn't critical for Squall, or for
Selphie once she has the Strange Vision, since their hit stat is already
255%. To summon Doomtrain by this point may require a few Chicoboloads of
items, but is inevitably possible with a bit of patience.
Use {Amnesia Greens} to remove unnecessary abilities (do NOT delete refinement
abilities or other unique abilities marked with a * below), then use AP or
items to teach each GF the following skills:
You can assign commands and accessories to each party member as needed for the
situation, but most of the time this setup should be effective:
Character 1 uses [Attack-->Mug, Draw, Item, GF] and [Enc-None or Mug, HP +80%,
Str +60%, Mag +60%]... this is your physical attacker
Character 2 uses [Attack, Draw, Magic, GF] and [Move-Find, HP +80%, Str +60%,
Mag +60%]... this is your magic user
Character 3 uses [Attack, Draw, Absorb, GF] and [Auto-Shell, HP +80%, Str
+60%, Mag +60%]... this is your support man/woman
All characters have magic junctioned as follows (100 of each spell, naturally):
HP=Meteor
Str=Quake
Vit=Meltdown
Mag=Triple
Spr=Curaga
Spd=Haste
Eva=Tornado
Hit=Aura
Luck=Death
Status Atk=Pain
Status Def=Esuna, Holy, Reflect, Dispel
Elemental Atk=none unless you know your next opponent's weakness
Elemental Def=Life, Full-life, Shell, Flare
Meteor can be obtained by drawing from mid-to-high-level Ruby Dragons, though
doing so without losing your entire party is tough. The effect is worth it.
Aura can be obtained by using [Supt Mag-RF] on Aura Stones and Fury Fragments.
Replace Flare in Elemental Def with Ultima when you acquire Bahamut's [Forbid
Mag-RF] ability. Dark Matter can then be refined to create huge stocks of the
Ultima spell.
SECTION THE SIXTH
For the truly dedicated cheesemonkey...
===============================================================================
Information within quotes in this section submitted by Ninjatsu. I have
tested all of the suggestions he made and they work as advertised if performed
correctly. Neither he nor I will be liable for anything you mess up,
particularly if you are fooling around with registry editing.
##Get items even faster from ChocoRPG!
"1) Win 9x/ME : Run Chocobo World and FF8 at the same time, you can get the
items from chocobo over and over again without copy pasting the file. Simply
just go to save and bring the chocobo home then send him back to the world,
then alt-tab to chocobo world and press ctrl twice to go into the map/items
menu and back out. Then alt-tab back into FF8 and bring him home, send him
back, alt-tab, ctrl ctrl, and so on.
Note that sometimes it will mess up, and your chocobo world will have no items
left, thats why you should have your backup to just copy back in, and then
repeat the item gaining process.
2) Win XP : For some reason on XP you cant alt-tab out of FF8, you need to
press Ctrl-Alt-Del to get back to the desktop, also make sure you DON'T have
your XP set up like win 2000 where Ctrl-Alt-Del will take you to Windows
Security instead of straight to Task Manager. Now on how to get items the
fastest from this way :
Backup ChocoRPG file
Step 1*: Select the backup ChocoRPG file and press ctrl-c to copy it to
memory.
Step 2*: Make sure only 1 window is open to the FF8\save\ directory where
ChocoRPG is.
Step 3: Run FF8, go to save, chocobo.
Step 4: Bring him home, collect the items, then send him back to world.
Step 5: Ctrl-Alt-Del to Task Manager.
Step 6: Move it to the far right of the screen so you can barely see it,
from now on if you press Ctrl-Alt-Del it will take you to Task Manager, but
it will be in the same position you left it in.
Step 7: Click on Chocobo World and press ctrl twice(same as above method),
click on FF8 in the taskbar.
Step 7*: Click on the FF8\save\ window that should be in front of you, then
press ctrl-v to paste, click yes, click FF8 on the task bar to get back to
the game.
Step 8: Repeat Steps 4,5 and 7/7*.
*If you don't want chocobo world open the same time as FF8.
Once you get used to this you can do it almost as fast as the first method,
its just clicking instead of alt-tab.
Note : Using these methods over and over will probably damage your screen...
so do it at your own risk, and don't hold me responsible.
Note : Using quarter screen and doing this will give graphical glitches,
these wont affect the game and should go away after a few screen changes/
battles.
Also if you have messed up chocobo world and do need to generate another one,
you can still get yours back if you copy your backup into your save folder
after you have generated your new chocobo, all the stats will change back to
yours once you bring it home again."
--Handy, huh? This makes it even more important to ensure you have backed
up your little birdy at least twice. (I have three in different locations.)
##Messing with music!
"You can stop all sound for the game by going to you installed directory
Final Fantasy 8\data\ and deleting the folders called sound and music. You
can now play winamp/(insert other music utility here) and listen to your own
music. The only sound you will hear from the game is the movies.
Note: You can turn the sound down in the game, but that doesn't stop the
music. A full install is required before you do this, otherwise the game
will just take the sound from the cd.
*****NOTE!!*****: Do not pause the game at any time, cause when you unpause
the game it WILL crash back to the desktop. I think you can only pause while
walking around towns, you cannot pause during battle or on the world map."
--I concur. Best bet if you try this is to skip pausing entirely. It may
prove sensible in the long run to simply move the folders somewhere else
rather than deleting them entirely, similar to the suggestions made earlier
for backing up ChocoRPG files.
##Fun with ISOs!
"I'm not sure what installing the game via an iso does, as I install it
from the original installation cd and it then defaults the game to use that
same cd-rom/rw that it was installed with. I however do use the iso's while
playing the game so that my cds don't get damaged any more. The problem most
people will have with doing this though is that FF8 will not see your iso in
its Nero/Alcohol virtual drive. To get around this you will have to change
your registry.
Do only these steps (the registry is a very dangerous thing to play around
with, don't delete/change ANYTHING, change "only" the DataDrive path
mentioned below) :
Press start button.
Go to Run command.
Type regedit and press enter.
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Square Soft, Inc\FINAL FANTASY VIII\1.00\
Select "DataDrive" from the right panel and change it to your virtual drive.
FF8 should now be able to run off your iso, this helps make movies load
faster, and gets rid of that annoying spinning the cd-rom does all the time.
I take NO responsibility if you happen to screw up your windows by fiddling
with the registry file."
--Ditto. FYI, I also do this with several other games I routinely work on.
##Skip the interminable intro!
"FF8 Intro : You can stop the Eidos Intro movie from playing if you set the
movie resolution to low in the FF8 Config. You can use any other graphics and
the movie will not play.
Note : You need to have upgraded to version 1.2 of FF8 for this to work."
Closing Remarks
===============
Thanks to the Squaresoft team for disposing of the chunky superdeformed
characters from FF 7, and making the gameplay so enjoyable that it's still
worth running four years after my wife bought it for my birthday.
Thanks to Ninjatsu for suggesting a several more cheap tricks, and for the
revelation that GFs gain experience from combat even when their KO'ed character
does not...
MANY thanks to my wife and children, who had to suffer through many a night of
the Raven disgruntled while examining quirks of FF 8. (My son still asks me
what the heck I was doing with the chicobo exit/copyover/load/save/exit
thing. "That was real boring to watch, Dad." Even more boring to execute,
kiddo.)
And, once again,
To request hosting permission, make comments, ask questions, or suggest
corrections contact the Atomic Raven at blair@afaproject.org.
