GF difficulties

Hi, I just started playing Final Fantasy 8 (I did play when I was 6, but didnèt get far) and I was reading which GFs there are and I was wondering how difficult it was to get the cactuar one, the onberry one and doomtrain

thanks for the help

What disc are you on? Doomtrain & Cactuar can only be gotten on Disc 3+4
As for Tonberry King you have to kill 18-22 tonberries in the cetra ruins. before being able to fight him. I think he levels up as you do (like most bosses). Good junctions and a strong party should do it.
It's a good idea to fight him with a level 30+ party, as you can get full-life from him, which is a pretty powerful spell added to your arsenal.

As for doomtrain, you need to aqquire some items on disc 3 here they are:
1 Soloman's ring (you get this at tears point)
6 Steel pipes (Mug some Wendigos)
6 Malboro tentacles (found on disc 3 onwards)
6 Remedy+ (Use Alexander's med-level ability)

And finally for Cactuar! Use water based junctions or summon Leviathan. Cast meltdown. Use limit breaks.

Jumbo Cactuar is good in that you can run away if your butt is being whooped.

Tonberry King takes forever to show up.

ChickenHeart's pretty much nailed it. The only I'd add to that is, despite several sources on the internet claiming otherwise, you can leave Centra Ruins to save and do other things when you're hunting Tonberrys. This is useful because you'd want to save after defeating the 16th or 17th Tonberry. The King appears immediately after you kill the 18th-22nd Tonberry, so you won't have the luxury of saving and healing up before you fight it. People have gone into the Ruins thinking they can't leave until they've killed all the Tonberries and lose to the King when he unexpectantly pops up, meaning they'd have to start all over again.

Degenerator works well on them if you're wanting to kill them fast.

This is my personal strategy for the Tonberry King: First I get Cactuar, that way I can equip somebody with the Kamikaze ability. Then I make sure I have 100 Phoenix Downs in my inventory (unnecessary, but it makes it easier to keep track of how many Tonberries I've beaten). I Kamikaze them all until I'm down to 83 Phoenix Downs, then I just start whacking at them with normal attacks/limit breaks until the King arrives. Then I just whack him with limit breaks.


Degenerator is probably faster though.

thanks for the help, and I am on disc one to answer that question I need to go to the TV station in Timber. I was wondering because I don't intend to get all the GFs (in particular, Bahamut and Eden) and I know most are easy to get (Drawing them) and so far I have Quezacotl, Shiva, Ifrit and Siren (Hope I'm not missing any). To me it sounds like Tonberry is going to be moe difficult than the other 2 if I understood correctly.

How hard is it to get the items for Doomtrain and how hard is it to find Cactuar quastion mark (key not working )

Doomtrain rocks! A friggin' Train that bursts out of the sky to run over your enemies? Hell Yeah!

Items - Solomon Ring; Esthar Continent (Disk three) Found in Tears Point before disk 4.
Malboro Tentaclex6; Refine a fair amount of Malboro Cards or wait until You get the Ragnarok,
Then Go to the Island closest to Heaven, Mug or Win, but just watch out for Bad Breath, If you've Been on almost any other Final Fantasy, You'll know what that is. Status Effects Galore.
Remedy+x6; Learn Alexander's Med Level Up Ability and Transform 60 Remedies into 6 Remedy+,
Alexander is drawn from Edea at the end of Disk 2 in Galbadia Garden.
Steel Pipex6; There is a forest near Dollet (Where you find mr. monkey) Just Mug or win from a monster named Wendigo. When you have them all just use the Solomon Ring and hey presto.

Cactuar can be obtained by Taking the Ragnarok to A small Island Entitled "Cactuar Island"
And running into a large Cactus that pops out of the ground now and again. Anyway this enemy is easy, just junction water to Squall's Elem Attack along with some Strength+20/40/60% and keep on using Renzokuken, It will use an attack that instantly kills one of your team members (10'000 Needles). Casting or drawing Meltdown helps a lot. Finally just make sure you finish it off when a message stating that the Cactus Fiend is Hesitating else the battle will have to be fought again.

Finally Tonberries cannot be killed by Degenerator so just Make the most out of Renzokuken/Self-Destruct. And yes you can leave Centra Ruins. People state that the Tonberry king is a Hard boss with a lot of HP. I do not, but maybe it's because i'm usually at a low level.

^.^

Just wondering, do you have the Magical Lamp in your inventory?

I do and I already got Diablos

Also a side question I have

Why is Quezacotl leveling up literally every 3-4 fights and is about 6 levels ahead of all my other GFs including Shiva, who I have had the SAME amount of time. I have all my GFs junctioned but they arent doing nearly as well.
AND he summons in less than half the time of my other GFs. the others will be less then half done their bar before I even summon Quezacotl but he still goes first ALWAYS
is he some kinda superfast GF and I just didn't know about it

OH and how often does the cactuar pop up on said island

Oh that's good then!
I'm really not sure about GFs levelling up, i didn't really notice it cause i never used them that much.
The amount of times you summon a GF raises their compatibility with the character who summoned it. So it cuts down charge times.
And the jumbo cactuar is always on the little island. He just pops under for 5 seconds and pops up.

Hey Dude, GFs level up with -Shared- Experience, so if one Party member has 2 GFs and another has 1, the Party member with one GF wil receive more GF level-ups at the end of battles due to one GF hogging all the EXP. ^.^ Quezy must've been a solo GF to be at a higher level!

As for summoning times, ChickenHeart nailed it. Just using them is enough!
Apart from that, some members start with higher compatibility,
Which is showed via GF in the main menu,
Items also increase compatibility.

For example - Use a "Silence Powder" on Zell, and his Compatibility with Siren will increase.

Enjoy the rest of the Game, and make sure to get Bahamut! Even if you don't plan to get it, The Dragon-King comes with Strength/Magic+60% And has a rather awesome Summoning Animation!

Oh don't worry about Bahamut and Eden. By the time you can get to them you'll know how to make the Junction system your bitch and the only thing that will even give you the smallest bit of difficulty is Omega Weapon, and you get nothing from that besides bragging rights.

Bahamut and Eden were actually really easy last time I played it.

I never managed to get Eden or Doomtrain. I think it was too late for me to get Eden maybe and all that damn hoarding for Doomtrain is ridiculous!

Don't think you can miss Eden, since you draw it from Ultima Weapon. I think the DSRC stays accessible right up until the end of the game. Could be wrong though.

Also shion, if you miss any of the GFs that you'd normally draw from a boss, you can get them from the bosses in the final dungeon. It's actually probably the easier way of getting Eden.

Doomtrain is imo the best GF since, if I remember correctly, he gets vitality 0 status effect on Omega Weapon!!! I wouldnt say Eden or any of the others are better simply b/c aura + limits are better dmg than any Gf any day. Diablos was pretty good for a while too since I always beat him the second I got the lamp, and he has a could good abilities and junctions if I remember right. Also, why would you not get every GF possible since by equipping more to each character it allows you to junction more for them as well as open your party up to more ability combinations?

I only want 12 of the 16 GFs because I want 2 GFs per person. Not some with 2 and some with 3 or so on. Im kinda wierd like that (I also refuse to use ANY magics I have because I would rather have 0 of a magic than have anywhere between 1 and 99...which makes some boss fights quite long and difficult, especially if they dont have a cure spell) also, I don't really see the point of getting a GF in the last dungeon. Seems kinda useless except for a select few fights..That's my opinion anyways

Yeah, you shouldn't have to get any in the last dungeon though, so long as you got them at the first opportunity. The only thing harder than the last boss fights is Omega Weapon. Personally I'd get them all just for the magic refining abilities (you can have so many Ultimas!), but you can still be ridiculously strong even if you're missing a couple. Eden's Devour ability can actually raise your stats if you use it on the right enemies by the way!