Hints and Tips

[mitchellmeek]

hey, heaps bored so thought we could start a thread whereby we can post little hints that can help people through the game. things that we've worked out oursleves... NOT TAKEN FROM STRATEGY GUIDES OR WALKTHROUGHS!
anyone?

my tip is really simple and probably well documented already, but basically instead of letting the GF's level up with there own HP and MAGIC first, move them to ur own stats, like HP junction, STR junction etc. The whole first disc can be done in this way (im in the middle of about my one hundreth replay atm... about to take on Edea in Delling city) and probably a good portion of the second because you don't really need the GF's to take on your enemies...

another tip is to laern the life/recovery magic refine ability. i think siren has it. with your SeeD salary, you can easily by yourself a bunch of tents, say, ten per character in your party, refine them into 10 curaga's each, then junction them to HP. A simple trick really, and it gives you a phenominal amount of HP for so early in the game, and it doesn't require much leveling up at all.

yeah, so if anyone else wants to join in then obviouslty they are free too, just thought it might be good to have a list of hints sourced out by players. peace all.

[Sepho]

You took my big tip with the Tent/Curaga thing.

I'm sure I have more, but it's after midnight currently, and the flu is affecting my ability to think.

Perhaps I'll post some tomorrow.

[seiyuimore]

THen you might want to give me a hint or tips on why I can't encounter Galbadia Garden though I have face to face, side by side, nose by nose with that stupid garden in disc 2

[Maya]

THen you might want to give me a hint or tips on why I can't encounter Galbadia Garden though I have face to face, side by side, nose by nose with that stupid garden in disc 2

Did you visited Edea first in her house by the beach and talked to her?

[Mirage]

Play cards early in the game, and get some Abyss Worm and Mesmerize cards before you leave for your first mission. With Card Mod you can make Windmills and Mesmerize Blades from them, they refine into Tornado and Regen.

[TheSpoonyBard]

Make sure you have Siren, Levithan and Alexander junctioned to different people. This way you can make use of Treatment, Recover and Revive during battle. I've found the best way to junction GFs is

Squall – Ifrit, Carbuncle, Leviathan, Cerberus, Bahamut
Character 2 – Shiva, Diablos, Pandemona, Alexander, Tonberry (Cactuar)
Character 3 – Quezacotl, Siren, Brothers, Doomtrain, Eden

Cactuar can be junctioned to anyone if they need the stat bonuses, but once everyone is at level 100 it works best on character 2.

[BG-57]

If you hate the SeeD ranking system and don't mind leveling up your characters, the best chance is when you have a three party group right before the assault on Dollet. You can level them and Shiva, Ifrit and Quetzecoatl up to your heart's content. An added bonus is a mastered Quetzecoatl can make mincemeat out the the mechanical spider in Dollet.

[Shalashaska]

An added bonus is a mastered Quetzecoatl can make mincemeat out the the mechanical spider in Dollet.

Also, if you have your Quezacotl at 900 compatibility or so with someone, you can gain around 400AP by continuously fighting X-ATM092. Most people think you can only gain the 50AP once.

Even if your compatibility isn't that high you can still manage to nab around 150-200AP from X-ATM092 before you need to sprint to the beach so that time doesn't run out.

[GhandiOwnsYou]

DO NOT make six seperate sets of junctions and magic. Make three sets, and assign them to two seperate teams!

In simplistic form, that means take, say, Shiva, Bahamut, and Diablos, and assign them to Squal and Rinoa. Take Quizacotl, Brothers, and Siren and set them to Quistis and Irvine. Then take Ifrit, Leviathin, and Eden and set them to Selphie and Zell.

Then you only have to draw half the magic, and you can jsut shift ALL the junctions at once. the only limitations are that a) you have to lets Rinoa (assuming my set) sit out ninety percent of the time, and when you train up her compatability you leave squall purty useless GF-wise. But it absolutely rocks the cazbah when you have to seperate the parties, because each party can have it's junctions set to where the have complete compatibility with every GF.

[Sepho]

I use this method as well, and an additional pro to the three junction-set method is that you can use the "other" three characters as storage tanks for different spells, or alternatively, an increased stock of powerful spells your main characters either use frequently or have junctioned (in case you have to use one, let's say)

[rubah]

Dude, leaving rinoa out is mean:P

Have three sets of junctions, yes, but keep one of them permanent and assign levels to the others.

Like Squall has certain junctions, and in the segments he's not in battle, have someone, say Irvine, be the primary junction accepter (think photosynthesis here) and if Irvine is already in the party as a higher up level for someone, have a secondary junction character, like Rinoa. Zell might be person number three, followed by Quistis then Selphie.

Then you more or less separate the other two sets of junctions in 'mostly the ones that Quistis uses, Selphie and then Irvine then Zell then Rinoa will use these' and 'mostly the ones that aren't used, give them to Zell or Rinoa, and then Irvine, Selphie, and Quistis.'

Like this, if Squall was in the party, he'd get his GFs. Then if it was Irvine and Rinoa, Irvine would get set number 2 because he's closest to the front, and Rinoa would get set 3 for the same reason.

If Squall isn't in the party and it's Zell, Selphie and Quistis, Zell would get set #1 (squall's set), Selphie would get set #3, and Quistis set #2.

It's a lot more confusing, so I just think of it as 'oh, this junctioning has queza, I'll give it to irvine since quistis and selphie aren't here.' 'Oh, squall isn't here, but I've got zell, so he gets the set with shiva'

Anyways, towards the end of the game, it's smart to keep as many GFs with the different statjunctions as possible evenly spread. And because I've used about five million(or three) index cards to figure this out, I shall share

Assuming: All GFs available, all stat junctions learned, none of them erased, none added. This also fits the compatibilities and associations I've given to the characters and GFs, so it may not fit your party as well

Set 1) Shiva, Diablos, Pandemona, Cactuar: redundancies: [1], in STR junction.

Set 2) Quezacotl, Cerberus,

Set 3) Carbuncle, Eden, Brothers

There is some maneuverability in this, but NEVER put Shiva, Quezacotl, and Carbuncle together. With the normal abilities, they are the ONLY ones that can junction to Vitality, which is very important, especially because Meltdown is so useless everywhere else. Speed is less of an issue, but still, you should separate Pandemona, Cerberus, and Eden as well, Hit is less of an issue because that can be maxed on two different weapons (selphie's strange vision and all of squall's) but just keep Diablos away from Cerberus and Eden if you can.
Doomtrain, Bahamut and Tonberry are more or less moot, because they don't allow for stat junctioning unless you feed them a new ability, so put them on whomever you will. Remember that Doomtrain has status and elemental x4 defense junctions, so try to avoid pairing him with Alexander and Cerberus.

Obviously I didn't use nearly all of the GFs by any stretch of the imagination. Set one allows for an increase in *EVERY* stat (not including the elm and sta atks and defs), set two lacks EVA and LUCK, and set three lacks LUCK. Ifrit, Siren, Leviathon, Alexander, Doomtrain, Bahamut, and Tonberry can be assigned at will. Separate Siren and Doomtrain, for more status defence and attack, Ifrit, and Leviathon can go with anyone since the three sets already have one elemental GF each (except maybe brothers. I think they're elemental anyways) and give Alexander to someone that doesn't have Doomtrain. If you're levelling up, give Bahamut to the person with cactuar, obviously

the way I would have them assigned in the level importance I mentioned at the beginning would be:

Set 1) Squall<-primary. {Irvine, Rinoa Quistis, Selphie, Zell}
Set 2) Quistis<-primary. {Selphie, Irvine, Zell, Rinoa, Squall}
Set 3) Zell<-primary. {Rinoa, Irvine, Selphie, Quistis, Squall}

Realistically, there are ten main groups that your party can be in (excluding missile base and ultimecia's castle and possibly somewhere else.) I find the above to be satisfactory with all except like, four. Which mostly consists of characters I don't use a lot (quistis and zell)

Um, yeah. I think this was mostly useless, but I had to use those index cards for *Something* ^_^

Oh, and malboros are awesome. Equip someone with Devour and use demi about a million times to get spr+ (they have drawable demi, so as long as you can keep confuse and berserk free, you're good to go)

*out of wisdom*

[mitchellmeek]

wow... not sure i understand that junctioning bit, unless the point was to spread the GF's according to stat j as oppossed to compatability.

still haven't really used the GF's for attacking, and i'm in esthar. rock on.

also, cheap way to beat abandon? have leviathan learn recover as soon as you get him. make sure that the ability is learnt and equipped when you fight abandon, then just use it on abandon. Because he is an undead monster, this will do 9999 damage every time, but i only needed 3 attacks: draw & cast cura (irvine), draw & cast cura (squall), recover (selphie).

Also, refine cards. I don't play cards, so this doesnt bother me, but in particular, GF cards. refining diablos will give 100 black holes which not only lets quistis use degenerator (very, VERY useful, especially for quick leveling up on the island closest to hell/heaven) but this can be further refined into 30demi's each. simple refine 300 demi's and junction to str. HA HA HA. another early in the game stat through the roof.

keep the tips coming!

[rubah]

It's not too difficult to build up compatibility. There's a lot of freedom in junctioning, and like I said, that is sorta based on the compatibilites that already exist for me

[udsuna]

Actually, Rubah's setup is absolutely brilliant for the long-term power gamer. If you're going with unmodified GFs, it's the best method. However, I don't do that. I'm the kinda guy that'll get the mods, and make it so that all my characters have access to every available ability set. Full elem&status mods, etc.... the first time I set it up, I planned ahead enough to name my GFs according to the code I was using (st1,2,3 for status, el for elements, sp for special abilities, and sc for statitics) Granted, some things are not replicable- like devour, which is easily the MOST warped thing i've EVER seen in ANY final fantasy- I want to get an editor, give Squall that thing at the beginning, and eat my way through the early human oponents... Siefer, Edea, Raijin and Fujin, you get the idea... yum >:^D

And as a side note: wait until AFTER disk three before picking up Odin, he's so much better (not to mention faster scenes) than Gilgamesh.

[rubah]

I never had gilgamesh come up for me after the first time ever-_- I feel cheated.

devour is so much fun. I love when rinoa eats t-rexuars. I mean, just the thought of her guzzling down a big huge friggin' DINOSAUR.