GF spaming

[Styrofoam]

I have a friend that I recently got to start playing this game, and he told me he enjoys it, but he seems to want to use GF's in everyone of his battles. Now I probably should not even give a crap, and let him do as he pleases but I need to live with letting this bother me.. He actually uses GF's as main characters, and the real characters, as back up characters! o.O

The thing that is really baffling, is how he told me that when he is fighting a simple guard that should certainly be killed with one, or no more than two attacks from Squall, or probably any other characters. That it takes him about 6 attacks to kill each guard! Something must be wrong there. I asked him if he was ever running away from a lot of monsters, or maybe, not getting into any extra encounters, just to level up your characters some, and he told me that he has hardly ran from anything, and has fought in some extra battles before. So this leaves me confused... I probably would know the solution here, but I have not played FFVIII for a longtime, other than just fighting Ultimecia.

So any ideas whats going on here? Thanks.

[PerpetualBurn]

If he's just using GFs all the time then he might not be taking the time to draw all the magic for junctioning, which would explain his crappy stats.

[Jessweeee♪]

leveling up=bad monsters level up with you.

You need to junction magic and learn gf abilities to level up your characters
no magic or gf ability means sucky stats.

[*~Angel Wing~*]

If he's just using GFs all the time then he might not be taking the time to draw all the magic for junctioning, which would explain his crappy stats.

Yeah and he's probably not upgrading their weapons either.

[Zeromus_X]

Yeah, like I knew how to upgrade weapons when I first played the game.

Anyway, he'll realize how tough it'll get without proper Junctioning/use of Limits/whatever later on, as GFs really lose their edge later in the game (and indeed, Limits are still better).

[Pharoh Amon Khan III]

Is your friend a fan of Pokemon, Yugi-Oh, or Digimon? If yes... There's your answer.

[Kurui]

lol, your friend sort of reminds me of my little sister. "But Leviathany is soooo much cooler than stupid-head Squall!" :rolleyes2

[Marshall Banana]

No biggie. I did the same thing first time I played. It was my first Final Fantasy, but I ignored the tutorials and was completely clueless. I used GFs excessively, because I thought they were the coolest thing ever. =D

[Aralith]

Well, I tend to let GF's and my strong magic fight my boss battles for me, but that's about it. The rest of the time I fight the monsters with my characters (unless it's a particularly large group of weak enemies, then I make exceptions). Don't know why you wouldn't. After a while the Limits start to become stronger than the GF's and you only really need them for Junctioning.

[YTDN]

My big sister spent most of her first playthrough of FF8 using GFs for all boss battles, which meant wehn she got to Adel she was stuck because you can't use GFs for that battle.

[Sefie1999AD]

I also spammed my GFs for the first two discs on my first time through the game, and for a while on Disc 3 as well. Quezacotl, Ifrit and Shiva just were fast to cast, they did a lot of damage and I was able to Boost them too, so I kept using them a lot. On the other hand, magic and physical attacks were a lot weaker. Then I noticed how much better the Meltdown + Aura + Renzokuken (or other limit breaks) combo is, so I started to use that one. On my second game, I pretty much used a mix of everything since the junctioning made my characters overpowered in about every way.

[TheSpoonyBard]

As Yuffie said, spamming GFs will get you as far as Adel, then you'll be in trouble. I personally couldn't use GFs for the whole game. The random encounters would simply last too long.

[farplaner]

On my first playthrough of VIII, which was also basically my first RPG game...period, I junction whatever magic I had to whatever stat. I didn't bother stockpiling magic, and I didn't bother checking what junctioned well to what stat.

But ya' know, it would be cool to go back through all of the FF's as if for the first time. We've been waiting so long for XII, I miss the total immersion that happens when I get into a new story, new system, etc.

[Mirage]

He'll have fun when he faces Ulty, and she instakill his GFs :D

And yes farplaner, it would have been cool to be able to just block all you know about games and play them again, as if it was the first time.
Maybe alzheimers won't be that bad after all? :p

[Xurts]

Styrofoam, tell your friend that he sucks.

Tell him to read the Junction tutorials in the Tutorial section. That is the key in this game. Using GFs means that your stats are incredibly weak, and later on in the game he is going to get his ass kicked. I hope he does, too.

Also tell him to ditch the GFs and to start drawing/refining magic and Junctioning 100 of each spell to his stats. Depending on where he is, he should have 100 Regens, Tornados/Quake, Meltdown, Meteor, Flare, Reflect, Triple, Haste, Pain, and Aura. Once he gets 100 of each of these he will be much stronger, and he won't need to use his GFs to carry his terrible characters through the game.

The only time I ever use GFs is at the beginning when you don't have much magic or -J abilities available to you. Then I totally quit using them, except for Doomtrain (Vit 0) and Cerberus (triple casting Aura).