Final Fantasy games are fairly straightforward affairs. Reach a new environment, explore the new environment, watch the story unfold, and head toward the next environment. Fight battles along the way to improve your characters' powers and explore the world thoroughly to uncover all the secrets it has to offer. If you've played a previous Final Fantasy game, you'll slip right into the eighth; if you haven't, the instruction manual and scandalously detailed in-game tutorial should get you off on the right foot. Here are a few of the less-intuitive gameplay tips and strategies that will help put you ahead of the pack.
Guardian Force
The first skill you should teach a new guardian force is, if available, boost. Speedy button pushers can now pump up their attacks to inflict nearly twice the damage as before. Don't be shy about calling them - guardian forces are a gamer's best friend. Literally, in fact - the longer a guardian force is junctioned to the same character, the higher its affection rating - and the more quickly the guardian force will appear in battle.
Evenly distribute statistic junctions to your characters (HP-J, Str-J, and so on). Ideally, everyone can junction magic to each of the major statistics. Make sure all guardian forces are always junctioned and earning experience in battles - nothing is gained by leaving them on the sidelines.
Drawing System
The strength of a spell junction is directly proportional to the number of uses of that spell a character carries - so draw, draw, draw! The maximum uses a character can carry of a spell is 100; try to have that many of any spell junctioned to a statistic. It's well worth the time spent repeatedly drawing.
Limit Breaks
Also, when your character falls into the critical hit-point zone, hit the circle button continually to skip turns until his limit break becomes available. Don't waste his hurt status on a regular attack!
Card Game
Why should you spend your time playing the card game? Simple. Quezacotl can transmogrify cards into items. Rare cards yield rare items - and without rare items, you can never upgrade to the strongest weapons, uncover the strongest guardian forces, or master the game's deepest secrets. So, play cards as often as you can against everyone you meet. Otherwise, you'll be fighting with weak weapons, and everyone will laugh at you.
Elemental Attack
Use elemental attack and defense to your advantage. If you double your defense and also double your attack, you've made yourself four times more powerful. That's significant. Scan an enemy to discover its elemental weaknesses.
Information in this section has been provided by Final Fantasy Insider.
