Gaming Final Fantasy VIII - Power Levelling Primer

[xist]

http://filetrip.net/f27221-Final-Fantasy-VIII-%288%29-US-PSN-1-0.html

It's well known that enemies level up with you in FFVIII making it hard to effectively dominate the opposition.....however if you gain all the GF bonus stat point abilities before levelling you'll be able to break the system. This save therefore represents the start of this journey to gamebreaking....

It's not hacked, purely 15 hours of me grinding with Seifer, ready for you to destroy the X-ATM092 should you so choose.

Just avoid as many fights as you can, read the Power Levelling guide on Gamefaqs (thanks Aya Brea) and don't forget to draw Siren from Elvoret.

 

[slayerdx]

Thanks for the upload? Interesting, I never knew enemies leveled up with you. I already beat it haha.

 

[Majorami]

You pretty much "break" the system already with Magic Junctions.

 

[exangel]

Grinding with Seifer? Why didn't you just abuse Card Mod?

edit: /smartass comment
Props to you.

 

[elgarta]

Excellent, I recently just dusted off my FF 8 and thought I'd try a 'low level' playthrough. Screwed me over bad on my first playthrough (Back when I was an RPG newbie) when I thought I'd try to max out my levels fast so I could keep ahead of the standard leveling curve.. It certainly feels very different doing it this way, but as mentioned above, by using the junction system effectively you can already break the system pretty bad.

ST-Attack Junction - Death x 100. Certainly takes out most standard mobs in the game

 

[xist]

Grinding with Seifer? Why didn't you just abuse Card Mod?

edit: /smartass comment
Props to you.

Well you could of course if you just wanted high level Magic, but you'd potentially need to level up your characters to get Card Mod. Seifer Grinding gives you level 100 Quetzcoatl, Shiva and Ifrit, plus Dragon Skin for a Disc 1 Ergheiz all with base level party characters. But practically your method of Card Modding Magic is superior.

Also for point of interest - 6.35 has issues with the PSN eboot. After the first dream sequence the Train will freeze in the short animation of it going into Timber....irrespective of setting changes. I've overcome this by getting around that moment using 5.00 to play the PSN eboot and then going back to 6.35. If anyone has the NA PSN FFVIII and wants to test 6.20 or 6.60 for a similar issue i have a save made at the last point before the freeze (and one just after if anyone cares)

 

[prowler]

noooo, it's US PSN save

I could never get into FFVIII because of the slow and painful battles (ATB stops every time someone makes a move? come on) but this interests me.

but I bought it on PSN months ago..

 

[Jamstruth]

I could never get into FFVIII because of the slow and painful battles (ATB stops every time someone makes a move? come on) but this interests me.

Change battle settings to Active instead of Passive. Active means the ATB is always going, Passive pauses everytime you're in the menus.

 

[prowler]

I could never get into FFVIII because of the slow and painful battles (ATB stops every time someone makes a move? come on) but this interests me.

Change battle settings to Active instead of Passive. Active means the ATB is always going, Passive pauses everytime you're in the menus.

er, no.
that only changes the ATB for when you're selecting items/magic from the menu. it doesn't do anything for when a character is doing a move, be it attacking or magic.

 

[exangel]

Grinding with Seifer? Why didn't you just abuse Card Mod?

edit: /smartass comment
Props to you.

Well you could of course if you just wanted high level Magic, but you'd potentially need to level up your characters to get Card Mod. Seifer Grinding gives you level 100 Quetzcoatl, Shiva and Ifrit, plus Dragon Skin for a Disc 1 Ergheiz all with base level party characters. But practically your method of Card Modding Magic is superior.

Although it's an imperfect method for absolute maxing prior to obtaining Siren and losing Seifer.. it's far less time consuming to just kill fish on the beach until you get Card Mod. then you can avoid gaining experience almost completely from that point on. squall and quistis barely gain anything if you do that, and you still get AP for all subsequent fights done this way. There's one caveat to doing this that hasn't been mentioned though, and I am curious as to how your method affects the SeeD test results.
Using my method, you don't get kill credits once you start using Card Mod for all "kill blows". It has a similar effect to Selphie's Rapture from what I can recall, and this will cause your SeeD rank to drop over time after passing the exam if you don't supplement occasionally by using a test. Not that anyone, would give a rats ass about their gil salary using my methods...

 

[xist]

SeeD rank comments...

With the save provided i killed the X-ATM092 and scored a rank 8 (of 10) from the Dollet and Fire Cave assessment (i took ages getting back to the beach...). However, as you note, thanks to 7 SeeD tests to gain levels (all i could take as Squall is at his base level 7) and the Seifer battles i'd accumulated, as soon as my first Rank Check came through my SeeD rank jumped up to 26. From Carding enemies at this point it's stuck at 26 or 27.

I'm now only playing minimally every evening now i have the grind done, which accounts for me only just discovering that Timber Train freeze on 6.35....although i blame the QoC for forcing me to reset OVER AND OVER because she wanted to go to Galbadia rather than Dollet SO DAMN MUCH. At least i've worked around that spot now and am on to the potentially SeeD level penalising Forest Owl Mission.

 

[slayerdx]

I'm running 6.35, and I have no problems with the timber train (the train at the beginning of the game correct?)

 

[BORTZ]

I want to play this one, but i got soooo confused with the junctioning and i got dominated but that machine that cases you down the mountain.

 

[xist]

Finally finished the game without gaining any levels, using any stat boosts or GF modifying items. Managed to take out Omega without any real problem too....

If anyone wants my save at a point where i was just about to battle Omega (although the party hasn't been set up properly yet so it needs abilities assigned properly for the fight) then just ask. Additionally i opted not to kill Ultima Weapon because i wanted the fixed encounters so he's still active too if you feel like warming up.