With the critical acclaim that it has earned, it would be churlish to say that Final Fantasy 8 is a bad JRPG. What it certainly is, however, is a flawed and slightly controversial one, both within the context of the series and without. One of the biggest elements of the game that players have had issues with is the junction system.
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“You’re the one who gives me the most comfort.”
I really started to develop my passion for gaming during the PS1 era, and so Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9 became the first big RPGs I ever dove into. I still play each of them on an annual basis, but I’ve always found Squall’s adventure to be a little more difficult to approach than the others. For the game’s 25th anniversary (and I feel ancient just acknowledging that Final Fantasy 8 is 25 years old this year), I revisited it, determined to enjoy it and appreciate its strangeness. How? By truly embracing the junction system, Guardian Force abilities, magic drawing, limited stock of spells and everything else that has always felt just a little bit ‘wrong’ to me before. It’s not the beloved Materia system from the last game and its remake.
What Is Junctioning Anyway?
The junction system is just the game’s way of handling equipment. Each party member’s weapon can be upgraded several times at Junk Shops, but aside from that, there’s no selection of armor and accessories to equip them with. To boost stats and learn special abilities, they’re equipped via junctioning. Guardian Forces are junctioned to specific party members, and by earning AP, learn the abilities required to junction magic spells to particular stats. Think of it as equipping Ifrit not only as a summon monster, but as a fiery, furious extension of the equipped character themselves, thereby ‘awakening’ certain abilities in that party member. It’s a bit like the not-so-fun-loving Clive Rosfield’s experience in Final Fantasy 16, but without the cursing or such a high ESRB rating (that poor chocobo).
With Guardian Forces equipped and the associated junction ability learned (Str-J to junction magic to Strength for instance), you can then slot any spell from that character’s inventory to that specific stat. To acquire that magic, you’ll need to Draw it from enemies or Draw Points or refine it from items. Both processes can be long and painstaking in their own ways, as the first requires taking a turn in battle to Draw (possibly repeating that many times over to get 100 of the spell in question) and the latter can consign you to countless hours spent playing Triple Triad in order to get the right cards to Card Mod into the right items for the associated spells.
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Yes, building up a full stock of effective spells for each stat can take a very long time, as can farming all the AP required to learn those skills in the first place. Doling out Guardian Forces among party members to ensure that nobody’s missing a crucial stat junction can be very frustrating too, particularly without a guide as in-game tutorials only explain the very basics. If simply grinding levels as you might in other RPGs, you’ll soon find yourself at a disadvantage: Enemy encounters match your level and they’ll typically have a sizable advantage in raw stats.
As we’ll see, it’s also all too possible to go in the opposite direction and make yourself incredibly overpowered, and very early in the game too. There’s a real lack of balance and an exploitability that makes the junction system so notorious too, but you really do have to go far out of your way to truly break your party. You can get all ultimate weapons but Irvine’s on “disk one” (in PS1-speak), but if waiting 15 Triple Triad matches for Dr. Kadowaki to play that darn Elnoyle card because you need yet another copy of it (to mod into Energy Crystals for Pulse Ammo, needed for the Lion Heart gunblade) sounds like a drag, that’s because it is.
Previously, I’ve enjoyed the game in spite of the junction system rather than because of it, as it doesn’t really fit with the way I tend to play RPGs. I’m not really a level one playthrough player, nor am I much of a grinder. I’m more the type that prefers to stay roughly at the ‘intended’ level, simply winning every battle as they arise and not generally running from any, without much more battle strategy than spamming the Attack command. Over the years, my wider engagement with the system has boiled down to using the Auto command to make my Strength as high as the available magic allowed. For this big 25th anniversary playthrough, though, it was time to junction like I’ve never junctioned before.
The Wacky Adventures Of Squall, Zell, And Selphie
Final Fantasy 8’s cast includes some of my favorite characters in the series. The contrast between the introverted, brooding Squall and the excitable, bubbly Selphie and hot tempered Zell makes for some brilliant moments. What I wanted to do is try to express this dynamic in battles too, while putting in the time to customize character builds via junctioning in order to do so. Here’s how I went about it.
As an enjoyer of self-imposed challenges, I decided that no two party members in my team of three could have the same stat junctioned. This meant that only one team member could refine 10 Tents into 100 Curagas for an absurd early-game HP boost, only one could refine Abyss Worm Cards into Tornado spells for an enormous Strength increase, and only one could similarly buff their Magic. This left two powerhouse characters, and one with far more HP than the others. It made sense, then, for the latter to be the one to increase their defenses, so Vitality and Spirit were also the focus for them.
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You can only subvert the narrative so many times before it becomes predictable.
In the end, I made Zell my physical powerhouse, boosted by Ifrit’s Strength-oriented abilities, and Selphie his magic-wielding counterpart. It’s possible to get some very potent spells such as Regen, Meltdown, Blizzaga and Thundaga early on through Card Mod (the Blitz card being the source of the latter though the Dynamo Stone and T-Mag RF for instance), so I had two very different glass cannons. Lastly, there was Squall, with base Strength (and everything else) but enormous early-game HP, Vitality, and Spirit. His gameplan, then, is to use Cover, Defend, Protect, Shell (and other assets I’ve sorely underutilized in previous games) and otherwise support his defensively feeble allies.
I added Doom and Death to our hero’s repertoire for a fun way to take down certain enemies and circumvent his lacking damage. Also because the former’s animation of the enemy’s soul kind of leaving its body at the end of the countdown is far, far too metal not to appreciate. With Darkside too, he became something of a Dark Knight, an homage to the series’ job system and a perfect fit for Squall.
The end result of all of this is that I have a far from practical but super fun party setup. In every battle, I like to imagine Zell screaming furiously (under the Berserk status of course) and trying to obliterate enemies, Selphie enthusiastically shouting “look what I can do!” and jumping in with magic, while a facepalming Squall revives, defends, supports, and otherwise tries to keep them in check. You know, like a true squad leader.
The title’s unique mechanics make it difficult to determine the ‘intended’ level the party should be at during any given stage of the game. Instead of worrying about that this time, as I usually would, I tried some light game-breaking farming (fortunately I quite enjoy Triple Triad and farming AP from the Fastitocalons on the beach near Balamb isn’t too obnoxious for me) and tweaked the GFs and junctions to fit my theme.
The rare multi-hitting moves in the game are sure to give me a particularly bad time playing this way, with two such vulnerable characters, but it’s all worth it: I’m enjoying junctioning and Final Fantasy 8 in general more than I ever have. PlayStation systems continue to play host to some wonderful JRPGs, and even if you’ve played them before, there are still new ways to experience them.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: All Side Quests & Rewards
There are 30 side quests in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Here’s a list of them all, what party member helps you with them, and what rewards you obtain.
