Advice for a beginner of FF8

[Veevee]

Hey guys,
I recently bought FF8 Remastered on Switch and plan to play it. I already started playing FF8 once, but didn't come far (beginning of Disc 2) even though the story hooked me - there was so much that I felt I was kinda doing wrong or missing or whatever, e.g. I never found the weapon magazines to upgrade my weapon or nearly missed Bestia, didn't know which enemies to rob spells from, ultimately needing over one hour to fight some Bestia ... all in all, I wasn't exactly failing but I felt that I didn't really get the game.
So, for those of you who played the game, I beg for your advice / tips / whatever useful info you have to share. I am certainly not a JRPG noob, I honestly can't say why the game didn't click for me, but for my second try I plan to be better prepared and I appreciate everything. For example, since the enemies' levels scale with your own, should I even fight? Or just rob spells? How much fighting should I do? Should I play with a guide? (I'd rather not to, but I don't want to miss magazines again.) Honestly, I don't want a hardcore experience, I just want to see the story unfold. Thanks in advance.

 

[Rydgea]

I would definitely consult a FAQ as they are going to be much more thorough, but when I first played this in middle school nothing clicked until I started junctioning. Drawing heaps of spells for magic ammo does nothing as beneficial as junctioning them to your party. For example, equipping an elemental spell that a boss uses to your elemental/mag defense is going to significantly nullify its damage. Note that using spells, which is a good thing and unavoidable, diminishes the stats they are equipped to. Just replenish as needed.

GFs also need to be junctioned not only to summon them, but to develop an affinity with and impart beneficial abilities to the user as they grow and learn new abilities.

I had just come off FFVII and assumed every FF had a materia system. My gameplay changed dramatically once I understood a few basics of VIII's mechanics. I don't even think that my weapons much mattered (something I'd still like to be on top of upgrading my next playthrough, for funsies) as the stat boost from junctioning spells and then more powerful spells (you can only hold an inventory of 30 different spells) boosted me significantly through to the end.

 

[TrophyHntrYuffie]

I am currently playing through FFVIII Remastered on PS5, a lot if it just comes down to being willing to refer to online walkthrough's, the one that is on IGN has been helping me a lot of moments where I find the game hard to navigate through. In other words, don't be shy to refer to a guide whenever you feel like you are literally stuck.
The key things that I've discovered since playing through 8 (I'm now at the end of Disk 3) is that unless you properly understand how the Junction-ing of GF'S/MAGIC and ABILITIES work, you'll not get very far into the game before running into serious trouble. When you defeat enemies, your characters and the GF's that you have will not only level up, but the GF's will learn Abilities that will do things like... Increase the HP Strength of Weapon Attacks, Increase the HP Strength of Magic (Spells like Blizzard, Fira, Thundaga) Attacks to increasing Luck, Evasiveness, etc. to to giving characters the ability to Mug (Steal what Item enemies hold), to abilities like Card which morph enemies into Cards, and so on. Unless these Abilities are Junctioned to each character (Especially Abilities like Strength+20/40/60, etc.) your characters are not going to deal much damage to enemies. Again you get these Abilities by fighting enemies, the more enemies you fight, the more AP you get toward unlocking these Abilities through the GF's that are Junctioned to each character.
Secondly, getting the Magazines is important, I'm sure you won't have much trouble with this the next time you go to play, as the Magazines just take a little bit of awareness, and are usually within the locations that you will visit naturally. But I would also suggest looking up a guide as well on things like Magazine locations.
Once you get the Magazines, if you read them, they will tell you what items you need (from enemies) to upgrade to a new weapon "At a Weapon's Shop". It will help you greatly to learn the ability MUG from the GF Diablos, which you can fight on "An Open Map" by using the "Magical Lamp" Item. When you find this Item, make sure not to accidentally discard it. Once you have Mug, then you can use a guide on the internet once again to look up each enemies location on the Map and then just go to the enemies you need to go to and use Mug on them to get the items. To use Mug, it is linked to the character (that you Junctioned it to) Main Weapon Attack. So you both attack the enemy with damage while at the same time mugging the item that it has.
Other that then, from what I've noticed with the game up until where I'm at now (Esthar) is that the game really just comes down to following the things that characters say closely for Key Hints as to where to go next. I think using a FF8 Walkthrough online would greatly help through because there are quite a number of moments where the game kind of leaves you with little to no hint as to where to go next. Games like FF8 expected players to be willing to put time into navigating a bit to find where to go.
Also keep in mind to get things like Ultimate Weapons for most of the characters, turning enemies into Cards is some of the only ways in which those items can be found. (This is currently what I'm learning about where I'm at in the game right now.)

 

[Kiei11783]

Junction. Junction. Junction. and believe in the heart of the cards. This is one of the few FF games where levelling is mostly nonsense and junctioning and preparation is key to victory, especially for endgame content. Get good at triple triad, don't mix rules, and draw as many high level spells like triple, pain, ultima, etc. and apply them to the appropriate stats.

Try to focus on grinding AP over EXP so you can level up GFs fast and learn their abilities quicker. The game is incredibly extensive when you master the junction system which is why its my favorite FF