Junction System

The Junction System is specific to Final Fantasy VIII and allows you to customise your characters to a new level never before seen in the series. Junctioning is the process by which you assign magic and Guardian Forces to a character, in order to boost certain statistics which can aid them in battle.

To junction magic to a character, you must first have a stock of magic from which to select the appropriate spell. There are a number of ways to obtain magic, but the simplest and most obvious way is to ‘draw’ it from monsters or from ‘draw points’. To do this, you must execute the draw command on your menu during battle or when you come across a drawing point. Drawing magic has different results. Sometimes you will be successful and gain one or two spells, or you can be lucky and be given up to nine spells at once.

As a random rule, you will sometimes fail in drawing magic. And this is not the your fault, but just one of those things that happens in the game to prolong you gaining magic too quickly. Another reason you may fail in drawing a certain type of magic, is because you already have the maximum possible in your stock. At any one time, a character can only carry a hundred of each spell.

As you’ll learn through battle, different monsters have different magic, but primarily, you will come across elemental magic, curative magic or status altering magic. Bombs for example, a type of fire demon, will only ever give you fire magic. However, you can recieve varying degrees of magic. First level magic comprises the simple spells, such are fire, thunder, blizard, cure etc.

Second level magic is stronger then first level magic, and comprises spells such as fira, thundara, blizzara, cura etc. Third level magic is stronger then the previous levels and comprises firaga, thundaga, blizzaga, curaga etc. And higher and more dangerous then all the three levels of magic mentioned, is Forbidden magic.

The selection of spells in the Forbidden category is small and select, but makes no difference as each spell has the ability to cause serious damage to your enemy and yourself. Some of the Forbidden magic spells include meteor, ultima, maelstrom, apocalypse and holy wars. Forbidden magic is not the easiest to attain, but very much worth the gil and effort. This type of magic you will only be able to get via refining items and stones, drawing from undead creatures, dragons, sorceresses or by paying for access to draw points containing the spell.

Now, having the basic idea on how to get varying types of magic, we’ll now go onto how you actually junction that magic to a character. Accessing your junction menu, outside of battle, you will see your character has different slots, each with a different stat assigned. If you would like to make your character impervious to a fire attack, then the smartest thing would be to insert firaga into a strength slot.

You will also find there are slots for vitality, speed, spirit and status. You only have to think logically here, to realise that if you had a stock of the spell ‘haste’, if would be a good idea to insert it into the speed slot. Likewise with curaga, life or full-life into your spirit or vitality slots. The status ailment slots can be accessed by executing ‘X’ and holding the left arrow button. To help your character resist annoying spells like sleep, confuse and silence, assign those very spells, so that they will develop resistance to that type of magic.

As long as your character has one hundred of each magic junctioned to them, they will remain strong. The only draw back on the Junction System, is that if you have, for example, ultima inserted into your strength slot, and you cast ultima on an enemy, your strength will go down. It’s just as with a marathon runner, the more they run, the more tired they become. To avoid this, try to use spells not junctioned to your character for battle.

Like it was mentioned in the beginning, junctioning also refers to Guardian Forces. Each member of your party will have different compatibility with the various GF’s you come across. The higher the immediate compatibility, the better. For example, if Squall’s stats show he has a rating of 500 with Shiva, but 635 with Ifrit, it would be more appropriate to select Ifrit for Squall.

Let be known though, that compatibility can grow the more you use the GF with a character. So if Rinoa has a low compatibility with Quezacotl, but you really desire to partener them up, the more you make Rinoa summon him, the higher her compatibility with him will rise.

Now that you know that, you should also know that you not only have to worry about junctioning for your main party members, but to get every advantage possible in battle, you have to assign abilities to your GF’s so that they can learn them. For example, if you go into Diablos’s GF menu, you will see that he can leanr the ‘mug’ ability. To learn this ability you much select it, then earn AP points.

Each ability has a different AP requirement. If an ability like ‘mug’ takes 200 AP to be learnt, you will not be able to use this command until, through battling, you have gained that amount of AP. Once you have the correct amount of AP, the ability will be ‘learnt’ and you’ll now be able to allow one of your party members to use the ‘mug’ option. Mugging, as an example of an ability, is very useful, as it steals magic, items and rare items, while causing damage to your enemy too.

Once you have customised each of your party members, assigning them different Guardian Forces and junctioning magic spells to them, you’ll realise how much stronger they have become. Thus allowing you to fight your way through the game to battle the Final Boss, Ultimecia. And that, dear gamer, is the beauty of the Junction System.