I've made the mistake of buying Final Fantasy VIII for the playstation, so its hermit mode again, looks like the great tidying up will have to wait until the next millennium.

Its time for all that New Romantic nonsense, with a vengeance. Square, in their infinite wisdom have given the Final Fantasy VIII a top set of eighties fashion. Bolero jackets, dodgy haircuts and attitude anyone? Not that I'm complaining, but it does add an extra dimension of humour to someone who grew up with it. I can't help thinking a nice sound track by Spandau Ballet, Visage and Ultravox would be in order. I'll even lend them my records.

Beautifully animated characters, better special effects, seamless full motion video integrated into the plot. Makes you wonder how much better they can do on a standard playstation. I'm a bit worried about the Junction system, more configurable than a thing with lots of options. We all know what that means, even more fiddling about (err I mean decision making).

Junctioning magic

The number of a particular spell makes an enormous difference to the how effective a junction with that spell is. Try and get all your junctioned spells upto 100. You won't regret it.

This does mean you will spend a lot more time drawing magic off your opponents. This does lead to longer combats, but it is worth it. Drawing magic is so useful it almost seems unfair that your opponents can't do it to you. But I suppose they do have unlimited amounts of the stuff to compensate.

Summoning Guardian Forces

Unlike Final Fantasy VII there appears to be no downside to summoning guardian forces. Apart form the risk of them taking damage instead of you. They appear, do their stuff, and disappear. If they kill your opponents off they end up with the 'killing blow' EXP bonus but that does get their levels up faster. Also summoning them improves their compatibility with the character who summoned them, leading to quicker summoning times next time.

Tests

When Squall's passes a written test his SeeD rank increases. Squall can only take as many tests as he has levels. So presumably this will limit his SeeD rank to under his current level.

The tests are avaliable from Squall's desk, select the Tutorial option, then the test option. Alternatively select the tutorial of the regular menu. There are thirty tests, I've only got as far as fourteen. If I'm really enthusiastic I'll write them all up. Most of the answers to the questions are available via the information option on the tutorial menu. Here are the questions I've answered:-

• 1 to 4
• 5 to 8
• 9 to 12
• 13 to 16
• 17 to 20
• 21 to 24

I've tried to format them into a single sheet of A4 paper when printed out (and failed following to moving over to a sidebar format).

My horribly incomplete guide to weapon upgrades.

My rough guide to what GF will junction to what stat, along with a 'work in progress' table of magic junctions.