Guardian Force



Guardian Forces (GF) are the summoned creatures of Final Fantasy VIII, and they are used by junctioning them to a character.

Conceived and designed by Hiroyuki Ito, the GF govern major stat growth, elemental/Status Effect offense and defense, and the commands the character may use during battle. Each GF has a preset list of abilities they can learn, but through the use of certain items, the GF can learn additional abilities and forget those that were previously learned. A total of twenty-two abilities can be learned.

Nature
The Final Fantasy VIII Ultimania explains that each Guardian Force possesses special characteristics and can appear in multiple different forms as mighty autonomous energy bodies. Guardian Forces exist in specific energy fields and can reside within objects and living organisms.

When a Guardian Force is junctioned to a human, two kinds of beings are brought together, and if the junctioner possesses a comparable consciousness, the Guardian Force will lose its solid form and can only manifest for limited periods of time. Guardian Forces are also known for giving superhuman strength and enhancing the users' body functions.

It is stated in-game that long-term junctioning causes memory loss (as seen with Selphie and the unnamed GF she junctioned when she was a child), because the Guardian Force draws power from the same section of the mind that stores memories. This, however, is only a plot point; junctioning has no negative effects on the characters during actual gameplay. Memory loss is stated to be the reason the use of Guardian Forces is widely criticized, and within Garden, Balamb Garden is the only school where their use has been approved.

Design
When designing the Guardian Forces, Tetsuya Nomura felt they should be unique beings and not human-like, unlike the summoned monsters in many previous games. Ramuh, which had been the staple Lightning summon until Final Fantasy VIII, was thus replaced by Quezacotl, a bird-like entity, and Ifrit, who appears as a human-like being in Final Fantasy VII, was redesigned as a beast with lion features.

Even the most humanoid Guardian Force, Siren, was specifically designed to be more beast-like, wearing feathers to conceal her body instead of clothing, and having a pair of wings descending from her head substitute for human hair, not to mention her long and sharp toenails that resemble paws more than feet. Leviathan was the first Guardian Force created, which was included in a game demo. After receiving a positive reaction from players, Nomura decided to create the remaining sequences in a similar fashion.

Abilities and Stats
Most Guardian Forces can be junctioned onto a character, although there are a few that can't. A character can junction an unlimited number of Guardian Forces, and when junctioning a GF, gains access to its abilities, such as command abilities, support abilities and stat boosting abilities. Final Fantasy VIII is the first game where summons have their own growth path, gaining levels and learning abilities.

Abilities are learned via accumulating Ability Points in battle. All Guardian Forces gain the same amount of AP from battle unless the GF or the character junctioning the GF is knocked out at the end of the battle. Experience Points, however, are a different matter: EXP is divided between all the GFs the character is currently junctioning, meaning the more GFs a character junctions, the less EXP each receives. Most GFs take 500 EXP to level up, however, some take only 200, and Eden takes 1,000.

The junctionable Guardian Forces also have their own HP stat which can be boosted by leveling the GF up and by learning HP boosting abilities on the GF. There are a number of GF medicine items in the game that heal a GF's HP, and similarly to the Move HP Up ability, a GF's HP is restored just by walking around on the field.

Summoning
A Guardian Force can be called during battle with the GF Command every junctionable GF learns by default. After the summoning has been initiated there is a charge period whereupon the GF's HP replaces the character's, and every attack the character takes damages the GF instead of the character. This can be used for strategic advantage, whereupon the character may use a GF as a shield to survive strong enemy attacks. If the GF dies before the charge period is finished, the summon is cancelled.

Usually when the player kills enemies it affects their SeeD ranking in a positive way, but enemies killed by Guardian Forces do not count toward this.

Charge Time and Compatibility
The charge time depends on the compatibility between the character and the GF and the Battle Speed, which can be adjusted in the config. The greater the compatibility, the less time it takes to summon. The initial compatibility is around 600 for most characters, but Edea has higher compatibility with Guardian Forces than the other characters.

Compatibility can be boosted with compatibility boosting items, by casting magic that is the same element as the Guardian Force (E.g. casting fire magic boosts compatibility with Ifrit) and by summoning the GF during battle. Boosting one GF's compatibility reduces another one's; Shiva, the ice-elemental GF, loses compatibility when a character uses fire magic, and also when Ifrit is summoned. Using compatibility items boosts the compatibility with the assigned GF, but slightly reduces (by 1~2 points) the compatibility with all other junctioned GFs.

Many junctionable GFs have another GF that is "opposed" to them that when summoned, reduces their compatibility with said character the most. Eden in many ways is an exception to the rules, with only minimal boost in compatibility when summoned to both itself, and, curiously enough, all other GFs the character has junctioned as well.

This game mechanic is obviously made to make players think which Guardian Forces to assign to which character, and to avoid switching junctions between characters regularly, however, as the charge time is never very long, compatibility doesn't actually have much impact on the gameplay.


 * $$Compatibility = 6000 - 5 * ShownCompatibility$$

Charge time is calculated by:
 * $$Duration = Compatibility * BattleSpeed * 0.9143 / 32$$

GF Compatibility Chart
The exact compatibility values in this chart are from Absolute Steve's Final Fantasy VIII Walkthrough.

Damage Calculation and the Boost ability
Every GF except for Diablos, Carbuncle, Cerberus, and Cactuar learns the Boost ability. During the summon animation, the player can tap the button to increase damage; however, it has a drawback - if the player fails to boost the GF properly, it may end up dealing less damage than it otherwise would have. The damage ranges between 75% and 250% of the normal damage. The percentage rises when the player taps the button correctly, but drops to 75% if the player presses the button during a time a red cross appears over the cursor. GFs with longer summon animations are the easiest to boost.

With battle speed set to medium, the list below displays the approximate length of time allowing the player to boost and the approximate value of % increase for summon damage.

Each GF uses the following formula for determining the amount of damage they deal. The Boost modifier is equal to 100 if the player does not attempt to boost the damage or does not have the ability learned. The LevelMod and Power values vary per GF.


 * $$Damage = LevelMod * Level / 10 + Power + PowerMod$$
 * $$Damage = Damage * (265 - TargetSpr) / 8$$
 * $$Damage = Damage * Power / 256$$
 * $$Damage = Damage * Boost / 100$$
 * $$Damage = Damage * (100 + SummonMagBonus) / 100$$

Eternal Breath and ChocoBocle's damage cap is 60,000. Eternal Breath and Mega Flare also ignore enemy Spr.

If the Guardian Force is elemental, the target's elemental defense attributes affect the damage outcome.
 * $$Damage = Damage * (900 - ElemDef) / 100$$

Elemental Defense starts at 800 (0%), 900 nullifies damage and 1000 absorbs it. If an enemy is shown to be weak against an element, its Elemental Defense is below 800. If damage becomes negative (due to high Elemental Defense), the target is healed by that amount.

List of GF
There are sixteen GFs that can be obtained, junctioned and summoned by the summon command, and six that cannot be junctioned, and appear either randomly or are summoned with items. There are also two GFs, Griever and Tiamat, that only appear as enemies under Sorceress Ultimecia's control.

Dissidia Final Fantasy
Ifrit appears as an auto summon in Dissidia Final Fantasy, boosting the summoner's Bravery for 50%. It activates when player receives stage Bravery. Shiva appears as an auto summon, preventing the opponent's Bravery from rising for 13 seconds. It activates when opponent's Bravery drops to zero. Carbuncle appears as a manual summon, matching opponent's Bravery to the summoner's Bravery. Phoenix appears as a manual summon, and for 50 seconds, if the player is afflicted with break, will automatically "Reraise" with base Bravery and opponent will not receive stage Bravery. Alexander appears as a manual summon that prevents player's Bravery from changing for 25 seconds. Leviathan appears as an auto summon that decrements opponent's Bravery by 20 per second for 33 seconds and activates when opponent receives stage Bravery. Cactuar appears as a manual summon that reduces opponent's Bravery by 1000, but does not inflict break. Tonberry appears as a manual summon that makes it so after 26 seconds the opponent loses Bravery equal to the amount of HP the summoner has lost.

Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy
The same summons return in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy.

Trivia

 * Only three Guardian Forces are obtained during the storyline - Quezacotl, Shiva and Ifrit. All others are optional.
 * The crystals of Final Fantasy Type-0 work in a similar fashion to Guardian Forces, able to grant powers and extraordinary abilities and powers to their wielders, but at the cost of their memories.