Guardian Force


 * For the command, see Summon (Command).

Guardian Forces (GF) are the summoned creatures of Final Fantasy VIII, and they are used by junctioning them to a character. The GF govern major stat growth, elemental/status 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.

Nature
Final Fantasy VIII Ultimania  explains that each Guardian Force possesses special characteristics and they can appear in multiple different forms, as mighty autonomous energy bodies. Guardian Forces exist in specific energy fields and they 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 above-human strengths and enhancing the users' body's 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 criticised, and within Garden, Balamb Garden is the only school where their use has been approved.

GF 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, they gain levels and they learn 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 levelling 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 also, just by walking around on the field restores a GF's HP, similar to the Move HP Up ability.

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.

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 bigger the compatibility, the less time it takes to summon. 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. However, boosting one GF's compatibility may reduce another one's; Shiva, the ice-elemental GF, loses compatibility when a character uses fire magic, and also when Ifrit is summoned. All junctionable GFs have another GF that is "opposed" to them that when summoned, reduces their compatibility with said character the most. Eden is the exception, with only minimal boost in compatibility when summoned, and it greatly reduces compatibility with every other GF the character has junctioned at the time.

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.


 * $$Compability = 6000 - 5 * ShownCompability$$

Charge time is calculated by,
 * $$Duration = Compability * BattleSpeed * 0.9143 / 32$$

Damage Calculation and the Boost ability
Every GF that deals damage to the enemy 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, it may end up dealing less damage than it would have when not boosted at all. The damage varies 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. However, as the boost time is exactly the same every time the GF is summoned, the player can quickly learn when to press and not to press the button. GFs with longer summon animations, such as Eden, are the easiest to boost.

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's 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 defence attributes affect the damage outcome.


 * $$Damage = Damage * (900 - ElemDef) / 100$$

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

List of GF
There are sixteen GF 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 GF's, Griever and Tiamat, that only appear as enemies.

Trivia

 * Only three Guardian Forces are acquired automatically during the storyline - Quezacotl, Shiva and Ifrit. All others are optional as they can be drawn from bosses or battled.