Receive discounts at shops
Description
Haggle is a support ability in Final Fantasy VIII that does not need to be equipped to be of use. When learned, it cuts shop prices by 25%. It is the counterpart to the Sell-High ability.
Obtained[]
The Guardian Force Tonberry learns Haggle for 150 AP, after which he can learn Sell-High. Tonberry is recruited by defeating Tonberry King at Centra Ruins after felling his subjects in great enough numbers. Though late in the GF roster, the player can get the Tonberry GF as soon as they have the mobile Garden. If the player removes Haggle with Amnesia Greens, there is no way to get it back.
Mechanics[]
When Haggle is learned its effects are automatically applied when the player enters a shop menu, cutting prices by 25%: i.e. a Potion costs 75 gil rather than 100 gil. Haggle does not alter junk shop prices, hotel prices, car rental or train tickets, or anything the player can buy that is not a shop the player would be able to visit via Call Shop.
Use[]
Haggle is not needed for purchases in a casual playthrough, as gil is plentiful in Final Fantasy VIII and its uses are few; by the time the player can recruit Tonberry, they should have plenty of funds. However, having both Haggle and Sell-High lets the player grind gil in the menu faster: the player can purchase 100 Tents and refine them into 25 Mega-Potions with Carbuncle's' Recov Med-RF, which will sell for more than the Tents cost, giving a net profit of 180,000 gil per iteration over the normal 125,000 gil without Haggle and Sell-High. Doing this with Cottages (purchased from Johnny's Shop in Esthar City) can yield an even greater total of 240,000 gil.
Haggle can also be used to improve menu grinding for stat up items: Giant's Rings, Power Wrists, Force Armlets, and Hypno Crowns bought from Esthar's pet shop (with Familiar) refine with GFAbl Med-RF into their next forms (Gaea's Ring, Hyper Wrist, Magic Armlet, and Royal Crown), and can be turned into stat ups with Forbid Med-RF.