So, are you ready to start the game? I sure am! I wrote those first two pages all in the same night while waiting to start the game (which is one of my favorites in the series) and spent a couple hours doing that instead of playing. :(
Well, anyway, I finally get to play, so here we go. It shouldn't matter, but in the past I have always played this game on the PS1 using the 4 disk set but for this walkthrough I've also downloaded it onto my PS3 and will be going through it in that format for this guide. If I notice any differences (which I shouldn't as it's an emulated copy of the same game) I'll be sure to make a not of them. Once the remaster comes out and I play through that I'll also note any differences.
Alright, so enough talking...let's get going!
After watching the awesome opening cinemas, and seeing where Squall and Seifer get their matching forehead scars, you'll see a scene in the Hospital Wing. First the Doctor asks you a question (doesn't matter what you answer), and then you'll be asked to input your name. I generally keep the names so I'll be calling my main character Squall. Next we'll meet a girl Squall doesn't recognize but that seems to know him....hmmm already we have some intrigue. Don't worry, we'll find out more about her as we go. Then our second character Quistis Trepe comes in with a sort of awkward cinema and scolds us for hurting Seifer...and getting hurt ourselves. Eh, what's she gonna do anyway. After that we're able to walk out and get a cool cinema of the Garden, which is currently our home. Just hold down on the D-pad until the scene starts. We're training to join their Elite force, known as the SeeDs. Should be fun, huh?
Balamb Garden
- Enemies
- Draw Points
- Save Points
- Main Hall
- Training Center
- Dormitory
- Rare Cards
- Quistis - Trepe Groupie #1, #2 or #3, Cafeteria or Classroom
- Minimog - Jogger, Main Hall
- Magazines
- Occult Fan I - Library
So, now we're in Quistis' class. We find out that our exam to become a SeeD is today. As with all of these types of games, time is relative so don't worry about missing it. Then she pulls the typical teacher move and scolds Seifer in front of the whole class for hurting you. BAD BOY! ...because I'm sure that will stop him. Then Quistis requests you stay after class to talk with her. However, before you move, let's do a couple things.
First hit the circle 
button to open the menu. From there select "Config". Go down to "Cursor" and set it to "Memory". This means that it will remember your last action and if you hold down X 
, will continually repeat it. We'll be needing this shortly. Next, change any other options you would like. I usually set ATB to Active, and increase the "Camera Movement", "Battle Speed", Battle Message" and Field Message" all to 100%. I also turn on vibrate and I customize my controller, changing the circle , and triangle 
buttons to suit my playstyle.
Alright, done playing with the options? Then hit to get back out. Press the while standing in front of the computer to sit back down at it. Select "(Turn on the power and...)" to get to the main screen. Then click on the "TUTORIAL", which is apparently new. It will confirm who you are and give you your first two GF's and allow you to name them. Again, I leave them with their default names being Quezacotl and Shiva. However, we'll get to those two in a second. Next it lets you know that you can access the TUTORIAL from the main menu, and find out all sorts of things which can be very useful. If you get lost or I don't explain something you want to know it's probably there. From here I generally exit back out to the computer, then pick "(I'm done)" to shut the computer down. All right, let's take a look at our two new GF friends. To do that, go into the GF section in the menu and click on each one in turn.
GF's
Guardian Force - Quezacotl
As one of your first two GF's Quezacotl isn't half bad. He comes with the Mag-J ability which allows you to junction magic spells you have to your magic stat and make you more powerful. He can also learn the Mag+20% and Mag+40% abilities to further boost your magic abilities. A note: even once they're learned these you still have to equip them to make them work. You can also learn some cool abilities, the top ones being the Elem-Atk-J ability and the Elem-Def-J and Elem-Defx2 abilities which let you junction magic to your attack and defense to do elemental damage and resist them as well. His final couple abilities that are interesting are the Card and Card Mod abilities. Card allows you to turn enemies into cards for your deck (which we'll get to) and Card Mod allows you to turn those cards you get into useable items. This ability opens up an amazing amount of options later in the game and allows us to get all sorts of items we'll be needing. However, to do this you either have to convert a lot of enemies into cards, or play the card game a lot and while a lot of people seem to hate the card game, I enjoy it quite a lot. We'll go over the game once you get your first deck (which will be shortly). The other interesting abilities are the T Mag-RF and Mid Mag-RF. This lets you learn thunder and wind magic from items and take your low level magic and turn it into middle tier magic spells. For now click on the "Boost" Ability, to set it to the one that your GF will be learning. This ability lets you buff your summons attack in battle and I will almost always recommend you learn it first with each new GF, as it really improves their performance. You'll be summoning them a lot in battle, and being able to boost them is a huge help. His summon attack is Thunder Storm, in which he summons a dome of lightning, which looks pretty cool.
- Order I learn abilities in:
- Boost
- HP-J
- Card
- Card Mod
- Mag+20%
- Vit-J
- T-Mag-RF
- Elem-Def-J
- Elem-Defx2
- Elem-Atk-J
- Mag+40%
- Mid Mag-RF
- SumMag+10%
- SumMag+20%
- SumMag+30%
- GFHP+10%
- GFHP+20%
Guardian Force - Shiva
While Quezacotl specializes in boosting your magic, Shiva starts our with allowing you to junction magic to your Spirit and raise your magic defense. She also can learn the Vit-J and Str-J abilities to allow you to boost your physical defense and attack abilities. We'll be using her mostly for these defensive capabilities at the beginning of the game to help make things easier by giving us a tanky character. We'll also learn her I Mag-RF ability early so we can refine water magic to boost our stats. Everything else comes after that. Shiva's summon is her classic Diamond Dust, where she freezes everything with her icy powers.
- Order I learn abilities in:
- Boost
- Str-J
- I Mag-RF
- Vit-J
- Spr+20%
- Vit+20%
- Elem-Def-J
- Elem-Defx2
- Elem-Atk-J
- Spr+40%
- Vit+40%
- SumMag+10%
- SumMag+20%
- SumMag+30%
- GFHP+10%
- GFHP+20%
- Doom (Learned at level 10)
Around The Garden
Alright, now that we know our GF's, and have them both set to learn boost, let's go a bit more before we equip them to characters and get ourselves set up for the game. First, go to the front of the classroom and talk to Quistis. She's surrounded by her admirers (who we'll talk to a bit later) but they all move off when you approach. She reminds you that as a prerequisite to taking the exam later, you first have to complete the Fire Cavern and will meet you at the front gate as soon as your ready to go. We'll meet her once we do a little exploring of the garden and probably hit the Fire Cavern on the next page, as I like to do a little preparation.
It's finally time to leave the classroom and head out into the world. Exit through the door and find yourself in a corridor. There's another screen to the upper right, but nothing there until later in the game, so head down until you bump into a girl who's running late for class. You can say whatever you like during the dialog, but I'm usually nice, an answer "Are you ok?", then tell her I "Don't have the time" to give her a tour, as I already know my way around. However, if this is your first time playing I would recommend it so you get to know the layout of the Garden since you'll be in and out of this place for the whole game.
When your done, continue down the corridor to the right, and into the next screen. Make sure you talk to the guy standing on the bottom part of the walkway to get your starter deck for playing the card game. You'll get 7 level 1 cards, which is 7/11 of all the level 1 cards. They aren't very good, but we'll be getting some good cards soon enough to add to your deck.
Triple Triad
This is where I'll take a break, and give a quick explanation of the card game which everyone seems to loath, but I find quite fun. It's called "Triple Triad". You ask for a game by walking up to someone and pressing the 
instead of the . If they play, they will challenge you and if not they will talk to you like normal. Most character you encounter in the game will play. You play on a 3x3 grid, and each card has a number between 1 and A (10) on each side of the card. The basic rules are if you place a card next to one already played, the card just played compares it's side to the one next to the card already down and if it's higher, it flips the card over. The one controlling the most cards at the end wins a card from the loser. Be warned that YES you can lose your good cards. There are a lot more rules we'll go over later when we play more but that's basically how it works. Know that if you DO lose a rare card, the person who took it from you will always have it, and you can win it back from them if you play them enough, with a couple special exceptions we'll talk about later in the game. I usually just save before trying to win a rare card, and reload my saved game if I lose my rare cards.
Garden Layout
Next, step into the elevator and it will take you down to the main (1st) floor. From here run towards the screen to exit into the main potion of the garden. First things first...see the Blue and Yellow rotating rings? This is a save point, so go up to it and save your game. Once your on it, you'll get a message. Open the main menu and select save.
From here you're at the bottom part of a circular track which runs around the Garden and to all it's side areas. There are 8 main areas of the Garden and I'll give you a rundown now, though we'll only be visiting one of the locations right at this point. There's also a directory right in front of you that you can activate to get a visual and to quick move to areas of the garden. From where you are, there are 4 exits (Up, Down, Left and Right). The top one heads back up to the elevator. Then there are ones to the left and right, which continue around the circular track and one at the bottom of the screen which leads to our first location: the Front Gate. We'll go there after visiting one other place. Going clockwise around the circular track (so exiting the screen on the left), you have the Infirmary (where you woke up), the Quad, the Cafeteria, the Dormitory (this is the top of the circle), Parking, the Training Center, and the Library. Right now we're only interested in going to the Library (so from the elevator exit right, and then it's the first hallway on the right), though if you get hurt in battle and need to heal up, head to the Dormitory (opposite the Front Gate, which you'll enter and exit through) to sleep and heal (I know it's odd you don't go to the Infirmary to heal).
Once you've run down the hallway to the library, head to the right and at the end of the shelf in front of you, press X to find the Occult Fan I magazine. These aren't necessary, but they show you things coming in the future and as I'm a completionist, I feel the need to get everything. While here also talk to the girls (specifically the one with pigtails) behind the counter and she'll mention she likes someone. We'll be checking in with her occasionally to follow her crush. From there, head up slightly, and go into a small side area.
Now, do you see the draw point beside you? It's purple so it has magic for you to grab, but if you click on it, it will say "No one can draw...". This is because we haven't equipped Squall with a GF yet, so it's time to open your menu and do that now. Click on the Junction option and pick GF. I usually equip him with Quezacotl as they have higher compatibility, but you can do as you like. Once it's junctioned, it will ask you what abilities you want to equip other than attack. Magic allows you to use magic you have stocked, but as we don't have any stocked right now we can't use it, so I usually pick:
- "GF", which let's you summon GF's
- "Draw", which allows you to draw and stock magic, as well as draw and use magic immediately in battle
- "Item" which allows you to use items in our inventory.
The two Ability slots on the bottom are for abilities we haven't learned yet but once we know some we'll put them there. So now, that we have that done, try the draw point again and draw the Esuna spell. Notice that the draw point is now blue? That's because it has no spells for you. Now Squall can cast this if he has the "Magic" ability equipped and he can junction it to his stats as well, though we'll wait to do a bit of junctioning until we have a few more spells. For now, head back out of the library to the main area, and then down to the Front Gate.
At the gate, head out the gate marked with the red arrow, as the other one is only for those coming in. On this screen, you'll exit to the right. Now go down a screen. Man this place is big. As we never do anything on some of these screens, I do wonder why we have to walk through them a million times in the game. Even though this next screen is useless, there is a draw point with the cure spell, so have Squall draw some cure spells for later. Then exit down another screen. Now you'll be at the exit where Quistis is waiting for you. She's changed into the clothes you'll see her in for most of the game which is a pink set of pants and matching jacket, which somehow shows her belly. Bit odd...but then again most Final Fantasy characters do have interesting fashion choices.
Anyway, head towards her, and she stops you and tries to give you a tutorial on how to junction GF's. As I've already told you, you can either watch it, or skip it by pressing Triangle (or for those of us who changed our controls). Note, this is the last time, I'll mention both. I changed my controls and you can either do the same, or keep in mind I switched the two. Then she tells you the Fire Cavern is east of here, and joins the party. Make sure you open the menu and junction her with the Shiva GF and I give her the "GF", "Magic", and "Draw" abilities. Then head down to exit the Garden. I was going to do more here, but looking at it, I think this will be an excellent place to end this page.
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