Final Fantasy VIII holds many secrets that a persistant gamer can uncover if one knows where and when to look. When uncovered these may make the game almost too easy. If you want to tough it out and find these yourself then I suggest leaving this page immediately, but if you're completly stumped then you might as well look for the solution here.

Maximum AP - On the same island where you must obtain the Jumbo Cactaur GF, located South of Esthar and East of the Centra Ruins, you will encounter Mini-Cactuars that have a very high Evasion rate, more often than not running away within the first few seconds of battle. Each Cactaur is worth almost no Exp., but is worth a whopping 20 AP each. I found that Squall's high Hit% allows for him to kill at least one of these with each turn he takes. I would suggest at least having his Twin Lance. Make sure to have Haste Junctioned to Squall's Spd, or even enable the Auto-Haste Character Ability and Initiative as well. This should guarantee that he kills at least one Cactaur. I found myself killing between two and three at a time, and raking in loads of AP that allowed my GF's to learn all the Abilities even the really tough ones rather quickly.

Maximum Exp. Points - There are two places on the map where the monsters are always stronger than you are. These are called, "The Island Closest to Hell" and "The Island Closest to Heaven." Hell is the furthest west island in an archepelago of Galbadia. Heaven is located just north-east of the Grandidi Forest north of Esthar. Be warned, as soon as you step off the Ragnarok you will be attacked and brought into a difficult battle with either a T-Rexaur, a Behemoth, a Blue Dragon, a Ruby Dragon, a Malboro, a Tri-Face, a Chimera, a Grendel, or a Hexadragon. All of these monsters are at Level 100, meaning they have their maximum HP, Str, etc. For Defeating these monsters though you get maximum Exp that will often times increase some characters by two levels.

Unlimited Supply of Ultima, Meteor, Flare, Holy, Aura, and Full-Life - First and foremost equip Diablos' Enc-None Ability and go to the Island Closest to Hell (See Above). While on the island constantly press the X button. You will find yourself running into a smorgasbord of Draw Points mostly concentrated at the edges of the island. When your done drawing all these and they all become tapped get back on the Ragnarok and fly to the Island Closest to Heaven and do the same thing. By the time you find and tap all those Draw Points the ones back at Hell will be full again. Keep doing this process and you could rack up an 100 Ultimas and 100 Meteors, both very great Spells to Junction.

Physical Attack Frenzy - This is what I call this kind of attacking. Towards the latter part of the game I discovered something rather interesting. Guardian Forces became virtually obsolete. Why? Because I pumped my character's stats up so much that their physical attacks did wonders better than those long and drawn out GF's. Difficult Bosses like Adel and the Ultimecia's Castle Parade fell in moments without my characters taking very much damage. I found that by Junctioning 100 Hastes to a character's Spd made that Character attack so frequently that Guardian Forces were just a waste of time. This especially worked well with Squall, whose Str was maxed out at 255 by Junctioning Meteor to that stat and equipping the Str+60% Ability. Squall would attack so frequently, and cause between 4000 and 9999 damage each time, that I kind of thought the game was too easy. The important part of this equation is pressing L1 exactly as the gunblade makes contact with the enemy. Better yet, just put Aura on him and let him do his limit break a couple of times and those bosses will fall in seconds.

Absorb all Elemental Magic - This one's real easy to figure out. Just Junction 100 Ultimas to a character's Elem-Def and 100 Full-Life or Life and you will absorb (actually gain HP!) all damage from any spell cast upon you outside non-elemental Spells like Ultima, Meteor, and Meltdown.

Your Enemy's Worst Nightmare - By Junctioning 100 Pain Spells to a character's Stat-Atk you will potentially cause Poison, Blind, and Silence, all at once rendering the meanest baddie into a groveling wimp because Blind causes them to miss all physical attacks, Silence stops the enemy from casting any magic, and Poison punishes the enemy for moving. Even better, is to have Pain junctioned to one character, Sleep to another, and Stop to the other. This pretty much narrows down the effectiveness of many of the monsters and a good portion of bosses.

UFO Sightings - The World of Final Fantasy is being visited by extraterrestrials. (Not a surprise to me the creators of Final Fantasy VIII would use this metaphor and play it out in the right way) As you journey around the Overworld, with luck you may encounter a UFO that is pulling some strange objects with in into the sky. In order to look directly for the UFO and avoid any enemy battles use Diablos' Enc-None ability. The first encounter is near Winhill at "Winhill Bluffs." At this location the UFO is abducting a cow. If you don't know where exactly Winhill Bluffs is simply press the circle to view the Menu Screen and at the bottom it will tell you the name of the place you are standing in. South of Timber, on the beach called "Mandy Beach" you will encounter the UFO again levitating an Easter Island Giant Head Statue. You will also find the UFO at the "Kashkabald Desert" located on the big island east of the Centra Ruins with a Pyramid. You will again encounter the UFO at Trabia Heath Peninsula to the east of Trabia Garden. There it will be associated with a Crop Circle like symbol. After you discover the UFO in all locations, go to the Grandidi Forest and land upon one of the high mesas closest to the north with the Ragnarok. You will encounter the UFO and have to fight it. After you defeat the UFO, you will receive an Aegis Amulet. The UFO's extraterrestrial occupant can be found close to where Balamb Garden was in an area called "Alcauld Plains." At this location you will find an alien called PuPu. Make sure to have the Item Command Equipped and give the alien 5 elixers. After this the mysterious alien will give you his card called PuPu.

Increase the Odds of Zenetzuken - Once you figure out the Centra Ruins puzzle and Odin becomes your ally, occasionally at the beginning of a battle he will appear and cause leathal damage to all the enemies. This attack is called Zenetzuken. Now, I'm not entirely sure if this works all the time but what I discovered is that if you rapeatedly press the X button as soon as the screen blurs when you enter battle from the overworld or maybe at the precise moment before your characters and the ATB appears, Odin will appear more frequently. Often times when I did this he would appear about 7 times out of 10 and destroy the enemies for me. I did an experiment to compare the results when I did and didn't do this trick and there was a substantial increase in his apperance when I pressed the X button. This is really great when you encounter a tough enemy like a Ruby Dragon or a Malboro. Remember this is not guaranteed, but somehow there is a key to making him appear more frequently, or perhaps every time, and I seem to have stumbled upon part of the secret.

Circle Button Trick - Some have confused this with being a glitch when in actuality it's merely just a quirk of circumstance rather than an actual error in the programming. At the beginning of the game, you may not have the Aura spell, so when a character's HP are depleated to a point where the numbers become yellow they may access their limit break. Sometimes when the ATB reaches full and the character's turn is available the limit break may not appear. The Circle button is used to switch between characters who have an active turn. Press the Circle button to switch, but as you do so, a character that wasn't able to use a limit break may now be able to. Since the game calculates the odds of using a limit break each time a new turn is selected, you are essentially re-doing the calculation each time you switch to a character able to cast a limit break. This works very well, although you may rarely ever need to do this.