FF Fantasy <--> FF8 <--> Cactuar Hints

Home

Final Fantasy 8
Cactuar Hints

As you may not have noticed, when Balamb Garden becomes moveable, you can fight, and defeat Cactuars. Each defeated one is worth 20 AP, and they usually come in groups of two or three. This will give you a huge jump start, because they DON'T hardly give you ANY experience points for defeating them. This means you can learn Ifrit's Str Bonus, very early. And once you learn Str Bonus, and give it to a character, each time they level up, they get +1 on their PERMENTANT Strength stat! This is really good. And since it takes a long time to get there, (to learn Str Bonus) you can fight Cactuar's, and not have to worry about your character going up 20 levels in the process!

This quest is easy to do, but it can make you want to throw the Playstation across the room.

To get to the Cactuar's desert, you must have of course the moveable Balamb Garden, or the Ragnorok (but the point is to get there early). Now, head head south-east from FH (Fishermans Horizon). You should eventually be near a big gap between two continents. One to the north (Esthar), and one to the south (south-south-west is you wanna get technical). Now, on the southern one, there is a big, what looks like a circular piece of land. If your facing that way, you should be able to see a desert, and an island desert as well beside it. Right by the island with the big cactuar popping out (yes, that is a Cactuar), there's an inlet, with a beach. Go up onto the beach shore to land, and get off Balamb Garden. Now, it may seem like your surrounded by mountains, however, almost directly in the middle, on an od slant, there is a pathway through the mountains. If you can't see it, do some camera work, or press R2 to get an arial view. Now, once you've headed through there, head east along the mountain line, until you reach the desert. However, since you might run into a Chimera, which can really hurt, head towards the island. Although you can't reach it, there is a part of land between there and the island that isn't desert. It's a dark brown type of colour. Head there, and you can fight Cactuar, without having to worry about running into Chimera!!! Yay!!!

Now, to kill the Cactuar's off the easy way, have Squall, Irvine, and any other character you want. Have Squall's Speed as high as you can get it, and in low health. Same for the other characters. If you have Inititave, nows a really usful time to use it. Why all this you ask? Well, Cactuar's a VERY wuick, and they tend to run away right from the beginning, or attack you, and then run away. So, with a high speed rating, you might get a turn before they do, and for Initiative, you will get a turn before them.

Now, when you enter a battle, and the turn comes, rapidly press Circle, while holding down right. This way, you can't miss a Limit Break, and your not wasting any time. Then, unleash your limit break (Renzokuken [Squall], Shot [Irvine], and Duel [Zell] are the most useful to use), and kill them instantly. Also, if you don't have enough Strength, try junctioning Water to your Elemental Attack for maximum damage; it also works with a high strength rating. Now, hopefully, all Cactuar's will perish to your wrath, and you'll be awarded tons of AP to learn abilities. Just repeat the process, and you should do just fine!!! Good luck!!!