I don't think leveling is very confusing at all. If you watch that junction tutorial at the start, it tells you EVERYTHING you need to know. Basically, just tell your GFs to learn the abilities you want. Fighting battles should be more about unlocking things for your GFs with AP or JP or whatever it was in 8(it's been years since I played it). But, you don't want to level too much before you get abilities from your GFs like, HP-bonus, or STR-bonus, or VIT-bonus. Every time you level up with one of those abilities junctioned on you, you get an extra boost to that stat along with whatever normal stats you get from a level up.
Oh, and here is a really helpful hint, once you get Luck Junction unlocked, for whoever has one of the GFs with that, put your best boost on that first, it's really important.
Quote (takedown609 @ Jun 14 2011 12:06pm)
It's a very easy game to beat once you learn how to manipulate the junction system. You don't really need to waste time on drawing magic also. You can just refine everything from items and cards. Also, it's a better idea to try to not level at all until you have str, magic, speed, etc bonus ability from GFs. You can also still beat the game even at level 9.
And I FUCKING agree with this. People think FF8 is boring because you have to draw 300 magic from every enemy, so they sit there wasting their time drawing for 30 minutes every battle. People who think that play FF8 wrong. There are more ways to get magic rather than just drawing in battle. Abuse draw points, draw maybe once or twice a battle, refine items and cards. Don't believe the "stand there and draw 100 pieces in a battle" hype, it's unnecessary. Just play the card game every now and then, save items you get, and always have someone with draw for draw points, and you'll never have to do that.