:: welcome ::

Here in the Training Center, we will discuss those marvellous creatures that make life a breeze in the Final Fantasy VIII world. The only downside, you won't be able to remember your kids names minutes after they've been born and your significant other has just bellowed it into your eardrum, but hey, nothing's perfect ^_^

:: Summoning in FFVIII ::

In Final Fantasy VII they were called Summon Monsters. In Final Fantsy IX it changes to Eidolons. But here, in the dandy Final Fantasy VIII universe, we call them Guardian Forces (GF). The one thing I don't understand is how they can possibly treat their GFs as pets. My god, they have a living entity residing in their head, and what are the items used to maintain them? Pet Houses, name-tags -- in otherwords, common as dirt labels for something that could potentiall blow your head up -- and quite happily, too.

As mentioned before, the price for Junctioning a guardian force, is that you 'lose' memories. More accurately, you seem to lose the neural connections that facilitate -- in particular, long-time -- memory recall. So you'll have to forgive all those absentminded SeeDs running around, they really can't help it. According to the game, Garden is also the only military force which utilises GFs (although I have a feeling that Galbadia uses them too, considering they can use magic, and the only way to gain magic abilities if you're not a sorceress is to junction; maybe memory lose only happens if you summon??). I suppose if your main credo is 'take out the evil sorceress', then it really can't be helped. Everyday guns and swords just won't cut it against a lady with massive magical powers.

On the upside, it is possible to 'recall' memories that have been lost. All it seems to take is a memory trigger, like a spoken word or scent. Selphie's idea to keep a journal's probably their best bet, although it is pretty tedious.

± Guardian Forces ±
Alexander Bahamut The Brothers Cactuar	Carbuncle Cerberus Diablos Doomtrain	Eden Ifrit Leviathan Pandemona	Quezacotl Shiva Siren Tonberry

± Others ±
Angelo Gilgamesh	Odin Phoenix	Mini Mog

Not all the profiles are complete, so please ignore the gaping holes. The main problem is research. It's so time consuming o_O Oh, and ignore typos, I'm tired here.

Acknowledgements: All comparisons in this archive will be between Final Fantasy 7, 8 and 9. My reason is that these are the only Final Fantasy epics I'd played at the time these profiles were written. Also, most reference material (like translations of names and origins) are taken from Encyclopedia Britannica, and what notes I've made from my mythology obessesion over the years.