Final Fantasy VIII is a counterintuitive game when it comes to leveling up and advancing your characters. This primarily has to do with the unique magic junction system, which is the primary means of increasing the power of your party members, but this is also tied into the strange behavior that exists between your party members and the enemies they face.

To summarize, the enemies you face will increase their level to match the average of your party. The level fluctuation means that if you spend a bunch of time leveling up your characters by engaging in random battles, it could have the unintended consequence of making battles even more difficult.

The difficulty is a result of the fact that enemies tend to gain more HP, Strength, etc., as they level, whereas your party members won’t gain nearly as much. Instead, your party will need to rely on junctioned magic to increase their character stats.

Enemy Levels

The game determines the level of an enemy by adding up the current level of your party members and dividing by the number of party members you have. This calculation is usually three, but there are some points in the game where you will only have two party members. The game will round this value down to the nearest integer. This number is then divided by five to determine a “Modifier” value, which is then added or subtracted from the average at random.

Let’s look at some examples. Let’s say your party member’s levels are 27, 28, and 32. The average level would be 29. This average level is then divided by 5 to determine the modifier (rounded down), which results in 5. The level of the enemies that you would face will either be 29-5=24 or 29+5=34.

This calculation always caps out at 100, and there are several exceptions in some sections of the game where this calculation is not used.

Exceptions

There are several exceptions to the level calculations outlined above.

• Enemies in the Fire Cavern are always level 5.
• Enemies in the Lunatic Pandora at the end of Disc 3 are always level 1.
• Enemies on the Island Closest to Hell and Heaven are always level 100.
• Enemies in the Deep Sea Research Center use the same calculation but always add +15 to their level (up to a maximum of 100).
• Enemies in Ultimecia’s Castle will have a randomly assigned level.
• Using LV Up or LV Down will change the enemy’s level by +5 or -5, respectively.

Level Ranges

There are many “level ranges” in the game that impact what types of attacks and spells an enemy will have access to and use on your party (and also what magic you can Draw from those enemies). One area where this is specifically identified in the walkthrough is during the Laguna Dream Sequence in Trabia Garden, where you can use LV Up to increase a Ruby Dragon’s level into the “High Level” range and then Draw Meteor from it. So, what are the level ranges to be aware of?

Keep all of this information in mind as you progress through the game!