Final Fantasy VIII: How to get the LionHeart Gunblade on DISC ONE!!!

I Know what you are thinking:

“I want that LionHeart ASAP! FINAL WEAPON WOOOOOO!!!!!”

Well I’m here to tell you that you can get it as soon as you leave Timber heading for Galabadia Garden.

"How is this possible?!"

So, for starters, here is what we are going to be needing to make the Lion Heart.

1 Adamantine

4 Dragon Fang

12 Pulse Ammo

Now, this is a long a rather tedious process, as we are going to be playing a TON of Triple Triad to farm Elnoyle cards. We will be doing this first as we do not want to start accidently leveling up the party just yet.

Triple Triad; this is by far my personal favorite mini game/side quest in the history of EVER! The rules are rather simple and if you can’t figure out how to play it GTFO (JK I’ll be making a Triple Triad guide soon just for you lovely people).

OK so here’s the plan, you get your first set of 7 cards from the dude on the Bridgeway to the classrooms on the second floor of Balamb Garden as soon as you have the hallway train wreck with Selphie. Just talk to him and he will give you a general run down of the game, which Is more than enough information to play around Garden.

“OK, now I have the cards, what the fuck do I do now?!”

Good for you, now take the elevator down to the ground floor and start harassing your fellow students to play cards. The one you really want to play against is the young boy wearing a blue and white striped shirt. He is found jogging around the central pillar. He has the “MiniMog” card. We want this to make future farming games.

That little punk in the blue short sleeved shirt right there

Now chances are you will have to play him several times before he decided to do the right thing and play the damn card. When he runs off the screen, just move to the elevator screen and back to the main one.

“OK I have the stupid MiniMog, now what?”

Gratz Bra! Now you’re going to head off to the cafeteria. If you don’t know where that is, you might want to start explaining how Squall has lived in the Garden for so long without knowing where the damn food is.  No seriously, check the map board thing. It’s in the picture above, right there where those teenage hormones are standing.

Ok, now that we are in the cafeteria, move on the second screen and challenge either of the dudes at the front right table to a card game.

The two fuckwits there on the right

They have Quistis’ card. There is also a third Quisty Fan-boy in a place that I can’t remember because I never play against him. Again you may have to play several games before they cough it up. I’ve had runs where I’ve played these douchebags for 30 straight before they gave it up.

“OK Quistis Obtained! Now what?”

SWEET! Now go save your friggen game. If you lose either MiniMog or Quistis to the next player you can just restart from the save.

OK SAVED!

Now head to the infirmary! We will now be relentlessly harassing Doctor Kadawaki. Because no one gives a rat’s ass if a student is sick, PLAY ME BITCH!

Ok, she plays the Elnoyle Card, we want a minimum of 20 of these little buggers!

Why 20 you ask?

Because 10 Elnoyle cards refine into 1 Energy Crystal, and one energy crystal refines into 10 PULSE AMMO *ding ding ding*

Obtaining these 20 cards is going to be the longest part of the entire process, it beats out any grinding and story arch time combined. It usually takes 100-150 games with her to get all the cards that are needed.

“OK, That fucking sucked, but I got them *heavy breathing* now what?”

HOLY SHIT!!! YOU’RE STILL HERE???!!! Determined little monkey aren’t you. OKIE DOKIE, moving right along.

TIME OUT!!! Here we can split the path. One Path is faster (time actually spent) and the enemies stay at a relatively decent level for the point in the game. The other requires quite a bit of grinding outside of Balamb Garden and the enemies will be massively Over Powered for your current equipment, but you will get the LionHeart earlier in the Story. Continue reading and decide for yourself which you would prefer to do.   TIME IN!!!

On to the Dragon Fangs! Dragon Fangs are dropped primarily by Blue Dragons, but we don’t exactly have any of those on hand at this stage of the game now do we? So what is a crazy gamer to do? Well there are two options at this point; you can keep you level average below 19 and farm Grendels in the forests outside Timber (if you’re going to do this press ctrl+f and type [GRNDLHNT])     OOOORRRRRR option 2…. T-Rexaurs….. yeah have fun with this one.  T-Rexaurs drop Dragon Fangs when they are between the level’s of 20-29. So keeping this in mind, lets progress the story a little bit! Go do the Fire Cavern!

“Ok, DONE!”

Sweet! Equip Ifrit, and start wandering around the Training facility ASAP, the T-rexaurs are more often encountered on the left path. As you fight you will not only level up, but so will the MoBs. (yay level average). So when your average level is in the above range start killing the t-rexaurs. Don’t forget to have someone constantly casting sleep on them.

“OK, GOT THEM! Are we almost done?”

NOPE….. Well….. Kinda…

Now we get to actually play the story line. Just play through like normal making sure to keep your level average somewhere around 30, come back and see me when we are leaving Timber.

“OK, WE’RE LEAVING! Are you coming or not?”

Well, butt-munch, if you want the friggen gunblade you’ll wait for me, won’t’cha!?

Ok, I’m ready.
I was eating hot-dogs.

Ok, time for a long mothafuckin’ walk son! But before we go; do you want it now? Or can you wait through a bit more story?

To get The Lion Heart NOW Continue reading from here

To sit through some more story press {ctrl+f} and type [MINTOMB]

-----

You are a greedy one aren’t you? Or just can’t wait another hour or so. Either way, off we go!

We are heading for the beach just south of Dollet.

Don’t Question me, just do it!

Here you will encounter the Adamantoise. It’s a giant armored turtle. Trust me, you can’t miss them, they are that obvious. When these pre-soup monstrosities are level 30+ They drop the Adamantine you need for the LionHeart (among other things) farm for as many as you want, you will have an easier opportunity to get 10 a bit later on though. HEY you’re the one who wanted to do this the hard way, not me! Once you have as many as you want (minimum 1 for the LionHeart) we now go through the check list.

“Do I have adamantine?”
Yes (move on) 
No (wtf I just told you where to farm them dude get to it!)

“Has Ifrit learned Ammo-RF?”
Yes (move on to question 6.) 
No (see question 3)

“Is Ifrit Level 10?”
Yes (next question)
 No (start leveling him up right frikken NOW)

“Has Quetzequotl learned CardMOD?”
 Yes (next question)
No (learn it NOW)

“Have I modded the 20 Elnoyle cards into 2 Energy Crystals?”
 Yes (Good Job. Next)
No (do it with CardMOD)

“Have the Energy Crystals Been refined into 20 Pulse Ammo with Ammo-RF?”
Yes (SWEET Next)
No (do that)

“Did I get the Dragon Fangs from the T-rexaur?”
Yes (THANK GOD that would have sucked if….)
No (dude you just wrecked the whole thing. Now you gotta wait until you get back to Balamb Garden to get them on DISC 2!)

Now that that’s out of the way I’m presuming because you haven’t rage quit yet that you have all the mats you need. SWEET! Let’s head back to Timber, and make the LionHeart!

BAM!!

You did it!

Congratz, you just made the game stupid hard, because you did all that grinding, at least you have Squall’s final weapon as a consolation.
That’s something at least...

[GRNDLHNT]

So you have opted to not grind like a beast to get your Dragon Fangs from the dastardly Sharp Tooth, huh.  That’s fine, doing this will ultimately be the less time consuming method of obtaining the LionHeart. Mind you, you will be acquiring it a little bit later game wise.

“OK I have the stupid cards, now what?”

Nothing, you continue the story like a normal play through BUT make sure you’re levels do not exceed 19 for any character. This means you might have to run from a few battles, and that’s ok.  Come find me again when we’re leaving Timber.

…..

“OK WE’RE LEAVING! Are you coming or not?”

Well, butt-munch, if you want the friggen gunblade you’ll wait for me, won’t’cha!?

Ok, so now that we’re leaving make like we’re progressing the story and go through the first Dream World Scenario.

Ok, now we hunt the Grendel….

For their teeth….

Now the particular kind of Grendel we are looking for are the baby Grendels. They look exactly the same as the adults the only difference is that they are levels 1-19 and if you were paying attention your average should be there as well. If not, you be screwed.  Now gather 4 of them.

“OK I knocked the teeth out of some baby Grendels, now what?”

YOU VIOLENT BASTARD!!!!!
Beating a baby dragon for its chompers….. that’s just heartless.

But it had to be done.
Now progress the story until you reach the Tomb of the Unknown King. Before you enter the Tomb: 

WAIT

“Has Ifrit learned Ammo-RF?”
Yes (move on to question3 ) 
No (see question 2)

“Is Ifrit Level 10?”
Yes (next question 1)
No (start leveling him up right frikken NOW)

“Does Ifrit have the option to learn Ammo-RF in the list?”
Yes(Go learn it)
No (see question 2)

“Has Quetzequotl learned CardMOD?”
Yes (next question)
No (learn it NOW)

“Have I modded the 20 Elnoyle cards into 2 Energy Crystals?”
Yes (GJ next)
No (do it with CardMOD)

“Have the Energy Crystals Been refined into 20 Pulse Ammo with Ammo-RF?”
Yes (SWEET Next)
No (do that)

“Did I get the Dragon Fangs from the Grendels?”
Yes (THANK GOD that would have sucked if….)
No (dude you just wrecked the whole thing. Now you gotta wait until you get back to Balamb Garden to get them on DISC 2 from the T-Rexaurs!)

[MINTOMB]

Ok Now that those are all taken care of I’m going to presume that because you’re still here that everything has gone as planned and you have everything for the LionHeart minus the Adamantine. We will now enter the Tomb of the Unknown King, after you get the Student ID for the General; just keep going deeper into the tomb. This is not a full walkthrough and I will not be going into how to get around this hellish maze here, but I will give you the major clue that the camera is ALWAYS fixed behind the Party, and check the map often.

There are 2 boss fights here, one is with a mentally challenged oaf of a minotaur named Minotaur….

 Wait what?

That’s a real fucking original name…. (don’t worry the other one’s not much better). Once you kick his butt he runs away to find his “big brother”  You must now follow him and fight Minotaur and his big brother Sacred (a midget minotaur with a Napoleon Complex). Once the battle is over GTFO, heal and save like your life depended on it.

“OK DONE”

DUDE! Midget Minotaur is a mean little guy… HAAAAA little guy… *gigglesnort*

OK, we’re on the last step here, pay super close attention to this part…

Use the CardMOD ability learned from Quetzaqotl on MINOTAUR’s card, not SACRED’s.  Then head into Deling City, and hit the weapon shop upgrade the gun blade, and BAM you have the LionHeart on Disc 1! And you did it without making the game super difficult by opting to NOT beast mode grind for levels! Have fun with this awesome weapon earlier than it’s usually acquired.

NOW, HURRY! GO SAVE!