Is there a universal walkthrough for a "No Level Run" with additional information?

[Meadow Daydream]

It seems when looking at "no level walkthroughs" I find seem to be always missing something. It's not so much the strategy as it's pretty straight forward. Encounter Half, Encounter None, Card, Break, Run, Level - Down (Which is late game)

My issues is specific small windows of getting or having a chance of getting a very important and rare items / cards that can only be obtained in a specific instance within the game. Such as the D-district Prison force RNG (Rosetta Stone's)

Also some of these guides will ignore the Card Game and QoC quests.
I usually have several tabs open for specifics. As well as 3 guides for everything.

I was wondering if there is a universal guide for FF8 Where I can get loot and play cards while also doing a no level run?

[Teratus]

When I did it I found it very beneficial to not level up any characters when possible.
Keeping all your character levels low helps keep monsters scaled down.

Make up the difference with Junctioning, you will want to be breaking the game with this as much as possible to make it easier on yourself.
Cards will be your best friend here too so play a lot and refine cards into items and powerful magics for junctioning to make your party as OP as possible.

Also note that turning monsters into Cards with the Card ability will prevent you gaining EXP from that monster so this provides a good way to gain AP for your GF's to learn abilities without having Squall level up from the battles but still being able to contribute to them.
A good spot to do this in the early game (Balamb) is to fight the fish monsters on the Beach.
They give 3AP each and often spawn in groups of 2.
Just be careful and have Quetzecotl zap em once then use regular attacks if you need to before carding them.
6AP per fight is very good for learning most GF abilities, and it won't take long to unlock what you want/need.
Just make sure Squall is dead when first unlocking the Card ability, so he doesn't gain EXP.

The main thing to watch out for is unavoidable encounters with normal monsters, for example when you return to Garden and the whole place is going crazy, Norg's supporters will call monsters to attack you.
In these encounters I made sure to Kill Squall so he never gains EXP and had my other characters deal with them, ideally with Status Attack Death for Random chance at insta kills.

There will be a few points in the game where you will have to fight some EXP giving monsters, another one being the SeeD exam at the start of the game, fighting Soldiers and the Snake before the Radio Tower.
Again kill Squall for this, and another I can recall being in the Desert Prison with some Robot guards.
Any time at all you get these encounters just kill Squall off to stop him gaining EXP.

Those encounters are easily the biggest thing that can mess your achievement run up, but as long as Squall is dead before you defeat them it's all good.
And if you abuse the Junction system you'll have no problems at all making your characters so OP that you'll be one shotting most enemies in the game, and decimating most of the bosses as well.

The only time I actually struggled in my Don't level the Squall up run was against the final boss.. she can still be a bit difficult at times but this will largely come down to how prepared you are for the fight.

I definitely could have done more to prepare for her but I was kinda speed running for the final achievement because I had only recently finished the 10,000 kills achievement before the speedrun which took over 30 hours of pure grinding on my already 100% complete save file >.< all characters and GF's max level and optimised, all weapons upgraded, all cards collected, Omega and Ultima weapon dead.. a fully completed save in every way.. and it still took 30 additional hours of repetitive cactaur grinding with the game in superspeed mode.. to get those 10k kills.

So yeah I really wanted to get the game completed as fast as possible by that point.
But that last boss can be done much easier with better prep.
Despite the struggle though I still killed her first time, it was just a very tense and close fight.

[Meadow Daydream]

Originally posted by Teratus:

When I did it I found it very beneficial to not level up any characters when possible.
Keeping all your character levels low helps keep monsters scaled down.

I've done a low level run before and completed it. I have the achievement. I also made a master save file, Where I got Seifer to level 100, with all elemental "Ara" and "Aga" and Cure magic on all 3 party members. and Farmed Fastitocalon-F so that Diablo has HP-J, Enc-Half and Enc None.

currently At level 7-8 my party members have 2500 HP

Quetzecotl, Shiva, and Ifrit are all level 100 with all their abilities learned.

The issue isn't the run itself. I've played and completed the game several times. My issue is that guides will leave out information. So I have to use multiple guides tab in tab out. Play musical chairs with Gamefaqs forums. And somehow still miss something that'll help my team out.

Im using.
No Level Guide by EDMAN.
Guide and Walkthrough by bover_87
FF8 Walkthrough by Jegged
Multiple Gamefaq forum comments and posts.
And Lastly. Some of my own personal notes. Which I am going to actively expand as I play.

[Teratus]

Ahh ok, I misunderstood then.
Thought you were seeking advice due to a lack of guides which I can relate to as I didn't have much to work with either during my run, had to rely mainly on my own knowledge of the game and reacting to situations as they came up.

I didn't find anything really specific when I was going for it either.

[bynk]

I dont get it why you scared from leveling, simply pres F1-F2-F3 and you kill everything what you encounter, no problemos. There is not so much munsters that need 30 000 damage in first battle run anyway....

[Meadow Daydream]

Originally posted by bynk:

I dont get it why you scared from leveling, simply pres F1-F2-F3 and you kill everything what you encounter, no problemos. There is not so much munsters that need 30 000 damage in first battle run anyway....

A no level run is better than a leveled run. The Stat Bonus's after you obtain Cactaur.
So you could optionally level up your party after obtaining the GF cactuar.

Enabling cheats also disables your achievements.

Lot's of players just want to replay the game without cheats regardless of the achievements, casually or not.

[Teratus]

Cheats are boring imo, takes the fun out of games most of the time.
Least they do for me anyway.