Final Fantasy VIII Walkthrough: Esthar (2024)

Esthar
Walkthrough

This part of the game takes place after the initial Laguna Dream Sequence that occurs when you first arrive in Esthar. Return to the previous page for more information about Laguna’s adventures in the Lunatic Pandora Laboratory.

There is a short bit of dialogue inside the Esthar Presidential Palace between Edea, Squall, Dr. Odine and the Presidential Aide. Squall will agree to leave Rinoa with “Doc Odine” for observations and the rest of the crew will leave to go exploring. Before you leave the Presidential Palace though, make sure to challenge Dr. Odine to a game of Triple Triad.

Exit the Presidential Palace Hall (the room you start off in) and you will enter a hallway where you can go either left or right - the left pathway is a dead-end leading to a locked doorway, and the right leads to a floating platform that will allow you to exit the Palace, so go to the right.

There are quite a few things you can do while you are in Esthar. To start, you may just want to explore the city and get used to the very complex layout.

All around the city you will find floating platforms that will transport you to other sections of the city and help you get around, but hopefully even more helpful, below is a map of Esthar with screenshots to help you figure out where you are and how to get to various subsections of the city.

Here is a list of the things that you should do while you are in Esthar:

1) Obtain Occult Fan IV:

Make your way to Area (3) near the Airstation and talk to the man in the white and blue robes speaking to the woman (the Presidential Aide). All he will say is “I’m on break now. How do you like our city?”, but you need speak with him first as a requirement before you can activate the next step.

The next step is to travel back to the Presidential Palace again. Hop on the floating platform near the Presidential Aide for a quick shortcut, and then go back inside the Palace. Just in front of the doorway to the room where you met Dr. Odine is a woman standing on top of a pile of magazines. Speak to her and she will move out of the way allowing you to pick up Occult Fan IV.

2) Obtain Combat King 004:

You can’t obtain Combat King 004 just yet, but in order to pick up a free copy later on in the game, there is a step that you need to complete while you are here in Esthar.

Make your way to the top level of Area (14) on the map. You will have to get there by travelling through Area (15) or Area (13) because Area (14) has both an upper level and a lower level, and you need to be on the upper level. Here is how to get there from the Presidential Palace:

• Left into Area (1)
• Left again into Area (2)
• Right into Area (15)
• Go all the way through Area (15) to Area (14)

Once you arrive, speak to the Esthar Soldier standing there all nonchalantly and all the soldier will say is “Oh yeah. That’s right.” You’re done with this part.

3) Shopping Mall Rewards (Rosetta Stone):

Make your way over to the Shopping Mall area between Area (8) and Area (9). If you have been doing these steps in order and you just spoke to the Esthar Guard, just head right into Area (12) (don’t forget to grab the Curaga Draw Point!) and the right again into Area (7). Head right one more time to reach the Shopping Mall.

You can open up the “Store Directory” screen by interacting with any of the shops. One of the shops, Cheryl’s Store, is closed, but more importantly, each of the shops has the potential to award you with a gift when you try to access them through the Directory. The gifts are as follows:

• Cloud’s Shop: Hi-Potion, X-Potion
• Johnny’s Shop: Hi-Potion, Mega-Potion
• Karen’s Shop: Hi-Potion, Mega Phoenix
• Cheryl’s Shop: Rosetta Stone

You will likely have to access Cheryl’s Shop quite a number of times in order to get lucky and receive the Rosetta Stone as a reward, but it is worth it. Expect to open the shop anywhere from 50 to 100 times before you get it. (You don’t need to re-open the Store Directory, you just need to select Cheryl’s Shop and access it).

The Rosetta Stone is an incredibly powerful item that allows a Guardian Force to learn the Abilityx4 Ability, allowing the player who equips that Guardian Force to utilize a full 4 abilities rather than just the 2 (default) or 3 (that some Guardian Forces are able to access through Abilityx3).

Here are some other items you should consider purchasing from the shops:

• Rinrin’s Store (Pet Store) Pet Pals Vol.5, Pet Pals Vol.6
• Karen’s Shop (Esthar Book Store) Combat King 004*, Combat King 005*

These items will only be available if you learned Familiar ability. Alternatively, you can obtain both of them for free using other methods.

You can also pick up any other books or critical items that you are missing. Don’t forget to also make sure that you have 60 Remedy items on hand for an upcoming side quest for another GF.

Also make sure that you have accessed all 5 of the shops at least one time. This will cause each of them to be accessible through the Call Shop Ability.

Infinite Gil Trick

At this point in the game you can utilize the Infinite Gil Trick (or cheat, depending on how you look at it). Check out the Cheats section for more information.

Assuming you have enough gil or you utilized the cheat above, you may want to take some time to purchase Power Wrist from Rinrin’s Store (Esthar Pet Shop). Each Power Wrist can be refined into 10x Aura Stones using Tool-RF Ability, and each of the 10 Aura Stones can subsequently be refined into Aura magic using the Supt Mag-RF Ability. Aura is incredible powerful magic when its junctioned to one of your character’s stats.

Finishing Up in Esthar

Once you have completed all of the tasks above and are done exploring the techno-city, make your way towards the exit. The exit is identified on the map up above, but you can also just go south once from the mall and south once more in the next screen to reach the exit. You will know you are in the right area when Squall turn’s around and the message “(What an incredible city.)” appears.

This next section of the game involves travelling to a number of interspersed regions and locations around the Esthar area.