Island Closest to Heaven - FF8 Guide
This island is one of the two end game locations in level Final Fantasy 8 where you're guaranteed to fight level 100 monsters regardless of your level. Island Closest to Hell is the second island with mostly different enemies than the ones you'll find here.
When you land on the island going into your menu will tell you whether or not you're at the right place. As seen in the screenshot below it says "Island Closest to Heaven" - if you're really not sure you're in the right place, you can always check there.
The thing that makes this island as well as the Island Closest to Hell unique is that all of the enemies here are not only some of the more difficult enemies in the game, but they're all level 100. Usually in Final Fantasy 8 the enemies level up with you, so having a lower level party will make the enemies lower level.... But on these islands it's different.
In addition to the enemies on this island there are also hidden Draw Points which you can find throughout the island. Just run around spamming the X button to find them. It's usually magic like Ultima, Meteor, Triple - stuff that's worth your time. Last but not least the final piece of advice I can give you is what Junctions to use while hunting here.
Island Closest to Heaven Junctioning Tips:
ST-Def: Make sure you are immune to Sleep, Confuse and Petrify. It's also recommended you make yourself immune to Berserk too. Malboro enemies will be the most difficult enemies on this island making protecting against status ailments a top priority.
ST-Atk: Ice. At least half the enemies are weak to Ice and none of them absorb or nullify it making it the best choice
Mug: It's recommended you do not use this unless you know what item you're going for
Tri-Face
Tri-Faces are the enemies you want to encounter here. They don't have many threatening attacks and they don't have much HP. Of all enemies on this island they're by far the easiest. Not many of their attacks are going to hurt you that much and they only have a small chance of inflicting Confuse on you, if they use their Poison Gas.
Much like other enemies on this island, Tri-faces absorb Poison. They're extremely weak to both Fire and Holy elements, with Holy being stronger (3x more damage). As for status vulnerabilities, they're exceptionally vulnerable to Sleep and Slow.
(Forbid Mag-RF) Star Fragment: 5 Meteor
(ST Med-RF) Curse Spike: Remedy
(Tool-RF) 100 Curse Spike: Dark Matter
(GFAbl Med-RF) Dark Matter: Luck-J Scroll
(St Mag-RF) Curse Spike: Pain
Star Fragment: Selphie's Ultimate Weapon, Irvine's Ultimate Weapon
Curse Spike: Selphie's Ultimate Weapon
Mug:
6 Curse Spike
8 Curse Spike
Drops:
8 Poison Powder
8 Curse Spike
3 Star Fragment
Draw:
Stop
Bio
Pain
Flare
Chimera
Chimera enemies are one of the more powerful enemies on this island. They like to use Aqua Breath which hits for a lot as well as various status ailment magic. If that wasn't bad enough they absorb Lightning, Wind and Water as well as nullify Poison.
Their only elemental weakness is to Holy and it's a small one, it only does .5% more damage than normal. As for status vulnerabilities, Darkness (Blind) and Slow are both useful to use here, they're especially susceptible to Blind.
(L Mag-RF) Regen Ring: Full-Life
(Forbid Mag-RF) Star Fragment: 5 Meteor
Star Fragment: Selphie's Ultimate Weapon, Irvine's Ultimate Weapon
Drops:
6 Water Crystal
6 Red Fang
3 Regen Ring
3 Star Fragment
Mugs:
8 Red Fang
Draw:
Water
Bio
Thundaga
Esuna
Ochu
First thing you need to know is do NOT use magic or summons against the Ochu enemies. They retaliate with an ability called Drink Magic that consumes 1 copy of a random spell from your stock. If it takes a particularly valuable spell that you Junction which is hard to obtain....... Well you can guess how annoying that will be.
Aside from the aforementioned problem with Ochu's they're basically a piece of cake. They nullify Earth damage but they're weak to both Fire and Ice. As for status vulnerabilities, they're highly susceptible to Slow but that's about it.
(GFAbl Med-RF) Force Armlet: 1 Magic Armlet -- (Forbid Med-RF) Magic Armlet: 10 Spr Up
(GFAbl Med-RF) 20 Magic Armlet: 1 Moon Curtain (Auto Shell)
Mug:
8 Ochu Tentacle
Drop:
8 Ochu Tentacle (69%)
8 Wizard Stone (25%)
Force Armlet (4%)
Draw:
Silence
Blind
Confuse
Pain
Malboro
Tip: Draw Demi from the Malboro and hit him with the spell, he has a TON of HP and this'll lower it by a % for you.
Without a doubt the most annoying enemy on both Island Closest to Hell and Island Closest to Heaven is the Malboro. The battle will basically begin with the Malboro using Bad Breath on your party which has a chance of afflicting you with every status ailment in the book.
As you could probably already have guessed, Malboro enemies will absorb Poison, so if you are using this game's Auto Junctioning you'll need to manually change it. They don't absorb, but they nullify earth. They're weak against Ice and they have no status vulnerabilities.
(ST Med-RF) Malboro Tentacle: Remedy
(ST Med-RF) Curse Spike: Remedy
(GFAbl Med-RF) 100 Malboro Tentacles: Moon Curtain (teaches Auto-Shell)
(Tool-RF) 100 Curse Spike: Dark Matter
(GFAbl Med-RF) Dark Matter: Luck-J Scroll
(St Mag-RF) Curse Spike: Pain
(Tool-RF) Hypno Crown: 10 Aura Stone (then change into Aura)
(GFAbl Med-RF) 10 Hypno Crown: 1 Royal Crown (Forbid Med-RF) 1 Royal Crown: 10 Mag Up
Malboro Tentacles: Quistis Ultimate Weapon
Curse Spike: Selphie's Ultimate Weapon
Drops:
8 Malboro Tentacles (69%)
10 Curse Spike (19%)
1 Hypno Crown (5%)
2 Hypno Crown (4%)
Mug:
2 Malboro Tentacles (89%)
4 Malboro Tentacles (10%)
Draw:
Bio
Quake
Demi