General Strategy

Use your Junctions! Junctioning is one of the most important mechanics in the game, serving as the equivalent of equipment from other JRPGs.

Keep up on Sidequests, Junctions, and GFs (Guardian Forces).

Select the correct Elemental and Status Junctions to greatly help you over the course of the game. Elemental Junctions can increase your attack damage while decreasing damage taken. Status Junctions let you attack with and block status ailments.

Attacking physically or with Limits is generally better than attacking with Magic. Magic is usually poor in damage (except in a few specific cases) and using it reduces the stockpiles of Magic for your Junctions, reducing stats. Curative and Status magic is still very useful.

Play Triple Triad. It is by far the most rewarding quest in the game and is available right from the start.

If you play Triple Triad, do not mix rules without reading about it first, otherwise you will make things much harder on yourself.

During the plotline, always try to have at least one character with the Draw command. Some bosses have GFs for you to Draw, not to mention powerful spells.

Once you gain control of the game, go into the Setting menu and change the Cursor setting to Memory. This will make Drawing Magic far quicker and easier, as you don't have to navigate the menus every time.

While the game's story is mostly linear, due to the importance placed on scavenging in Final Fantasy VIII Remastered, it plays somewhat like an open-world game in terms of buffing up your characters. Take advantage of any free time you might get.