Lots of people go straight to the guard at the front gate or the Trepie in the cafeteria, but these two are so easy to beat when you only have the starting cards. If you need Elnoyle, Abyss Worm, Tonberry King, Adamantoise, etc. just head to the library as soon as you get your first cards. These two are seriously bad at Triple Triad and drop everything you need in the early game.
Spreading the GFs out sounds kinda fun. I couldn’t possibly not junction my brains out though. 🤣. I considered trying minimal levels, but it’s so hard and I don’t have it in me to tiptoe about it.
The limitations are nice to force me to not overcomplicate my playthrough. On another one I randomized my GFs for each player. I just tried to have 1 HP and 1 STR junction available for each. So all bonuses and abilities were left to luck every time my GFs got removed by the story.
I’ll never do a low level game. But in my no grind game, they were all still very low until I got to the Deep Sea Research Facility.