Final Fantasy VIII is the eighth main installment in the Final Fantasy series. The gameplay makes a departure from many series standards. While it still uses the Active Time Battle system it deviates from the series' traditional means of boosting a character's power via leveling although levels are not completely abandoned as they were in Final Fantasy II. In addition it does not have a Magic Point-based system for spell-casting. Instead magic is collected drawn and created from items and is used to power up the characters via the junction system.