[Lady Lamont]

I have to agree with ViVi on this.

And it is possible to play VIII without levelling the characters up, if you level up whichever Guardian Forces you have junctioned to Sir Seifer during the SeeD Field Exam - Sir Seifer can be put up to Level 100 from then whereas the other characters can be on the exact same levels as to when you obtained them, later in the game you can do this exact same process - level up the Guardian Forces whilst Edea is in your party.

Smattle, you don't miss out on those GF is you are trying to do a non-levelling challenge - those fights give out items but lack actual EXP ((there is a glitch to get the Tonberry GF without levelling, at the time I did it my game was screwing up before-hand (rendering and code glitches caused by the PSX), as well as another glitch that stops giving you EXP)), as seen with many of the other battles. It's really the world map and/or area battles that dish out the EXP and it's possible as I have explained to level up the GFs', obtain magic and items instead of constantly relying on the GFs' AND not relying on the Selphie glitch.

If you're terrible at video games, the non-levelling challenge certainly won't help you at all - just keep using the auto-Junction option and play the game normally and learn the elemental/status tactics and the final boss is simple enough ((If you don't learn the basics of VIII, then you could end up as someone I know who played the game for four years solid and could never defeat the final boss)).

I only recommend not-levelling as a challenge, it's by far more useless to to not-level than to level up. ((I've beaten the game under all levels, challenges - completely and have gone through the game's core data so I do know what I am saying)).