Template:Sideicon The Brothers is a pair of minotaurs from Final Fantasy VIII, named Minotaur and Sacred, whom the player can obtain as a Guardian Force. They reside in the Tomb of the Unknown King and must be defeated to join the party. After their defeat, the player receives their cards for Triple Triad.
The Brothers is an optional Earth-elemental Guardian Force whose ability pool focuses on defense. They learn HP-J, Spr-J, Str-J and basic elemental attack and defense junctions, as well as HP-boosting support abilities. They are the only Guardian Force to learn Cover that lets a party member take hits in place of their adjacent comrade(s). They also learn Defend, which nullifies physical damage until the user chooses another command. Their unique ability is HP Bonus that permanently boosts HP upon level up. Unlike most Guardian Forces, Brothers learn no refine abilities.
Profile
The Brothers allude to Sekhmet and Minotaur from Final Fantasy V. They are two purple minotaurs, bipedal bovines that have human hands. The kanji on their shields means "older brother" (兄, ani?) for Minotaur and "younger brother" (弟, otōto?) for Sacred. Combining both kanji spells the Japanese word for "brother" (兄弟, kyōdai?). During dialogue sequences, Sacred speaks in capitals, while Minotaur speaks in lower-case letters. While Sacred is the younger brother and Minotaur is the older brother, Sacred is bigger than Minotaur. Sacred has red horns whereas Minotaur's are yellow. The tip of Sacred's tail is yellow, whereas Minotaur's is red.
Obtained
The Brothers appear in the Tomb of the Unknown King.
The Brothers reside in the Tomb of the Unknown King. The party must visit the tomb to be allowed entry to General Caraway's mansion in Deling City, but they don't need to venture further than the first indoor area where they recover the student ID they need. Going in deeper and fighting Sacred and Minotaur is optional.
Most of the areas are tunnels, making the tomb appear straight-forward, but if the player backtracks, the viewpoint will change, potentially confusing the player. The player will drop a SeeD rank if they press the 
to automatically leave the tomb.
The easiest way to complete the tomb is to always turn right from every screen where it is possible, thus going round in a counter-clockwise manner, visiting all the areas in the correct order. It is useful to equip Siren's Move-Find to find all the hidden draw and save points; the Float spell found in the Watergate room is especially useful.
The party will at first face Sacred alone. After defeating him, and proceeding to the center of the tomb, the party will fight both Sacred and Minotaur in a boss battle. Defeating the duo earns the Brothers Guardian Force. Obtaining Brothers in the Steam version earns the player the achievement Brothers.
Battle
The Brothers use an Earth-elemental attack against all opponents called Brotherly Love when summoned. Brothers' summon time is 19.3s, which, according to the Final Fantasy VIII Ultimania, allows the player to boost the damage to around 220% of normal damage using a regular PlayStation controller.
Its damage is calculated as follows:[1]
Elemental Defense starts at 800 (0%), 900 nullifies damage and 1000 absorbs it. If an enemy is shown to be weak against an element, its Elemental Defense is below 800. If damage becomes negative (due to high Elemental Defense), the target is healed by that amount.
Compatibility
The charge time for summoning depends on the compatibility between the summoner and the GF and the Battle Speed. The greater the compatibility, the less time it takes to summon. Compatibility can be boosted with compatibility boosting items, by casting magic that is the same element as the Guardian Force—or otherwise compatible as with Brothers' case whose compatibility is boosted by using "forbidden" spells—and by summoning the GF during battle. Compatibility drops by using "opposing" magic to the GF's element and other summons.
| Compatibility Chart | ||
|---|---|---|
| Summon Effect | Brothers +20, Pandemona -10, Every other GF -1.6 | |
| Compatibility Items | Dino Bone +3.2, LuvLuvG +20.2 | |
| Casting Magic | Quake +2, Apocalypse +0.2, Flare +0.2, Meteor +0.2, Ultima +0.2, Aero -0.2, Float -0.4, Tornado -0.8 | |
The below values are the base compatibility values with all playable characters at the start of the game. Seifer cannot junction Brothers in a normal playthrough, but a default value for his compatibility still exists.
| Party member | Compatibility |
|---|---|
| Squall | Template:VarExpression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". |
| Quistis | Template:VarExpression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". |
| Zell | Template:VarExpression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". |
| Selphie | Template:VarExpression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". |
| Rinoa | Template:VarExpression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". |
| Irvine | Template:VarExpression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". |
| Seifer | Template:VarExpression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". |
| Edea | Template:VarExpression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". |
Stats
The following table represents the base stats.
| Level | HP | Attack Power |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | 670 | 529 |
| 10 | 824 | 632 |
| 20 | 1,406 | 977 |
| 30 | 1,996 | 1,322 |
| 40 | 2,594 | 1,667 |
| 50 | 3,200 | 2,012 |
| 60 | 3,814 | 2,357 |
| 70 | 4,436 | 2,702 |
| 80 | 5,066 | 3,047 |
| 90 | 5,704 | 3,392 |
| 100 | 6,350 | 3,737 |
Abilities
Abilities learned naturally by Brothers are listed below:
Boss
Template:See Also The duo is fought in the center of the Tomb of the Unknown King. The pair is constantly healed by Earth Regeneration as long as their feet are touching the ground. The player can cast the Float spell on them to prevent their healing. The duo's special hit, Mad Cow Special, is an Earth-elemental attack against all party members used when both are alive.
Triple Triad
Template:FFVIII Card
Template:FFVIII Card
When the Queen of Cards requests the Sacred card and the player loses it to her, the player can win Irvine card from Flo in Fishermans Horizon. The player can win back the cards the queen requests from the boy in the artist's house in Dollet.
Other appearances
Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia
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Final Fantasy Record Keeper
The Brothers appear as bosses in the Record of the Tomb of the Unknown King, although Sacred is known as Sekhret.
The player can prepare by attaching Wind and Poison-based abilities, as the Brothers are vulnerable to both elements. The strategy is nearly identical to the source game: the player should focus on one of them while buffing the party with Protect and Shell to curb damage and halt their hit-all Mad Cow Special. To earn the Target Scores, the player should direct the Wind attacks at Minotaur and the Poison attacks at Sekhret.
Mobius Final Fantasy
The Brothers appear as an ability card.
Gallery
Etymology
The Brothers appeared in Final Fantasy V, named Minotaur and Sekhmet.
The Minotaur was a creature from Greek mythology with the head of a bull and the body of a man. He is descended from the union of the Queen of Crete and a white bull. He roamed the Labyrinth, where he hunted and killed a tribute of young men and women until he was slain by Theseus.
In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet was a blood-thirsty goddess with the head of a lion and the body of a woman in Upper Egypt.
They are called Taurus in the French version. Taurus is one of the constellations of the zodiac, and its also a zodiac sign used in astrology.
Trivia
- The Brothers are alluded to in Final Fantasy XI, in an Empty Battlefield titled "Brothers". The battle is against a pair of Tauri, Eldertaur and Mindertaur, and true to their origins, Eldertaur is the smaller of the two.
- The Brothers are paid homage to in Final Fantasy XIV in the new Eureka instance, Pagos, where a special FATE, called "Brothers", can be spawned by killing many minotaur in the area.
- The Brothers learn an HP Bonus that yields +30 HP permanent boost upon level up. This is often not considered worthwhile, as HP is easily boosted with junctions and +30 per level up is not a great bonus.
- The playable characters (except Squall) comment on Minotaur's size: