I didn't really find any hidden meanings in Final Fantasy 8's story. In a nutshell; It was essentially a tale about a Sorceress from the future, who had possessed a sorceress in the present, in order to re-unite with her other half (Adel) who went missing in that time period, and the elite military group which was formed to stop her.
A little more elaborated:
In the past a God called Hyne ruled the world; he was defeated and his power was split up among the Sorceresses; who would pass on their powers to their successors.
As time moved forward, the successors would sometimes inherit the power of multiple sorceresses; so the sorceresses became fewer, but their power became greater (this was shown at the end when SeeD was battling the sorceresses throughout time).
During the era of Laguna, the most powerful sorceress (Adel) went missing from existence. By the future, the only known sorceress, Ultimecia had very limited power.
Ultimecia used a piece of technology developed by Dr. Odine, called the Ellone emulator, in order to possess a sorceress in the past (Edea) and search for the powerful Sorceress Adel, so that she could take her powers and become as powerful as a God.
She found Adel eventually, with the help of an agent (Seifer) and the nation of Galbadia, and acquired her body. She possessed Adel, and using Time Compression, brought Adel's body to the future where she would absorb it and the powers of the sorceress would be one again; the power of a God.
Squall and SeeD, an elite military unit formed to destroy the Sorceress, followed Adel through time to Ultimecia. They battled and killed her; Ultimecia's spirit found Edea in the past; and Edea learned of Ultimecia's plan after absorbing her thoughts, and put in motion the formation of SeeD to prevent Ultimecia from being successful in becoming a God.
The main reason you see angry militant forum posters who bash games like FF8, are because of a couple of reasons:
First - anonymity an audience can often = a huge jerk who loves to push their over-exaggerated opinions down everyones throats with angry venomous posts.
Second - FF8 is a little more difficult than the other FF games, considering how simple the other FF games are (not that it is a bad thing, Dragon Quest is even simpler, and I like it better than FF). It requires a little more learning than just a game to pick up and play game like the other FF titles. Certain types of people tend to like to form negative opinions about things they do not understand.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
