I played FF8 after playing FF9 and FF7, and compared to those games i felt the story and characters were not good. Squall was simply too annoying, same thing really for the other characters; the story was a bit boring tbh. i mean its just the whole, SEED thing. i mean in other FFs our heroes had reasons and motives that influenced their actions, in FF8 we just did it because we were SEEDs. time kompression, Ultimecia, etc, it just wasnt as engaging imo as FF7 or 9.
the problem i think was that Sakaguchi has little involevment in the title as he was working on the Spirts WIthin motion picture at the time. so Kitase pretty much made the central theme of the game a teenage romanace, and imo this was the same problem with FF13. way too much teenage drama, not enough mature storytelling like FF7,9 or 12 imho.
the battle system was okay, Squall's limit break pretty much was the battle system, if the game didnt have that it couldve been much, much worst. i mean we had to draw, draw and draw magic, then junction, then draw, draw, draw. magic was obsolete, because if you wasted it, you would be screwed. however the use of photo realisim was a welcome change.
i dont have much respect for FF8 anymore tbh, because its made by the same people who made FF13, who i feel after FF13, have no idea how to make a compelling story and engaging characters. they create a story with too much teenage melodrama, i really enjoyed FF7, and 9. i think FF8 really hurt the sales of FF9, and i cant forgive Kitase and Toriyama for creating a new IP then putting FF13 on box. i think FF8 shows where things went fatally wrong, and Sakaguchi shouldnt have let them do it imho.
