I think most people dislike the drawing syste, because it takes ages. It´s very time consuming in a genre that on its own is time-consuming.
Personally, I love FFVIII. Selphie, Zell, Rinoa, Quistis, Squall are great and very diverse characters. Laguna and company are very funny, their battle music is also the best of all the FF battle musics by far imo. Junctioning GFs with stats and choosing what abilities to learn enabled great customization. And in the grahical department, the game was way superior than its predecessor FFVII. But when you have such a depressed and "I-don´t-care" main character like Squall and a tiresome drawing system, it turns many people off.
@Ajax: I wouldn´t label Squall´s clothing gay, it´s typical 80´s punk, unless you think 80´s punks were dressed gay.







