| Bandorr said: It treats it like shit for a very good reason. It is bad. Specially after the hype that FF7 built for it. The story is god awful, the driving the orphange is awkward, and the draw system was a huge mega-mistake. The only good thing coming out of that game is the mini-game. That said between the two, i'd play 8. 8 I have such a huge negative opinion of I'd like another try at it. If it's not getting the FF7 treatment, and it can't get the X/X-2/12(international) edition that I see little interest in either. |
I'm not seeing this very good reason anywhere. It lives under the shadow of Final Fantasy 7 unfortunately precisely because most people wanted a Final Fantasy 7 2.0. and they weren't ready to experience changes; whatever hype FF7 built hurt the game. Now I'm not one to say that every single changed introduced in Final Fantasy 8 was for the better, but it certainly gets a massive bad rep because of it. It doesn't matter, it has got a delayed apreciation throughout the years, and it still remains as the third best selling game of the franchise (maybe fourth, as FFXIV's numbers in contrast are kinda dubious). It got critical acclaim in the day too despite the huge departure from Final Fantasy 7. I've always seen it as Metal Gear Solid 2, who suffered a similar fate because people wanted MGS1 2.0. (and they got it in the form of the Tanker chapter, but they weren't prepared for the meta-commentary that came afterwards), and MGS2 remains as one of the best-selling games on its respective franchise as well, with the massive critical acclaim that it had behind.
Now, of course we'll disagree on these other points and that's fine. But the story is probably one of the most original takes on a plot of the whole franchise, by far. It has issues, and certain plot devices weren't really given much thought, but it's okay, because that's a problem that plagues all the FF plots at one point or another. The orphanage scene is weird indeed, but people tend to cling to it too much when it really doesn't add anything but some background for the characters; it doesn't meddle with the story or really add anything substantial in it (if anything, it reinforces the idea in every one of the main characters that they have to defeat the villain). I can understand disliking it or how it was shown to the player, but this particular moment is generally blown out of proportion.
Draw system isn't bad. But it's okay if you don't like it; the game gives you multiple other ways to get magic that don't involve drawing (and are generally more effective, actually), so it's not really that much of a problem or an issue. You can even remove the Draw command from your battle menu altogether and put some other action in it instead.
