No, you didn't spend hours grinding in other FFs.

I never had to grind once in FF7 or FF9.

I liked the junction system too, it was open and you didn't have to spend hours just to level up materia/sphere/etc-system.

As long as you have lot of magic in store you did fine. Also adding the magic to your weapon had cool effects when you attacked.

ur telling me th only gud thing about ff8 is a card minigame? dude r u serius? 

Of course he isn't.

The music was also good.

Junction is not a battle system.. FF8 had the same battle ATB as everything other FF after FF4 ending with 10

That shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the battle system. Summons in VIII end up being FARRR less efficient and totally ineffective towards the last half of the game if you even attempt to delve into the weapon upgrading system.

I've been saying for years, that VIII has one of the best, and most complex, AND most misunderstood battle systems in any game ever, and if you think Summoning is even an option, then you have misunderstood this battle system as well.

dude wtf?

I'll talk to you since you have neater writing.

It just mostly seems that Junction is mindless busy work and in the end you really only do spam limits.

I was about to agree with the title, since it's true, but after reading that OP...I for sure cannot agree with THAT...whatever it says there

Again, this statement shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the battle system in VIII.

VIII's battle system depends on weapon upgrads, and revolves around the Limit Break. ATB is actually changed by this.

In VIII, your current limit break is determined by your crafted weapons. The ability to craft weapons requires intricate knowledge of the enemies and their drops, so most people skip that part of the game, and focus on ineffectual junctions and basic summons. This is a mistake, and this is not how the VIII is meant to be played. VIII's biggest flaw is its unwillingness to explain its battle system.

Allow me:

In VIII, the only attacks you should nearly ever deal are limit breaks. You can consecutively dish them out by dropping to yellow health(or using an aura spell), and pressing the square button to reset your turn(instantly) until the limit break ability pops up(effectually spamming a reset on your attack meter until you can perform a limit break, usually takes 1-4 seconds real time). Limit breaks in VIII are devestating attacks, and can much more often than not, kill any boss in one hit, assuming you are using the correct characters. These limit breaks involve very complex minigames which determine the damage they dish out.

As you upgrade your weapons(4 upgrades in total I believe, very difficult to obtain) you gain access to much more devestating limit breaks. Squall, for instance, gains the chance to access Lionheart(youtube it) and Zell adds prescious seconds too his combo timer, allowing for a string of devestating repeat blow attacks(you can turn those few seconds into several minutes of actual attack time, using the correct technique).

Drawing simply boosts your stats, it requires hours of practice and patience to master the limit break system in VIII, and VIII actually rewards you for NOT leveling up until the islands of heaven and hell are accessable with permanent stat increase per level due to special items only reachable at that time.

Overall, VIII's battle system is the most complex, most misunderstood, and worst explained battle system I can ever remember. There are people who have beaten the game several times, and who still do not understand the battle system, how to spam limit breaks, or how to even deal successful and efficient limit breaks. Again, these revolve around highly engrossing minigames which can suck you in, and which can let you deal nearly infinite damage in the range of a few terms, drawing has nothing to do with it.

...and if you don't think this was intended as the proper way to play, try beating Omega without knowing the battle system, and despair.(PS I remembered all of this off the top of my head, just to give you an idea of how into VIII I once became). Watch this video...check out 5:47 onward at least. To do that much damage setting through a summons(most maxint out at 9999 damage and lasting for several minutes) animation would take weeks, and since you can only concievably survive 1 or 2 attacks from the boss would be impossible. Summons are a joke in the game, and should never be used, except just to see what they look like.