Stop battling enemies and play cards.  Triple Triad is amazing fun.  Once you have Quetzacotl's card mod ability you shouldn't really have to fight many enemies to get magic.  And you have an excuse to play cards. I left Rinoa hanging off a cliff to play some cards.

Squall has social anxiety disorder.  He is supposed to be more easy to relate to as he is the loner and outsider which is how you feel coming into the game world.  Almost all of S.E. protagonists are whiny and social misfits.  Because us gamers are.  

Look at it more like Starship troopers.  It's more about young people being hardened and swept up in extraordinary situations than it is about love. Not saying that love isn't an important part but that it comes second to these high school aged kids dealing with terrorism and assassination and what not.  They are young and they don't always make the right decisions but the urgency of life forces them to grow.

In short keep playing.

I kinda agree with your character, gameplay, writing problems of the game. Though I liked the Junction system and I never really drew magic, I just spammed GF's for the most part.

But the PLOT is amazing and the 3rd best in the FF series behind FF6 and FF7. I was glued to it form the beginning, it always kept me hooked onto it and some of the plot twists that happen are mind blowing. I don't understand why you say the plot has no "hook" when at every moment there is a sense of urgency and a side motive for you doing things. And the ending is very good too.

But the gamplay, characters n so on let it down. I think you should keep playing, some of the plot twists might hook you in and you also PAYED for it, so might as well finish it off.

Im wondering the same myself, Im Pretty close to the end, Its just Dreadful.

There's no point in playing a game you don't enjoy. Skip it.

I'd give the same recommendation to someone not enjoying FFXII, and that's my favorite in the series.

There are a lot of problems in the game, and I think you just described every single one, lol. I managed to play through twice but Squall was one of the most annoying main characters in a FF ever. I anted to beat him all the way through for his emo idiocy.

It does get better and more entertaining on disc 3 when the two main casts finally meet and get together, but getting there you have to play through some annoying bits and some very bizzare story concepts. I'd say keep playing as you've paid for it. You might as well complete it and have a full picture of the story.

If you do keep playing, play Triple triad. Some of the cards can be converted into some amazing items. The Laguna card for one can get you 100 heroes. That coupled with the Aura spell and Ultima junctioned to STR, and you can beat any boss with ease. Oh yeah, that's the other thing, the junctioning system by the end of the game makes things too easy imo.

I would say keep on playing because right now where you are the story is just building up, some amazing things happen on disk 3 and 4 and if you can get your head around those events you will really enjoy FF8, despite your hate for the gameplay.

For me I had no problems relating to the characters in FF8, from the beginning to the end I loved this game and everything it had to offer, but everyone is different with what they like in a game and how they understand things, without a doubt in my mind FF8 is still my favourite FF.

-Rinoa out-

Move to FF9

FF8 is not a bad game overall, but many things don't feel right and is a mixed bag of good and bad stuff together. I played it to the end and didn't even bother to replay it to get everything, I found myself annoyed.

Go to FF9 and enjoy an awesome game that in my opinion, rivals FFVII overall

You got longer than me.

I got fed up after getting halfway through the first disc.

As much as I love FFVIII, Skip it! Time is too precious to be wasted on something you don't enjoy. Play IX instead.

Move on to FFIX before you get to the incredibly stupid plot twists or if you want to go through the game fast just draw 100 of every spell, NEVER use magic except for cure (magic sucks anyway in the game), junction your strongest available magic and kill everything in your path with ease.