I Love Final Fantasy 8, for me FF10>FF 4>FF8>FF7

All the PS1 FFs have their pros and cons. They are all inferior to VI but still worth playing. Anyway a few facts about VIII:

- It plays like a FF should. According to those that know wtf they are talking about.

- It has the FF magic. By the time it came out, Square had not yet lost their "Nintendo" touch.

- The music is unique, highly memorable and it fits the game perfectly. It definitely competes for the Best in this category.

- It uses a more realistic style than VII. The characters have human proportions, and the colors are much more dry.

- Triple Triad is still the best mini game in a FF. Some say Triple Triad is the actual main game and it includes a FinalFantasy game as bonus.

- It has the most badass FF weapon. The Gunblade originally appeared here. But XIII Lightning is the hottest Gunblade user.

- It has the fastest combat speed of the three PS1 FFs. But the longest unskipable summons.

- It has the most stats/ability management. Be prepare for menus, menus and more menus. You will go through a lot of them.

-The Draw system can be a shore. You might spend too much time drawing spells from enemies. At least grinding for exp is useless since enemies LV up with you.

- It has much more dialog than VII. Be prepared to read a lot more.

- It has more emphasis on romance, for better or worse. Unlike the implied romantic relationships in VII, the romance in VIII is actually out there, explicitly.

- It has a more linear campaign than VII. You can explore the world like in VII but you rarely have to do some actual exploration as most objectives are pretty much in front of you. (except finding that ship ). The "end game" is very limited as all towns are off limits.

- It has the most amazing "set-pieces". You could say FFVIII is the most Uncharted of the PS1 FFs, as is more movie than game.

It's my favorite FF along with FF VII. So yeah, I think you should play it. If its the Steam version, make sure you get the original Playstation music files.

It's such a different FF, a great one at that. Different, interesting mechanisms. It's true the Draw system can be bad because it requires long battles getting all the magic, and using magic basically means you are sacrificing your stats. Worse, the magic isn't even that strong to justify it. Thinking about it, all my battles were basically attacking, limits and using GFs. But is that bad? No, I was able to be level 100 at CD 1 with 9999 HP and super stats because the monsters and the magic you can draw from there levels up with you. The game becomes harder with high levels and compared to other FFs that are way too easy, is a good thing. But you can play it in a normal way, using magic and stuff.

It's a great FF, it also has some of the best bosses in all the series.

No. Some people consider FF II bad. It also has a weird leveling up system, but otherwise it has great music, a good story, a nice world with some cool secrets. And its not even that long.

FF2 is great! However I am stuck in it XD

Defnitely play it.

I'm not a fan of the game, but the thing about the series is that each entry is different from the others. One may click while others don't. That's why the FF fanbase is terrible because someone's favorite FF is somebody else's worst.

That said, the soundtrack is amazing.

FFIV is a much better game than IX, and they have effectively the same gameplay. As good as IX is, it gets hyped up for fan service, but the gameplay and story are recycled. I loved IX, but I found it wholly unoriginal and not up to standard of I-XIII (save for XI and, obviously, IX itself). It's fun, very, very simple and better played for the fan service (There are many callbacks to earlier games.), but it was comparatively underwhelming (especially considering the step forward they had just taken with VIII).

Honestly, I remember that and the chocobo digging. Aside from them, I'd say that the Golden Saucer arena was the best diversion in FF.

Meh, in my experience it is pretty much the opposite.  I find way more people that like it on the internet then in real life.  I worked at a GameStop when that game came out and had plenty of conversations with people about it.  It seems like now the Internet is full of nostalgia enthusiasts when the subject of this game comes up, but at the time it came out... It definitely didn't appeal to most people... At least that I talked to... 

I think it just appeals to a different audience.  I loved 7 and 10 and I thought 9 and 12 were ok, but I hated 8.  

They aren't? You don't have much of a choice then... :/