Both FF8 and 10 are quite meh to be honest.
Both games look good, both have some good chars, but overall those are the weakest from the modern FFs I've played.

8 is kinda of a mess, I remember giving it a good score after finishing it because I liked 7 and was excited to get on 9, but I would not give it one now.

The ending of the story and the "twist" to it is lame, that "twist" actually makes the whole story bad as a result IMO.

The junction system is horribly explained and works very poorly on a first playthrough, unless someone is helping you or you are using a guide it's very likely you'll have a bad experience with it. Also the enemies level up with you, so right after you level up you are actually weaker than before, and that's really not a good choice IMO.

The card game is pretty good tho. I also like the summons too. It has a pretty good "rival" as well.

Overall I only recommend trying it for the sake of having played it, as a game itself I would not recommend it.

10 is better than 8, it has a propper turn based battle system if you want, which is great, and it also have a way better story than 8 overall.
But I still can't understand how 13 is so hated for things 10 did before and that one is so beloved.

10 is as much if not more limiting than 13, it has a lot of corridor maps.

I personally don't mind it, but it puzzles me why so many people are selective with 13 to pick up on it for that, but not on 10.

But nearly everything on 13 is better than 10, and 10 has some pretty bad choices too.

It has a separated language you have to "learn" bit by bit, and it expects you to go back to places you forgot many moons ago so you can read a part of a text you couldn't and try to figure it out, and I'll be honest that I don't even remember what you learn when you do, but I do remember not liking having to go back to do it.

Blitzball SUCKS ASS. That minigame is BAD. And the game freaking forces it on you at least 1 time (maybe more). It's really a damn disservice for the game it existing and it being popular on that world makes me doubt their sanity.

It's also overall just decent, I would recommend trying 10 but except for 8 I would rather recommend playing any other of the modern ones, even the sequels like 10-2, 13-2 and Lightning Returns, I enjoyed all of them more than 10.

FF8 had amazing atmosphere and soundtracks, the best mini game in the series, and phenomenal cutscenes for its time. I forgive its shortcomings. As my first Final Fantasy, the game blew my mind as a 12 year old kid.

I really enjoyed Blitzball, re-recruited Wakka and almost maxed out my team lol. I don't get the hate. Did everyone play it on auto or something?

I never played FF13 outside FF13-2 demo which I didn't like. But FF10's linear design constraints are mitigated by its puzzles, backtracking, and unlockables/secrets. The game had a crap ton of content and some cool systems. It's Yuji Horii's favorite FF for a reason! (I wouldn't call it "the ultimate perfection" though!).

This is a crazy take to me lol. I think there are very clear differences between X and XIII which makes X more favoured,

1.Pacing.

Both of gameplay mechanics and story wise, 10 just opens up a lot quicker. By the time you're in Besaid you're exploring the world, finding hidden items, collecting new weapons, understanding your parties very different abilities, engaging with puzzles to unlock summons, exploring interesting dynamics between characters and the motive going forward is well set out.

2. Simple RPG mechanics.

XIII removes the micromanagement of the early game without replacing it with any strategic depth. There are very few ailments to fend against or utilise like blind, silence etc. Character skillsets are not very unique, almost all attacks are from a shared skillset. X is relatively basic but that tried and tested formula works over just having the swap between 2 paradigms and not worry about much else for 30hours.

2.World Building.

There's not a single area in XIII that feels genuinely lived in or inhabited. Even if we view the wilderness of pulse as something which is suppsed to feel "uninhabited" you don't get a broader sense of the world from exploring it, interacting with ruins, wildlife etc. Much of its lore is left to datalogs whereas everything in FFX is based on you engaging in the world & characters including the tedious bits like learning al-bed or going back to places you've already been to unlock hidden summons/weapns, new dialogue etc

4. Story.
10 is simply a better story with more interesting characters.

I enjoyed XIII and played through it twice, but it was very unbalanced and poorly paced experience. Both are relatively linear but 10 had way more diverging paths and organic level design which broke from "corridor" criticism that was thrown at XIII. Like one of the very first things you do as Tidus is try and find flint in order to start a fire. In XIII's 40hour runtime I can't remember a single instance of having to be observant outside of battle.

FF8 is my favorite FF.

Best Final Fantasy combat is Rebirth's. It's absolutely sublime during harder challenges. Peak gaming. But man... I miss FF14.

FF14's combat with a controller is such a joy; a tasty blend of rhythm, party, planning, and action. It's like you're dancing strategically. Immensely satisfying at higher levels. It's also the only game I played with controller + mouse + keyboard simultaneously (keyboard + mouse for menus/UI and chatting).

What I want from the next mainline FF is classic ATB with a positioning system and action/timing based commands. It's probably really hard to execute perfectly. Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve, and FF12 tried to mix ATB with movement and positioning, but SquareEnix just gave up and ultimately ditched ATB entirely. Remake/Rebirth's pseudo ATB is a nice system, but it's on the chaotic side. I would like something more engaging than a rigid turnbased or a classic ATB, but less action heavy than Remake/Rebirth.

Final Fantasy is a divisive franchise, 12 is my favorite (together with 9) and most of the fanbase hate that game so I know the feeling, lol.

Or even about LoD, I have seem so many people hate on it and it's my favorite game ever.

I think 8 is easily the worst to pick and play for the first time, but if you are that familiar with it maybe you can avoid a lot of the shortcomings by knowing what to do and how to do it.

I think it may be a similar case to another of my favorite games ever, Digimon World 3, pretty much everyone that picks it up nowdays complain about getting lost and having to backtrack far too much, but people that grew up with it like me have little problem doing it, because we spent that discovery phase as kids and know it well enough now. But I do know it is the case, even as I love that game, if I ever recommend someone to play it I would also recommend using a guide as much as needed.

So don't worry, it's fine if you love FF8.

Exploring the world in FF10 is really... meh.

By the time you get access to the airship, specially coming from PS1 FFs, it gets even more "meh". The airship is just a list to teleport to other places. Even that is restrictive compared to prior games. And when you are in a map, most of them are just corridors like in 13, there are 2 to 4 corridors going in some directions, but they are still just corridors. I don't personally have a problem with it, but I really can't understand people only pointing to 13 and not to 10.

You are 100% right that 13 has its world and even a lot of story building delivered as text, even so, the story on 13 is considerably better than 10. 10 still have quite the convoluted story, just like 7, for the sake of trying to be misterious, and is not particularly well delivered, so even if 13 relies on a lot of text, the actual story is quite better, IMO.

FF 10 do have some good characters, Yuna is great, and you'll forgive me but I forgot the names of many of the other chars, so I googled it, but the cool older guy (Auron) and the mage (Lulu) are great too. I don't really care for Tidus that much tbh, and Rikku was deceny. I don't like Wakka tho. Seymour is really bad as a "rival" as well.

FF 13 has Lightning, Fang and Serah, I even like Vanille too. I remember 13 characters easier and I actually played 13 (and 13-2) before 10.

I don't think 13 is that much better, I do preffer 13 over 10, but I think it has a lot of shortcomings as well, specially regarding the weapons progression. But IMO it does have a better story, a really cool battle system (I like 10's as well tho), I like the different kind of music it has, so yeah, even as it's not THAT better than 10 I have a really hard time finding many things 10 has over 13.

Oh, and 13 doesn't have Blitzball, very important point going on for it! XD

I enjoyed 10-2 more than 10, it was a lot sillier and overall more fun, IMO, but I also enjoyed 13-2 more than 13, it fixes some stuff from 13, Noel is decent but a big downgrade from Lightning, but we have Serah shining there, and Caius as a "rival" was really cool. Also you could have different "pet" monsters on your party and that was a really fun change.

Hold up, I know we aren't disrespecting Blitzball in here!!!

Blitzball is honestly one of my favorite mini games in any Final Fantasy game. It was made even better with the ability to recruit random NPC's to your team lol. Give me that spinoff Square!

That, or perhaps people didn't recruit the right characters. Blitzball was incredible lol! 

Been thinking of buying Romeo Is A Dead Man at launch but can't find any additional info on it.

Its also supposed to be coming out next week? Seems like a candidate for a shadow drop after a State of Play showing.