Some love it Some hate it, I hated it, then I loved it.
Aside from the beautiful animations, I found the game hard to get into. There is a lot of information that is thrown at you. When you're really just trying to understand what exactly is going on. It seems as though a lot comes at you very fast. It's hard to grasp your role and how to play the game all at once. The junctioning system is by far the most difficult interface to learn. It's odd to use, and makes the game awkward at times. You have to draw or gain magic from defeating monsters. It's time consuming, but you don't really need to level up that badly until disk 3, so I didn't use the system really until I needed to. The fighting in the game uses what they call Guardian Forces or GF's. They are a neat idea, but for a large portion of the game you don't need to fight you can just use your GF. This makes the game feel all too easy, since the GF's usually destroy all enemies at once. The only true poor aspect of the GF is the scene time. They take almost Minutes! To execute their moves and it gets old battle after battle (not to mention makes fight time seem longer than it needs to be).
The characters of the game are an interesting pairing, but it feels like they never go in depth with them as they should. They have Squall who is a loner, Quistis who is love hungry, Selphie who is adorable, Zell who is a bit goofy, Irvine who's the self proclaimed ladies man, and Rinoa (don't get me started). Squall for me was a realistic character. I liked him a lot, mainly because I was just like him. Squall likes to stay to himself because he doesn't want to open up to other people, he is afraid of getting close to someone and then losing them. He felt that pain as a child and doesn't want to feel it again, so he alienates himself from close relationships with the people around him. Overall, he is really a nice caring guy and he does care about the people around him, but he is afraid of showing his emotions…so he doesn't. It is just easier for him that way.
You don't learn much about the other characters except Rinoa who is Squalls lover interest in the game. Rinoa isn't exactly my favorite character, since most of the time she is a damsel in distress and causes all attention in the game to be focused on her. The game made the relationship feel forced and you feel thrown into a love story. Squall and Rinoa never truly have a bond in the game, but Squall falls madly in love with her. From a realistic stand point, Quistis would have been the best match for Squall. She was truly understood him, she was mature, and she actually went out her way for him. It just seemed odd that he would fall in love for Rinoa whom he hardly had a chance to interact with. It's the gaps in the plot like that that didn't make too much since to me, like the writers didn't know how to carry out the character relationships, which is a strong point in any love story. I guess for the player, you never truly understand why Squall falls so madly in love with Rinoa. The game does a poor job at executing just why he cares for her so much all of a sudden, and is willing to risk his life for her.
Aside from the pot holed love plot there is the main plot which is fighting an evil sorceress Edea, who is actually pretty hot herself. The main story is also pot holed as well. You never get a chance to understand why the Sorceress is doing what she is doing. You spend most of the game learning about the past and what led up to the current events, but you don't ever learn the motives behind it all from the Sorceress…this is probably the most puzzling part of the game. After you breeze through disk 1 & 2 you don't get into the real game until disk 3. Disk 3 is when you release that you need to power up your characters. This is when you spend hours drawing magic, searching for weapon parts, fighting monsters, and truly learning the junction system. I spent more time doing these tasks than actually playing the main plot of the game. This made the game feel stale and repetitive. This is probably what causes the game to be so bland for most people. It's a tedious task to level up in this fashion. There also is a lot you can miss out on if you don't know what to do. I lost an important GF ability and weapon item just because of this) this is a game that requires a guide of some nature to fully master it so be prepared).
Overall Final Fantasy 8 is a beautiful game with a shallow story that leaves the player with a lot more questions than answers; however, it is a Final Fantasy classic, and a very beautifully developed game. Sure it lacks some things here and there, and the battle system can be a pain, but when you see the 18 strike with 9999 damage per hit Lion Heart…you can't help but sit back and smile and say "hey, this is pretty awsome."