I love Final Fantasy VIII, but it really isn't hard to see why so many people don't.
1. The main character embodies almost everything that today would be called emo. He's a dark, broody, leave-me-alone teenager who doesn't really know what he wants. Personally, I found this character and how he was used in telling the story awesome and well-crafted, but I can see why some people may be turned off by it.
2. The romance. The further you proceed in the game, the more heavily emphasized it will get; there is the occasional hour of game time that revolves entirely around rinoa and squall. Now, good love stories that cut down on the cheesyness and make you actually feel for the characters are rare, but Final Fantasy VIII pulls it off very good. If you cannot imagine enjoying to be told a good love story, you will be annoyed by FFVIII, but if you can appreciate any story if it is well written, you won't have a problem with Rinoa and Squall. It's definatly the best executed romance story in any game that I know of.
3. The junction system. Some call of bland, some call it overly difficult, some call it genius. It can be all of those, depending of how you play. It's incredibly easy to get along with if you don't want to spend many hours in the menu, but you still have to draw spells, and then it can get annoying. It can be very difficult though if you do not pay attention in the beginning, never try things out, and if you're not inerested in how all those numbers affect your combat. However. Once fully understood and made use of, the junction system is a powerful tool with hundreds of possibilites that are extremely fun to discover and utilize. I had fun spending hours just collecting and junctioning spells, and Im usually not into grinding and that sort of stuff. But the junction system lets you do great things without throwing them in your face. You have to spend time with it, otherwise it will distract and annoy you, though it never lets you fail and beating the game without ever really understanding all the finer qualities of the system. The junction system is where the whole issue of "love it or hate it" arises.
4. The characters. They're all teenagers, and some of them are quite underdeveloped. They are not so very different from one another, similar to XIIs characters, they aren't comics, they are humans. Some people don't like it when there isn't at least one "badass" somewhere around, so.. yea. The characters are an issue sometimes.
Liking VIII isn't hard, but hating it isn't, either. I don't understand people who say it's a bad game though, which it isn't by any standards. The story focuses on romance and time travel which is always a bit off, but it is brilliantly executed, well written (as opposed to VII) and the pacing is top notch. It offers a great deal of diversity, awesome dungeons, the graphics are undoubtedly one of the best (for their time) as well the soundtrack, there's a lot of content, humor, memorable characters and a satisfying ending. It all blends together extremely well. I say it's one of the best Final Fantasies, but it has some ambivalent elements people tend to disagree alot about.
It's impossible to predict wether you or any one else will like the game or not.
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