Final Fantasy VIII is actually pretty okay you guys.
 

So, I'm sort of confused about why everyone seems to have a massive hate-on for this game. Granted, I'm only on disc three so perhaps all the suck is in the second half, but the first two discs have been pretty ace. The game has some of Nobuo Uematsu's best work and the main problems I can see are regarding the consistency of the play experience and the fact that some parts just don't live up to their potential.

As far as consistency goes, I will say with certainty that the first few hours of the game beat the snot out of most other RPG's I've played (though it helps that "the landing" is playing through most of the Dollet mission). But then the parts after are passable, but nothing special. The game picks up again at the ends of the first and second disks when you SPOILARS!attempt to assassinate the Sorceress and fight Galbadia Garden respectively.

For living up to potential, what I mostly mean is that some of the QTE-esque things seem to suffer from being ridiculously unresponsive. Now, I'm playing with a keyboard on an emulator so that may just be a problem with my interface and not reflect on the intended experience, but I doubt it. The worst offender I've come across is MOAR SPOILARSwhen you fight Galbadia Garden at the end of the second disk you end up suspended from a zip line fighting with an enemy soldier. Now, you're each trying to knock the other off while an FMV battle rages behind you. This idea on its own? Fucking awesome. The problem is it gets completely shat on by clunky controls.

Anyway, I'll be playing this for the next couple weeks or so, and I'll keep you updated on my overall impressions.

Yeah, no, that section is terrible with a controller too.

ALSO, aren't you at the super dumb plot reveal yet? I guess maybe not because you didn't mention it and that is the kind of thing you always mention when talking about FF8 because Jesus Christ.

ALSO PART TWO THE ALSOING, the leveling system is retarded as fuck in that you actually get weaker by leveling. You probably haven't noticed yet because the game hasn't opened up to let you grind, but basically when you level up so does EVERY SINGLE ENEMY, bosses included. The difference is that bosses get better stat gains on level than you do.

You can mitigate this, obviously, through junctioning, but you can junction just fine at level 5 or whatever you start at as well, get just as large a boost, and basically make yourself a god amongst mortals by not leveling. Alternatively you can keep your level pushed down until you get a certain GF who gives you extra GF bonus level slots, and some other GFs that give you good level up bonuses, attach the two together, etc. etc. get decent levels.

But a person playing the game like a normal human being might will eventually hit some spots where they think 'oh hey, this is kinda hard, I guess maybe I should level some more or something' and then they will go grind a bit, only to find that things have actually gotten harder.

Edit: And speaking of the junctioning system, someone at Square needs a kick square in the balls. "Hey guys," he must have said, "Let's put in all these awesome spells, but BUT, let's also make it so that ACTUALLY CASTING ANY gimps the fuck out of your character!" And then he laughed and laughed.

Speaking as someone who considers it one of the better FFs
 

I think most people's problems stem from

1. the (Disc 2 or 3 spoiler, I forget, so you might not have reached it yet) amnesia plot point. Even I admit that was painful.

2. The fact that the game's system is easy to break in either direction, making it too hard if you grind levels, or by far the easiest FF if you understand it without even going into the real cheatery bullshit you can pull.

Personally I like it, I like the art, the monster/esper design is pretty much the series' best outside of XII, the locations are good but no better than the FF average (even 13 had great looking areas even if you couldn't do shit in them). The character design, not so much. I enjoy messing with the character building, the battle system is the best version of ATB they've done (though I prefer X's turn based system, but I'm odd like that) and Triple Triad is still the gold standard for persistent game long side quests that don't involve fighting. On the other hand this was my first FF and first RPG that wasn't a SNES action RPG and I'd got my last of them like 3 years before so I'm a little biased.

Gonna be honest, I actually really hated Triple Triad. The basic rules were pretty fun, but when shitty rules started to spread and you had to either go out of your way to control that/push it back and do all this micro managing, or have the game become fucking terrible forever, and just uuuuuuuuugh.

FFIX's card game wasn't nearly as good at the base, but it stayed consistently fun, at least.

Also: I too prefer FFX's turn based system. I liked that it predicted turns to the side and different abilities took more/less time allowing you to plan out a round or two in advance and alter moves to try and get your healer to move before the monster etc.

I feel like FFVIII's world had a lot of potential, and there are a lot of cool ideas there. But between AMNESIA'D , junctioning, and a shitty shitty leveling system, and then an even dumber plot twist later on I just couldn't handle it. Honestly, the game has a lot of pretty solid ideas but it executes all of them in the worst way possible.

ALSO: Squall's an annoying shit.

8 had some good music, but just did not hold my attention past the first disk.

And I'll third FFX's turn-based system as being very good.

Yeah, X straight-up has the best turn based system of any FF and even beats out a lot of other turn based systems from other franchises.

Isn't it the only turn based FF other than the Tactics games?

Triple Triad would have been fun if not for the fact that you can quickly get basically an unstoppable hand and there is no real challenge to it anymore. This is why I liked and mostly left the rules because they instituted a bit more challenge to it. And once you have master the same and plus rules you can absolutely destroy the computer and it is much more satisifying to outstrategy him rather than win because my hand is all character cards and they have like 6 bats or something.

As others have said you don't seem to have reached the worst part. You'll know when you get there and that pretty much killed the game for me from there.

The other annoying thing- I died on the first fucking fight cause I was running around the garden- saw a training centre so I went in there, first up I had the T-Rex who is a reasonable fight even when you know what youa re doing, are junctioned and have some levels. For the first fight when youd on't know the system, don't have any equipment I think it killed me in like 2 hits or something.

FFX battle system was easily the best in any FF I've played.

X's turn based system also beats out most ATB ones.
 

Hush now. FF1 was turn based.