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Why do people hate FFVIII?


linkdevivo

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In all the threads I've seen roughly half the people say they love it. If anything IX gets shit on and hated more than VIII.

 

For me, the story and characters don't speak to me even slightly. The environment also does nothing for me. When the game play mechanics are added in, it comes out as the Final Fantasy I like the least. I even prefer Mystic Quest to VIII.

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8 is my second favorite FF game and I have often been confused by the amount of hate it gets. However, by searching various forums, the issue that almost every person lists is the junction system.

 

People do not like drawing and hoarding magic, in which they are penalized if they use it. While I can certainly understand this outlook, I think people make a really big deal out of it. The other issue people claim is that the story is too "emo" or unrelatable and that the romance feels forced. Of course, this is certainly dependent on the person.

 

Either way, I think FF8 is one of the best main line entries, but agree to disagree.

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I like ff8 but the plot is very weird, and a lot of people don’t like the whole orphanage thing. Also the forced romance between Squall and Rinoa, Rinoa acts like a child the entire game and then suddenly Squall and her are a thing?

 

there is a lot of neat stuff though like the parade with Irvine

 

Lagunas stuff was kinda dumb too

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I think there are a few reasons why. 

1) It was different from FFVII, that is the main problem for most people.

2) Squall at the beginning was kind of aloof and kind of turned people off.

3) People didn't understand the junctioning system.

 

that is what I think anyway. I really liked the game. 

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I’m a big FF guy, and I sort of know what you mean... 

 

it’s weird.

 

I mean, I think 8 is a good entry - it has all the parts that make a good FF game -  interesting locations, good, twisty story, a fun battle system, lots to do, side quests, silliness, seriousness etc etc etc...

 

and yet... 

 

I don’t love it the way I love 6.

Or 4.

Or 9.

Or 10 or 12, or  7, or even 13-2 or 10-2.

 

I certainly don’t hate it, - far from it - when I remember back and think of FF stuff over the years, I don’t think of 8 as having any truly bad moments or terrible aspects...

 but I also can’t say there are any parts that I can point to and say “that was awesome! That moment in 8 was great”

 

That means I often forget to include it in lists of favourite stuff. It’s never at the bottom, but it’s never at the top either. It just sits in the middle.

 

I think 8 suffers from simply being consistently good, but rarely being outstanding or super- memorable.

Even uneven FF games like 5, or 7 or 10 - which definitely have some parts that are waaaaaaaaaaaaay more tedious or boring or downright stupid than anything in 8 - end up being more memorable.

They become more noteworthy, simply because they have high-points that elevate them, and gloss over the less good parts in people’s memories.

 

FF-8 doesn’t do that. It just quietly gets on with being good.

It’s biggest crime? 

Dependability.

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viii was released not to long after VII so it sure was a change back then and since we didn't get a proper FF game after X, people got only one thing to do! Insulting each other's fav  FF.

It just happens that VIII was different and people couldn't bear the change. I'm sure those people love it if compared to XV trash or the disaster with XIII trilogy

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I love ff8, but I can see the problems some people have with it. The main reasons I remember people hating it are:

  • The Draw and Junction system
  • The story after disk 2.

The Junction system punishes you for using Magic, because the stat boosts that magic gives is to good to give up. This changes the entire point of the party system. Whether a character is better at physical attack or Magic no longer matters since you can just Junction every party member with high physical attack. This in turn means party members don't matter outside of their limit breaks.

The story after disk 2 gets weird even for a Jrpg that was released in 1999. The first part with SeeDs vs the Sorceress Edea is fine, but then you get to the kind of forced Rinoa romance and every thing about Ultimecia. Those 2 things really put some people off.

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1 hour ago, Wavergray said:

I love ff8, but I can see the problems some people have with it. The main reasons I remember people hating it are:

  • The Draw and Junction system
  • The story after disk 2.

The Junction system punishes you for using Magic, because the stat boosts that magic gives is to good to give up. This changes the entire point of the party system. Whether a character is better at physical attack or Magic no longer matters since you can just Junction every party member with high physical attack. This in turn means party members don't matter outside of their limit breaks.

The story after disk 2 gets weird even for a Jrpg that was released in 1999. The first part with SeeDs vs the Sorceress Edea is fine, but then you get to the kind of forced Rinoa romance and every thing about Ultimecia. Those 2 things really put some people off.

 

Really? My favourite part is after the end of Disc 2 lol. Too bad i got stuck at the beginning of Disc 4 on my first playthrough xD

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I think it's because of the change from the materia system to the junction system, the characters, and the weaker story. FF7 was the biggest hit for casual players due to these and people expected a similar experience in FF8 and expected it to play the same.

 

Instead, I think people were turned off by the fact you used magic to boost your stats and this was either too confusing or too fragile of a system (since it's ridiculously easy to break early on if you know what you're doing).

 

I think people also enjoy the cast and story behind 7 and 9 more than 8. A lot of people really liked the relationship between Cloud and Aeris and enjoyed the company of Barrett, Tifa, and Vincent (I mean, Vince got his own spin-off). Similarly, People enjoyed the relationship between Zidane and Garnet and enjoyed the likes of Vivi, Steiner, Freya, and others.

 

You don't get that same connection between Squall and Rinoa and most of the surrounding cast is forgettable IMO (the teacher was lame, Zell was a hothead, and Selphie was okay I guess... I liked her).

 

I still liked the game (never did beat it though), but I agree with the masses that 7 and 9 are better. I don't think it's terrible by any means though.

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I have 2 kinds of ppl around, the ones that love the game and only few that don't like the game.

And maybe it's a coincidence but the same ppl who don't like it are the ones who didn't get the twist "who" in fact the final boss "really" is. the Majority, the ppl who understood are the ones who love the whole thing.

btw I don't know anyone personally who doesn't like the draw system oO thats new to me...

 

Edited by AiManiaTrophyhunting
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The same reason why I don't like the newer ones. I liked 6, 7 and 9 for their character cast. I loved the creative characters like Vincent, Red in 7, Freya, Quina, Vivi in 9 and so on. FF8 and the newer ones have a cast of generic characters: FF8 with its high school students and FF15 with its k-pop boyband simply don't appeal to me at all. I played 8 for a while and got bored at disc 2 and said to myself to not waste my time on it.

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I haven't a clue. I finished the original PSOne game back during its original release when I was in high school (showing my age here) and to this day, I still think that it has one of the best battle systems of the FF series and some of the most rewarding side quests as well.

 

I always thought FFII was considered the red headed stepchild of the series though (I don't think it's a bad entry either btw).

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The first time I played FF VIII was 19 years ago and I was just a kid and it was the first FF I played. I immediately loved everything of it: the music, the battle system, the story. If you wanna know my opinion, VIII and X are the best FF (still have to play XIV btw), so all the bad things I'm reading here and there make no difference because I already know what FF8 is.

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I think once you've played most of the entries in the series, you'd realise how weak the plot and the characters are when you compare it to others in the franchise. Despite it's flaws I do have love for the game with it being my first Final Fantasy game that I played back on the PS1, it's still overall a good game.


When it comes to the characters I would say Squall is a good protagionist, the rest of the cast come across so weak with little character development. Quistis it seemed had the most potential through (disc 1) the first part to be a great character but is easily forgotten after the Timber mission. Zell and Selphie to me are very unbareable and childish to like, Irvine felt like filler party member that really if taken away from the plot you wouldn't really notice. Rinoa is good character just because of the fact she is the key reason for Squall changing, getting out of his shell and expressing his feelings giving him more depth.

 

As for the story, I cannot ignore the plot holes with the weak excuses to try and make sense of it. Like the whole orphanage part which is awful, so they were all raised together apart from Rinoa (obviously) but forgot about it because they were using GFs!..... I guess Irvine really did only start using GFs once he was assigned for the assasination mission.. LMFAO! The dream sequences are the highlights for me just wish they explored into it more deeply and gave us more about Julia and Raine, I ended up liking Laguna, Kiros & Ward more than the main characters!

 

Seifer I like but to me was completely wasted, they should of did more with the love triangle storyline. Instead he just feels like a weak puppet with it being his 'dream' to be a knight for the sorceress giving no backstory to why he was so persistent to pursue being her knight.

 

As for the whole junction system and drawing, it is very tedious gathering magic and if junctioned prevented you to use any magic you've extracted. Depending how on how much you drew can really determine wheter or not the game is gonna be very easy or hard, there isn't really a middle ground unless you've played before or using a guide. Wheter you abuse the feature or don't use it enough can ruin the experience of the game.

 

I could go on more with this essay (lol) but i'm gonna end it here saying that the reason Final Fantasy VIII is considered the black sheep is because it's not seen as a popular entry and you can see why when you put fanboyism aside. Flat characters and plot IMO along with FF12 and FF13, horrible junction/draw system. I do give the game some credit, FF8 has probably the best soundtracks in the series you can't deny that.

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