I've known the fans since the first ones have come out, XD. Most places have the initial FFXIII hate, and in all honesty I think it's because they said Lightning was based off of Cloud, which sent the whole fandom into an uproar about how Lightning is horrible, but if you compare FFXIII's Demo facial structure to Cloud's, you can see they changed Lightning quite a bit to make her different. That and her personality is very different. I mean, when Cloud gets pissed he's pissed, but Lightning just keeps punching people. They're both horrible with emotions, XD but they're horrible in different ways.

And I loved FF8, personally. I think it is the game with probably the most amount of replay value. You catch so many things the second time around (like how Irvine randomly breaks character and can't shoot Edea, you realise because it's the whole matron thing), which is also fitting since Ultimecia's element is time, and each time you go through it you catch so much more. :3