After all the debate that Wolf Kanno and I had over Final Fantasy XII, I would think that we would have vastly different views on VIII. Strangely enough, I think a lot of what he said (and I have come to appreciate XII as time has gone by - perhaps as I have grown more mature).

I felt that VIII had the best 'world' of the series. And I don't mean best town (Midgar wins that one) or best dungeons (XII for me), but best diversity and history in the locales that the world had. Someone mentioned how samey the towns were in VII, and that applies to the games pre-Playstation due to the way games were developed back then, and I feel that comment is very fair. However, each of VIII's towns and cities had their own unique look and feel, and even the people in each town and city had a different culture.

It also had an amazing number of side quests that differed from the usual go into a dungeon, kill somebody/something and recover the treasure that RPG games are famous for. Shumi Village, the 2 Triple Triad quests, finding the hotdog lady's son in Fisherman's Horizon (I doubt 5% of the people who finished the game knew about this, let alone did it), coupled nicely with the more traditional fare like getting Odin. Even Chocobo riding had a unique mini-game. So, I think it was the most well-fleshed out in that area.

Then it comes to the story and VIII is unique in the series in that the storyline is not focused on a group of people saving the world, but on the much more human focus on a boy becoming a man, finding a love and dealing with conflict. Detractors say that Squall is a whiney, emo boy. Well, to be fair, at the beginning, he is. It's his progression through the game that changes him into someone who is a strong leader, a good friend and an inept but dedicated lover. Also, you get a reason for him wanting to be a loner that is actually grounded in childhood reality that people can identify with, rather than X killed Y therefore I hate the world stereotypes that abound in video games.

Of course, like any game, it was flawed. The rest of the cast kind of fell aside as Squall and Rinoa's story progressed. I wouldn't say they completely stagnate but their screen time does get severely reduced. Even saying that, Zell does become less annoying and insecure as the game goes by, Quistis grows into accepting herself and what she is capable of, Selphie deals with the trauma of losing a lot of loved ones and Irvine...okay, Irvine is pretty much static throughout the game.

And yes, there is no real villain in the game. Ultimecia is more of a reason to have a final boss battle and complete the game. On that note though, the time compression ending where Rinoa saves Squall from his own loneliness is quite an appropriate, if blatant, closing to the main theme of the game.

Then there's the battle system. It is easy to break. But if you have such a problem with it, don't break it! I think the concept was quite unique, in that using magic reduced the stats of anything it was junctioned to, but the execution was lacking.

So I think VIII was a very unique, different FF experience, one where they focused more on one character's progression, a love story rather than a save the world scenario, and an interesting battle system that they didn't quite pull off. I don't think it can be rated as objectively the worst FF ever made. Objectively, FF1 or 2 (I haven't played 2 but I hear it is ridiculous) are probably the worst, because they are about 4 technical generations behind us so they lacked many things that we are now accustomed to.