I really liked the story, characters, and music, etc. But one thing i always appreciated about FFVIII was it's presentation. In short, I thought the presentation was much more crisp that FFVII, the translation much more clean and diverse (representing different accents though spelling, etc.), the characters more believable through their animations and body size (representing that of a regular human). It felt more polished, I guess is what I am trying to say.