The only thing that really comes close to bad about this game, in my opinion, is that "Enemies level up as you do" thing can trick you if you don't know what you're doing - you either miss it/ignore it and end up levelling up, and making your enemies stronger than they need to be, or you think that you need to not get stronger at all, and get slaughtered by the bosses that start off stronger than what you would be if you didn't get stronger before hand. Once you realise that you need to get stronger via other means, you should be okay (but I haven't done it yet, as I always cheated. )

I love this game, it is my second favorite Final Fantasy and I really love the setting and the characters, and Squall and Rinoa's relationship has always been the one that have been the most involved in - the "Eyes on Me" scene brings tears to my eyes to this day. I'm fine if people don't like them, but I never found them rushed, because I get Squall acts the way he does, and that it's more a defence mechanism than anything.

I also don't find the orphanage thing bad, it even makes sense without the Guardian Forces to me, they just needed a "supernatural" explanation to it rather than just "Well, we all kids back then, and haven't really spent that much time together since, so we forgot" which would be a more real word explanation. To be honest, the "supernatural" explanation is better, because if it was just real world memory, it would make less sense that the people who have spent a fair amount of time together, regardless of whether or not they're friends (Squall, Seifer, and Zell) don't remember growing up together, yet the newcomer from a different Garden (Irvine) does.
I also find it cool now that there's still some emotion left between the characters, even though the memory is gone, e.g. Seifer and Zell don't remember each other from the orphanage, but they still act pretty much the same to each other as they did when they were younger. It's a similar thing with Squall and Seifer - they still ended up as rivals, even though the forgot why they started fighting originally.

Quote Originally Posted by starlet
One of my absolute favorite things about ff viii are some of the towns and cities. I could easily see myself living in Dollet or Balamb.
That is something that I praise Final Fantasy VIII for as well - I love how close to our world some of the locations are, and they really make me feel like I could go there one day.
The game in general feels like a version of our world with a Final Fantasy twist, in my opinion. Not only are most of the places realistic looking (we haven't quite matched Esthar, yet), but the game also has magazines, and computers with the game's version of the internet (or more accurately, an intranet), and Selphie is actually a blogger at the end of the day.

Yeah, I love FFVIII - it's one of the four Final Fantasies that give me the most inspiration, along with FFVI, FFVII, and FFX. I do agree with maybee that Quistis is the one who gets left out of the story the most, now that it's been pointed out to me...