That’s fair, though I was still pretty disillusioned in my marathon when I noticed how much FFVII just completely fell apart after disc one. As silly as FFVIII is, I do appreciate the fact that at least it stays silly throughout and there’s nothing as damning as the huge materia quest happening.

As for the mechanics, that’s also up to personal preference. Materia felt much more empty to me, with the materia itself gaining AP at such a slow rate that you really had to grind or wait a super long time to get to the more interesting abilities. And then the materia splits into two and it’s usually so late in the game that my reaction is a resounding “so what?” On the other hand, Junction was fun to me from the beginning and I won’t deny it’s hilariously unbalanced - but it’s finding the various ways to exploit it is really what I love the most about it. I also love the fact that, since enemies scale to you, you really have to rely on it to overpower them in the long run.