I think FFVIII still gets hated because of what it came after, really. So many people jumped on with VII that VIII was suddenly too different. IX got this for the longest time for similar reason, but then people started thinking “but hey, at least it’s not IX” and slowly mellowed out on it. XII got absolved because some of the people that hated it simply abandoned the series after it while others accepted that things are different now. There’s also kinda a reverse situation to that seen with VIII - “at least it’s not XIII”


As for X-2, I’m with Wolf. Also, I’m pretty sure it really shouldn’t be on this list, since I don’t think it’s been hated it a while. It’s okay from a gameplay standpoint but not to the degree it gets hyped. And yes the story is insanely dumb with very thick amounts of shameless fanservicez, so how I like it on a given day really depends on my tolerance of this kind of thing