At that point, I feel the real question is how well do you feel they will respond to grinding?

VIII to me is an awkward, but more even-handed experience that can be mostly completed rather easily with only a couple of minor annoyances like the timing of certain optional segments, the Triple Triad collecting, and balancing mechanics. FFX is a more lopsided one with the main story campaign being fairly straightforward and simple; but the post-game completionist portion of the game is much more hardcore with an emphasis on grinding to get anywhere. If your friend isn't afraid of putting some effort into things and doing a little grinding, then I would say FFX is still the easier title to get into as it was designed that way. If you're worried they may suffer from burnout trying to complete all the extra stuff and post-game elements, then FFVIII is the clear choice in this regard. As I mentioned in my previous post, completing the majority of VIII is less time consuming than FFX.

Again, FFX is designed to be more user-friendly to new players with the post content being designed for veterans and more hardcore players. VIII's issue is just the higher learning curve of its mechanics, but once you have them figured out, VIII is significantly easier in comparison. It really comes down to how committed you feel this person is going to be.