Your friends are suffering from ADD and can only play mindless action games. They thought FF8 sucked 'cause they played it for an hour and nothing happened. The beginning of 8 is slow, and some might argue it's boring. But it's a story. It's setting up the plot. 7 took the smart way around this and stuffed the player right down into the thick of it to catch their interest, THEN slowed down for a bit and set up the story. Like selling crack, the first sample's free. If you want more action, you have to sit through the plot development. As RPGs are the story-tellers of the gaming world. Novels. Long ones. And FF8 unfolds slowly so be warned. They both warrant a peek though so go ahead and give 'em a look. I would suggest 7 over 8 but that's just me.