Final Fantasy VIII is a famous game from FF franchise, where you control a man named Squall which is not your average hero. This game, in my opinion, is unfairly underated, probably because its spell system: you need to extract spells from enemies (or from some places) to use them, you don't have SP here or learned spells. And this is true too for summonings, too: a summon can be extracted from a tough enemy, so if you defeat that boos enemy without extracting the summon, bye bye chance to summon that "esper" (I don't remember how they are called at this game, FFs keeps changing how the summons are called). Probably another reason people don't like this game too much is the growing of the characters and the inability to earn money from battles. You earn money only through a kind of "allowance" which you'll periodically earns depending of your level. And there's some boos battles which didn't give you any exp points, only items. However, I enjoyed the story, the graphics and the plot of FF VIII. The characters are really nice, too, every one of them with different and unique abilities. Anyway, I recommend FF VIII for any RPG fan, specially FF ones.

FINAL FANTASY VIII is one of the best, not the best jRPG I've ever played. The story, the music by Nobuo Uematsu, the characters, the fighting system, the climate everything in this game is amazing. Final Fantasy is an unusual and magical game with fresh gameplay mechanics, it's simply magical, not to mention the ending which provokes reflection on what happened! Solid game!

The first Final Fantasy i ever completed, and it's my favorite. I've played many others but never completed them, this one personally took my attention the most. The protagonist of this one, named Squall Leonhart, (or Leon if you've played Kingdom Hearts) is a bit of a downer. He doesn't care about feelings too much, but this game sure has character development. All the characters and areas you visit are memorable, and the story is interesting. This game also offers "interesting" theories. Play the game to learn about them, this game is just an adventure. Just get it.

After the 7th game of the franchise, fans wanted more or less the same game as a sequel and then came Final Fantasy 8. At the beginning of the game, you are a student at the university, this part is mostly the tutorial, you will learn how to play, what to do, where to go, you will discover the lore. FF7 already had the premise of FF8, there was already technology in FF7, a dense and complicated story, good characters, good villains, friendship. Final Fantasy 8 bring this further, the story is complicated, maybe too much, Squall and his friends are really well written, you will want to know more about them, Seifer and Ultimecia are as good for me as Sephiroth and Jenova, you will also travel in time to live the adventures of Laguna and his friends that will help you know more about this universe. Oh, and you will play Triple Triad, just for this you need to play this game, it's a really simple card game, but it is really addictive. I think of my two hundred hours playing this game I spent half of it playing Triple Triad, you will want to get all the cards, trust me you will. Final Fantasy 8 is like the uncle of the 10th, a different Final Fantasy but really a Final Fantasy, and a very good one.

Final Fantasy 8 was a step back from Final Fantasy 7. It's still an excellent game and well worth playing, but it just didn't live up to the bar set by 7. The characters in this game are okay. I only really liked Squall though. I found the story a bit confusing too and not properly explained. There's 2 sets of characters in this game but unless it's just me, it's never really clear who the second set is, if it's time travel, or a parallel world, or whatever. Maybe I just missed something or wasn't paying enough attention. Anyway, the game is fun, the battle system is mostly good, and the world is huge. I wasn't crazy about the way you learn magic in this game. It reminded me of how poorly implemented the leveling up was done in Final Fantasy 2 when you had to beat up your own characters to properly level them. FF8 started great, but a lot of it became forgettable. I love FF games, but I spent far less time replaying this one than any other one. The mini games in this one are a little better than 7, but still not great. I did like the card game though once I got used to how to play it. Overall, if you like JRPG's and Final Fantasy, play this game, but there's much better FF games than this one if you are new to the franchise.