Heh...I was wrong.

I used to be one of the biggest Anti-FF8 supporters in the world. I was of the opinion that the game had awful characters, a giant hole for a villain, a story that wouldn't make sense to a pothead, and the shittiest skill system in the history of RPGs. I was wrong. Well, I was wrong about everything execpt one of those things, but I'll get to that later.

I recently finished this game in its' entirety. I did just about everything there was to do in the game, with the exception of any of the Card Game sidequests. I still think that Triple Triad is a horrible mess, and that opinion will never change. But, after having played through it again, I can honestly say that Final Fantasy 8 is a really good game.

The characters are a real departure from the rest of the series. Much more realistsic than past games. While I honestly prefer the more outlandish, fantasy-inspired characters, I have to give the writers credit for making the characters in this game work so well together. I also used to criticize the living hell out of Squall for being a complete asshole until the very end of the game. He wasn't an asshole, he just had more internal monologue than dialogue with other characters. It was interesting to see a hero that acted in a fashion so different from past FF heros. He's not my favorite by a longshot, but I honestly have a hard time deciding whether I like him better than Cloud or not.

The story actually makes perfect sense. My only gripe with it is that Lunatic Pandora isn't really explained very well, but in all honesty, it's not tough to figure out what the hell it is and why it's in the game.

The villain issue is still a bit bothersome on the surface, but really not that big a deal when you think about it. Technically, all of the evil shit Edea did was actually Ultimecia's doing, therefore she wasn't pulling a "Zemus" by not having any involvement in the game until the very end. You just didn't meet her in person until the final battle.

The one problem that I still have with the game is the Junction System. It's awful. It's way too fucking powerful, and it turns magic into a tool. Magic in FF8 isn't the all-powerful destructive force that it's supposed to be. It's a stat-boosting item. That still pisses me off.

All in all, though, it's a much better game than I remember it being. Still my least favorite of the five that I've beaten, but certainly not the ungodly mess I used to accuse it of being.