Why does everyone shit on this installment to the FF series?

>enemies level up with you = grinding's rendered useless
>the whole gameplay with GFs and shit is convoluted for no reason
>plot is pants on head retard. Yes, even by FF standards.
>the most forgettable cast in all of 3D FF games to date.

>>376243320
The story sounds like it's written by a 14 year old and is pretty unfulfilling and sluggish
The gameplay is broken as fuck thanks to the fact that you can grind and abuse Card Mod

That being said, I like the atmosphere. The Juction system is actually pretty interesting but severely needs some major fixes. You can pretty much grind for Cards and become OP as fuck on the very first disc and then you pretty much don't have to do shit throughout the rest of the game.

>>376243320
inb4:
>combat is slow and shit
>draw system is shit
>the characters are shit
>the plot twists are shit
>"...Whatever"

I just never understood what made Cloud such a flagship character for the final fantasy series. Also FFVII had a shitty story line as well.

>>376243575
>Grinding's rendered useless
>Doesn't know how the junction system works

how to tell if someone's never played ff8 in 5 seconds

>>376243816
Because it was babby's first FF.
Remember it was the first FF that got a major release in the west.

>>376243825
disliking =/= "not getting".
I played and finished FF8 literally just few years ago. It was the one PS1 FF I didn't get to play back in the days, so I decided to remedy it.

It was crap.

>>376243989
that would be FF6, or "3" like yanks call it.

>>376243320
I don't know. Never got too far into it because I fucking hated the whole junction and drawing magic system and the card game.

Squall actually died at the end of the first disk.

I loved it, junction system is just as broken as other FF mechanics. Best music, best dungeons/optional content, best summons, best minigame, best towns and a great fucked up ending

The only real cons I can think of today are
>GF animation times
>Limit Breaks being always available
>Triple Triad rules

Maybe adult me could understand TT betterr now, but it always felt like the CPU was able to asspull their way to a board flip if I ever let any rules spread.

I love the setting and atmosphere of the game, though. It's literally those "school, military, action, romance" cartoons, but with a much more serious setting. I still recall really loving the game around the time of doing the Minotaur labyrinth stuff.

Gameplay wise, it's much more enjoyable than several other RPGs because of one thing: it rewards meta knowledge much more than most linear JRPGs.

If you know what you're doing, you can game the system like crazy. Same reason I can't wait for IZJS on PC.