After the release of Final Fantasy VII, some two years previous, everyone was excited to see what else Squaresoft could cough up their diamond esophagus. For Final Fantasy VIII, Squaresoft decided to ditch the super distorted, simple character models, trying to make the game more realistic. Well, it sort of worked. FF8 looked a lot realer than FF7, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was better. In fact, after about twenty minutes into the game, I started to dislike the attempted realism. The graininess of the player models is unpleasent at times. But hey! The FMV sequences kicked ass! And Rinoa is hot I say! Hotter than Tifa! Graphics aside, this game lost its fun value before the end of the first disc (out of a four disc game). I made myself play it 'til the end like most games I play... a habit I really need to break before I waste any more of my useless life. There were some fun parts, but most of FF8 is bland fighting and traveling. The story line in this game was a lot simpler than its predecessor. Lots of strange stuff happened in FF7, keeping me interested at nearly all times. The story in FF8 does have some ups, especially the space stuff, I liked that! But for the most part, it was just a love story, which is alright, but can get boring sometimes... I don't typically play video games for their emotional value. They should have mixed some LSD in with that TLC (such as FF7), but nooo... I HATED the magic system. In this game, unlike any other RPG I've ever played, you have to steal steal/absorb magic from the things that you fight. This is so annoying, to get a decent supply of magic, you need to sit in a battle, stealing the enemy's magic over and over for minutes at a time... this gets extremely old, especially when you take into account that your strength is directly linked to how much magic you have. Which is another thing... I don't want to mess with magic to gain strength. Raw strength should have nothing to do with magic! I didn't even understand how this worked until the end of the game, seeing as how I used my gaurdian forces to fight my battles for me until they were taken away from me temporarily. I've seen better battle systems in a cockfighting ring (interpret that how you wish). Being honest, the end of the game was very satisfying though. Whaling away on the final bosses is fun in any game, but particularly in FF8, because the boss symbolizes the end of the game... meaning you don't have to play this God forsaken, grainy-love, guardian force cockfight, bitch of a game ever again! So, why oh why do I feel like playing it over again? I don't know... maybe Squaresoft slipped a little secret sauce into this game... this game that I love to hate. I wonder if I'll ever get up enough courage to give Final Fantasy IX a try. This game gets 7 / 10 stars.