Final Fantasy 8 is a Solid title, but it lacks in many areas.
Final Fantasy 8, is not a really great game by any means. The game does have strong points though:
The game has realistic looking people, although they dress very oddly, and the graphics, for inside buildings and out in the world, are quite well done. The battle system ism mixed, but adds a few newere features, and character customization has added a few things as well. A nice budget went into this game, and you can tell that they tried to put effort into animations and effects.
But the game has several severe downfalls in it.
The Story is completely in organized. Going from knowing what the plot is, to having random flashbacks to the past playing as characters with the same inventory as you throughout the game for no REAL reason, to somehow ending up in space to all over confusion land. The games pacing is terrible, the games plot is unorganized.
Character personalities range from predictable stereotypical to just badly written, like the main character, and some are just random as well. The game is full of badly written pieces that few seems to ignore when looking at the concept of the game. Very few characters can be SAID to be likable.
The Battle system by itself, is a heavy mixed bag. Nice animated summons, and solid movement may seem fine at first, but the game is SLOW. It take forever to do things, it makes you watch summons, and it requires you to DRAW magic from enemies.
Drawing magic from enemies is something that could be interesting but it's executed badly. You choose what you want to draw from the enemy, watch a draw out animation, get very few and repeat. It takes forever and I am not even talking about maxing it out, I am talking about going half-way or so.
There is another way with cards which you gain through the game that is "All the rage" in Final Fantasy 8 called "TRIPLE TRIAD" and it is a very unorganized mess of a mini game that pretty much is actually the other part of the whole game. You can challenge people to it and get cards, which can be useful for gameplay, but going through something tedious each time is not worth it. But there are people who like the game, but that doesn't stop it from being badly made and drawn out.
The game is full of random stuff like getting a lamp(?) and then you end up fighting some satanic demon that kills you in 3 hits, to having easy enemies and harder enemies in random places, like going to a place from earlier in the game which has harder enemies than a technically later in the plot area.
The Music is alright, it's not the most attention grabbing, but it goes with the game atmosphere well, sound effects are mixed, and hearing the draw magic sound effects ends up being quite a pain.
The game feels much more like work than a game, it's like you need to do tedious tasks to complete a job then a game and a job you don't enjoy. It's like people who like Harvest moon and Animal Crossing, which I bet most likely if they played this game, like this game for the most part. It could have been way better, but it seems that they wanted to throw a lot more flash then substance, but it is still a Solid title. It's not that good, but it can be an experience.