If you want an RPG with a beautiful love story,exciting story moments,and lovely world,look no further.
The story is about an anti-social guy named Squall,who attends a University named Balamb Garden that trains merceneries/assassins refered to as SEEDs.Squall doesn't like to make friends with people and mostly concentrates on getting good grades and only seems to care about himself.
The world is in chaos because a powerful nation led by a powerful sorceress (named Edea)and her army start attacking weaker nations,so this will be an oppportunity for the SEEDs to use their skills.The SEEDs are sent on missions to help fight off invading soldiers and assassination style missions,and Squall is accompanied by his female instructor named Quintis(a blonde haired female who wears glasses),Zell(an overconfident guy who gets picked on),and Selphie(a bubbly,energetic girl).
Squall eventually meets Riona,who is a beautiful woman and she is outgoing,but very warm and cheerful,and she takes a liking to Squall,and she joins their group,and she tries to get Squall's warmer,happy side of his personality to come out.
SPOILER BELOW
There's a scene that I still remember until this day,where Riona wanted Squall to dance with him,and Squall didn't know how to dance very good and he kept tripping,but Riona just giggled and saw the cute side of it.
END OF SPOILER
Eventually their nation and Balamb Garden itself comes under direct threat from Edea,and it will bring some very nerving,and intense story events.Another character named Irvine will join their group,who is a cowboy and sharpshooter and chooses to live as a loner.
Another major character in the story is a character named Seifer,who is a rival of Squall at Balamb Garden,and they dislike eachother,and Seifer thinks he's better than anybody else,and you will see the role he plays in the story too.
For another twist,you'll also use another group of characters at times,because Squall has memories of being somebody else,and being with 2 other characters.
Like in most other RPGs,you will level up,travel from town to town,and let the story unfold.However,in FFVIII,the battle system relies heavily on the Guardian Forces/Junction system.Guardian Forces(GFs) are creatures that you can summon and they inflict a lot more damage than a normal attack by your character and GFs will absorb damage for your character and GFs have a limited number of HPs too.You can also use magic,and the spells can do a lot more damage than a normal attack(depending on what element the spell is and what type of enemy you cast the spell on).However instead of having MPs,the number of times you can use a spell depends on how much you draw a spell from certain enemies or places.You can use up a turn drawing a spell from an enemy in battle,or you can draw a spell from certain places around the world and stock up on that spell.
Another interesting feature is you use spells that you've drawn to level up your GF's stats and abilities.The more powerful the spell you assign to a particular stat of your GF,the more powerful you'll make the GF and they'll gain better abilities.For example,Ifrit is a fire based GF,and if you assign fire spells to certain stats on his,you'll make him more powerful.
However,even though you can level up your character's general stats,the enemies level up with you,and the enemies can be easy or hard depending on how well you level up the GFs,which means you'll want to find certain spells that make your GFs very powerful,and if not,some battles can drag on for ages or be quite hard.
Without a GF equipped,a character can become useless in battle,and for a while you won't have enough GF's for every character,but you can find more GFs later on.
The world has an elegant feel,and so do the cinematics(at times),and the cinematics are beautiful too.Balamb garden looks very sophisticated and beautiful and the students wear nice uniforms.The world is a modern day type world(not futuristic or medieval).You will see things such as buses,cars,trains and modern day style buildings.
The characters don't look blocky or short like in FFVII,and the people in FFVIII have realistic figures.
I love the cinematics,especially the scene with Riona and Squall dancing and everyone elegantly dressed with the beautiful music playing.The opening CGI presentation is magnificent with the ocean and beautiful flower field and Squall and Seifer engaged in a fierce battle.I remember another elegant scene at a bar that has a woman dressing so elegantly playing the beautiful piano music and you saw soldiers talking and drinking and relaxing at that bar.
The other cinematics looked life like for their time,and I remember Balamb Garden trasforming into a giant mobile base and seeing huge facilities and exciting scenes.
The music at times is incredible,and artistic and what you'd expect to hear at an opera.
Overall,I think this is a magnificent FF experience,and is more light hearted than FFVII and certainly beautiful and heart warming and has exciting story moments and is a game I still remember and love until this day.