WHoaaah, this is getting scary indeed.
Still enjoying the thread though
Let's give it try to get it back on topic. FF8 was the first FF I played from the beginning till it's ending credits, while FF7 was the first FF I played, and the second RPG. I really liked FF8 as a game. And I must say the FMV's where the best I had seen and didn't see any better ones within the next year or something. I got the PC version btw. One thing that sucked was the sound in FMV's that stuttered, even though I had better specs than the minimum system requirements.
About the characters: Squall is one of the characters I started to hate most of all the games I played. I so wanted him to have made a move towards Rinoa more early in the game, at fishermans horizon, but instead, he thought he was playing cool, therefor he was 'not interested'.
I must say I did enjoy the first part of FF8 the most. But at time when they started to talk about Adel, and that Ultimecia, I didn't like it that much anymore. And the time-compression is still darn confusing, I still don't understand the final ending video's... But I need to replay the game.
Characters:
Zell: Oh how he suddenly reminds of of Fukuhara san from Shenmue, and no, that's definately NOT a good thing

At least in shenmue you can beat Fuku every morning :evil:
Selphie: Honestly, I don't like these uber happy kids that much, sometimes plain annoying

Irvine: Tries to get the girls, but when it comes down to battle he's just a loser. I didn't hate him, I didn't love him. Nothing spectacular.
Quistis: OMG, the frustrated teacher.... if it was america she'd been sued already for having an affair with a student

Laguna: Interesting person, but again, another loser when it comes down to telling his feelings.... That was a letdown. But he did make the story interesting. Especially towards the end.
Kiros and Ward: Just 2 other guys that where needed to fill up some emptiness... They just needed two characters to help laguna out in battle, that's all they do, they don't add anything to the story.
Rinoa: Ahh yes, one of the best characters in the game. To me she made the story interesting. Mainly because I did want to see Squall and her grow towards each other.
Edea: I don't remember much of her anymore.
About the GFs: I liked how you could junction them and how they gave abilities. But I didn't like you had to juction magic. Cause using it would mean a decrease of stats. It would prefer that using it will increase the effectiveness of that magic. It would've been nice to see GF's have effect on stats, but then in a way that as they level up, you will gain stat bonuses and that certain GF's have certain elements or attributes. Like that Ifrit will raiser your effectiveness of fire magic.
Ahh well, FF8 wasn't a bad game, I liked it a lot, but it could've been much better and there are better FF's in the series.