This is a good game. It would be extremely easy to levy its many shortcomings against it in bullet-point fashion to make the case that it is not impressive or even bad; however, in the future i see myself looking back on this game quite fondly. This game fits right into that late 90s early 00s era of video games where creativity was at its peak and developers had to push the limited technology into their insane ideas. Not only that but the junction system--grindy as it can be--makes this by far the most enjoyable mainline final fantasy gameplay wise within the first 10 entries, potentially ever. Optimizing and toying around with that made playing for hours on end very easy, and it is no wonder this is the only final fantasy where I ended up level capping and actually killing the Biggest Baddest Dude There Is (Omega Weapon). On top of all that, when the story is good it hits really hard. Squall and Rinoa have such an endearing arc that doesn't interrupt the overall plot in any way whatsoever. The ending cutscene post final boss was downright amazing; I haven't been that impressed with visual mindfuckery since I'd seen Perfect Blue.

Playing FF8 really made me feel a bit sad that it was 7 that got the remake. Not trying to hate on FF7R but in my opinion, OG 7 was pretty close to perfect the way it was made back for the PS1, and the remake didn't really improve upon it in any way that it really needed for it to function (although it did kind of create a new identity for itself). I mentioned that 8 has its shortcomings--and believe me there are a handful and they are quite serious--but I think if some of it were addressed properly then Final Fantasy 8 could have really been spectacular and immortalized as a must-play classic JRPG.