Thanks for allowing us to share in your journey,
@ThatGuyMikey -- I'm all caught up now.
Naw, it ain't mixed, lol. FFVIII is one of the golden trio of the 90s. FFVII, FFVIII and FFIX are seen as the "golden age" of FF for the PSone era for a reason. It's extremely good, and one of the most interesting and unique systems. Hell, Squall's popular for a reason. Trust me, FFVIII was pretty damn baller, and it got one of the best remasters Square's ever done.
Maybe a poor choice of words on my part. Perhaps some people in the FF community just don't like it that much? I'm just going off what I've seen in top 10 lists and the like lol.
I'm going to disagree with Mako and suggest that "mixed" is an accurate word to describe the fandom reception to FFVIII for a solid decade after it came out.
There were people like me who loved it, but plenty of FF fans who came into the fandom with FFVII (also like me) gave it hell for not being FFVII -- for featuring an entirely different character stat development system and even just different characters. Even a lot of fans who weren't necessarily expecting a redo of FFVII were frustrated with VIII's magic system being tied into its stat growth system, finding it either confusing if they didn't get it or overly restrictive if they did.
Depending on players' grasp of the mechanics, most also either found the game too easy or too difficult.
Then there were also plenty of FF fans who preferred the classics with their Medieval Europe-esque settings, and consequently really didn't like VIII continuing the technological advancement of the settings that VII "began" (if we're being honest, VI is really where it began ... then VII and VIII each took incremental steps forward; VI has just never gotten flack for it, and VII is usually excused for being such a seminal milestone in gaming).
Taking considerations of aesthetics and game design sensibilities out of the equation, though, many players simply didn't care for the main cast -- or found some of the story developments just pushed their threshold for acceptable plot contrivance too far.
So you had a lot of elements with mixed reception, some players ticking off all the boxes (or should that be the other way around? =P), some ticking off less, and probably few to no players not ticking at least one or two.
I'd say without hesitation that VIII would have been the uncontested black sheep of the series until at least XII -- if not XIII even -- came along were it not for members of VIII's core development team being part of the same core team who made VII, then went on to make X and Kingdom Hearts, and who have been in such a prominent place in Square all these years. It was definitely the black sheep among much of the fandom for many years.
Biggs and Jessie in Elmyra flashback scene?
How did I miss all this lol
It's just their models being reused. Don't read anything into that one. XD
