I found your review quite enjoyable to read and it brought back memories of my first playthrough of the game. Another poster noted that FF8 reviews seem to be popular at the moment. I wonder if that has anything to do with HCBailly's Let's Play on Youtube.
Just to warn anyone who cares, spoilers ahoy!
Anyhow, here's what I'll add to the mix. I don't think this has been brought up yet (if it has, forgive me) but what does everyone think on the subject of character development? As much as I love this game, I can't help but think it was... poor at best. Beyond the orphanage revelation scene (which in fairness, I do agree is a bit naff, along the lines of they-woke-up-and-it-was-all-a-dream sort of storytelling, but that's neither here nor there) I feel the game gave up on half the cast. Every character but Squall and Rinoa were consigned to their stereotypes, Zell, Selphie, Irvine, Quistis, etc, etc. Now I personally loved Quistis' character, but she could've easily been killed off then, and I personally think it would make no difference.
To contrast, I'll demonstrate what I consider good character development from my favourite game in the series, FFX. Most of the characters continue to develop as the story does in little ways, with occasional spotlight on one person. Take Lulu in the Calm Lands, take Kimahri on Mt. Gagazet, hell even take Auron with the Jecht spheres. They might not seem like much, but even the little clues leading towards these bits (like the constant 'hornless' goades) keep the characters interesting and dynamic, and the story only benefits. Of course, if you haven't played the game, this is just meaningless gibberish, but my point is that characters like Selphie and Zell would've been better if they'd had more individual storyline development.
I have a particular take on the junctioning system too. In one of Yahtzee's Extra Punctuation articles (or was it that Alone in the Dark one?), he mentioned that the games that fail hardest are closer to greatness than mediocre ones. I equate the junctioning system to this. In my opinion, the developers should be commended for trying something new that tried moving away from the MP style of magic, which can get very, very bland after seven different games. Hell, it didn't work, but nice try anyway.
It would probably be more bareable if not for those goddamned obligatory tutorials.
I'm well aware that's a lot of text to take in, so to summarise, and completely undermine my credibility, let me say this: I have a feeling the girl in the picture cosplaying Selphie will haunt my dreams(to put it nicely).
