A quarter of a century ago today, in 1999, Final Fantasy VIII was released in North America on PS1, and millions of players were introduced to the trials and tribulations of Squall, his mercenary comrades, and various sorceresses for the first time. Contrary to popular opinion and later revisionist history, it was warmly received by critics and fans at the time and a major commercial success for developer Square (pre-Enix merger) and publisher Sony. It would remain the fastest-selling title in the series until the advent of Lightning and Final Fantasy XIII.
Of course, Squall was not Cloud, and we suspect that fact has coloured some fans' opinions in retrospect. The tonal shift to a more serious, if overly dramatic, storytelling style was not to all tastes. For this humble scribe, VIII was "that game," which triggered our video game awakening and revealed what games truly could be, much like Metal Gear Solid (a contemporary of Final Fantasy VIII) did for so many others.
As long-suffering Final Fantasy VIII stans well know, we've copped a lot of flak ever since when standing up for our beloved, romantic, at times nonsensical JRPG. The GF and Junction system was too much for some, who apparently had better things to do than Draw magic from enemies (and missed the tutorial that teaches you how to convert Triple Triad cards). Intriguingly, a lot of this criticism also appears to be revisionist history from later players and other malcontents in the notoriously factional Final Fantasy community; in mainstream coverage at the time, at least, Final Fantasy VIII was praised for the flexibility and depth of its forward-thinking Junction system.