I have just recently Beated FF VIII and it was a blast.
Squll was a little hard to get used to, but he grew on me, And I loved his Lionheart Limit break to death. And I think I'm one of the few who liked Rinoa, I found her energy quite refreshing. Quistis, Zell, Irvine and Selphie were wonderful too, esp Quistis and Zell.
And now for the reason which drew me into the FF VIII story. Edea. Edea is such a beautiful and wicked character. Her design and the atmosphere around her just wowed me. Above all that, her speech was wonderful and was the thing that made me respect Ultimecia. Sadly the highpoint of the game kind of went into a decent after Disc 1. Then after certain events, Ultimecia was shown in Disc 4 and I have to say, her backstory was a little hard to reach initially, I actually read the "Wicked Theory" and when I got to the quote, "You think that I'm Ultimecia? Then so be it, kurse you all, I AM Ultimecia!" I found her to be very interesting and quite complex. So I'm not afraid to say the Ultimecia is ranked up there in my villiain list, but not quite #1.
Anyway, the Junctioning system. I was caught so off-guard after being introduced to this method. Infact I had to restart from scratch just to get even more used to it, And I've learned that Drawing Magic is VERY VERY important. But other than Drawing Magic and Juctionng the magic on some GF skills it's quite easy to move on in the game. Though it was quite a rough start indeed.
Now the music, the music was fantastic! Liberi Fatali, The Landing, The Extreme, Time Compression, Maybe I'm a Lion, The Man with the Machine Gun, Eyes on Me and The Stage is Set are some from the top of my head which made me stall on things in the game to just listen to them a little longer. I'm not a big fan of The Castle though, just couldn't get though to Ultimecia fast enough to get away from it.

Overall it was a great game.

I enjoy FFVIII's plot the most out of all the series so far because I really feel as if we really get to see deep into the main protagonist's (Squall) struggles, how he deals with day to day life, and how he overcomes these issues. The only other character off the top of my head that comes close to this is Cloud from FFVII. Sure Cloud is a headcase in himself, but do we really see everything he has gone through? No. I almost feel as Squall is so much more real than most other characters in other games. How you see in the beginning of the game he was a cold kid with a chip on his shoulder. You see how he warms up to the crew and how he has problems just like everyone else. This is really seen for the first time when he has his emotional outburst in Galbadia Garden, when he thinks to himself that he does not want to be thought of in the past tense like they were all doing with Seifer. That is just an example of how he has problems just like everyone else. Even with the other characters, we see Irvine, Zell, Quistis, Selphie, Seifer, and Ellone, and also Squall, how they grew up together in an orphanage but had forgotten due to the GF's. And Rinoa, she is a different story with the sorceress power and everything, but we still see her backround from General Caraway and Julia? (forgot her name) But when you see this deeper than an I-found-you-lets-fight-together connection between the characters, it makes the experience that much more personal. And the older generation you see of Laguna, Kiros, Ward, and even Raine, Cid and Edea, it also adds to the personal feeling of it all.

I feel like the over all plot of this game is awesome until Ultimecia comes around and begins her time compression. Where did that come from? The plot with Edea gaining rule and creating a nation of terror was great, and even when Adel came around it seemed a bit rushed but everything still held together for the most part. I understand the relations of Ultimecia:Rinoa and Griever:Squall, but I still believe that if it were explained/developed more in the story that the more casual player would appreciate the plot so much more. True, this is at its purest a love story, but the detail and the subtleties of the plot make this game's plot almost if not just as good to sink teeth into as a good novel.

Gameplay wise, this game was a stroll in the park compared to older titles especially FFIV. The fact that it takes only 1000 exp points to level up makes level 100 seem like a very reachable goal as opposed to the ultimate goal that is next to impossible. I very much liked the junction system and the GF ability/character ability system as it made up for the lack of customization with armor and such. But one thing i didnt like was the, i dont want to say non-importance of magic, but how it just became some disposable thing that came and went. In other games magic was a huge deal, (Meteor in FFVII anybody?, black mages? white mages?) In FFV you had to go through hell to get spells like Flare and Holy, in VIII, welp theres a draw point, cool I have the strongest magic in the game. It just all seemed to easy. But regardless of how easy it was, I still said hell yeah when i got the lionheart gunblade and pulled off that finishing move on the last form of ultimecia.

Overall, the somewhat undeveloped but still awesome plot, and amazing character development make up for the joke that is the difficulty of this game.

Oh, and the theme for Fisherman's Horizon was literally reason enough for me to pick up the game and start playing again after a few months, just so i could hear it, it is that good. Love that town except the random card rule that makes me lose every time.

this game rules. the ultimecia thing was not touched on enough in game, but out of game (it that makes sence... i mean sort of when ure not playing and you think about it) theres alot to look at in regards to her history/motives etc..... shes actually a very deep charcter indeed! may i suggest going to gamefaqs. com and reading the Time/Ultimecia PLot FAQ by Sir Bahamut, TheONionKNight and Squall_Of_Seed...

if you read through that you will have a totally different opinion on Ultimecia and realise how deep she was (and the ff8 story in general). to me it seems Square wanted a viliian that the player had to decipher and wasnt simply preached about in game.... it seems that this move led to very few players ever realising much about Ultimecia at all.

ps, based on your question, this game is freakin briliant. absolutely awesome, and ill stand by that despite what most ppl think