Final Fantasy VIII

The winning contender for worst Final Fantasy game ever created. It was released after Final Fantasy VII and Squaresoft were hoping it would be just as successful as the last one. However, the changes they made to the system in the game were radical and only served to cripple the game, making it vastly unpopular and a flop. The story focuses on a group of six characters, most of whom are mercenaries contracted out to help a struggling (read: worst I've ever seen) rebel group. From there, the characters fall victim to incredibly hackneyed, trite and implausible twists and turns in the story (such as the point where they all find out they knew each other as children but had their memories wiped). The gameplay is quite bad and actively discourages the use of magic. The characters themselves have little to distinguish themselves from each other apart from their Limit Breaks. The Junctioning system (used to help improve your character, since evryone levels up at the same rate regardless of their level) is unnecessarily complex and fiddly, detracting from what little good gameplay there was. Some elements of the game were good, but ultimately Final Fantasy VIII was a flop compared to may of the others.