Why Does everyone Hate on Final Fantasy VIII?

Answer 1

Final Fantasy VIII's main 'crime' is that it was not like Final Fantasy VII.

For a lot of people, Final Fantasy VII was their introduction to the series, and they knew nothing about the games that had come before it. They did not realise that the settings and often the game mechanics were changed drastically from game to game - some had Job systems, FFIV had characters who mostly did not change. FFVI allowed everyone to learn magic, and FFVII had the Materia system.

So a lot of people got Final Fantasy VIII expecting a lot of the game mechanics to be the same. They were not, and as a mark against FFVIII, the learning curve was very steep, you were given a lot of information to absorb right from the beginning.