I know a lot of people that enjoyed 8, despite it being the apparent "black sheep."
Count me as one of those that love it! For me FFVIII is only behind FFVII and FFX (among the ones I played). It has some things I don't like about it but overall it's great.
The only complains I have about FF8 are:
1. The Laguna segments: I don't know a single person that enjoyed playing as Laguna and his gang, everyone of my friends rushed through these parts so we could get back to the good parts. The way I see it, the only purpose Laguna has in the game is his card that can be Refined in a 100 Hero Drinks (Make character invicible for a while)
2. Selphie and Irvine: They aren't horrible, it's just that since the game has only 6 characters I wish they could've somehow been a little better. It's not like the hate I have for the FF9 characters.
Speaking of FF9 characters, I hated most of them. Especially for the bizarre ones, like Quina and Amarant. Freya isn’t that bad besides looking horrible but the other two … oh my god, Amarant is a rooster, how bad can it be you ask and it gets worse because Quina is so horrible that I don’t have a clue of what it is and besides that, the character is DEAD STUPID.
We’re trying to “save the world” and somehow this retarded character manages to join you ?
You may have started to see a pattern here, that I’m not much found of the not human characters, and well, that’s not ‘entirely’ true. Moogle are nice, RedXIII and Cait Sith are nice too. I don’t mind they being whatever as long as they have some personality. That’s what killed Kimari in FFX for me, he looks cool but speaks like he learned to speak one week before and not only that he most of the time has nothing interesting to say.
To connect all of this with FFXIII, I think it’s nice it has fewer characters than most Final Fantasies because it makes easier for all of them to have some personalities and relate to each other.