Till today, my favorite of the series is still the much maligned FF8.
It was the first FF I've ever played, though the way I view Squall certainly changed as I aged.
As a kid, Squall was the cool one. As a teen, Squall became just a little too edgy for my liking. As an adult, I now consider Squall as one of the 'realest' protagonist of the series - my latest replay of FF8 had me truly sympathizing with the amount of shit he was forced to take on (especially by Cid).
And whilst the Junction system certainly is flawed (and less malleable than the Materia system of 7), I can at least appreciate the ease in which it is to utterly break the game in half even at Disc 1.
