The demo was fire, graphics were so cool. Who doesn't love a gun blade? Feels like they attempted to take final fantasy 7's formula but missed the mark. I agree with all your points the story seems half hazard and missing depth. FF7 a least did well with going mad and questioning reality and FF9 had great characters (save Amarant) FF9 did go off the weird rails at the end though. In my opinion Final Fantasy 8 does feel like a committe designed game attempting to extract the success from 7. 9 feels like a going back to basics focusing you on story immersion rather than flashy graphics and gun blade tech.