Yes, not to ruin anything for anybody, but I adored Freya's story, tragic as it was.

I'm not about to dog FF8 (although I wasn't a very big fan of it) but it always shocked me how 9 just got brushed to the wayside. The story was so rich, the characters were all so unique and interesting, it had all the elements of a wonderful Final Fantasy. Maybe people just didn't like all the furry characters...

That and the quasi-deformed art style are the only thing I can figure. FF9 was just FUN. The characters were interesting and dynamic, and the main love story didn't fall into FF8's Dating Sim feel. Events that were supposed to be traumatic and heartbreaking didn't fall into cheese, which is really hard to do sometimes. The story kept up the experience of an unexplored world but never truly resorted to PLOT DEVICE to keep things going. I don't love everything about the game, but I really enjoyed the experience and it makes me sad it's more or less forgotten :(

Did you ever play the game?

I lost it about a year ago so I went to looking on the web but found nothing.

I always felt more soul went into the characters and development as well. A lot of the FF8 characters felt hollow to me.