LogFAQs > #979345530

Maxing your level immediately is more what I'm calling unambiguous metagaming. That's not exactly normal gameplay. Beyond that, though, even if the game explains the junctioning mechanics, it can still fall into metagaming territory to put deliberate effort into maximizing what you get from the mechanics. In turn, if you're going to suffer if you don't put at least some deliberate effort into maximizing what you get from those mechanics, that means the game is forcing you to do some metagaming, and that's not everyone's jam.

It can be tricky to strike a balance between having interesting/unique character growth mechanics (generally a good thing) and having those mechanics force players to think about the game as a game they're trying to win instead of being able to immerse themselves in it (generally a bad thing, at least with RPGs and other games where a big part of the appeal is immersing yourself in the world and story). The latter is metagaming, and it's very much a spectrum instead of being a clear binary division. My understanding is that FF8 isn't too bad in that regard (it's no Oblivion, for example), but it leans far enough in the metagaming direction that some people dislike it for that.