If by ripoff, you mean that those games featured copious amounts of nice-looking FMV, and LoD also featured this, than yes.
If by ripoff, you mean a well-thought out, enjoyable game system, with characters that you can stand for 40 hours? A game world with at least some original ideas? No.
I'm not the biggest FFVIII fan in the world but that game is tolerable, as stated above, this is horse manure. You would do better to play Beyond The Beyond than this, and I'm not smirking in the slightest to say that.