Other Major Characters of Final fantasy VIII

Characters

Main article: Characters of Final Fantasy VIII

The six main playable characters in Final Fantasy VIII are Squall Leonhart, a loner who keeps his focus on his duty to avoid vulnerability; Rinoa Heartilly, an outspoken and passionate young woman who follows her heart in all situations; Quistis Trepe, an instructor with a serious, patient attitude; Zell Dincht, a martial artist with a passion for martial arts and hot dogs; Selphie Tilmitt, a cheerful girl who loves vehicles and flies the spacecraft Ragnarok; and Irvine Kinneas, a marksman and consummate ladies’ man.[5] Playable supporting characters include Laguna Loire, Kiros Seagill and Ward Zabac, who appear in “flashback” sequences, and antagonists Seifer Almasy and Edea Kramer.

During the game’s pre-production, character designer Tetsuya Nomura suggested that the game be given a “school days” feel. Scenario writer Kazushige Nojima already had a story in mind in which the main characters were the same age; their ideas meshed, taking form as the “Garden” military academies. Nojima planned that the two playable parties featured in the game (Squall’s present day group and Laguna Loire’s group from the past) would be highly contrasted with one another. This idea was conveyed through the age and experience of Laguna’s group, versus the youth and naïveté of Squall’s group.[14]

To maintain the game’s theme of a foreign atmosphere, the characters were designed to have predominantly European appearances. The first Final Fantasy VIII character designed was Squall. Desiring to add a unique angle to Squall’s appearance and emphasize his role as the central character, Nomura gave him a scar across his brow and the bridge of his nose. As there was not yet a detailed history conceived for the character, Nomura left the explanation for Squall’s scar to Nojima. Squall was given a gunblade, a fictional revolver–sword hybrid that functions primarily as a sword, with an added damaging vibration feature activated by use of its gun mechanism,[15] and his design was completed by a fur ruff along the collar of his jacket, incorporated by Nomura as a challenge for the game’s FMV designers.[14]

Nomura ended up altering each character’s appearance before they reached the final design stage, which required sacrificing his original intentions. For instance, he had originally wanted Seifer Almasy to be involved in a love triangle with Rinoa and Squall. As another example, Quistis was to originally be designed with a skirt, but in the end was given a long skirt worn over pants. With Rinoa wearing a mini-skirt over shorts, this led to a conflict with the intended notion that one of the female characters would wear a skirt. A compromise was made in this regard with Selphie’s design: she was originally intended to be wearing overalls, but Nomura decided that her outfit should be something of a combination of the two. Finally, when designing Rinoa, Nomura decided to avoid the temptation of FMV technology by making her “cute” and full of personality, instead of “too beautiful”.[14]

With Final Fantasy VIII came the inclusion of some designs Nomura had previously drawn, but had not yet used in a Final Fantasy game. These were the designs of Edea, Fujin and Raijin. The latter two had originally been designed for use in Final Fantasy VII, but with the inclusion of the Turks characters in that game, it was felt that Fujin and Raijin were unnecessary. Edea had been a design that Nomura created prior to even Final Fantasy VII’s development, based on the style of Yoshitaka Amano.[14]