Did you like Squall?

Did you like Squall?

  • Yes

    Votes: 80 76.2%

  • No

    Votes: 17 16.2%

  • Not Sure

    Votes: 8 7.6%
  • Total voters
    105
At first: No.

I played through the game and I actually hated all of the characters except Zell I believe. None of their personalities were ones I could relate to or fully understand. Squall could have been such a better main character when it came to personality traits, but that's where I realized I was in the wrong when it came to judging his character...

Squall was who he was because he's unique to FFVIII. Square possibly took his character a bit off and more towards a stoic point of view because they knew that upcoming and following FF titles would have characters more onthe light-hearted side and jovial; Tidus, Zidane, Vaan...

So after I completed the game I found him to be more of an accepted hero as opposed to a bashed dickwad.
 
yes i liked him as a character but not as a leader as i thought that Quistis would have made a beter leader, he may have not ben the most talkative person but he was still a good guy and i like most good guys and girls, sadly i didn't like him as much as i like cloud, Sephiroth or reddas
 
I thought Squall was an awesome character. I liked his quiet personality and the more I got to know him the more I liked him. I also like all the swords he has. And his limit breaks own everything. Lion Heart is my favorite limit break of anyone's so far...except maybe Cloud's Omnislash.
 
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I liked him very much. especially the relationship between him and Rinoa, and how he acts in front of her. Every single time he is quiet and starts thinking she just find it very amusing and always starts to tease him.
 
Yes, Squall's character was executed very well. And, really, that's what it's all about; the execution. He had believable faults, was sufficiently developed, and was generally portrayed as an overall human character that the target audience could relate to easily enough. What I like about him is that he was, for all intents and purposes, just a normal person who basically had the weight of the entire world heaved onto his shoulders. You could tell that he was overwhelmed by what everyone expected him to do. He just didn't think of himself as this incredible hero that everyone should look to for help.

True, he was a bit of a jerk in the beginning, but he had every right to be. I'd like to see you remain optimistic after being orphaned at a young age, losing the one person you genuinely cared for, then being shipped off to a military academy that teaches you how to brutally slaughter whatever you come across through the use of highly destructive magical spells. Squall had a lot on his plate by the end of Disc 1 alone and handled himself like a real person would have. Unlike most stereotypical heroes, he didn't automatically rise to the occasion and persevere against all odds with the greatest of ease. He faced realistic trials and reacted to them in a believable way.

One gripe I had with Squall, though, was that he and Rinoa took center stage after Disc 1. Ordinarily, that would be fine. After all, they are the real main characters. However, my problem there is that, during Disc 2 and beyond, the other characters got literally no development. They were cast into supporting roles whose sole purpose in life was to help Squall and Rinoa develop. The entire plot in an RPG should never revolve completely around two characters.
 
Squall was awesome, I liked how we could see what he was thinking which helped explain why he behaved the way he did, I also like the use of contrast between him and the other characters such as Zell and well everyone really, Squalls character was out of place amongst the rest of the main characters and thats what made him stand out so I guess thats why I liked Squall he's actually one of my fav characters from the FF series

PLUS his gunblade is the coolest weapon ever lol
 
Squall, is one hot character.

But, besides looks, I utterly despised him. After Cloud, dealing with another cold, impersonal, sarcastic jerk for a main character wasn't something I enjoyed.

There is really one main reason why I dislike Squall, and that's this:
He turns into this cold, lone wolf of a man...because: "My big sister left me when I was four years old, so now I hate the world!" Lame. Really, really lame. Sure, you can say it's because he was an orphan-turned soldier, but so was everyone else in Garden, and they weren't like him.

I loved him in my party though, no doubt there, but I just thought he was a brown-haired version of Cloud without any real reason for his personality flaws. I'm not a big Cloud fan either, but he at least had a plethora of reasons for being as detached as he was.
 
In all fairness, we really don't know whether or not everyone else in the Garden had any psychological issues because Squall is the only one who actually gets any focus throughout the entire game. >_> We know Seifer has problems, though, but his are just different. Rather than becoming antisocial, he became overly competitive and stubborn to the point where he was willing to betray his friends and be manipulated by an evil sorceress in order to achieve his "romantic dream." As for Zell, he was quite obviously adopted, seeing as how he has a foster mother in Balamb. He couldn't have had it incredibly rough, and it shows. However ADHD-ish he may act, he's at least stable mentally speaking.

Besides, I think it was fairly obvious that Squall was at least a bit closer to Ellone than the others were. Not to mention you can attribute it to him having a different personality than the others did. When she left without any given explaination, Squall was left to assume that she had abandoned him. Now, it's been scientifically proven that growing up without a mother-figure is one of the leading causes for psychological problems. Regardless of how the other main characters turned out, Squall had it rough. Maybe he didn't wake up to find that everyone he knew any loved was slaughtered by his childhood hero (read: Cloud Strife), but he didn't exactly have an emotionally stable childhood, himself.

Nevermind the fact that he's a teenager. He's not in what you might call an emotionally sound period of his life. Added to that is the fact that everyone seems to have all these great expectations for him. What if he fails? What if he turns out to not be anything special? Not to mention he's made the leader of an entire military base not even halfway through the game. Here you have an emotionally scarred teenager who is not only sent into combat on a regular basis, but also is expected to rally the troops/set an example for them. Besides, people angst about trivial, pointless things in real life. I do it, my friends do it, and I'm willing to bet that all of you have done it at one point or another. You have to remember that nobody is perfect.
 
The_Oathkeeper said:
In all fairness, we really don't know whether or not everyone else in the Garden had any psychological issues because Squall is the only one who actually gets any focus throughout the entire game. >_> We know Seifer has problems, though, but his are just different. Rather than becoming antisocial, he became overly competitive and stubborn to the point where he was willing to betray his friends and be manipulated by an evil sorceress in order to achieve his "romantic dream." As for Zell, he was quite obviously adopted, seeing as how he has a foster mother in Balamb. He couldn't have had it incredibly rough, and it shows. However ADHD-ish he may act, he's at least stable mentally speaking.

Besides, I think it was fairly obvious that Squall was at least a bit closer to Ellone than the others were. Not to mention you can attribute it to him having a different personality than the others did. When she left without any given explaination, Squall was left to assume that she had abandoned him. Now, it's been scientifically proven that growing up without a mother-figure is one of the leading causes for psychological problems. Regardless of how the other main characters turned out, Squall had it rough. Maybe he didn't wake up to find that everyone he knew any loved was slaughtered by his childhood hero (read: Cloud Strife), but he didn't exactly have an emotionally stable childhood, himself.

Nevermind the fact that he's a teenager. He's not in what you might call an emotionally sound period of his life. Added to that is the fact that everyone seems to have all these great expectations for him. What if he fails? What if he turns out to not be anything special? Not to mention he's made the leader of an entire military base not even halfway through the game. Here you have an emotionally scarred teenager who is not only sent into combat on a regular basis, but also is expected to rally the troops/set an example for them. Besides, people angst about trivial, pointless things in real life. I do it, my friends do it, and I'm willing to bet that all of you have done it at one point or another. You have to remember that nobody is perfect.
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Very good points, and well said, but I see it this way:
I play 'Final Fantasy' games as an escape, not to be reminded of realistic issues in my own home. He may have been great in a novel or a book, where realistic character depth is expected, but in a fantastical voyage in a video game? No thanks. This is why, I think of him as a watered-down Cloud. His issues are realistic, Cloud's are extreme and something you'd expect from a video game, not in a soap opera.

And, you may not have seen everyone's thoughts, but you can tell who was a nut and who wasn't. All of the others still had friends, still had companions, and all of them [Minus Zell] had no family. Squall just closed himself off from everyone, because he lost one person. It's a very realistic issue, but again, I'm not playing a game for a high school soap opera. =/

Squall was very well-developed, but I'm entitled to my opinion just like anyone else, and he's just not my type of character. If I'm playing as an emotastic jerk, I want him to have the worst family history of all time [enter: Cloud.] xD
 
First, I'd like to make it clear that I am by no means trying to deny you the right to an opinion. Regardless of whether I agree with it or not, everyone is entitled to one and I would never actively try to change it. I'm simply giving you my take on things. You're free to interpret them however you wish.

Of course you realize that soap operas aren't realistic in the slightest, though, right? In any case, a realistic character is good in that it's easier for the player to connect with and, as such, gives the game more of an emotional flair. Video-games most certainly are an escape into a fantastic world where the impossible suddenly becomes possible, but that doesn't change the fact that realistic characters inspire a more emotional response from the average player. If you can relate to and connect with a character on a human level, it tends to have a bigger impact on you when said character accomplishes something/suffers through a tragedy. You (you meaning the average person, not neccessarily you as an individual) will be rooting for them more actively and share in their triumphs.

As for the subject of everyone else...well, you don't neccessarily know that they aren't messed up, as well. If Neon Genesis Evangelion taught me anything, it's that you can't always tell how stable a person is at first glance. Similarly, Cowboy Bebop taught me that a character should never be left undeveloped, because they have just as many secrets as the main character does. Since we didn't really see much of their personalities, we have no way of knowing what kinds of trials the other characters have faced. Let's take Selphie as an example. On the outside? An innocent girl with a good heart...who once suggested that they blow something up with a rocket launcher. Do such violent thoughts occur to her on a regular basis? Was she joking or being deadly-serious? We'll never know because the spotlight was on Squall and Rinoa for the better part of the game.

Then there's Quistis. I don't know why, but I just have a feeling that she's messed up deep down. Maybe her case isn't as severe as Squall's, but...I dunno, something tells me she isn't entirely stable, herself. Maybe I've just been watching too many anime produced by Gainax, but...there's just something suspicious about her. Maybe it's because I feel that she will often say one thing, yet mean something completely different.

Of course I don't have a problem with you disliking Squall. Personally, I'm a big fan of Zidane. Are there many FF Fans who will disagree with me? Hell yeah. So I understand what you mean. However, Squall really isn't emo. That's a pretty common misconception, actually. The average emo kid will make every attempt to get attention from others. Squall actively tries to avoid garnering attention. He's a quiet introvert, whereas an emo basically shouts out "Everybody pay attention to how dreary and depressing my poetry is! I demand you sympathize with my tragic life!" Then you have Squall, who is pretty much saying "If you could all just leave me alone for a minute...I'm really nothing special."
 
Quistis, actually did have a messed up background. During an interview with Nomura, he said that she had several abusive foster fathers, before finally going to Garden. The translations of the interview said she was sexually abused, which, is a topic that obviously didn't make it to the American version.

Quistis is known for being depressed over trivial matters, which, I thought was really odd, given the fact that whenever she seems slightly down, it's for good reason. I'd be pretty upset if I got fired from my job, told I was a failure, and then told to talk to a wall when I tried to confide in someone. I never understood how they figured that to be 'trivial.' Even so, the next day she was up and about and chasing Seifer to Timber.

You're right on the emotional relations with characters, but the problem was, coming after Cloud, there's some big hero shoes to fill. If Squall had come first, I wouldn't have thought of him as such a disappointment, but really...all I saw was a brown-haired, watered-down version, realistic or not.

My favorite series-heroes were Zidane and Locke, so, you can see the kind of hero figures I prefer. Because, Squall was forced into it. That's what makes him different from most of the others. He was 'reluctant,' and because of that, I just didn't care for him.
 
omg ur sig made me cry :( i miss heath!!! anyway back on topic, squall waz a pretty good character. he had good development i thought, and by the end of the story he had become a different person than the one u started with. he waz a lot like cloud, but he waz still a cool character, even if he waz based off of him.
 
I enjoyed playing as him because I liked to see how the developers could twist his character based on such a lone wolf personality they'd given him in the beginning.
That being said, I also liked his scar and hair...
 
Though Cloud was a great Hero, Squall would still have to be one of my favorites.


Throughout the story he was a loner, and wanted no one to rely on him, he was forced into the hero position by Garden and the people he met along his journey, such as Zell and Qistist.

But even so, his character developed a lot throughout the game, which made me get close to him, and relate.

Squall was a bad tempered, loner, which I loved, and the strong bond between his friends made made me love him even more.
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*hes not that bad,he is the hero but his personnality stinks,acting all mysterious and tough! id like to kick his ass just for being himself! :D

*but hes a good guy,he protects his friends and fights for what he believes in and those are the wualities of a person i like so he ok for me :)

*Squall would rock if he hed a personnality like zell and if hed smile a lot :) well even in anime nobody is perfect! :D

*weeeeeeee peace and rock on everybody! :D :)
 
I really liked him I loved his whole development throughout the game. I didn't really mind his emoness either, I just thought he was quiet and thought alot reall. I don't like the main characters to be to hyper it gets annoying *looking at you Tidus*
 
I really liked Squall, he was an interesting character. I never really noticed him being 'emo' He was a pretty cool character with his phrase 'whatever...' He was pretty mellow and i like that in my main characters, but that being said, i still loved Tidus
 
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