Credits Question(**Possible Spoilers**)

I was just wondering about something I noticed in the credits. One part has a 'Special Thanks' to Monolith Software, and various individual members of Monolith. I remember during the game thinking that Shelke's Virtual Interface mechanism looked much like something on Kos-Mos in Xenosaga. Was that the contribution that Monolith had to DoC?

Also, did anybody else get a real 'Ghost in the Shell' vibe from the story behind this game? And finally, did anyone notice some vague similarities between DoC and FF8. DoC's blue Mako points looked very much like Draw points to me. Two of the materia were 'blizzard' and 'thunder', rather than 'ice' and 'bolt'. Finally, Shelke looked vaguely like Selphie to me, while Shalua was almost a dead ringer for Quistis(minus the eye and arm thing).

I'm wondering if this is just me, or did anybody else pick out these things?

All true, but I haven't played Xenosaga, so I'm not sure about that one.