What to expect from me. (I thnk it's ok here, move if need be)

[MJN SEIFER]

For what it's worth I agree with you. But that's not proof in of itself.

I fall into BG-57's camp in that SE never leaves clever subtle hints. Most of the time its really obvious. From Squall and Laguna being related to the obnoxious not so subtle hints X-2 has that connects X to the VII world. I don't feel FF games are really created to leave mystery. Even VII's cliffhanger ending is spoiled by its epilogue that strongly suggested everyone survived.

I can see what you both mean. I personally think the only way we'll know for sure is if Square actually says they leave subtle hints - or they don't. For now it's up to debate and everyone has an opinion including me, but I accept I may be wrong (Note: I say "may be" because I still hang on to a minor hope that I am right - not because I am arrogant, because I am not). (To Wolf Kanno only: I never really concidered VII's ending to be a "clifhanger" - more evidence on how two people can see the same thing differently)

There are certain philosophical lessons one can gleam from the series that are carefully placed in the background; but I don't think SE goes out of its way to hide secrets like R=U or the FF worlds all being interconnected. Especially since several clues people find to make their theories correct always seem to be looking too much into an artistic showboating sequence or are obviously taking information out of context to support their bias.

Granted its fun to debate some theories and come up with them.

I think the main reason I like to assume Square (and indead other makers) are like this is because this what I would do if I made (for example) an RPG. Of course, I would have the main stuff obvious, but I would provide "hints" as well.

VIII didn't have much palette swapping compared to other FF's, only what you mentioned, blue and green Galbaldian soldiers, Behemoth and Catoblepas, Griever and Diablos who shared the same skeleton and of course the weapons. In VII, X and XII for example, had many of the same monster types, X got around this, though, with the Arena. I'd say VIII had the most original monsters than otehr FF's, maybe except IX.

Funnily enough, it never really occured to me that many of VII's monsters where the same albeit a different colour scheme. Despite the fact many NPCs looked identical - I always asumed that the mosters where all "related" - like how you can have many breads of the same animal, and it was all deliberate move to have them look similar, but looking back - it probably was Square reusing sprites.

However it's funny the Tiamat stuff was mentioned in a thread in which I admited to having theories...