Best and worst parts of the game!

[Meltdown]

I think they could've slowly built up to the fact they all used to live at the orpanhage, but without giving too much away beforehand.

That's exactly what they did, but they did it in such a clever way you don't even notice it when playing it the first time around. Maybe it was because I used Xplosion when I first got this game and ended up replaying the game imediatly after completing it, thus having the orphanage thing fresh in my mind from the get-go. Also, I think I may have had multiple saves back then - I used to do that a lot as a kid with FFs, so I probably had a save state at the orphanage, or after, and a couple of save states on, say disk 1 or something. That's the only explaination I can think as to why hardly anyone seemed to notice the hints if not at the second playthrough but at least the third or fourth.

The thing I really like about these hints is that they work better in hindsight - any other method would have not only been a spoiler, but would have been cheesey as hell (Disk One: "Hey it feels like I know you"/Disk Two: "Hey, cool! I do know you!"). When you see them the first time, some of them may strike you as odd, but will still be ultimatley meaningless, and others will go straight over your head, but once you know how it all turns out, I'm really shocked that I was the only one who during his later playthrough went; "Oh, that's why Irvine took Selphie's recjection so personally", "Oh, that's how Squall knew Edea's name", "Oh, that's why Irvine couldn't shoot Edea". I'm not even feeling particularly at the moment, and I can still remember this much, and I know that there's a lot more, and that is why the orphanage is one of my favortie twists ever.

I guess, but I don't think you should have to restart the game to realise this, especially as it was integral to the main story, and I don't recall Squall remembering Edea's name? Wasn't this because she was well known anyway (working her way up through the Galbadian ranks and all)?