-The Garden Network terminal was kind of ahead of its time. Being able to call people out for overdue library books, students at the same school wishing each other well on upcoming exams, reaching out to the staff about what's on the cafeteria menu. In 1999 if my school had a website I certainly didn't see it, and I know it wouldn't have been designed to be like a forum.
-The Network is also a great, practical way to explore the locations and lore of the game and have it feel natural. Of course it would be available information you can look up. Unlike, some would say, the "Datalog" in Final Fantasy XIII where you're reading about the world and characters from your main menu, it makes sense in the Final Fantasy VIII world to address these things in a classroom, when you're first starting the game.
-The idea that Zell likes hot dogs was created to appeal to western audiences. In the original Japanese release, Zell likes a sort of flavored bread.
-As mentioned in the Timber Maniacs thread, there are novice seed cadets in the cafeteria who disappear later in the game if you don't talk to them.
-For the first time I can recall in any playthrough, I set the Fire Cavern time to the lowest possible of 10 minutes. I beat Ifrit with 1 minute to spare. It turns out if you leave your screen on the page where you name Ifrit after the boss fight, you can let your invisible timer run down to zero, and not have a consequence.
-I read that in the Japanese release, the time spent in the Fire Cavern is counted all the way until you leave the place, not just the end of the boss fight.
-Early on in the game, you should challenge the Queen of Cards in a match and quit until you see the "All" rule, then as soon as you see that, quit again. This will spread "All" through the region and allow you to win 5 cards from people instead of 1.
- Apparently if you don't go to the Cafeteria before heading to the Fire Cavern, you just miss the scene where Zell rushes in and asks about the Hot Dog supply.
-The music in the Dollet mission was different in the demo that was bundled with Parasite Eve/Brave Fencer Musashi. Allegedly this was because the theme sounded too much like Hans Zimmer's score for Sean Connery's "The Rock", which was a very big film at the time.
-Here's the movie track if you want to decide for yourself:
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