well again, my biggest complaint about 8 is the same as many others complaint. Character development! Character development! Character development!

You can say all you want that the characters in 8 seemed like real friends with eachother and what not. Unlike 7's did who were just united through a common goal.

But I will beg to differ with you on both points.

First off. You have to remember that this is a game and not real life. And which is a more important goal for the game developers to achieve. To get the real live people who are actually the ones paying the money and playing the game to like the characters. Or for the the make believe characters within the game to like eachother.

I would say the first one is more important. And which is a better aproach to getting the game players to like the characters. For the players to find out important things in the characters life as to how he got to where he is right now and why he acts the way he does. Or for the characters to do very trivial or unimportant things in terms of the overall story with eachother like they did in 8.

That is why alot of people don't really like the characters in 8. Because they were not able to find out a great deal about them other than Zell likes hot dogs, Rinoa is a brat who has a crush on Squall through out the game, Quistis and Irvine (I really can't even say a whole lot about), and Selphie likes to paaarrrty. Just letting that information out doesn't tell people a great deal about the characters.

Now my second point about how the characters in 8 seemed like they were closer than 7's. Well 7's story really revolves mainly around the four main characters of Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Aeris. Of those four characters. I would say that each one is closer or better friends with eachother than any of 8's characters are.

Tifa and Cloud grew up together (and the game gives a very detailed backstory to their relationship growing up). Tifa and Barret were obviously rather close friends during the game (as they were both within the same Avalanche gang. And both were kind of playing the roles of parents to Marlene during the game). Aeris was a very fun loving character who was able to come in right away and befriend each of the main characters (and you can actually really see how close of a friend Aeris becomes to each of the other main characters during the game).

So you can say that of the main characters within 7 you can say that the only ones who had a strictly business relationship from the onset were Barret and Cloud (and over the course of the game you can see a sense of friendship growing between them as well).

I will admit that Cid, Red XIII, Yuffie, and Vincent all seem like they were just there because of a common goal. But they were very secondary to the 4 main characters (as you don't even have to get Vincent or Yuffie during the course of the game).

So I would say that the four main characters within 7 were all better friends than any of the characters in 8, and were much better developed, and were much more important to the overall story . And that also lies the problem with the characters in 8. In 8 there are no Cloud's, Tifa's, Barret's, or Aeris's. Every single character in 8 is a Cid, Yuffie, Red XIII or Vincent, who are not extremely necessary to the overall plot.