Quick overview of the characters...
Squall - As moody as promised! As I mentioned before, most of the greatness for Squall is of the "thrust upon him and desperately demanded of him" variety instead of the personal struggle variety. Other than skill and looks, he doesn't show much that causes everyone to insist upon his being so damn important. Everyone's insistence on making Squall their leader was mindnumbingly annoying in the first half of the game. Once he
does
get that responsibility forced on him, he steps it up a little and winds up being a solid member of the cast.
Seifer - I think we're missing just a little something to flesh out Seifer, that maybe was in the game. Why did he wind up being so desperate to be someone's Knight? Does he care about Rinoa, who seems to care about him? He has a badass character design and some really neat fights, but... I just wish we had more from him, and/or that we could have had him as a playable character later!
Quistis - Contributed basically nothing to the game, unfortunately. She has this
really
dumb crush on Squall that's resolved in one of the stupider ways imaginable, and she seems like obvious fetish-bait with the hot-for-teacher and the whip motifs.
Zell - High-energy to an annoying extent, but obviously good-hearted. Story-wise he winds up just stanning for Squall a lot and that's kind of unfortunate.
Selphie - I usually appreciate the Genki Girl archetype. Selphie definitely fits; her train stuff was fun, and her insistence on going to Trabia Garden was also appreciated. Ultimately she didn't seem that important, so she didn't get that much play, but now I'm a bit sad.
Rinoa - I wanted to like her so much. She's beautiful, she's the main love interest, and she's likable... but also she is entirely defined by her relationship to men, she's constantly constantly being kidnapped, and she complains about her weakness that aren't really backed up by anything and don't really add anything to the story. You could read FFVIII as a coming of age story for Rinoa, but from that angle, it's also sadly underdeveloped. The good part is that she has a dog. She was also fun with Auto-Haste and Auto-Protect, though those of course are... not so much characteristics of
her
. Gameplay probably in a different section, though.
Irvine - Like Selphie, Irvine plays a fun archetype as the womanizer. It does get to kind of creepy levels at first, but the revelation that HE GREW UP IN THE SAME ORPHANAGE as them does lower the creep factor by a bit. He's got a cool character design but doesn't have a lot else going for him.
Laguna - Obviously the most enjoyable character. It's obvious why he's not the main character of this story: he lacks that 90s teen angst that characterizes Squall and, honestly, Cloud as well. Wholesome, funny, and energetic without being annoying - this is my type of character.
Edea - Her motivations don't really make a drop of sense until the end, but she's not even herself for most of the time when she's on screen as the villain, and after that she becomes a non-character, like Cid. (Cid/Edea's relationship is also dropped in out of nowhere and goes nowhere, like many other things about FFVIII's plot - but maybe I can save the plot discussion for a different section.)
Ultimecia - just kidding.
CHARACTER RANKING: Laguna >>> Squall > Seifer > Zell > Selphie > Rinoa > Irvine > Quistis > Edea
yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness