In the 2004 Summer Olympics, the United States synchronized swimming team of Alison Bartosik and Anna Kozlova performed to the songs "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec" and "Liberi Fatali" from the Final Fantasy 8 soundtrack. Their performance won them the bronze medal.

According to a 1998 Famitsu magazine interview with the game's character designer Tetsuya Nomura, preliminary meetings to plan out Final Fantasy VIII with the game's team, including director Yoshinori Kitase, began immediately after the completion of Final Fantasy VII's development.

During one of the conversations, Kitase said that he wanted to use a character that Nomura drew 3 years ago, before Final Fantasy VII, which was the sorceress Edea Kramer.

He added that although the Final Fantasy series has the word "Fantasy" in its name, it had become routine for them to feature technological civilizations and machines, and he felt the fantasy aspect had steadily weakened its presence. Therefore, Edea was added to the game to genuinely counteract those growing technological aesthetics: "a full-on, high-fantasy sorceress".

According to a 1998 Famitsu interview with the game's director Yoshinori Kitase, he stated that when the game's development started, character designer Tetsuya Nomura suggested for Squall & Laguna's stories to end in a way that would have tied them together. This idea was scrapped for unknown reasons and forgotten about completely.

The Pocket Station, sold only in Japan, was used in Final Fantasy VIII. It featured a mini game called Chocobo World, starring Boco the Chocobo. While international console users could not play it, the PC port of Final Fantasy VIII did include Chocobo World in its entirety as a standalone application.