Short answers, pulled from the story.
Tetsuya Nomura created the character design for Squall Leonhart in Final Fantasy VIII. Nomura gave Squall a scar across his brow and the bridge of his nose to emphasize his role as the central character and make him appear as an ordinary person rather than a superhuman hero.
The original soundtrack for Final Fantasy VIII was released on four compact discs by DigiCube in Japan on the 10th of March 1999. The soundtrack was later republished worldwide by Square Enix on the 10th of May 2004.
Ultimecia is the main antagonist in Final Fantasy VIII and she plans to compress time itself. She transfers her powers to Rinoa Heartilly and uses Ellone to send Squall Leonhart's team into Ultimecia's era to defeat her before time compression can be fully achieved.
By August 2019, worldwide sales of Final Fantasy VIII were over 9.6 million units across all platforms. The game had sold 8.6 million copies on the PlayStation by 2009 and 8.15 million copies by March 2003.
Nobuo Uematsu composed the music for Final Fantasy VIII with a focus on emotional content. The theme song is called Eyes on Me and was performed by Chinese singer Faye Wong.