used to create the world around him. The game's logo that depicted Squall embracing Rinoa was left open for interpretation by players. After Nojima created the scenario, Nomura created the game's introduction movie mostly on his own which left a major positive reaction on the Square staff. In Final Fantasy VIII Nojima wanted to give players insight into Squall's thoughts in contrast to Final Fantasy VII, which encouraged players to speculate on them. According to Nojima, the development staff made Squall "cool". In the video game it is implied the character Laguna Loire is Squall's father but Square Enix has never confirmed this idea. Nomura designed Squall to contrast with Laguna; While Laguna is seen as a friendly man, Squall is distant and silent. The staff found this problematic and thus Squall was given a character arc of him opening up to others to make the story easier to make fitting for a lone wolf. While at first these two characters' stories run parallel, they would ultimately clashed as conceptualized by Nomura. In the original Japanese game, Squall has a tendency to respond negatively to other characters' comments by using sarcastic remarks like "well, excuse me". In the English localization this was turned into a catchphrase known as "whatever". Design Squall Leonhart was the first character Nomura designed for Final Fantasy VIII; he was inspired by actor River Phoenix, although Nomura said "nobody understood it". Squall is tall, and initially had long hair and a feminine appearance. The scar on Squall's forehead was also left ambiguous although Nomura said it was important for him. After objections from Kitase, Nomura made the character more masculine and added a scar across Squall's brow and the bridge of his nose to make him more recognizable similar to Cloud Strife's striking spiky hair from Final Fantasy VII, leaving its cause up to scenario writer Kazushige Nojima. Nomura's design of Squall included a fur lining along his jacket collar as a challenge for the game's full motion video designers. Nomura created Squall's and its silver accessories. The weapon is a sword that has components of a revolver that send vibrations through the blade when they are triggered; this inflicts additional damage as Squall strikes an enemy if the player presses the R1 trigger on the controller. Although the weapon was intended as a novel way for players to control weapons in battle, Nomura said he