This is just a small thing, and I've known about it ever since I got Final Fantasy VIII, but just thought about posting it up. Well on the back of my copy of Final Fantasy VIII (European Edition) it has a small screen capture of a fight, with Zell in your team, but his name is spelt 'Xell', may I ask, why?

I was going to say "because the player changed the name of the character" but then it occurred to me that you CAN'T change the name of the character. I think you can only name Squall and Rinoa, but I am not sure...

Yeah, just Squall and Rinoa.....and Angelo and the GFs, but thats it.

I just looked, and it's like that on mine too! I wonder why...

Its possible to change other peoples names, but only through PC usage. Those screenshots are normally obtained from playing the game through on the PC. A lot of the people who test games, or get screenshots like to place a marker on things, in screenshots its usually a name change (which is relatively easy in HEX Code). I've seen it on FFVII as well, where Cloud is called Nadim.

Kupo!!!

Xell was Zell's name in the German version.

It was probably chosen because Zell looks and sounds so much like "Zelle", which means "cell". And it does sound stupid, Zell, when pronounced the German way: Tsell. ;) Xell is better.

Well. u can change names on your character in ps version too. I thought so...??

My PS1 version doesn't have Xell, are you taking about PC versions?

Yeah, on the back of the ps1 game, it says
Xell
Squall
Selphie
CONFUSION..!

The cover was created on a computer and "Z" is next to "X" it could be a type mistake

Just gonna post up my conclusion. I got this conclusion thanks to Misao's post. Well Squaresoft/Square-Enix Europe headquaters are in Germany, and this is probably the place where the main testing for the European edition of the game was, so the just took a screen capture of these testing sessions and added them to the back of the cover on the European edition of Final Fantasy VIII (PSOne version.)

Wow, someone actually read my post.

Uhm, and I really don't know why people think they might have their headquarters in Germany. They are located in London.

Which doesn't matter, because FFVIII was published by Eidos, and Square Europe didn't exist at that time.
If anyone is up for some researching fun, they can find out whether Eidos have a branch in Germany. ^^

Zell / Xell is the same thing with Seifer / Cifer.......

....there�re two different versions, too. I think, they just changed it for certain countrys.... ;)

This always happens when translating stuff from Japanese. There are often different ways to transcribe a name.

Take Ultemicia for example. This is probably a mistake the English translators did. Artemisia, used by the German version , is a mythological character and seems a lot more likely. Especially since she has to do with mausoleums and stuff.

Rinoa was Linoa in the French version, and that's about all I know concerning name variations. Along with the freaky Seifer/Cifer bit that Aerith mentioned. :)