See, I think the word "emo" is frequently misused. A character is "emo" if they 1) spend tons of time whining about 2) something stupid or easily remedied. Squall barely says ANYTHING, let alone talking about his feelings, so I don't really understand why he's classified as "emo" for any reason other than his typical Nomura character design. I like that - I'll take it anyday over a constantly-talkative "HEY GUYS LET'S SAVE THE WORLD!!" protagonist, at any rate. What I like about him is that he's kind of a downer. He's kind of a dick. The writers actually had the courage to create a character that wasn't an unambiguously wonderful hero and that, maybe, not everyone would instantly like (or possibly ever like). There's some nuance to him - he's harder to classify than "good guy", "bad guy" or "antihero". There's some personality to him - and like the people we meet in real life, it's not necessarily a personality we find appealing. We could use more characters like that in video games. It's too bad that the rest of the cast are (thus far) two-dimensional anime cliches, though. (Except for Seifer, who clearly has some depth to him.)
Don't get me wrong, so far the game is still one of my less-enjoyed Final Fantasy games, and I definitely can't see myself ever replaying it after I'm done (though FF games rarely offer much in terms of replay value anyway). The story moves forward at a molasses pace and with no driving goal or motivation for the player or the character. Far too much of the time is spent wading through entirely non-interactive dialogue, and far too little time is spent actually, y'know, PLAYING a GAME. (Triple Triad doesn't count.) The reason I'm still playing is in the hopes that the game will eventually "open up", allowing me actual room to explore, fight bad guys, optimize my party and do all the other stuff that one usually associates with PLAYING an RPG. I imagine I probably will enjoy Final Fantasy IX a lot more, though, when I get around to it.
