There are many Final Fantasy fans who hate the eighth installment with a vengeance, which is a shame since Final Fantasy VIII is one of the better installments in the franchise. It’s a wildly entertaining and deeply immersive experience – at least once the player manages to get over the hurdle that is its complicated Junctioning and magic system.
A big part of what makes Final Fantasy VIII such a memorable experience is its focus on the romance between Squall and Rinoa, which slowly builds up over time before exploding in a brilliant scene that is considered by many to be one of the greatest moments in Final Fantasy history. Rinoa is easily one of the most interesting love interests in gaming history.
10 A Conversation Between Her And Squall Was Cut From The Game
After Squall rescues Rinoa and starts piloting the Ragnarok, there’s an interesting exchange of words that was dummied out from the final game. In this cut sequence, Rinoa tries to make Squall jealous of her history with Seifer, but Squall is either too dismissive or dense to understand what she’s trying to goad him into. This causes Rinoa to remark about the fact that Squall doesn’t really care about other people and their histories.
9 One Scene Was Admitted To Be A Mistake
While the romance between Squall and Rinoa is endearing for the most part, there’s one part in the game where the director himself laments the protagonist’s behavior towards his love interest. During the concert in Fisherman’s Horizon, when Squall starts acting up while Rinoa tries to act all cute with him, there’s a scene where it looks like Squall is trying to strike Rinoa, only for the latter to dodge it.
It’s a rather jarring moment in the game that is glossed over, and Kitase has openly admitted that this inclusion was a mistake in the final product.
8 Angel Wing And Meteor Combined Is One Of Her Strongest Tactics
While Rinoa might not seem like the most useful member to have in the party, there’s definitely one way she can become one of the hardest hitters on the team. It’s through an ability coined by fans as Meteor Wing.
Basically, by junctioning magic to her character so that Meteor becomes the weakest move in her arsenal, Rinoa can basically spam this move over and over again for a ton of damage through her Angel Wing ability. It will decimate most enemies with ease, including the superboss Omega Weapon as well.
7 Her Angel Wings Appear On Squall’s Jacket In Kingdom Hearts
The concept of Rinoa being an angel is something that is hammered into Final Fantasy VIII over and over again. Her newfound Limit Break is the best example of this.
In fact, this concept was so enduring that its motif even made an appearance in the Kingdom Hearts series, where Squall, now named Leon, has an imprint of angel wings on his jacket as well.
6 Creating Rinoa’s Design Was A Struggle For Nomura
Tetsuya Nomura is renowned for being one of the greatest character designers of all time, so it’s rather surprising just how challenging it was for him to depict Rinoa’s character visually.
From almost giving her a miniskirt to trying to make her cute as opposed to beautiful, Nomura definitely spent a ton of time trying to make the perfect love interests for Squall.
5 She Loves Books And Is Always In The Balamb Garden Library
One thing that Nomura wanted fans to realize was the fact that Rinoa was actually into literature and would always try to spend her idle time reading books.
This can be seen in the tiny little detail added to the character when she’s not a main party member. Rinoa can be found dawdling around in the Balamb Garden library in order to attain as much knowledge as possible in her free time.
4 It Took Three Actresses To Get Rinoa’s FMV Sequences Right
Given the fact that Rinoa was the main love interest who ended up featuring in a ton of important moments throughout the series, it was only a given that the work done for her motion capture would also be immense. That’s exactly what happened to be the case.
A total of three actresses did the motion capture for Rinoa for a myriad of FMV sequences. Mayuko Aoki did most of the work, while Hoshimi Asai was the motion capture stuntwoman of sorts. Along with these two, Yasuko Yokoyama also gave the motion capture performance for the iconic waltz scene.
3 Rinoa And Ultimecia Are Complete Opposites
One thing to note in Final Fantasy VIII is the fact that Rinoa and Ultimecia are genuinely mirror opposites of each other. This stretches way further than the good versus evil moral alignment.
Ultimecia sports black wings while Rinoa has white ones. Rinoa has black hair in comparison to Ultimecia’s white locks. The time sorceress wears a red garb that clashes with Rinoa’s blue attire, and Rinoa is made to look like an angel as opposed to Ultimecia, whose hair itself is shaped like the devil’s horns.
2 The Theory Of Ultimecia Being Rinoa
With the sheer number of opposites that both Rinoa and Ultimecia represent, coupled with the nature of both of these individuals as sorceresses, some people have theorized that Ultimecia is a disillusioned Rinoa from the future. They are opposites in almost every way, yet, when considering their more subtle traits, they are also eerily similar. As interesting as this dark and light angel idea may be, the fact that it was debunked by Yoshinori Kitase himself definitely ends any conversation that could be had.
1 One Of Rinoa’s Endearing Habits Was Lost In Translation
Rinoa was meant to be incredibly cute and endearing from the get-go, with everything from her character design to her mannerisms depicting this. However, one such aspect of her character was lost in the English translation.
Rinoa had a quirky habit of combining words in Japanese to make them sound cuter, but due to the constraints of the English language, this quirk had to be removed in favor of a more vanilla translation instead.
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