If it was a difference of 10 or fewer years I would chalk it up to people rounding differently - SMTV has a cute bit where an event that happened 18 years is referred to as "about 20 years ago" fairly often, and that's explicitly because plenty of folks don't care to keep track of the exact time - but 80 vs over 100 years ago is... stretching that idea a bit far.
I think I may have to resign myself to all my updates from now on being two-parters, I genuinely can't fit All These Visuals without severely cutting how much ground I'm actually covering in each update.
I think I may have to resign myself to all my updates from now on being two-parters, I genuinely can't fit All These Visuals without severely cutting how much ground I'm actually covering in each update.
Welcome back, class, to Final Fantasy VIII 301. Today's lesson:
Squall And Rinoa's Great Space Journey
Last time, we left on Ellone sending Squall to the past while the two of them are in an escape pod plummeting down towards the earth. Fade to white, and we watch as Irvine drives Rinoa out through the desert, during the prison escape sequence.
Rinoa actually manages to get him to stop the car so that they can have an argument about whether to come back for the others.
Irvine: "They'll be fine. I'm sure they can get outta there when the time comes." Rinoa: "Squall might say 'but no one has ordered me to escape' and end up staying in there. We can't have that! We have to go help them! I don't care if I have to force you back."
Party members roasting Squall behind his back will never not be funny, I love it. Also, as a general genre, "let's see what the other characters were up to off-screen several hours ago" can be really fun, although this sequence keeps it very short. Also props for the animation of Rinoa literally shoving Irvine back into the driving seat, it's a great visual gag. Irvine relents and starts driving back towards the prison, and we transition to a different scene from the past.
Why is that scene shot entirely through a wine glass? I have no fucking clue. If any of you has any idea, please tell me.
Rinoa is telling Zell she wants a ring like Squall's, with the monster engraved on it; Zell tells her he's pretty handy and can make her a copy, and Rinoa is overjoyed, doing a whole little joy dance. But when Zell tells her they'll need to ask Squall to show them the ring, she is immediately crestfallen. Asking for something like that is… embarrassing? Zell replies by backing up a step in a shocked way, and Rinoa responds "No! It's not what you think!" I genuinely have no idea what's supposed to be happening there.
The scene fades to white light, and we are back in the escape pod.
Oh I'm sorry Squall is the literal fucking time travel too imprecise for you!? How about you do your own??
Ellone apologizes for targeting the wrong moment, and tells Squall she'll try again. Fade to white, and…
That's it. The precise moment Squall wanted to come back to - the few moments when everyone was unconscious and Rinoa moved for the last time before falling into her coma. What happened there has been pretty obvious to us, the audience, from basically the moment it happened, but I get how for Squall who is on the ground and a lot more distracted and emotionally invested it might not have been that way until now. As Rinoa leans towards Seifer, there are frame inserts of an ominous robed figure towering over her, too brief for me to screenshot.
Squall: "(This isn't Rinoa!)" Ultinoa: "Oh, my loyal knight, Seifer. The sorceress is alive… The sorceress demands." Squall: "(Ultimecia!? The future sorceress is inside Rinoa!? …transferred from Edea? Where's Rinoa!!?)" Ultinoa: "Find the legendary Lunatic Pandora, said to be hidden beneath the ocean. Only then shall the sorceress provide you with dreams again." Squall: "(Rinoa! Where are you? Answer me!)" Seifer: [Standing up] "As you wish, Ultimecia." [He leaves.] Rinoa: "(...Squall… I'm scared.)"
[The figure of Ultimecia appears at her back.]
And that would be our first look at Ultimecia, I take it. A red dress, a horned headpiece… Black wings? It's hard to tell if these are actual wings or merely an ornament.
A few thoughts on this in no particular order:
Seifer knew Ultimecia's true name the entire time. So he knew he wasn't actually working for his Matron, but for someone possessing her body. Cold.
I'm wondering if 'provide you with dreams again' is a mistranslation of a sentence meant to say 'fulfill your dream' (of being the sorceress's knight). If it isn't, this suggests that Ultimecia is manipulating Seifer by… literally making him unable to dream? Poetic but very strange.
It's a reminder that for all that we've been clowning on him every time we crossed paths, Seifer is extremely skilled when he put his mind to it - telling him 'hey there's a legendary construct sunken somewhere in the sea, go find it' and him being able to actually deliver in no less than what, a couple of weeks? Is genuinely really impressive. Too bad he's so much of a dipshit.
Those horns are giving Amano character design, I dig it.
Ultimecia is able to perceive Squall's intrusion into the timeline, likely due to being a time traveler herself, and ejects him back to his body; he calls out Rinoa's name, and in the next seat over, Ellone opens her safety restraints and falls to the floor, clearly weakened.
Ellone: "Did you get to find out what happened to Rinoa? Were you able to change the past?" Squall: "I couldn't do anything… What should I do?" Ellone: [She looks up at him.] "I remember those eyes. You just looked at me with the same eyes you had when you were little. Those curious, innocent, puppy dog eyes. I loved those eyes." Squall: "That's in the past." Ellone: "That's right. What's important is right now. I finally realized that." Squall: "I have to help Rinoa now. That's the only thing I can do, right?" Ellone: "Yes. Talk to her, Squall. Your voice may not reach her, but your heart will. Are you ready? I'm taking you to the nearest past… To the closest present to the future…"
Having Squall described as 'innocent, curious puppy dog' is giving my whiplash. It's extremely funny.
…
Okay.
Here's the thing.
This next sequence does not exist in the realm of reality so much as it operates entirely off emotional vibes. What it has going for it is a sense of emotional sincerity. Things happen because people feel, reach out, and believe. Do they happen because it's practically believable for the sequence of events they portray to happen? Not so much. For some of you that might be a deal breaker. For others not so much. I don't judge.
We open on Rinoa in space.
She's that incredibly tiny figure at the very bottom of the screen.
She's drifting helplessly, her oxygen running low. Her figure, impossibly small, slowly twirls at the bottom of the screen.
Rinoa: "(Am I… gonna make it…?)" Rinoa: "(How?)" Rinoa: "(I can't do anything…)" Rinoa: "(Drifting… endlessly.)" Rinoa: "(I'm helpless…)" Suit: [Remaining Life Support 0] Rinoa: "(No…)" Rinoa: "(I'm…)" Rinoa: "(That's it.)" Rinoa: "(I'm gonna… I'm gonna… die.)" Suit: [Life Support Has Terminated] Rinoa: "(Good bye.) Rinoa: "(Squall…)" Squall: "(Rinoa!!! No!!!) Don't give up!!!" Rinoa: "(.....?)" Squall: "(Can you hear me!? It's Squall… Rinoa!!!)"
Rinoa's breath mists against the inside of her helmet. Her expression is clearly exhausted, weak. Squall's voice calls out, "Come on! Try to remember! I'm right there with you!" but Rinoa can barely keep her eyes open. Slowly, they close, her expression like falling asleep.
She drifts across the screen, against the vast expanse of space, and for a long moment there is no further text, no voice reaching her. It seems, for a moment, as if Rinoa might truly die here, fading away into the void of space.
Then, light falls on her face, and drifting across that light, a shadow. Her eyes open again.
Okay, so they did model an actual 'beast ring' for Squall - wait a fucking minute. That thing has wings. It's not even a real lion! It's a super special winged lion! Squall you snowflake-
Squall's ring, alongside the 'blank' ring which Zell was planning to make into a duplicate of the lion ring, are floating together inside her space suit, linked together by a chain. Linked together - like Squall and Rinoa, bound across space and time. She looks at the two rings, and smiles softly.
Perfect cinnamon roll too beautiful for this world, too pure.
Rinoa: "(I'm… still… alive? Squall…?)"
What happens next is very strange. An electronic panel floats away from Rinoa's suit; it looks like she has ripped it off, in order to access a second panel underneath it. That panel has a big red button, and when she presses it, lights come on.
There is a very recognizable sound of 'air being injected into a container,' and Rinoa's audible takes several deep breaths (this is particularly notable because all the cutscenes are unvoiced, so they specifically chose this scene to have a human voice breathing). That empty oxygen bar on the side fills up all the way, turning yellow.
Did the power of love just magically refill Rinoa's oxygen tank? Maybe? Shut up, nerd.
…
Okay. I went back, and I think the answer lies in (say it with me now) a single missable line of dialogue. In order to have this line, you have to find the space suit locker room before triggering the Ultinoa breakout sequence, and talk to the astronauts there, whereupon one of them will say:
One sentence. One sentence reveals that while the suits' oxygen tanks have a capacity of 25 minutes, 5 of these minutes are 'extra air for emergency,' which apparently does not automatically kick in when the suit is empty. It seems like you have to manually activate it, or you'll die with your emergency supply intact.
So what happens here is, Rinoa did not know about the emergency supply, but then as she ran out of air, Squall's spirit gave her a surge of… will to live? That led to her figuring out her emergency supply by just trying randomly?
It's not as emotionally powerful as 'the power of love fills up her oxygen tank' but it definitely makes more actual sense. I really want to look up online how people read this scene but I'm almost certain I'd run into spoilers for the rest of the game, so. Tell me if you have a different read on this.
The flashback ends, and Squall is lying on the floor. He stands up, and confidently says he will find Rinoa.
Squall: "Thanks, Sis."
This is, I believe, the first time that present day Squall as addressed to Ellone as 'Sis.' It's an emotional step for him, acknowledging again their old connection and affection for one another.
But also… what the fuck does she mean, "You didn't need my help at all"? He seems like he kinda did what with the whole, past projection thing. I guess she's just saying those words to encourage him?
Squall heads up the escape pod's ladder; Quistis leaves her seat to call to him to come back, and Piet declares that he's an idiot and insane who'll run out of fuel and air in no time and just die in space. Which seems like a reasonable objection? Also Rinoa was knocked off course by the Lunar Cry, there is no location device on her suit, there is no possible way for Squall to find her across so much distance and not even knowing where to look. Of course, none of this matters, because we are in the sweeping emotional climax of Squall and Rinoa's romance, and at this point he is essentially powered by the plot.
Oh Lord no, a first person view in a PSX game.
Unfortunately this emotional climax is going to be severely strained by, what else, a terrible minigame.
The principle is simple: We have one minute and a half to catch Rinoa. She is drifting across space in our general direction, and we need to position ourselves so that she appears at the center of the screen to catch her.
That tiny, tiny figure in the background.
Swing and a miss.
When we fail, we are told that Rinoa was lost in space forever, then given the opportunity to try again, and we get one of two hints. The minigame is essentially impossible to beat without those two hints, so you'll probably fail twice: first, the game tells us that Rinoa moves towards us automatically and that we should be trying to keep her in the center of the screen, rather than moving towards her, then it tells us that by pressing Triangle we can 'change directions quickly, however this will use up your fuel quickly.' That last part is just trying to trick us; there is no fuel reserve mechanic as far as I'm aware, and keeping Triangle held down the entire time is basically the only way for Squall to orient quickly enough to actually do anything.
It still takes a few more attempts, but eventually…
Squall manages to catch Rinoa, and holds her close to him.
Rinoa: "Squall… I heard your voice." Squall: "...I can't believe it." Rinoa: "Are we gonna make it?" Squall: "Don't worry."
And then we get that absolutely gorgeous shot of the two teenagers in space suit holding each other tightly as in the background, the moon weeps blood.
The contrast between the staggering scale of the apocalyptic threat and the fact that the foreground centers two people holding on to each other in the most hopeless circumstances really feel like it's trying to capture the essence of the game's story, a story in which (often to its detriment) world-scale stakes ultimately serve to center a small familiar drama between a dozen of people who lost and found each other again across years and memories (another reason why it would be kind of odd if Ultimecia was utterly disconnected from the main cast and 'just' a random evil witch from the future).
Rinoa and Squall hang onto each other, out of fuel and oxygen, without anywhere to turn to. Squall wonders, what now? Do they just die in space? After all this, he still can't save Rinoa?
Enter the deus ex machina.
A spaceship.
Just. Floating around in the moon's orbit, conveniently within range of their space suits. Squall tells Rinoa to hold on, and he directs their space suit towards the ship until they come closer to latch onto the hull.
They find the airlock, and an external access panel. The doors slide open, and they glide down into the ship.
Squall quickly finds a panel saying there is oxygen in the ship, he closes the airlock, and our two lovebirds land on the ground.
I've summarized this scene, but it's worth noting that the whole sequence from the end of the minigame to regaining control inside the spaceship takes a good five minutes, including a full minute or two of Squall and Rinoa slowly drifting around the ship, latching onto it, and finding the airlock. It's very deliberately slow-paced, and scored with a soft, thoughtful music, trying to pull the player into a kind of tranquil, hopeful mood, not sure where the future is going, but that as long as Squall and Rinoa are with each other, they'll probably find some kind of way.
Once we move to the next screen, they have removed their space suits, and can see each other face to face properly again.
Rinoa: "Thank you, Squall. You rescued me again. I can't thank you enough." Squall: "Don't worry about it. I just did what I wanted to do."
[Rinoa fusses with her clothes and hair for a bit, then opens her arms. Squall stares blankly.] Squall, mentally: "(Now what?)" Rinoa: "The space suit was in our way before." Squall, mentally: "(Huh?)" Rinoa: "Give me a hug." Squall, mentally: "(...?)" Rinoa: [She closes her arms around her chest.] "A real tight one! I need to know that I'm alive!" Squall, mentally: "(...Alive? We still have to get back.) Squall: "We may be alive right now… But look at our situation… You want to live, right? You want to go back and see everyone, right?" Rinoa: "And not become other people's memories?" Squall: "That's right."
Oh, my god, Squall. STOP BEING LIKE THIS FOR FIVE SECONDS AND GIVE HER A GODDAMNED HUG. AAAAAAARGH.
Honestly the fact that Squall is so socially underdeveloped that he literally doesn't recognize an invitation to a hug and has to be explained what it is then still finds a way to deflect his way out of it is just. So him.
Also of note that the whole Rinoa Coma Plot ended pretty abruptly - once Ultimecia left her body she apparently just woke up completely fine, so this entire charade about Squall needing to find Ellone to project into her past was, like… I don't know. It was such a weird beat. In the end he succeeded by transporting to the 'past' of 'literally a minute ago' (the emergency oxygen supplies last 5 minutes, and there was 1:30 minute on the counter in the minigame, so he was projecting from a distance of like thirty seconds into the future, which is kind of comical).
It's been a weird sequence is all.
Now though, it's time to explore the spaceship. Rinoa and Squall emerge on a bridge above a sloped corridor, and as they are walking, not expecting any kind of threat…
…a hideous beast passes underneath them.
Squall and Rinoa crouch behind the railing to hide, wondering what the hell this is; Rinoa says it doesn't look friendly and Squall suggests sneaking past, but of course we're not going to do that. What are we, cowards? No, we head downstairs and immediately run into the beast.
That horrible thing is the Propagator and it is a truly bizarre creature whose appearance makes no visual sense to me. It carries Life and Esuna in its Draw list, so we take the opportunity to stock up before smacking it down. It can cast Silence and Blind, the former of which can be really annoying, and its physical attacks hit for about 400-500 damage. It can also cast Thundaga, but that deals 250 damage, a laughable amount. To top it off, the Propagator has only 3200 HP, so a single Darkside from Squall kills it.
Its death animation plays out on the dungeon screen and its body lingers, which I'm sure has no significance whatsoever.
For a creature significant enough to be a physical dungeon model rather than a random encounter, that sure was easy. At least the ship should be safe now, so let's head further in!
How utterly unpredictable!
Okay, so there's another one of those guys, and it's… Red, instead of purple. I guess different colors mean different abilities or threat levels? Not that it matters -
Zantetsuken.
…Odin takes care of it.
Once again, the red beast collapses and its body lingers. This has been pretty easy so far, so we just move room to room, and when we run into another one of those beasts we quickly dispatch it.
With the occasional minor incident when I'm overconfident. Silence can be a huge pain.
Purple, red, then we run into a green beast - they all have the same abilities and Draw lists, seeming to differ mainly in their HP count. The green beast is notable because it's passive instead of moving to engage us as soon as we step into the room, and because it's blocking an elevator; unfortunately, that elevator won't let us access it due to a security lockdown.
So we need to kill all Propagators aboard the ship. Easy enough. We run into a second red beast then, immediately after, a yellow beast which seems the toughest of the bunch but still nothing to write home about.
But the yellow beast is found in a dead end - more specifically, the very room in which Rinoa asked for a hug. So it must have spawned after we left. Curious. And since it's a dead end, we have explored the entirety of the ship…
…and the dead red beast is alive again and rushes us the moment we enter its room. This seems like it could easily become a problem. Are they all coming back to life the moment we set foot in another room? We'll find out soon, but first, something much more distracting is happening. During the fight, an attack from the Propagator puts Rinoa into crisis, triggering her Limit Break. I don't really need it at this stage but I figure, sure, why not? Let's fire the Dog Cannon at this poor bastard.
Except that's not what happens.
That's… different.
The command for Rinoa's LB is still called "Combine," but now instead of Angelo blowing people up or summoning the power of the moon to make us invincible, Rinoa turns into an angel. Radiant wings shine at her back, she rises into the air, and then… She drops down and nothing happens.
At least initially. Then, when Rinoa's next turn begins… Her command menu does not appear. Instead, she elects to fire a Blind at the Propagator on her own initiative.
This is not great news, seeing as the Propagator is immune to Blind and so the spell whiffs. However, on her next turn, Rinoa instead casts Bio, dealing 2500 damage. That's about five times as much damage as I typically get out of a Bio at this stage of the game. A massive damage improvement.
I mean, it still doesn't deal more damage than Darkside, but it's at least decent. And it kills the Propagator.
So, I guess that's what Angel Wing is: A kind of magical berserk status. Rinoa goes into a trance, we lose control of her, and she starts spamming random spells every turn with a x5 damage modifier.
That's going to be… Tricky. Right now, there is a very high risk of Rinoa wasting entire turns casting status spells or some Tier 1 trash I forgot to remove from her spell ist. Ironically, in order to make Rinoa into the most powerful mage in our party, I'm going to need to severely pare down her spell list. The exact rules of Angel Wing were explained to me in the thread a little after I played through this sequence, and I won't copy them in detail, but suffice to say Rinoa is most effective loaded with support spells and then Meteor and Ultima and nothing else - while in Angel Wing she doesn't consume the spells she casts, making it a good way to abuse high-end spells.
Needless to say, I could have gone hours without finding out about this if I was playing better. Junctioning Full-Life to health and obliterating enemies with two hits could have kept Rinoa from going into Limit for a long time, which would have been a shame, as this is clearly a narrative development as well as a mechanical one.
Something has changed in Rinoa. But what, that much isn't clear. The game hasn't used angelic imagery prior to this point, so it's not like we can draw a connection to some known myth or enemy class and say "Oh, Rinoa now has the power of X!" With that said, the most obvious difference between the last time we had Rinoa with us and now is that 1) Angelo was left behind on earth, 2) she was possessed by Ultimecia.
So it seems very likely that Rinoa was changed in some way by Ultimecia's possession. Perhaps absorbing some of the power of the Sorceress? Either that, or the dog was a power limiter that was siphoning away some innate power of Rinoa and now that he's gone her power is finally free. But probably the Ultimecia thing.
We run through the ship a bunch more, and it turns out that all the Propagators we've killed have indeed respawned. Putting them down again is a mild chore, but more importantly it doesn't offer us a path to actually keeping them down. That is, until we reach the ship's logs.
This ship fell victim to a full-blown Alien scenario, with hostile, carnivorous monsters breeding rapidly and eating much of the crew before they could be put down, and the survivors weren't sure they'd stay down and left these notes behind in case they reappear.
The explanation of how to put them down again is overcomplicated and poorly phrased, but thankfully Rinoa sums it all up in one sentence once we've read the report: There are eight monsters divided into four color pairs, and we need to kill them in pairs that have the same colors or else their partner will revive them while we fight another.
So it's a simple matter of locating one of the red Propagators, killing it, sneaking past a green Propagator and running past a purple one to get to where the second red Propagator is, killing it, and then the red pair has been permanently eliminated. Rinse and repeat; all it takes is a little environmental awareness and we're soon done. Once the monsters are all dead, the elevator unlocks and we can head to the bridge.
Look at her, she's so happy. And I mean, she's in a spaceship, I would be too.
Rinoa hears a sound, and tells Squall that the ship is 'trying to talk.' Squall approaches the comms equipments and turns up the volume… And it's Esthar Airstation calling them.
Airstation: "Ragnarok, do you read? Ragnarok, do you read!?" Squall, mentally: "(...A radio signal.)" Airstation: "This is Airstation. Do you copy?"
[Rinoa jumps in place from joy and rushes to Squall and hugs him from behind.] Squall: "This ship is the Ragnarok?" Airstation: "Whoa! Is this really the Ragnarok? You're in space, right?" Squall: "Yeah but, I have no idea where we are." Airstation: "Roger that! We can track you from here." Squall, mentally: "(We can go home…?)" Airstation: "Ragnarok… It's been 17 years!" Squall: "Can we make it back?" Airstation: "Leave it to us! You should have enough fuel. Enter your location into the atmosphere reentry program and you'll be ok. Once you enter the atmosphere, we can guide you down. You'll be just fine."
17 years is way too suspicious a date to be a coincidence. But with that said, it's looking like after a rollercoaster of disastrous events, Rinoa and Squall may finally be able to get a break - and share some peaceful moments together, alone with each other, in a ship devoid of monsters, as it pulls down towards the earth. Ground control guides Squall through the input sequence, then recommends he turn off the artificial gravity to save up on fuel, and wishes him, "from all of us at Ground Control, godspeed." As they do, the soft instrumental music fades, and it's replaced with the vocals version of Eyes On Me.
Squall motions to Rinoa to take a seat, but she loses her footing in the zero gravity, and Squall kicks off from his seat to catch her. Together, they drift back to their seats, and Rinoa finally gets that hug.
Unfortunately, we're not at a stage where the in-engine models can have hair physics, so Rinoa's hair which looks just fine while she's standing up tilts out at a very bizarre angle when she is in this curled position. It's very distracting while in motion, and even moreso in the high-resolution Remastered models.
It's a touching scene, helped in part by the sweeping pop anthem playing in the background. It really does feel like we've hit a major point of this whole romantic arc, and appropriately, Squall opens up a little more, telling Rinoa things he's never told anyone before.
Squall: "Why are you holding onto me like this?" Rinoa: "You don't like this, Squall?" Squall: "Just not used to it." Rinoa: "How about when you were little? Didn't you feel safe and secure being held by your parents?" Squall: "I can't remember anything about my parents…" Squall: "But… Ellone was there for me. Ellone was there to hold my hand." Rinoa: "Made you feel safe and secure?" Squall: "Sure. But she left. Just disappeared." Squall: "I'm afraid…" [He looks down.] "Afraid of having that feeling of comfort taken away." Rinoa: "You were afraid of losing us? Is that why you kept your distance?" Squall: "I was always alone…" Rinoa: "Squall…" [She pulls closer, and he leans down, touching kind of forehead-to-forehead.] "You missed out on all the good things in life. You've missed out on so much…" Squall: "...Maybe." Rinoa: "Definitely."
Okay, girl, chill. He's like, seventeen. I can assure you that he has not wasted his life. It's fine to have had kind of a crappy teenage years, this is not 'missing out on all the good things in life,' God. But I guess it really does feel that way when you're that age.
Rinoa: "I like it like this. I liked having my mom hold me. My dad, too, back when we got along." Squall: "I'm not your mom." Rinoa: |She laughs.] "No, of course not. But now… Squall, you're the one who gives me the most comfort." Rinoa: "Comfort and happiness…" Rinoa: "And annoyance and disappointment, too!" Squall & Rinoa at the same time: "...Whatever."
[She laughs.] Squall: "You should get back to your seat now." Rinoa: "Just a little longer." Squall, mentally: "(You'll be safer in your seat.)"
I really like how Squall is almost entirely not in his own head in this exchange, except right at the end, where it's recontextualized - now his inner monologue is wishing that Rinoa would get back in her seat because he's worried about her and cares about her safety, and he's not voicing it because he, too, is enjoying this fragile moment together, even if she would be 'safer' (hypothetically) away from him.
It's love! They're in love. It's sweet. I don't know if we'll ever see these characters actually say "I love you" to each other in these specific words because I know it's a Thing in some Japanese media but that scene is enough. It doesn't need the specific words "I love you" to convey that this is them confessing their love to each other and wishing to be together. Especially as it is followed by Rinoa musing that they won't be able to 'stay together' when they get back, which seems like a nonsequitur but is actually sorta kind of foreshadowing for something coming up that Squall doesn't have the context for, so he just says there are no guarantees in the future and they'll figure it out as they go.
Because now it's time for the plot to swerve back in with another of FF8's patented 'it's not that this doesn't make sense or isn't believable, but is that really how we're learning it?' development.
Rinoa: "They'll all be angry at me." Squall: "Angry?" Airstation: "This is Airstation. Ragnarok, please respond." Squall: "This is the Ragnarok." Airstation: "We have some questions for you. We're collecting escape pods." [At this point, Rinoa starts looking away, very deliberately turning her eyes away from Squall.] "We have a good idea what happened. I hear no one from Lunar Base is on Ragnarok. How many of you are there?" Squall: "Just two." Airstation: "......Your names?" Squall: "Squall. I'm a SeeD from Balamb Garden." Airstation: "And the other?" Squall: "...Rinoa." Airstation: "Rinoa? The sorceress!? She's on the ship!?" Squall, mentally: [Turning to her] "(So… It's true? Rinoa is a sorceress?)" Rinoa: "I've… become a sorceress. I can't stay with you anymore, Squall." Airstation: "Respond, Ragnarok!" Rinoa: "I don't want the future. I want the present to stand still. I just want to stay here with you…" Squall, mentally: "(Rinoa…)" Airstation: "Respond, Ragnarok!" Rinoa: "Nobody would want to be around me anymore…" Airstation: "The sorceress will be seized upon arrival. Be sure to follow the crews instructions." Rinoa: "I'm… scared." Airstation: "Squall, do you copy? Is the sorceress listening, too?" Rinoa: [She curls up into fetal position.] "I'm scared, Squall." Squall: "He gets up from his seat and, wordlessly, holds her.] Rinoa: "I don't wanna go back."
Man.
What the fuck do you mean, "Rinoa, the sorceress"? Who knows her as that? What the fuck do you mean, Squall, "So it's true"? This is literally the first time you've heard of this, why are you talking about it like it's previously established knowledge? How would ground control even know? How would Rinoa know? Rinoa was unconscious from 1) the Edea battle in Galbadia Garden to 2) literally five minutes ago, when Squall picked her up in space. How would she know anything about her own condition?
Okay, look, of course there are explanations. For instance:
The people aboard the Lunar Base were not clearly informed of Rinoa's condition, and all they saw was a girl get up and start walking through walls tearing through security with magic, so they went, 'oh no, a sorceress!' They reported this to Ground Control, who knew a girl named Rinoa had been sent up to the Lunar Base and put 2 and 2 together into "a sorceress called Rinoa infiltrated Lunar Base."
Squall is acting on some information that can be inferred from previously established information but has never been stated explicitly, which is that "sorceresses pass down power from one another" could also mean "Ultimecia can only possess sorceresses," so if Ultimecia was able to possess Rinoa it means Rinoa must have been a sorceress, or have the potential to become one. As far as I know no one has ever said this, but it could possibly be an element of the setting that the game forgot to explain or that I missed the dialogue entries for.
Rinoa was partially conscious during most of what happened, so she is aware of Ultimecia's rampage while inside her body and drew a similar conclusion to Squall, ie "I must be a sorceress" even if she didn't know it.
Alternatively, Rinoa has always been a sorceress, hid that fact from everyone, and that's one of the reasons why Caraway was so protective of her - he was afraid of people finding out and his daughter being persecuted, and now she realizes the cat is out of the bag.
Any and all of these (though 3 and 4 are contradictory) could make sense, if they were actually explained to us. But they're not and the dialogue is constructed bizarrely. Like, if Ground Control had drawn a mistaken implication that 'some girl went on a magic rampage' must mean 'Rinoa is a sorceress' and Squall replied with 'how dare you, of course not, she was just possessed, it was not her fault,' and then Rinoa replied something like "Squall, I know you mean well, but the truth is [I have been a sorceress since childhood and hid it from you/I can feel that Ultimecia awakened powers in me I didn't know I had]," that scene would flow perfectly well! It's literally just the fact that this comes out of "You have Rinoa The Sorceress on board your ship?" // "So it's true, Rinoa is a sorceress…" // "I'm sorry Squall, I've become a sorceress" that's like. Bizarre.
I don't know. I feel like this is bothering me a lot more than it will some of my readers so let's just carry on with it. Clunkiness of the plot device aside, there are of course other interesting things there:
Obviously, Rinoa's updated Limit Break was a 'clue' foreshadowing her newly awakened sorceress powers. Unlike Edea, whose Limit Break was a cheeky reference to the Disc 1 FMV but not otherwise exceptional, Rinoa's Limit Break puts her in a state where she loses full control of herself but gains terrible magical power, specifically exclusively offensive magical power (Rinoa will not use support spells while in Angel Wing). This is a fantastic way to tie into her new deal, I just wish the narrative side was done better. Not sure why it comes with an angelic motif included, but why not.
It's really sweet that after his initial shock, Squall's first reaction is to actually reach out and hold Rinoa, in a way he's never done before. Which of course stands in contrast to…
Everything about the sorceress directly feeds into and intensifies Rinoa's already-established character conflict of feeling isolated from the rest of the cast and feeling like she'll never be one of them. The sorceress is feared, hated, and persecuted, everyone knows this. Just as Squall and her finally admitted (sort of) their love for one another, they're going to be pulled apart from one another. Rinoa will never again need to fear being unable to 'keep up' with her SeeD friend in terms of power, but ironically only due to something that she feels will inevitably leave her even more isolated from them.
And finally… You know what, let's circle back to that at the end of the update.
Alright.
Fade to black.
Squall, voice-over: "I don't know what to do… This is just another crossroad in my life. But, for the first time, I don't know which way to go. I've come this far because I've… fallen for you." Squall: ".....Rinoa….." Squall: "Now… am I just supposed to let you go…?"
Fade in to the ground, where the Ragnarok has landed, and Squall and Rinoa emerge in front of Esthar officials framed by soldiers.
I mean, there's like, three of them, we could trivially take them. But I guess we don't want to cause an international incident.
Esthar Officials: "Sorceress Rinoa. Hyne's descendant. Come with us. We must seal your power for the sake of the world." Rinoa: "...All right." Esthar Officials: "Thank you for your understanding. Tell us when you're ready." Rinoa: [She turns to Squall.] "...I should tell you this before I go. I was possessed out in space. There was a sorceress inside me. Ultimecia, a sorceress from the future. She's trying to achieve time compression. She's the only one who would be able to exist in such a world. She, and no other. As long as I'm free, she'll continue to use me to accomplish her goal." Rinoa: "I… We can't let that happen, right…?" [There's a very easy to miss beat there where Rinoa opens her arms while she's saying this, in the same posture as when asking for a hug earlier, and Squall doesn't move, and then when she drops her arms he takes a step forward and then freezes, as if realizing he had just missed the cue.] "…I should go now." Rinoa: [To the officials] "...I'm ready." Esthar Officials: "All right. We'll be heading to the Sorceress Memorial."
[They start to leave. Rinoa pauses to look back at Squall, then turns back, then Squall starts running towards her.] Squall: "Rinoa! Don't go!" Rinoa: "...Thanks, Squall. But I have to go…" Squall, mentally: "(....Rinoa.)" Rinoa: ".... Oh… I still have your ring." Squall: "You keep it." Rinoa: "You sure?" Squall: "Yeah…"
[She leaves.] Squall, mentally: "...This is what Rinoa decided. There's nothing I can do about it… right?)"
Okay, first off, I do have to say it's very funny that Rinoa is trying to deliver vital information to Squall that he actually already knew about, she was just unconscious during all our scenes with Edea (put a pin in that) so she doesn't know that we already knew about Ultimecia and time compression. Our girl is just cursed with being out of the loop. With that said she does add a wrinkle we didn't know about before, which is that Ultimecia would be the only person who could survive within time compression? Which, I'll be sad if this turns out out to be another case of 'villain wants to just destroy the universe and be the only thing left alive for no clear reason.'
But once again I find myself frustrated by the way information is being conveyed. Rinoa being taken away to seal her power, a power she did not have the last time she was awake, is treated as a tragedy, and there are several reasons why that could be but none is actually explained? It could be that when the Esthar officials say they must "seal her power for the sake of the world," they mean the same kind of seal as Adel, and so Rinoa is resigning herself to being frozen in carbonite, a fate tantamount to or worse than death, which obviously would warrant the most strenuous objection. But when it was Edea who asked Odine about sealing her power, he made it sound like it would be as simple as exorcizing it out of her, and Edea was taking those steps so that she could go on to live a normal, depowered life, so I'm not sure why the same couldn't be true of Rinoa? This could be as simple as 'we don't know how long this'll take and Esthar might keep her captive in their borders afterwards,' which would also certainly be unfortunate, but if that's the case it's not being conveyed? I don't know the stakes, other than Rinoa being temporarily separated from Squall and losing a power she did not seem to have the last time we met her.
Once again, it would be really nice if we'd had an idea of what it means to be 'persecuted as a sorceress,' because it's increasingly feeling like our only historical example is Adel (who was mostly doing the persecuting, in the only time frame we're aware of). We've been told people hate and fear the sorceresses but we've never really had a reason to see it or its consequences.
In any case, Squall is now alone, stranded on some barren rock on the coast of the Centra continent. This is kind of a visual trick - the brief moment he spends on the map emphasizes his loneliness, while the Ragnarok's presence in the background is meant to make an inattentive player realize - if they hadn't already - that this is the airship and they should probably go back to investigate it. Moving just a few inches in any direction dumps us back onto the ship screen, and from there, we board it again - this time, the lights are on, making the whole place feel much more welcoming.
This is the same room in which we found the monster breeding log, seen from a different angle.
Squall walks to one of the seats, and just… Slumps over in it, no word or inner monologue. It's obvious he's crestfallen and has no idea what to do now.
Which is when the door opens again, and someone else comes in.
What a fascinating choice of words.
Quistis: "I'm home." Squall: "How did you get here?" Quistis: "Well… A lot of things happened. I was unconscious for a while after the escape pod touched down. When I came to, it was just me and Piet." Squall, mentally: "(Piet? Oh, the guy who escaped with us. What happened to Ellone?)" Quistis: "Ellone wasn't with us anymore. Not only that, there were signs of a struggle. I hope she's safe." Quistis: "The Esthar rescue crew brought me here. The rescue crew told us about this ship, and that you were safe." Squall: "I see." Quistis: "Squall… When you jumped out into space, you didn't think about anything else, did you?" Squall: "That's right." Quistis: "I wonder if there's anyone who'd do the same thing for me? Oh well… So where's the princess that changed the ever-cautious Squall?" Squall, mentally: "(Rinoa is….)"
(I can't believe Ellone hot potato'd out of our grasp yet again, I swear to god)
I really like Quistis, and honestly I feel for her. She's been in the background for a lot of this story, and that's kinda painful because, it feels like her loneliness was never resolved? Unlike Squall, she never found someone to bond with romantically. Even though she stopped being a teacher, she never fully stopped carrying the attitudes of a teacher with her, so she never got truly close to Zell, Selphie or Irvine, at least not that we saw on screen. She's just… Still lonely, even as we approach the end of the story, and I'm not sure if she'll find a way out of that loneliness.
Just as she says this, though, as if to reminded her that she does have friends, even if not as close as she'd hope, the door opens again, and Zell enters, followed by Selphie and Irvine. Zell greets Squall excitedly, then says there are 'major problems down there', which -
OH RIGHT. THE LUNAR CRY. THE APOCALYPSE HAPPENED LAST UPDATE. Oh wow that went totally unmentioned this whole time huh. I guess Squall and Rinoa were up in space, then in a spaceship, then they landed in the middle of a desert, so it kinda… got put by the wayside for a bit?
Alright, well. Zell tells Squall about the Lunar Pandora and-
Wait. No, actually, let's have that line in full.
Zell: "Some big thing called Lunatic Pandora came out of nowhere. Matron couldn't achieve what she set out to do because of it. Which is ok." Zell: "Matron's not a sorceress anymore." Zell: "Matron gave away her power to someone without realizing it." Squall, mentally: "(To Rinoa…...)"
I'm sorry, what?
Yeah so remember when I told you to put a pin in "Rinoa wasn't present in our scenes with Edea"? And how earlier I talked about how it could be perfectly plausible if Ultimecia had somehow awakened Rinoa's powers by possessing her? Yeah, that was me tricking you, Ultimecia has nothing to do with it, apparently Edea accidentally gave away her powers to Rinoa during one of the exactly none scenes where they interacted.
The last time Rinoa and Edea were on screen at the same time was when Edea was possessed by Ultimecia and we fought her as a boss, and after that Edea was still a sorceress, so… What gives…? When…? Did that exchange happen when Ultimecia body-swapped into Rinoa the first time, but Edea took a while to realize that she no longer had her powers (perhaps because they were only draining out of her progressively, One For All-style)? That's a perfectly plausible explanation but the game doesn't give it to us. The game just tells us A Thing Happened and to just take it for granted with no clarification or explanation.
Zell informs us that inside the Pandora is a Crystal Pillar calling down monsters from the moon, and that Esthar is in a state of total panic with monsters running amok everywhere. Additionally, he confirms that Adel fell down and entered the Pandora along with her containment device. Dr Odine believes that this was the Galbadians' plans all along, which would mean, and there Squall interrupts him again.
Squall: "Zell, that's enough for now." Zell: "But Squall!" Squall: "I know. I know we've got problems. But I can't think right now." Quistis: "What's wrong?" Squall: "Rinoa is a sorceress now. She received Matron's powers. An escort from Esthar came to pick Rinoa up. Rinoa's in Esthar now." Selphie: "We have to go get her!"
[At this point and without further clarification, Selphie runs out of the room. Irvine follows after her. Nobody else pays attention to it, because even forty hours into the game they have yet to understand what she's like.] Quistis: "Was she taken by force?" Squall: "No. It was Rinoa's decision. She was scared about being a sorceress… Scared of being feared… Hated… Scared that no one would want to be around her… She said she couldn't handle that." Quistis: "Didn't you try to stop her, Squall?" Squall: "It was Rinoa's decision. What right do I have to object?" Quistis: "Oh, stop that! What are you talking about!? Why did you go all the way into space to save Rinoa!? To hand her over to Esthar? So that you might never see her again!? No, right!? Wasn't it because you wanted to be with Rinoa?" [She gestures angrily.] "You're a fool." Zell: "Seriously." Squall, mentally: "(A fool, huh?)" Squall: "...Maybe." Squall, mentally: "(What am I doing…? I may never get to hear Rinoa's voice ever again… What the hell am I doing? What can I do? …Of course…)" Quistis: "Have you decided?" Zell: "Heading to Esthar, right?" Squall: "Pandora whatever and Sorceress Adel are out of my hands. I don't even know where to look for Sis. The only thing I know is Rinoa. The only thing I want to do for sure right now is for Rinoa." Squall: "We're going to get Rinoa back!"
And then the entire ship starts shaking, nearly knocking everyone over. No, this is not a sympathetic reaction to Squall's resolve.
It is, of course, Selphie who bailed five minutes ago and decided to try and fly the ship on her own and has now just taken off.
Peak comedy.
This is just.
It's a perfect scene and I am going to explain why it is by going down in order of the characters involved:
Squall: Has once again decided that he couldn't care less about the main plot of the game, the only thing he does care about is Rinoa, and he makes at best a token effort to listen to the apocalyptic changes that have occurred since last time before cutting Zell off and admitting that he just doesn't give a shit. Has to be browbeaten by others into accepting his own feelings and that letting Rinoa go because it was 'her choice' was stupid, and that he needs to make a bold, romantic, dramatic action out of love. Ends the scene with a newfound commitment to doing just that and acting once again as a leader by ordering everyone to launch Operation Save Rinoa.
Zell: Excited and a little hyperactive, but actually paid attention and remembered all the important information regarding the mission, including specifically what happened to Matron. Is excited to share it and tripping a little over his own words, but is also the only member of the group to be actually properly mission-minded and to have a threat assessment. All of it is for naught because, as ever, his useful information just crashes on the rock of an indifferent Squall.
Quistis: Seems to have finally found a place to resolve her character arc by being Squall's auxiliary emotional intelligence. If she can't have a romantic relationship or strong friendship bonds with her peers, she will go back to her teacher training and just sit on the Squall/Rinoa proto-couple rolling disaster to try and course correct it into something that won't implode, mostly by unpacking Squall's own feelings to him so that he can understand what even is his own motivation. We must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Selphie: Heard the words 'Rinoa is in Esthar,' stopped paying attention, has no particular concerns regarding 'sorcery' or 'personal choices' or 'Squall's feelings,' skipped the entire discussion that followed to hijack an advanced experimental Esthari spaceship with no plans more complex than 'ram the spaceship through a wall, drop down, grab Rinoa and run.' Is having the time of her life.
Irvine: At some point this guy decided that since apparently no one remembered him and everyone had been happy to let him shove an Amnesia Engine into his own brain without warning him about the consequence, he'd just stop caring and be happy as long as he's included in whatever Selphie's doing right now, and she's having a good time, so he is too.
It's just a perfect encapsulation of everyone's individual characters at this point in time in one sequence, on top of just being really funny.
Squall asks Selphie if she's sure she can pilot this, she tells him there's no guarantee it won't crash, and he reflects that nobody can predict the future, before telling her to head for the Sorceress Memorial, where they'll rescue Rinoa.
And with this, we finally have it… The Airship.
What a cool bird.
…
Usually, once I get the FF games, I pause the update so I can reflect on our newfound freedom and think about where to go next, trying to avoid heading directly to the next plot destination. Here, though, I really want to complete this whole subplot about Rinoa and Squall, get them back together, and let us finally take on the end of the world.
It would still make sense to pause here and leave the Rinoa Rescue Raid for next time. And if that raid was a long sequence, maybe featuring a dungeon, I'd probably do that. But as it turns out, it's really short - more of a denouement than anything.
So let's go on just a little more.
Red skies over Esthar.
The skies have turned an ominous red, but we don't have time to get into the overworld stuff today. Instead, we head straight on to the memorial. When we run into the guards, they'll tell us they'll make an exception to let us "see our comrade off." Again, I would really like to know if Esthar is planning to kill Rinoa, seal her in a tomb for a thousand years, just depower her and keep her in captivity, or what.
Stargate-ass looking apparatus. The Contraption. They are putting Rinoa in The Device.
The white-coated engineers balk at Squall's interruption - this is a restricted area, what are we doing there?
Squall: "...To do what I should have done earlier. …I'll never know unless I do it." Engineer: "What are you talking about?" Squall: "...I know what I want and what I have to do. …There's still a chance. I'm not gonna look back. I'm taking Rinoa with me." Engineer: "What!? You must be joking. It's too late."
[Quistis and Irvine dramatically whip out their weapons; all the engineers back away in fright.
There is no meaningful opposition here, no guards to mow through or doomed engineer to make a stand. Squall passes through, and enters the central room in which Rinoa stands among a device made up of these concentric circles that spin when activated that sci-fi loves so much.
Some component of the device, which look like cables covered in a transparent plastic, are blocking his way. So Squall draws his gunblade, cuts through them, and white steam hisses, filling the room, and in its blinding light, reproduces…
The final shot of the OP.
Kinography.
Rinoa: "Squall, don't! I'm a sorceress." Squall: "I don't care."
That about sums it up.
Quistis calls to the to lovebirds because everyone's in kind of a hurry, and they run back out, out of the memorial, where somewhat predictably Quistis and Irvine are holding off Esthar soldiers… Until a new figure appears.
A man in green Esthari clothes approaches, and the soldiers turn to him and salute - he's clearly in a position of authority. He does not, however, say a word. He waves to the soldiers to part, saying only "....", and they do. He approaches the group, then waves again, this time towards the exit, a clear, wordless message: Leave now.
He is also, as you can see from this picture, larger than any other character on the screen.
Irvine, Quistis and Rinoa all leave. Squall lingers just a moment, turning to the man, thinking "I've seen him before," then turns and leaves. Once he's done so, the man puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head, probably with a sigh.
A very large, silent man, who expresses himself entirely through body language and expressions, in a position of authority in the Esthar government, that Squall thinks he recognizes but can't quite identify?
Hello there, Ward.
And there it is.
We have rescued Rinoa. The Esthar troops did not stand in our way. And we are back on the airship.
For the first time since the end of Disc 2, everyone is together again at last. Everyone - excluding Edea. Though she extended her stay beyond what I'd initially thought, it would seem she was not meant to stay with us forever. That's sad - she has a killer aesthetic and probably some interesting thing to say - but she was a guest just like Seifer. Now, we're back to our original group, our party - the SeeDs, And Also Rinoa. Hm. The Timber Maniacs, Featuring Irvine Kinneas of Galbadia Garden? Squall's Emotional Support Black Ops Squad? No, none of these work.
Ah, we'll workshop it. Welcome back aboard, Rinoa.
There's some dialogue, of course, and a new direction (Rinoa wants to visit Edea's House). But for now… I think that will do it for today. This was a lot.
I suspect some of you are surprised by how little the consequences of the Lunar Cry featured in this update, considering how much it dominated the last update. That is partly sleight of hand on my part - I ran into some, let's say, novel random encounters when I set down in Esthar - because I don't really have enough material to discuss it in depth yet, partly also because… Well, it didn't feature very much. We spent most of this update in space, then only touched down briefly in a corner of desert to have Rinoa taken away by Esthar troops, and then flew straight across a blood-red sky to the Sorceress Memorial while doing our very best to ignore any fallout from the apocalyptic moondrop.
In a way, the writing has been doing its best to ignore the Lunar Cry, Ultimecia and Adel just as much as Squall himself has - there is one overarching concern across this entire sequence, and it's not the world, it's Rinoa.
In some ways, this - an emphasis on caring about what happens to individual people while treating world events, even disastrous ones, as mere backdrop and distraction - may end up being the ethos of Final Fantasy VIII as a whole.
This update was kind of a rollercoaster and took me two days to write. And like a rollercoaster, it has ups and downs - a lot of high tier emotional moments complicated by pure deus ex machina-type resolutions, plot twists that are just this close of having clear explanations and mechanisms but end up just kind of messy and confusing instead, still a powerful climax in Squall and Rinoa's final reunion. We even got a few crumbs of the core gameplay loop for a ten-minute stretch in the middle!
And now, we have the airship. I strongly suspect that's all that's left to do with it is some clean-up work around the world - but hey, that might well be the perfect opportunity to finally pass through all the towns we've been to before and get some status update on the world, eh?
Maybe that apocalypse really was overblown.
Thank you for -
Wait.
Hold on.
Just… One… Last… Thing.
Let's finally circle back to that point from much earlier when Rinoa revealed she was a sorceress now.
Lemme just… Pull up some old dialogue lines…
Ultimecia: "How you celebrate my ascension with such joy. Hailing the very one whom you have condemned for generations." Rinoa: "I've become a sorceress. I can't stay with you anymore, Squall." Ultimecia: "I will let you live a fantasy beyond your imagination." Edea: "Time compression. It's time magic. Past, present and future will be compressed." Codex: "Various states of "present" are believed to become compressed. Sorceress' power from many generations may cross over to give 1 sorceress great strength." Rinoa: "I don't want the future. I want the present to stand still. I just want to stay here with you…"
Me Writing This Update Yesterday said:
Black wings? It's hard to tell if these are actual wings or merely an ornament.
Something has changed in Rinoa. But what, that much isn't clear. The game hasn't used angelic imagery prior to this point, so it's not like we can draw a connection to some known myth or enemy class and say "Oh, Rinoa now has the power of X!"
The Ragnarok.
It is a space ship that looks like both a dragon and a guitar at the same time, is a cool red color, you get to capture it in space from horrible space monsters, and you get the girl when you capture it.
... this is so very much an example of the time period this game came out.
Squall: "Why are you holding onto me like this?" Rinoa: "You don't like this, Squall?" Squall: "Just not used to it." Rinoa: "How about when you were little? Didn't you feel safe and secure being held by your parents?" Squall: "I can't remember anything about my parents…" Squall: "But… Ellone was there for me. Ellone was there to hold my hand." Rinoa: "Made you feel safe and secure?" Squall: "Sure. But she left. Just disappeared." Squall: "I'm afraid…" [He looks down.] "Afraid of having that feeling of comfort taken away."
In the context of Ultimecia being future Rinoa, this conversation in particular is really interesting. The root of Squall's intimacy issues is the feeling of abandonment and loss he suffered after his family seemingly vanished from his life, which drove him to keep everyone at arm's length to avoid suffering the same pain again. If Ultimecia really is Rinoa, then her motivation mirrors Squalls in an interesting way; she presumably lost her friends at some point in the future (fulfilling present Rinoa's fears of isolation), and now seeks to compress time into a single eternal moment of idyllic intimacy. You can even see how Squall's character arc is a negation of Ultimecia's: He's learning that closing yourself off and living in the past to avoid pain is ultimately cutting yourself off from the potential for future happiness.
My main takeaway from this update is that Balamb Child Soldier High School serves goddamn wine in its cafeteria to the child soldiers with deadly weapons in their hands and "forget important memories" monsters in their brains letting them set things on fire with their minds
Did that exchange happen when Ultimecia body-swapped into Rinoa the first time, but Edea took a while to realize that she no longer had her powers (perhaps because they were only draining out of her progressively, One For All-style)? That's a perfectly plausible explanation but the game doesn't give it to us.
The game will keep delaying the explanation, and there's a lot of more details to it that would be spoilers right now, but for your peace of mind, yes, this is what happened: the trauma of her defeat at the SeeD's hands caused Edea to, accidentally and unconsciously, pass down her Sorceress powers to Rinoa. That's why, when you got Edea as a party member, she didn't have any special magic power of any sort - because she'd lost them, but she hadn't realized. And when Odine said "so, this is what happens", he was, in hindsight, obviously referring to "when a Sorceress' power is passed on".
I know you're just having fun here, but since you are, how are you squaring this theory with the literal first thing we learned about Artemisia, that is, that she's from many generations into the future? Any member of our current party would be dead by then, Rinoa included.
I know you're just having fun here, but since you are, how are you squaring this theory with the literal first thing we learned about Artemisia, that is, that she's from many generations into the future? Any member of our current part would be dead by then, Rinoa included.
It doesn't seem much of a stretch for the sorceress able to mentally travel to the past to mentally possess people and can make the moon tears up blood made of legions of monsters to be immortal.
As metal as it would be to have Rinoa/Ultimecia having in fact died in the future and having become this all-powerful malevolent ghost traveling through the past and future to create calamities for the sake of ending time. There would even be a sort of precedent in Zeromus!
Something has changed in Rinoa. But what, that much isn't clear. The game hasn't used angelic imagery prior to this point, so it's not like we can draw a connection to some known myth or enemy class and say "Oh, Rinoa now has the power of X!" With that said, the most obvious difference between the last time we had Rinoa with us and now is that 1) Angelo was left behind on earth, 2) she was possessed by Ultimecia.
My main takeaway from this update is that Balamb Child Soldier High School serves goddamn wine in its cafeteria to the child soldiers with deadly weapons in their hands and "forget important memories" monsters in their brains letting them set things on fire with their minds
Just. Floating around in the moon's orbit, conveniently within range of their space suits. Squall tells Rinoa to hold on, and he directs their space suit towards the ship until they come closer to latch onto the hull.
The first time I played this game I hated this moment. Truly hated it. It really was such a blatant deus ex machina floating out of nowhere. "Oh, here's a functional spaceship to extricate you from your bad end." After giving it some thought though, I dropped the hatred. The mention of 17 years is telling, as is the name - the Ragnarok. The end and rebirth of the world.
This is the ship that delivered Adel's prison. Delivered the world from the would-be conqueror.
And because they had to fly specifically to the Lagrange point where the moon's gravity would cancel out the planet's, they had to fly too close.
The ship was infested by lunar monsters and had to be abandoned, floating there forever alongside the sorceress-queen it carried, until the day that Squall and Rinoa came to rescue it; the same day that its one-time captive escaped.
When I was young, I got to this point, set the controller down, and turned off the PS2. (I was a little late to the PS era of FFs.) I understood what the game was doing, but I hated it. Late teenage me I couldn't accept that Squall had just gone through...all that *gestures* and we were still hung up on this emotional constipation. "I'll pitch myself out an airlock to certain death to save this girl...but I won't hug her. That's like, gay or something." I came back to the game a day later - yes I had to replay the whole space sequence - because I couldn't bring myself to believe the game was that fixated on the trope, and thankfully it wasn't. I talk a fair amount of crap at FF8 but I'm glad I stuck with it. And I'm glad I get to come back to it now.
Once again, it would be really nice if we'd had an idea of what it means to be 'persecuted as a sorceress,' because it's increasingly feeling like our only historical example is Adel (who was mostly doing the persecuting, in the only time frame we're aware of). We've been told people hate and fear the sorceresses but we've never really had a reason to see it or its consequences.
One of my frustrations with FF8 is that I feel like it doesn't so much explore concepts as gesture at them.
"Training child soldiers is actually kind of fucked up, yeah?"
"Yeah...?"
"Yeah."
"Persecuting others for being different is fucked up. I feel like that's fucked up."
"Yeah, it is. You...gonna say more on that?"
"Maybe."
FF8 feels like it wants to go there with mature, emotional concepts...but its hamstrung by an inability to actually...go there. A handful of years from now, the first Drakengard game will present a level in which the main character rampages through a battalion of literal child conscripts who cry and beg for mercy - contrast with FF8 where our cast is largely composed of teenage mercenaries, and the game wants to explore how emotionally fucked up they are from that...but FF8 also tries to keep a foot in feeling of "wow! cool battle-high school!". Did FF8 need an actual on-screen witch burning to hammer home how paranoid the people of this setting are about the sorceresses? I'd say no, but then again, maybe yes?
Zell: Excited and a little hyperactive, but actually paid attention and remembered all the important information regarding the mission, including specifically what happened to Matron. Is excited to share it and tripping a little over his own words, but is also the only member of the group to be actually properly mission-minded and to have a threat assessment. All of it is for naught because, as ever, his useful information just crashes on the rock of an indifferent Squall.
Man. We've talked about how the story is kind of passive-aggressive towards Rinoa what with missable romance beats and the upstaging from Irvine at one particular emotional beat...but Zell is just kind of unceasingly shit on by the narrative, isn't he? It's like a cosmic being decided "ZELL DINCHT, YOU WILL BE THE COMIC RELIEF FOR THIS STORY" and seemingly every time he tries to push against those constraints, sooner or later they snap like rubber bands to shove him back into his preconceived role. There's kind of a narrative horror there - a guy who could be the Barret to this game's Cloud but who never seems quite allowed to make it there.
In a way, the writing has been doing its best to ignore the Lunar Cry, Ultimecia and Adel just as much as Squall himself has - there is one overarching concern across this entire sequence, and it's not the world, it's Rinoa.
In some ways, this - an emphasis on caring about what happens to individual people while treating world events, even disastrous ones, as mere backdrop and distraction - may end up being the ethos of Final Fantasy VIII as a whole.
I have some mixed feelings on the overall use of the Lunar Cry in the plot. One the one hand its frustrating that the game seems to be building this slow-burn cosmic horror about the moon's status as a monster realm only to yank it away and send us back down to earth......on the other, I kind of have to respect the audacity to rugyank the player with "yeah the moon is R'lyeh, don't worry about it now we're focusing on the important stuff."
The Ragnarok.
It is a space ship that looks like both a dragon and a guitar at the same time, is a cool red color, you get to capture it in space from horrible space monsters, and you get the girl when you capture it.
... this is so very much an example of the time period this game came out.
Quistis: Seems to have finally found a place to resolve her character arc by being Squall's auxiliary emotional intelligence. If she can't have a romantic relationship or strong friendship bonds with her peers, she will go back to her teacher training and just sit on the Squall/Rinoa proto-couple rolling disaster to try and course correct it into something that won't implode, mostly by unpacking Squall's own feelings to him so that he can understand what even is his own motivation. We must imagine Sisyphus happy.
I'm just here to join the refrain of "the Ragnarok is the coolest fucking thing, period." That airship made an indelible impact on my personal feelings about aesthetics. I still think about it sometimes.
Yeah, let's add a +1 to the Ragnarock level of high-coolness; it certainly beats anything else in the series so far.
It's also, I believe, the only airship that can actually lands inside cities, even if that's limited to the only two cities with a landing pad (Esthar and FH), and the auto-pilot function (which can be used in the big word map) is very practical for going to already visited places as a form of pseudo-fast travel, while still leaving the player freedom of exploration, which is good since FFVIII has, as it's typical for it, a lot of sidequest to complete that are enabled by that exploration capability.
And there's a little more to add to the coolness, but discussing that would be spoilers right now. Still, I agree it's the coolest airship in the series so far.
That stargate thing looks a lot like the middle of that Evangelion-ass seal device Adel was in; it seems like they were going to freeze Rinoa and shoot her into space, too. You know. Straight through the rain of apocalypse monsters that already knocked Adel back to the planet, as a sane country would do.
I've been deeply unimpressed with the Esthar so far; they just do not make anything approaching good decisions. (Laguna as your president? Really?)
When we fail, we are told that Rinoa was lost in space forever, then given the opportunity to try again, and we get one of two hints. The minigame is essentially impossible to beat without those two hints, so you'll probably fail twice:
The Ragnarok has actual fucking stats detailing how big it is and how fast it goes and how much gun it carries and they are very silly and you will treat the Ragnarok with respect.
(Also, now that you can do this. When you get a moment to fly around some. Equip Encounter None, or you will die. Go to the top left of Galbadia, near where the Tomb of the Unknown King is. You should see an archipelago that stretches to the west. Drop onto the island at the end of the chain. It should be called (in the menu) the Island Closest to Hell. It's full of really dangerous monsters, like dragons, that are set to Level 100! On the other side of the map, around the north-east corner of Esthar, there's a similar archipelago, and an Island Closest to Heaven. It also has level 100 monsters, including Malboros.
Both islands are also chock-full of high-level Draw Points that respawn.)
The Ragnarok has actual fucking stats detailing how big it is and how fast it goes and how much gun it carries and they are very silly and you will treat the Ragnarok with respect.
