LogFAQs > #944832325

cool, so i caught rinoa!

The whole sojourn in space is... bizarre. It's unclear why Rinoa had to come here exactly, but naturally, things go awry almost immediately, undercutting the hilarious music that reminds me of Lordly Tailor in AA3. Lunar Pandora is somehow summoning a giant beam of monsters from the Moon to Earth; Rinoa gets possessed yet again; Sorceress Adel is freed about 120 seconds after we're told how dangerous she is but hey we're keeping her in check; the space station gets wrecked and people need escape pods.

(I had to consult my notes 'cause it'd been so long, but apparently Lunar Cry was also what wrecked the Centra continent and caused that giant crater. Interesting!)

I guess part of it is just that the game designer liked space and wanted to set some scenes here, because they like the look of the harder sci-fi and the sensation of the loneliness out there. There are few settings with the sense of isolation that space gives, and poor Rinoa of course, in one of our only times in her head, has to experience it. I both enjoy and roll my eyes at the off-screen flashbacks that give her identity - the scene where she berates our sniper friend (whose name I just had to look up in this topic) is fantastic; the scene where she asks Zell for Squall's ring is... kinda dumb and pointless-feeling (and it explained a very dumb scene to begin with.)

Squall goes out and gets Rinoa, because that's what heroes do. But what confuses me is... he literally had no plan whatsoever? He was really planning to die out there alone? We do wind up happening across a conveniently empty Ragnarok, but... what? I mean, it winds up in a nice scene, so the ends clearly justify the means, but it's not like Squall just goes out there in a deranged state; his friends actively encourage him to! It winds up working out because he's the main character, but yeesh!

Anyway yeah, Ragnarok has air, and we disrobe from the spacesuits. Rinoa is back to normal almost immediately, flirty and cute. The ship presents an odd sort of puzzle, with a bunch of different creatures. With a massive level gap (34 to 20), we tackle a whole bunch before reading that we need to kill consecutive creatures in consecutive colors. This is one of my favorite "dungeons" - no random encounters, a clear goal, and the chance to develop familiarity with the environment. These tentacled beasts are pretty intimidating, and they deal boss-like damage. Luckily though, Rinoa has taken Edea's junction set, which includes the Sleep-junctioned-to-Attack module... and these enemies are vulnerable to that. I wind up maxing out everyone's Thunder3 and Esuna junctions using Draw here.

Once I figure out the pattern and establish where all the monsters are, I take them out in order:
- Purple - the first enemy we encounter. I only need to duck one Red enemy (doors are very close to each other) to attack the second Purple dude.
- Red - this dude is sandwiched between the two Purples, so after taking out Purple, I kill it, then double back to the entry bridge and kill the other there.
- Green - there's one in a room by itself, and a second sitting on a pod. Both are very politely available and navigable.
- Yellow - there's one guarding the room where I learned the secret to defeating them, and one in the original entry save point room. (I originally tried going after Yellow first, but the Red dude on the bridge obstructed that plan.)

Killing these enemies finally frees up the path to the cockpit. I alluded to it already, but Squall and Rinoa have an incredibly sweet scene here as we manage to make contact with a port. The English-language music is really pretty, and Rinoa almost annoyingly keeps insisting on staying in Squall's lap. But the reason for her insistence on extend the present becomes clear as we approach landing: she has become a sorceress and is now a possession risk, so she will need to surrender herself, terrified that no one will view her as anything other than a threat now. It immediately doubles the power of the moments preceding it. Squall has saved Rinoa's life and they've reunited for this euphoric moment as they head home... and that moment is all that they have. It's been a long time since I started the game, but this is likely my favorite scene of it.

Squall is torn when we land, but Rinoa gives herself up, and it tears him apart. The power of that agony is of course almost immediately undercut by everyone showing up and saying "dude let's just get her then?" Seems like it was an avoidable situation! We're now dealing with three threats: Lunar Cry and all the monsters; Adel possibly coming free; and Squall losing Rinoa. There's really no competition at all for Squall: Let's get the girl.

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* Squall: You'd better not do anything to hurt her! (dramatic hand gesture)
Rando staffer: All right, all right, you're her knight in shining armor, I get it.

* For a dude who's all but said he loves Rinoa, Squall sure is reticent about even giving her a hug. Japanese teen media FTW.

* And unfortunately, I'm also very disappointed by the damsel in distress storyline. We just got Rinoa back. Send one of these other losers into jeopardy, if this orphanage storyline is so important!

* When it comes to a love story, I do love a "screw the world" decision point. Heavens Feels had this going on in Fate/Stay Night, and it works great here in FFVIII too.

* And so, this segment as a whole kind of is a microcosm for my entire FFVIII experience! The sublime and the cringe-y and the goofy and the ugly and the satisfying, all rolled into one little bizarre, unnecessary trip into space. Here we go, onward.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness