Thanks to Scott Baird of ScreentRants.com for the inspiration!

13. RAGNAROK OUT OF NOWHERE!

One of the best scenes in Final Fantasy VIII happens when the Lunar Base blows up. Rinoa is trapped in outer space and Squall goes out after her so that he can activate her emergency life support.

Squall knows that his rescue mission is doomed, yet he still goes after her anyway. The two of them float in the darkness of space while awaiting their inevitable fate, yet at least they are still together at the end…

Then a spaceship shows up out of nowhere and saves them. The Ragnarok is barely mentioned up until this point, which makes its arrival a total Deus Ex Machina. It’s also incredibly fortunate that it just happened to float near Squall and Rinoa when it has the entire vastness of space to move around in.

This scene would have been vastly improved by establishing the Ragnarok’s existence beforehand and maybe explaining that it has some sort of automatic security system that makes it try and save nearby individuals who are floating in space. It’s a flimsy excuse, but its far better than what we got.

Remember the “Eyes on Me” scene in space? Scott suggests cutting this scene from the game. What I think he actually wants is an explanation for its existence. He apparently wants the same for Ultimecia, which is reasonable.

This is one of the bad points against Final Fantasy VIII: the unexplained events. Perhaps Kitase consciously exploited this is a literary technique, but it leads to bad writing. And who knows, maybe Kitase realized this, and decided to remake Final Fantasy VIII to address these problems?

I’m sure Dazz316 agree they should keep it:

I guess not? I don’t know. It didn’t bother me really. If they did it while somehow keeping the scene in it with Rinoa and Squall, that was a good moment.

The primary reason to keep it should for the scene afterward. After you face off against the four pairs of space monsters, Squall takes command of the inexplicably operable ship. Then ‘Eyes on Me” plays. It was the first time in Final Fantasy that a song with lyrics played in the background. For most fans, it’s one of the most memorable scenes in the game.

Ragnarok was just a plot device to set up Squall and Rinoa, alone together. It also set up the touching scene they had during “Eyes on Me”.