About Rinoa Heartilly

Rinoa Heartilly (リノア・ハーティリー, Rinoa Hātirī?) is the female lead of Square's (now Square Enix) Final Fantasy VIII. She is the seventeen year old daughter of General Caraway, a high-ranking officer in the Galbadian army, and Julia Heartilly, a famous singer and former love interest of Laguna Loire. Throughout the game, she falls in love with the protagonist, Squall Leonhart. She has black hair with brown highlights and dark eyes.

When designing Rinoa, Tetsuya Nomura emphasized that he tried to avoid letting the possibilities presented by the recent advancements in full motion video technology become the entire focus, believing that these innovations might tempt developers to make their female characters "too beautiful" and focus more on physical appearance than personality. With this concern in mind, Nomura set out with the intention to avoid making Rinoa gorgeous, and to simply make her "cute" instead. To further emphasise this, he wrote a list of vocabulary traits and physical habits for Rinoa's character that he felt conveyed this idea of "cute, not gorgeous," and sent them to Nojima along with the character's design

Outspoken, spirited, emotional, and honest with her feelings, she speaks her mind without reservation. Because of her ambition, she can often be stubborn. The year before the game begins, she was romantically involved with Squall's long-standing rival Seifer Almasy. Rinoa's weapon of choice is the Blaster Edge, a bladed ring mounted to her wrist that acts much like a boomerang. She is assisted by her faithful dog, Angelo, during battle. Later in the game, she acquires a secondary limit break called Angel Wing, in which she becomes uncontrollable for the remainder of the battle, acting on her own by casting spells with greatly increased power.

In the game, Rinoa is a member of the "Forest Owls", a small resistance faction seeking to liberate the small nation of Timber from Galbadian occupation. She is called the "princess" of the group. Rinoa first meets Squall at the SeeD inauguration ball at Balamb Garden. During the dance, she manages to charm the usually antisocial Squall into dancing with her. Her purpose for visiting the Garden is revealed when the Forest Owls hire Squall, Zell Dincht, and Selphie Tilmitt as mercenaries. She clashes with Squall during a Forest Owls operation, resulting in her brief departure. However, she decides to stay with them as they are forced to flee Timber, and ends up traveling along with them. At the end of disk one, Rinoa is reunited with her father, with whom she has a rocky relationship.

On disk two, she shares a moment with Squall at Fishermans Horizon, during a concert performed by the remaining party members. After this, both characters become aware of people's efforts to force them into a relationship. The party soon learns that Rinoa is the only main character who did not spend time at Edea's Orphanage. Later, Rinoa is possessed by Ultimecia when she loses her influence over Sorceress Edea, which causes Rinoa to fall into a coma-like state. Consequently, Squall tries desperately to revive her, eventually traveling to the country of Esthar. However, Ultimecia manages to use Rinoa to release Sorceress Adel from her orbital prison.

After Rinoa's use expires, Ultimecia possesses Adel and leaves Rinoa to die in space. Squall rescues her, and the two attempt to share a personal moment on the Ragnarok spaceship while the game's theme song, "Eyes On Me", plays in the background.While this is happening, Squall discovers that Edea's power had been passed to Rinoa, turning her into a Sorceress. When they land, Rinoa is sent to the Sorceress Memorial by Esthar, who fear her sorceress powers; however, Squall is convinced by his party members to rescue her. The two share an embrace at the Sorceress Memorial, which is also depicted in the opening cutscene, and continue their quest. During the game's ending, she reunites with Squall, and kisses him for the first time on the Balamb Garden balcony.