He felt that the more realistic graphical capabilities the original PlayStation could provide, along with advances like full motion video, made female characters too beautiful and was overshadowing their personalities.

The design team set out from the beginning to make Rinoa's clothing more realistic than past Final Fantasy games.

[3] Nomura emphasized that he tried to avoid letting the possibilities presented by the recent advancements in full-motion video technology become the entire focus.

[5] Yoshinori Kitase, the director of Final Fantasy VIII, designed the game's logo, which shows a male and female character embracing.

[6] The games' Event Director Hiroki Chiba said that his favorite moment in the Final Fantasy franchise was Squall and Rinoa's embrace with Faye Wong's "Eyes On Me" playing.

[7] For the Kingdom Hearts series, some parts of Squall's design were changed to reference Rinoa's, most notably the wings in his jacket.

[11][14][15] Rinoa is a member of the "Forest Owls", a tiny resistance faction seeking to liberate the small nation of Timber from Galbadian occupation.

[32] Rinoa, accompanied by her pet dog Angelo, appears as a playable character in Dissidia Final Fantasy NT.

Japanese fans voted Rinoa as the tenth favorite female Final Fantasy character in an official Square Enix survey in 2013.

[37] Natalie Flores from Paste Magazine praised her character arc as Rinoa starts as a pacifist heroine and becomes motivated to aid SeeD to defeat Edea and Ultimecia.

[38] Mike Gorby, writing for Goomba Stomp, observed that Rinoa subverts gender stereotypes and roles expected of a typical female character and compared her favorably to Squall as he found her more realistic.

[45] IGN's Ryan Clements called Final Fantasy VIII "one of the best examples of the innocent relationship" based on how subtle it was.

[52] Elston opined that the couple's relationship was a "most forced, uninteresting romance" comparing them to the main cast from the film Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.

[14] Reflecting on the divisive reception received, Flores from Paste Magazine called them the most misunderstood characters in the Final Fantasy series.

At the Tokyo Game Show [1999], there were hundreds of people dressed up as Final Fantasy VIII characters", including Rinoa.

[56] The 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World includes a dream sequence referencing a similar scene involving Squall and Rinoa at the end of the game.