You did miss my point, I have no issues of the escalation (I'm a Xenogears fan after all) it does have to do with the poorly utilized time travel story (and after making CT and working on CC, to shame Square ) and the whole orphanage scene was poorly utilized just for the sake of having a twist that barely added anything to the plot. They could have said they were aliens and it wouldn't have made any difference to the characters cause the whole plot point is dropped as soon as it was mentioned. Not to mention most of the cast becomes a non-entity and Ultimecia is one of the poorest written villains in the franchise with the possible exception of (SPOILER)Dysley. VIII is notorious for creating weird plot elements whose only purpose is for one scene and then its quickly forgotten. GF's steal your memories, Oh no, thank god it never comes again ever, not even referenced.

VIII is just poorly written and even then I still think its one of better Nojima plots compared to such nonsense as "plot hole" Tifa and "Dream Tidus". Then again, I've always said Nojima was a hack writer.