In lieu to Final Fantasy XIII coming out next week Thursday in Japan (and later in Asia), there’s no doubt a number of you who have manage to find free time to play the Final Fantasies of yore. Unfortunately, I don’t. So you’ll have to make do with a retrospective on the series based on past experiences and knowledge I can scrape up when I first touched these games, from the first to the twelfth and possibly a spin-off or two. I already covered aspects of the game’s music in the Melodies of Life feature done months ago, so let’s take a look at other bulky content like story, or gameplay, or even just the overall design philosophies behind them.

Speaking of which, let me this question: what are the key points and staple themes of a Final Fantasy game that bonds them together despite how different their world and settings are? The few standout things that tie all the series together? Yes, there are other answers apart from yellow birds called Chocobos and a guy name Cid who’s usually a kooky engineer or pseudo father figure to our heroes. A friggin’ kindergarten kid could have figured that out. Think harder.

I’ll start.

Battle Between Existence & Non-Existence

It’s never really about good versus evil for all Final Fantasy stories when it boils down to the end-game: it’s more about existence of all life versus nothingness. Every disgruntled big bad from FF1’s Garland/Chaos to FFV’s ExDeath are just grumpy sociopaths who aren’t happy that things exist and are living. This also explains every “Necron” boss popping by and declaring that it wishes to “extinguish all life” without so much as a few more sentences of explanation.

A bit of explanation: a Necron boss is a boss who is usually some random intergalactic powerhouse with little to no bearing to the story, pops up at the last bits of the game to serve his/her/its purpose as nothing more than to bring in the climactic final battle and is terribly powerful Examples include FFIII’s Cloud of Darkness, FFIV’s Zeromus, FFVIII’s Ultimecia, and FFIX’s Necron. In fact, FFIX’s last boss is the reason this term is coined to this day by disgruntled RPG fans who have to grind their asses off against said boss (yours truly included).

Rebellion Versus Expansionism

Expansions of kingdoms and globalization using man-made technology are bad, yet having a group of rebels fighting for a cause that could veer towards the side of terrorism and potentially kill innocents in the way is considered good. The Returners in FFVI are at odds with the Magicite-exploiting Empire willing to harness the power of the lost-but-not-forgotten Espers. AVALANCHE of FFVII are at odds against the Shinra Corporation, which happens to be a really close-to-home allusion to real-life oil companies.

Youth > Elderly

The majority of every FF game will have a cast primarily made up of young upstarts who know what’s good for the world they’ll be saving. The younger and more inexperienced you are in the narrative, the more badass points you get. Just count the number of child prodigies and angsty young swordslingers below 20 in each FF game. If you’re a battle-hardened old geezer/veteran, there’s a greater chance that you’ll be laden with misfortune.

This is also parallel with the development team of the games; as soon as FFVI was soon to be in production, the “young” guard of Yoshinori Kitase, Tetsuya Nomura, and injected their own version of what constitutes a “Fantasy” world. The shift from old-school swords and sorcery template has been phased away to more of a steampunk and futuristic setting, as evident in the shift of FFV, helmed by series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, to FFVI, produced by Yoshinori Kitase.

Technology = Bad

Whether you’re a thriving empire that has the means to level a country in search of magical beings, to a conglomerate that supplies the world of its energy, technology is portrayed as the villain. Whenever a person declares that their city is the most advanced civilization in the game’s universe, you know that city’s going down in flames mid-story. Conversely, the ideal society lives in harmony with nature. Call this trope a side effect of Japan’s culture of industrialization.

References To An Older/Ancient Superpower

All Final Fantasy games have at least some references to a once-great civilization or old world (FFIV’s Moon, FFVI’s Espers, FFVII’s Ancients and their world-cleansing Weapons, FFIX’s Terra and Eidolons; need I go on?). The greatest order of warriors, spellcasters, or race are always on the verge of extinction as you either discover them physically or just heard of them via exposition halfway in the story. Again, this is probably a subconscious nod to the Japanese reminiscing the good old days before the concept of “Westernization” and industrialization.

Crystals & Elements

Usually the macguffin of the series, crystals and the four elements are held in high regard as the outerworldly support that keeps the world in balance. Whenever something bad happens to either one or all of said crystals, you’re bringing doom to the planet. Another interesting point to note is that there are always opposing forces of Light and Darkness (for the earlier FFs, anyway. Specifically parts III and IV). Each of these dual set of Light and Dark crystals would usually be represented by both a Light Warrior and a Fiend.

Last But Not Least: Fandom

No matter what, just starting a discussion on anything Final Fantasy-related, be it on a forum thread or a list like this, just means that all these games have the same objective of turning you into the biggest geek possible.

Anyway, stay tuned for more Final Fantasy chicanery, as we head back. How back? Way back……