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There's a lot of attention to world building when it comes to the series, and the connections can be made to the discerning player.
''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has its own page [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration/FinalFantasyXIV here]].
''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has its own page [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration/FinalFantasyXIV here]].
Deleted line(s) 59,86 (click to see context) :
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'':
** Enforced with the game's relaunch as ''A Realm Reborn'', as well as the story content in 1.0 leading to the game's original closure: in the waning days of 1.0's service, a conspicuous red dot of light could be seen in night sky, which grew larger over time until it was revealed to be the moon of Dalamud, [[ColonyDrop which was descending towards Eorzea]]. Over the following days, story quests were added revolving around attempts to stop Dalamud's descent, and contain the chaos erupting as a result of its imminent impact. In the end, the heroes' efforts amounted to naught, as Dalamud approached Eorzea, only for its destruction to end up unleashing Bahamut and bringing the realm to the brink of oblivion, with one of the heroes [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture sending the player characters into the future.]] When ''A Realm Reborn'' launched, five years had passed since Bahamut's rampage, and the realm had recovered, [[NothingIsTheSameAnymore yet irrevocably changed]], while player characters returning from 1.0 would see changes to the story to account for their presence during the previous version's events.
** Linkshells are devices that allow people to communicate over long distances, basically like having a cell phone. In gameplay, these function as basically chatrooms for other people with the same linkshell to talk in, but you also receive a linkshell in the story from Minfillia when you join the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and at multiple points she or others will contact you over them, not to mention various other characters who also speak to one another using linkshells. The animations for using them in cutscenes also take into account that not all of the playable races have their ears in the same relative position on their head as a regular human -- Miqo'te and Viera will reach noticeably higher up to place the linkshells nearer to their raised cat and rabbit ears.
** [=NPCs=] will, generally, remember you if you've interacted with them before. This can be as minor as the leaders of the city's adventurer's guild remembering you if you started in that city when you visit them for other quests, to as major as class and job trainers acknowledging your membership if you go there on quest-related business not related to the guild itself. Even the one-off holiday events show signs of the latter. Yugiri in the main story will even change her dialogue accordingly if you're a Ninja when you meet up with her again ("You should train to be a Ninja" to "You fight like one of us, I'm proud of you").
** Members of the Garlean Empire are biologically incapable of casting magic, therefore the only casters you find in Garlean strongholds tend to be Lalafell or Highlander humans (who were drafted after their countries were conquered) and tend to be low ranked at that, or use shock-sticks, in which case they can only cast thunder and paralyze. In story quests where you're fighting alongside characters who have no healing capability like Cid (Garlean and incapable of using magic) or Sidurgu (never in his life touched Conjury) instead of using a cure spell on you like most [=NPCs=] in the same type of story battle, they'll use a powerful Aqua Vitae potion that accomplishes the same effect.
** The Echo is an AntiFrustrationFeature buff that boosts your maximum HP, attack power, and healing potency so that you can clear a battle if you're struggling with it. In lore, the Echo is granted to a select few whose abilities differ from person to person. In the player's case, their Echo grants them ungodly strength and makes them immune to being [[BrainwashedAndCrazy tempered by a Primal]]. During the ''Heavensward'' main story, you come across [[spoiler: the Warriors of Darkness]] and they also possess the Echo. Just like the player, defeating the group has their Echo kick in and makes them stronger in the exact same way as the player.
** Normally, the game does not take into account on what the player's job or class is when a cutscene occurs, but as the game has gone on it's started to acknowledge your job more often. In ''Stormblood'', [[spoiler: Y'shtola]] is gravely wounded and an NPC asks you to help her out. Normally, she would ask you to hold the person down as she heals them. If you are a healer, she asks you to help her heal. One of the Eden raids in ''Shadowbringers'' has Urianger asking if you know how rain is formed. Normally your options are to say you're vaguely familiar with the idea or [[CloudCuckoolander claim "it's an Allagan conspiracy"]], both of which result in Urianger explaining how it works in the game's lore; if you're playing as a Scholar, you can point out that people of your profession are generally well-versed, at which point he apologizes for not remembering and asks you to explain it.
** Why are players only able to teleport to other aetherytes? Because it's ''dangerous'' to do otherwise! [[spoiler:As shown at the end of ''A Realm Reborn'' and later in ''Heavensward'', there is a spell known as "[[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Flow]]" that allows one to, in theory, teleport anywhere in the world by delving directly into the Lifestream. Unfortunately, returning from the Lifestream is nearly impossible to do, and even if you manage it, your body and aether will suffer for it. Thancred managed to return from the Lifestream on his own, but wound up being completely incapable of using magic afterwards, leaving him stranded where the spell plopped him out until the player character happens through the area on unrelated business. Y'shtola wasn't as fortunate: she was only able to return from the Lifestream with aid, but wound up losing her sight. Although she can still "see" the aether of others, doing so greatly taxes her and shortens her lifespan.]]
*** Thancred's loss of magic power also plays a role in ''Shadowbringers'' where he's a Gunbreaker. Several of the Gunbreaker's abilities involve the use of aether; Thancred can't use said abilities since he can't manipulate his aether. Ryne shows that she infuses Thancred's cartridges with her own aether, which allows him to perform his job to the fullest. This stipulation also affects Thancred's performance as a Trust NPC in dungeons, where Thancred can't use all of his abilities unless Ryne is also in the party.[[note]]It's mostly for flavor, however; the "Solid Barrel" combo he uses when Ryne isn't present has the same potency as the "Cartridge" combo he uses when she is, so that players who need an NPC to act as a tank - which Thancred is the only option for in the vast majority of Trust-compatible dungeons - aren't required to also bring Ryne along to let him perform the role properly.[[/note]]
** Each of the casters have a different way of managing their MP that suits the job's lore;
*** White Mage draws on the land's energy to heal, but must be careful to prevent overhealing and using up the ambient aether and leaving them dry, much like how a White Mage needs to be conservative with their MP; casting a weaker Cure 1 over and over to keep a single player healed is far more beneficial than casting the much more expensive Cure II over a long drawn out fight, as spamming the latter will drain their MP dry quickly. Conjury also requires at least a basic understanding and consent of the elements of the world around them; without that, Conjury and White Magic can dip into being CastFromLifespan, which is another way to look at "reckless casting leads to exhausting your MP".
*** Black Mages study the ebbing and flowing nature of the Astral and Umbral eras and apply it to their casting, burning out their MP in fire-aspect Astral stance and restoring it in chunks in the ice-aspected Umbral stance. They also don't start learning any spells with massive impact until becoming Black Mages proper, as high level Black Magic is exceptionally dangerous for Thaumaturges to try to use without a conduit, which their soul crystals act as.
*** Summoner and Scholar are strategists who value strategy, planning, and caution, and as such they manage their mana through the one-minute cooldown Aetherflow buff which restores mana and enables strong abilities, and also keep most of their spells already drawn out with aether-imbued ink in their spellbooks to take the burden off their body's aether. Also, Summoner works on a twofold DefeatMeansFriendship with their summoned Egi; as such Arcanists can't learn other egi until killing their respective Primal (the issue of summoning Ifrit-egi is sidestepped, since you can't advance ''any'' class into a Job until completing a quest sometime after fighting Ifrit in the story), making them the only job blocked from progressing their ''A Realm Reborn'' Job storyline by Main Story progression.
*** Astrologian draws upon the infinite power of space and stars, and thus have some of the better mana conservation of the healer jobs. Their star-charting ability also allows them to see into the future, and as such many of their buffs and healing strategies in-lore and in gameplay play them to be preemptive healers ready to get a spellcast out before damage is done even though their kit is better served towards being a reactive healer like White Mage. When dealing with The First in ''Shadowbringers'', Astrologians even find a bit of LoopholeAbuse in this logic by focusing downward, since technically the planet ALSO counts a "star", a solution that boggles your job trainer's mind.
*** Red Mages refuse to draw on the land's aether like White and Black Mages, due to their history as descending from mages who accidentally triggered the Sixth Umbral Calamity from overuse of the land's aether, and sidestepping the CastFromLifespan issues brought up with White Mage by using focusing crystals to magnify their aether, allowing for small amounts to translate into larger and more powerful spells; this results in them having no unique way of restoring their own MP, having to rely on their party, ethers, or role actions. It's also explained that their spells work up-front, which translates to Red Mage's versions of the several elemental spells other casters get having long cast times but dealing their damage all at once while getting no spells that apply a damage-over-time effect, compared to others having the standard shorter or even instantaneous cast times but dealing damage over time. Also, as mentioned above, healing without the aid of the land's aether is ''very'' taxing, so even with Vercure's acceleration making it powerful, the MP cost on it and Verraise are both astronomical, and having to frequently heal or revive party members will leave the Red Mage running on empty.
*** Dark Knight, despite being a tank, teaches about the CastFromLifespan nature of tapping into the Darkness, and how they need to be careful with tapping in too deep, which translates to the Dark Knight's un-tank-like focus on MP, which is used up in large chunks with skills that trigger Darkside, and running out of it heavily stunts their ability to fight and hold enmity.
*** While also a tank, the Gunbreaker also uses magic (at least according to lore) by using aether-infused cartridges to produce magic effects from their gunblades. In practice, they gain aether for their abilities by attacking enemies and drawing a portion of their aether into their cartridges. As mentioned previously, this leaves Thancred unable to use all of his abilities as a gunbreaker unless he has someone to charge his cartridges for him.
** Dark Knight itself, like the other classes introduced with the ''Heavensward'' expansion, caught some flak for the fact that you cannot play as it until you actually reach the expansion's content. But in a beautiful case of this that is a bit of FridgeBrilliance, the player's access to the Darkness is built on the events of the story up to that point, turning everything from the tragedy of the finale of the first story arc to the chronic cases of DudeWheresMyRespect from [=NPCs=] into the well from which the player can draw as a Dark Knight.
** Going to Novrandt in ''Shadowbringers'' involves crossing the void between worlds to an entirely different dimension. As such, you initially can't use retainer bells until The Crystal Exarch introduces you Feo Ul, one of TheFairFolk who makes a pact with you that allows them to interact with your retainer on The Source by following your aether there. Even after you can access retainers again though, you always have to return to the Source to access the Aesthetician (the NPC who does haircuts and other minor recustomizations) because, although he is always on the move (thus able to be summoned at any other inn, whether the one in Limsa where you first meet him or ones in the Far East on the other side of the world), he only exists on Hydaelyn, and having Feo Ul, what with their BlueAndOrangeMorality as a Pixie, try to cut your hair would probably end... poorly.
** In regards to ''Shadowbringers'': when you first travel to Norvrandt, the sky is blanketed in brilliant, unnatural light and EndlessDaytime. As you progress through the game [[spoiler:and slay the Lightwardens]], areas of Norvrandt will see a return of their natural day-and-night cycle, which will persist permanently thereafter [[spoiler:(save for near the end of the MSQ, during the DarkestHour]]).
** NewGamePlus is justified by the end of the MSQ of ''Shadowbringers'': [[spoiler:before the credits scroll, the player character is approached by a young child wondering if they are the famed Warrior of Darkness and asking about where they came from. The cutscene ends as the player character appears to be preparing to tell the child the tales of their exploits. Actually accessing it, likewise, is done by talking to a specific NPC, with the implication that you're retelling your adventures rather than literally replaying old content.]]
** When fighting Alexander Prime, he will sometimes cause time to freeze, which also freezes the whole party in place. Players with any buffs or debuffs applied to them will have the timers on them freeze whenever Alexander stops time.
** The BigBad of the Marauder storyline is a feral Aurochs known as Kujata. Part of the reason Kujata is so dangerous is because its victims are inexplicably ''very'' hard to heal and often die from their wounds while being treated. When the time comes to actually fight and kill it, you learn Kujata places the Infirmity debuff on you with every attack -- which drastically reduces how effective healing magics are, making it a race against time because your partner's efficiency at healing the grevious blows you take is nearly nullified.
** The game playfully points out the oddity of the Player Character always having between 3 and 7 people blessed with the Echo and just as strong as them at any given time to justify group content. MUCH later in Shadowbringers you learn that [[spoiler: The Warrior of Light is a reincarnation of Azem, the "Shephard to the Stars" of the ruling class of the Precusor society of Amaurot. Azem's powers were explicitly to work together, empower, and summon allies at will, which carries over to the Player Character's tendency to gather up friends to help tackle obstacles. When the full power of Azem is unlocked in one of the most climactic battles of the story, they gain the ability to summon said allies from as far away as other dimensions, and can even transcend death by calling on the soul of Emet-Selch, one of Azem's best friends. The "Summon friend" spell of Azem's crystal continues to be used well into ''Endwalker'' to justify having party members to fight by your side as the locations of trials and dungeons become increasingly improbable and eventually outright impossible for other adventurers to be around.]]
** Advancing a class into a full job grants many more skills and abilities, which is justified by the way of soul crystals, which contain the skills and memories of previous owners in that profession, letting you draw on experiences that aren't your own. It also explains why expansion jobs start at higher levels (30 for those from ''Heavensward'', 50 from ''Stormblood'', 60 from ''Shadowbringers'' and 70 from ''Endwalker''); conversely, the [[PowerCopying Blue Mage]] limited job starts at level 1, because blue magic was newly-introduced to Eorzea, so the description for its soul crystal mentions that it's new and pristine, with no past deeds carved into it yet.
*** Machinist would seem to be a subversion, as its soul crystal description says the same thing about having no great deeds carved on it yet - the explanation for why you start at a high level anyway is that anything you can do before that point are simple things (mostly pointing the gun at an enemy and pulling the trigger) that are theoretically possible for ''anyone'' to do from the instant they strap on the gear, because like in real life the machinists' firearms are meant to get people with little to no training up to a similar level as knights who've trained all their lives by putting much of the ability within the weapon itself rather than the user's skill. Sure enough, most of the skills and gear you acquire past its start at level 30 are either refining the basics or acquiring/developing new gear to augment your existing gear, like the Rook autoturret and its eventual evolution into a MiniMecha.
*** The ''Stormblood'' Monk questline heavily revolves around the fact that the player advances to jobs from a separate class. The main plot point is that your teacher and his other students, descendents of an organization called the Fists of Rhalgr, are finding themselves complete at the mercy of enemies who know a fighting style specifically designed to counter that of the Fists. The player character, however, is able to stand up against them, and later teach the rest of the group how to fight them on even footing, because they don't ''just'' know the Fists' style, but rather they learned it after starting with the basics of Ul'dahn pugilism.
** A side quest in ''Endwalker'' tasks you with gathering a very poisonous plant that can gravely poison you on mere touch unless you use a pair of gloves to extract the plant without harming yourself. You can still gather the plant without the gloves and doing so will inflict a ''very'' strong poison debuff on you whose damage is higher than your natrual HP regeneration, meaning it's possible to outright die from the poison.
** Enforced with the game's relaunch as ''A Realm Reborn'', as well as the story content in 1.0 leading to the game's original closure: in the waning days of 1.0's service, a conspicuous red dot of light could be seen in night sky, which grew larger over time until it was revealed to be the moon of Dalamud, [[ColonyDrop which was descending towards Eorzea]]. Over the following days, story quests were added revolving around attempts to stop Dalamud's descent, and contain the chaos erupting as a result of its imminent impact. In the end, the heroes' efforts amounted to naught, as Dalamud approached Eorzea, only for its destruction to end up unleashing Bahamut and bringing the realm to the brink of oblivion, with one of the heroes [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture sending the player characters into the future.]] When ''A Realm Reborn'' launched, five years had passed since Bahamut's rampage, and the realm had recovered, [[NothingIsTheSameAnymore yet irrevocably changed]], while player characters returning from 1.0 would see changes to the story to account for their presence during the previous version's events.
** Linkshells are devices that allow people to communicate over long distances, basically like having a cell phone. In gameplay, these function as basically chatrooms for other people with the same linkshell to talk in, but you also receive a linkshell in the story from Minfillia when you join the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and at multiple points she or others will contact you over them, not to mention various other characters who also speak to one another using linkshells. The animations for using them in cutscenes also take into account that not all of the playable races have their ears in the same relative position on their head as a regular human -- Miqo'te and Viera will reach noticeably higher up to place the linkshells nearer to their raised cat and rabbit ears.
** [=NPCs=] will, generally, remember you if you've interacted with them before. This can be as minor as the leaders of the city's adventurer's guild remembering you if you started in that city when you visit them for other quests, to as major as class and job trainers acknowledging your membership if you go there on quest-related business not related to the guild itself. Even the one-off holiday events show signs of the latter. Yugiri in the main story will even change her dialogue accordingly if you're a Ninja when you meet up with her again ("You should train to be a Ninja" to "You fight like one of us, I'm proud of you").
** Members of the Garlean Empire are biologically incapable of casting magic, therefore the only casters you find in Garlean strongholds tend to be Lalafell or Highlander humans (who were drafted after their countries were conquered) and tend to be low ranked at that, or use shock-sticks, in which case they can only cast thunder and paralyze. In story quests where you're fighting alongside characters who have no healing capability like Cid (Garlean and incapable of using magic) or Sidurgu (never in his life touched Conjury) instead of using a cure spell on you like most [=NPCs=] in the same type of story battle, they'll use a powerful Aqua Vitae potion that accomplishes the same effect.
** The Echo is an AntiFrustrationFeature buff that boosts your maximum HP, attack power, and healing potency so that you can clear a battle if you're struggling with it. In lore, the Echo is granted to a select few whose abilities differ from person to person. In the player's case, their Echo grants them ungodly strength and makes them immune to being [[BrainwashedAndCrazy tempered by a Primal]]. During the ''Heavensward'' main story, you come across [[spoiler: the Warriors of Darkness]] and they also possess the Echo. Just like the player, defeating the group has their Echo kick in and makes them stronger in the exact same way as the player.
** Normally, the game does not take into account on what the player's job or class is when a cutscene occurs, but as the game has gone on it's started to acknowledge your job more often. In ''Stormblood'', [[spoiler: Y'shtola]] is gravely wounded and an NPC asks you to help her out. Normally, she would ask you to hold the person down as she heals them. If you are a healer, she asks you to help her heal. One of the Eden raids in ''Shadowbringers'' has Urianger asking if you know how rain is formed. Normally your options are to say you're vaguely familiar with the idea or [[CloudCuckoolander claim "it's an Allagan conspiracy"]], both of which result in Urianger explaining how it works in the game's lore; if you're playing as a Scholar, you can point out that people of your profession are generally well-versed, at which point he apologizes for not remembering and asks you to explain it.
** Why are players only able to teleport to other aetherytes? Because it's ''dangerous'' to do otherwise! [[spoiler:As shown at the end of ''A Realm Reborn'' and later in ''Heavensward'', there is a spell known as "[[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Flow]]" that allows one to, in theory, teleport anywhere in the world by delving directly into the Lifestream. Unfortunately, returning from the Lifestream is nearly impossible to do, and even if you manage it, your body and aether will suffer for it. Thancred managed to return from the Lifestream on his own, but wound up being completely incapable of using magic afterwards, leaving him stranded where the spell plopped him out until the player character happens through the area on unrelated business. Y'shtola wasn't as fortunate: she was only able to return from the Lifestream with aid, but wound up losing her sight. Although she can still "see" the aether of others, doing so greatly taxes her and shortens her lifespan.]]
*** Thancred's loss of magic power also plays a role in ''Shadowbringers'' where he's a Gunbreaker. Several of the Gunbreaker's abilities involve the use of aether; Thancred can't use said abilities since he can't manipulate his aether. Ryne shows that she infuses Thancred's cartridges with her own aether, which allows him to perform his job to the fullest. This stipulation also affects Thancred's performance as a Trust NPC in dungeons, where Thancred can't use all of his abilities unless Ryne is also in the party.[[note]]It's mostly for flavor, however; the "Solid Barrel" combo he uses when Ryne isn't present has the same potency as the "Cartridge" combo he uses when she is, so that players who need an NPC to act as a tank - which Thancred is the only option for in the vast majority of Trust-compatible dungeons - aren't required to also bring Ryne along to let him perform the role properly.[[/note]]
** Each of the casters have a different way of managing their MP that suits the job's lore;
*** White Mage draws on the land's energy to heal, but must be careful to prevent overhealing and using up the ambient aether and leaving them dry, much like how a White Mage needs to be conservative with their MP; casting a weaker Cure 1 over and over to keep a single player healed is far more beneficial than casting the much more expensive Cure II over a long drawn out fight, as spamming the latter will drain their MP dry quickly. Conjury also requires at least a basic understanding and consent of the elements of the world around them; without that, Conjury and White Magic can dip into being CastFromLifespan, which is another way to look at "reckless casting leads to exhausting your MP".
*** Black Mages study the ebbing and flowing nature of the Astral and Umbral eras and apply it to their casting, burning out their MP in fire-aspect Astral stance and restoring it in chunks in the ice-aspected Umbral stance. They also don't start learning any spells with massive impact until becoming Black Mages proper, as high level Black Magic is exceptionally dangerous for Thaumaturges to try to use without a conduit, which their soul crystals act as.
*** Summoner and Scholar are strategists who value strategy, planning, and caution, and as such they manage their mana through the one-minute cooldown Aetherflow buff which restores mana and enables strong abilities, and also keep most of their spells already drawn out with aether-imbued ink in their spellbooks to take the burden off their body's aether. Also, Summoner works on a twofold DefeatMeansFriendship with their summoned Egi; as such Arcanists can't learn other egi until killing their respective Primal (the issue of summoning Ifrit-egi is sidestepped, since you can't advance ''any'' class into a Job until completing a quest sometime after fighting Ifrit in the story), making them the only job blocked from progressing their ''A Realm Reborn'' Job storyline by Main Story progression.
*** Astrologian draws upon the infinite power of space and stars, and thus have some of the better mana conservation of the healer jobs. Their star-charting ability also allows them to see into the future, and as such many of their buffs and healing strategies in-lore and in gameplay play them to be preemptive healers ready to get a spellcast out before damage is done even though their kit is better served towards being a reactive healer like White Mage. When dealing with The First in ''Shadowbringers'', Astrologians even find a bit of LoopholeAbuse in this logic by focusing downward, since technically the planet ALSO counts a "star", a solution that boggles your job trainer's mind.
*** Red Mages refuse to draw on the land's aether like White and Black Mages, due to their history as descending from mages who accidentally triggered the Sixth Umbral Calamity from overuse of the land's aether, and sidestepping the CastFromLifespan issues brought up with White Mage by using focusing crystals to magnify their aether, allowing for small amounts to translate into larger and more powerful spells; this results in them having no unique way of restoring their own MP, having to rely on their party, ethers, or role actions. It's also explained that their spells work up-front, which translates to Red Mage's versions of the several elemental spells other casters get having long cast times but dealing their damage all at once while getting no spells that apply a damage-over-time effect, compared to others having the standard shorter or even instantaneous cast times but dealing damage over time. Also, as mentioned above, healing without the aid of the land's aether is ''very'' taxing, so even with Vercure's acceleration making it powerful, the MP cost on it and Verraise are both astronomical, and having to frequently heal or revive party members will leave the Red Mage running on empty.
*** Dark Knight, despite being a tank, teaches about the CastFromLifespan nature of tapping into the Darkness, and how they need to be careful with tapping in too deep, which translates to the Dark Knight's un-tank-like focus on MP, which is used up in large chunks with skills that trigger Darkside, and running out of it heavily stunts their ability to fight and hold enmity.
*** While also a tank, the Gunbreaker also uses magic (at least according to lore) by using aether-infused cartridges to produce magic effects from their gunblades. In practice, they gain aether for their abilities by attacking enemies and drawing a portion of their aether into their cartridges. As mentioned previously, this leaves Thancred unable to use all of his abilities as a gunbreaker unless he has someone to charge his cartridges for him.
** Dark Knight itself, like the other classes introduced with the ''Heavensward'' expansion, caught some flak for the fact that you cannot play as it until you actually reach the expansion's content. But in a beautiful case of this that is a bit of FridgeBrilliance, the player's access to the Darkness is built on the events of the story up to that point, turning everything from the tragedy of the finale of the first story arc to the chronic cases of DudeWheresMyRespect from [=NPCs=] into the well from which the player can draw as a Dark Knight.
** Going to Novrandt in ''Shadowbringers'' involves crossing the void between worlds to an entirely different dimension. As such, you initially can't use retainer bells until The Crystal Exarch introduces you Feo Ul, one of TheFairFolk who makes a pact with you that allows them to interact with your retainer on The Source by following your aether there. Even after you can access retainers again though, you always have to return to the Source to access the Aesthetician (the NPC who does haircuts and other minor recustomizations) because, although he is always on the move (thus able to be summoned at any other inn, whether the one in Limsa where you first meet him or ones in the Far East on the other side of the world), he only exists on Hydaelyn, and having Feo Ul, what with their BlueAndOrangeMorality as a Pixie, try to cut your hair would probably end... poorly.
** In regards to ''Shadowbringers'': when you first travel to Norvrandt, the sky is blanketed in brilliant, unnatural light and EndlessDaytime. As you progress through the game [[spoiler:and slay the Lightwardens]], areas of Norvrandt will see a return of their natural day-and-night cycle, which will persist permanently thereafter [[spoiler:(save for near the end of the MSQ, during the DarkestHour]]).
** NewGamePlus is justified by the end of the MSQ of ''Shadowbringers'': [[spoiler:before the credits scroll, the player character is approached by a young child wondering if they are the famed Warrior of Darkness and asking about where they came from. The cutscene ends as the player character appears to be preparing to tell the child the tales of their exploits. Actually accessing it, likewise, is done by talking to a specific NPC, with the implication that you're retelling your adventures rather than literally replaying old content.]]
** When fighting Alexander Prime, he will sometimes cause time to freeze, which also freezes the whole party in place. Players with any buffs or debuffs applied to them will have the timers on them freeze whenever Alexander stops time.
** The BigBad of the Marauder storyline is a feral Aurochs known as Kujata. Part of the reason Kujata is so dangerous is because its victims are inexplicably ''very'' hard to heal and often die from their wounds while being treated. When the time comes to actually fight and kill it, you learn Kujata places the Infirmity debuff on you with every attack -- which drastically reduces how effective healing magics are, making it a race against time because your partner's efficiency at healing the grevious blows you take is nearly nullified.
** The game playfully points out the oddity of the Player Character always having between 3 and 7 people blessed with the Echo and just as strong as them at any given time to justify group content. MUCH later in Shadowbringers you learn that [[spoiler: The Warrior of Light is a reincarnation of Azem, the "Shephard to the Stars" of the ruling class of the Precusor society of Amaurot. Azem's powers were explicitly to work together, empower, and summon allies at will, which carries over to the Player Character's tendency to gather up friends to help tackle obstacles. When the full power of Azem is unlocked in one of the most climactic battles of the story, they gain the ability to summon said allies from as far away as other dimensions, and can even transcend death by calling on the soul of Emet-Selch, one of Azem's best friends. The "Summon friend" spell of Azem's crystal continues to be used well into ''Endwalker'' to justify having party members to fight by your side as the locations of trials and dungeons become increasingly improbable and eventually outright impossible for other adventurers to be around.]]
** Advancing a class into a full job grants many more skills and abilities, which is justified by the way of soul crystals, which contain the skills and memories of previous owners in that profession, letting you draw on experiences that aren't your own. It also explains why expansion jobs start at higher levels (30 for those from ''Heavensward'', 50 from ''Stormblood'', 60 from ''Shadowbringers'' and 70 from ''Endwalker''); conversely, the [[PowerCopying Blue Mage]] limited job starts at level 1, because blue magic was newly-introduced to Eorzea, so the description for its soul crystal mentions that it's new and pristine, with no past deeds carved into it yet.
*** Machinist would seem to be a subversion, as its soul crystal description says the same thing about having no great deeds carved on it yet - the explanation for why you start at a high level anyway is that anything you can do before that point are simple things (mostly pointing the gun at an enemy and pulling the trigger) that are theoretically possible for ''anyone'' to do from the instant they strap on the gear, because like in real life the machinists' firearms are meant to get people with little to no training up to a similar level as knights who've trained all their lives by putting much of the ability within the weapon itself rather than the user's skill. Sure enough, most of the skills and gear you acquire past its start at level 30 are either refining the basics or acquiring/developing new gear to augment your existing gear, like the Rook autoturret and its eventual evolution into a MiniMecha.
*** The ''Stormblood'' Monk questline heavily revolves around the fact that the player advances to jobs from a separate class. The main plot point is that your teacher and his other students, descendents of an organization called the Fists of Rhalgr, are finding themselves complete at the mercy of enemies who know a fighting style specifically designed to counter that of the Fists. The player character, however, is able to stand up against them, and later teach the rest of the group how to fight them on even footing, because they don't ''just'' know the Fists' style, but rather they learned it after starting with the basics of Ul'dahn pugilism.
** A side quest in ''Endwalker'' tasks you with gathering a very poisonous plant that can gravely poison you on mere touch unless you use a pair of gloves to extract the plant without harming yourself. You can still gather the plant without the gloves and doing so will inflict a ''very'' strong poison debuff on you whose damage is higher than your natrual HP regeneration, meaning it's possible to outright die from the poison.
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** Whenever Terra is fought while being controlled by Kefka, she's given a unique accessory, the Puppeteer's Wheel.[[note]]A mistranslation of "Slave Crown"[[/note]] The accessory starts her with a full EX Gauge and gives her ridiculous buffs to her EX Mode duration and EX Force absorption, allowing her to recharge the gauge from empty with just a few motes. The Puppeteer's Wheel not only shows Kefka is controlling her, but he's forcing Terra to use the full extent of her powers.
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** During a cutscene, the Warrior of Light uses a [[SwordBeam Shining Wave]] to shatter the crystal The Emperor offers him.
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* ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'': The original game made frequent references to characters venturing deep into enemy territory or going off alone after traveling with others, which was pretty much impossible to show since there's only 10 arenas usable for storytelling and thus there's never a consistent sense of distance between them. With the world map in ''Dissidia 012'' it is far clearer when characters split because they actually do it, and characters heading into enemy turf actually head to the Lands of Discord now.
** ''Dissidia 012'', the summon stones the player finds in gateways note they come and go as they please and will refuse the player's commands unless it suits them. This is because the summons the player finds are the Auto versions, which come under pre-set conditions and can't be called manually.
** Also in ''012'', in the Epilogue of Light to All, the player finds no enemies outside of gateways, the teleport stone to the main continent is gone, and the Omega arenas begin to be used in battle. The party alludes to the main continent being destroyed (hence no teleport stone to it), the enemies outside the gateways are implied to have been caught in the world's destruction-in-progress, and the Omega arenas are attributed to the same.
** A meta-example, Cecil learns more Dark Knight attacks than Paladin attacks at earlier levels, and his Paladin moves come at later levels, roughly reflecting his class change in his original game. Assuming you don't level him up prior to his storyline, he'll probably begin to get to that point in level at the end of the storyline, and during all prior cutscenes of his story before facing Golbez he appeared as a Dark Knight, then shifts into Paladin to face Golbez.
** ''Dissidia 012'', the summon stones the player finds in gateways note they come and go as they please and will refuse the player's commands unless it suits them. This is because the summons the player finds are the Auto versions, which come under pre-set conditions and can't be called manually.
** Also in ''012'', in the Epilogue of Light to All, the player finds no enemies outside of gateways, the teleport stone to the main continent is gone, and the Omega arenas begin to be used in battle. The party alludes to the main continent being destroyed (hence no teleport stone to it), the enemies outside the gateways are implied to have been caught in the world's destruction-in-progress, and the Omega arenas are attributed to the same.
** A meta-example, Cecil learns more Dark Knight attacks than Paladin attacks at earlier levels, and his Paladin moves come at later levels, roughly reflecting his class change in his original game. Assuming you don't level him up prior to his storyline, he'll probably begin to get to that point in level at the end of the storyline, and during all prior cutscenes of his story before facing Golbez he appeared as a Dark Knight, then shifts into Paladin to face Golbez.
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* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'':
** Enforced with the game's relaunch as ''A Realm Reborn'', as well as the story content in 1.0 leading to the game's original closure: in the waning days of 1.0's service, a conspicuous red dot of light could be seen in night sky, which grew larger over time until it was revealed to be the moon of Dalamud, [[ColonyDrop which was descending towards Eorzea]]. Over the following days, story quests were added revolving around attempts to stop Dalamud's descent, and contain the chaos erupting as a result of its imminent impact. In the end, the heroes' efforts amounted to naught, as Dalamud approached Eorzea, only for its destruction to end up unleashing Bahamut and bringing the realm to the brink of oblivion, with one of the heroes [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture sending the player characters into the future.]] When ''A Realm Reborn'' launched, five years had passed since Bahamut's rampage, and the realm had recovered, [[NothingIsTheSameAnymore yet irrevocably changed]], while player characters returning from 1.0 would see changes to the story to account for their presence during the previous version's events.
** Linkshells are devices that allow people to communicate over long distances, basically like having a cell phone. In gameplay, these function as basically chatrooms for other people with the same linkshell to talk in, but you also receive a linkshell in the story from Minfillia when you join the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and at multiple points she or others will contact you over them, not to mention various other characters who also speak to one another using linkshells. The animations for using them in cutscenes also take into account that not all of the playable races have their ears in the same relative position on their head as a regular human -- Miqo'te and Viera will reach noticeably higher up to place the linkshells nearer to their raised cat and rabbit ears.
** [=NPCs=] will, generally, remember you if you've interacted with them before. This can be as minor as the leaders of the city's adventurer's guild remembering you if you started in that city when you visit them for other quests, to as major as class and job trainers acknowledging your membership if you go there on quest-related business not related to the guild itself. Even the one-off holiday events show signs of the latter. Yugiri in the main story will even change her dialogue accordingly if you're a Ninja when you meet up with her again ("You should train to be a Ninja" to "You fight like one of us, I'm proud of you").
** Members of the Garlean Empire are biologically incapable of casting magic, therefore the only casters you find in Garlean strongholds tend to be Lalafell or Highlander humans (who were drafted after their countries were conquered) and tend to be low ranked at that, or use shock-sticks, in which case they can only cast thunder and paralyze. In story quests where you're fighting alongside characters who have no healing capability like Cid (Garlean and incapable of using magic) or Sidurgu (never in his life touched Conjury) instead of using a cure spell on you like most [=NPCs=] in the same type of story battle, they'll use a powerful Aqua Vitae potion that accomplishes the same effect.
** The Echo is an AntiFrustrationFeature buff that boosts your maximum HP, attack power, and healing potency so that you can clear a battle if you're struggling with it. In lore, the Echo is granted to a select few whose abilities differ from person to person. In the player's case, their Echo grants them ungodly strength and makes them immune to being [[BrainwashedAndCrazy tempered by a Primal]]. During the ''Heavensward'' main story, you come across [[spoiler: the Warriors of Darkness]] and they also possess the Echo. Just like the player, defeating the group has their Echo kick in and makes them stronger in the exact same way as the player.
** Normally, the game does not take into account on what the player's job or class is when a cutscene occurs, but as the game has gone on it's started to acknowledge your job more often. In ''Stormblood'', [[spoiler: Y'shtola]] is gravely wounded and an NPC asks you to help her out. Normally, she would ask you to hold the person down as she heals them. If you are a healer, she asks you to help her heal. One of the Eden raids in ''Shadowbringers'' has Urianger asking if you know how rain is formed. Normally your options are to say you're vaguely familiar with the idea or [[CloudCuckoolander claim "it's an Allagan conspiracy"]], both of which result in Urianger explaining how it works in the game's lore; if you're playing as a Scholar, you can point out that people of your profession are generally well-versed, at which point he apologizes for not remembering and asks you to explain it.
** Why are players only able to teleport to other aetherytes? Because it's ''dangerous'' to do otherwise! [[spoiler:As shown at the end of ''A Realm Reborn'' and later in ''Heavensward'', there is a spell known as "[[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Flow]]" that allows one to, in theory, teleport anywhere in the world by delving directly into the Lifestream. Unfortunately, returning from the Lifestream is nearly impossible to do, and even if you manage it, your body and aether will suffer for it. Thancred managed to return from the Lifestream on his own, but wound up being completely incapable of using magic afterwards, leaving him stranded where the spell plopped him out until the player character happens through the area on unrelated business. Y'shtola wasn't as fortunate: she was only able to return from the Lifestream with aid, but wound up losing her sight. Although she can still "see" the aether of others, doing so greatly taxes her and shortens her lifespan.]]
*** Thancred's loss of magic power also plays a role in ''Shadowbringers'' where he's a Gunbreaker. Several of the Gunbreaker's abilities involve the use of aether; Thancred can't use said abilities since he can't manipulate his aether. Ryne shows that she infuses Thancred's cartridges with her own aether, which allows him to perform his job to the fullest. This stipulation also affects Thancred's performance as a Trust NPC in dungeons, where Thancred can't use all of his abilities unless Ryne is also in the party.[[note]]It's mostly for flavor, however; the "Solid Barrel" combo he uses when Ryne isn't present has the same potency as the "Cartridge" combo he uses when she is, so that players who need an NPC to act as a tank - which Thancred is the only option for in the vast majority of Trust-compatible dungeons - aren't required to also bring Ryne along to let him perform the role properly.[[/note]]
** Each of the casters have a different way of managing their MP that suits the job's lore;
*** White Mage draws on the land's energy to heal, but must be careful to prevent overhealing and using up the ambient aether and leaving them dry, much like how a White Mage needs to be conservative with their MP; casting a weaker Cure 1 over and over to keep a single player healed is far more beneficial than casting the much more expensive Cure II over a long drawn out fight, as spamming the latter will drain their MP dry quickly. Conjury also requires at least a basic understanding and consent of the elements of the world around them; without that, Conjury and White Magic can dip into being CastFromLifespan, which is another way to look at "reckless casting leads to exhausting your MP".
*** Black Mages study the ebbing and flowing nature of the Astral and Umbral eras and apply it to their casting, burning out their MP in fire-aspect Astral stance and restoring it in chunks in the ice-aspected Umbral stance. They also don't start learning any spells with massive impact until becoming Black Mages proper, as high level Black Magic is exceptionally dangerous for Thaumaturges to try to use without a conduit, which their soul crystals act as.
*** Summoner and Scholar are strategists who value strategy, planning, and caution, and as such they manage their mana through the one-minute cooldown Aetherflow buff which restores mana and enables strong abilities, and also keep most of their spells already drawn out with aether-imbued ink in their spellbooks to take the burden off their body's aether. Also, Summoner works on a twofold DefeatMeansFriendship with their summoned Egi; as such Arcanists can't learn other egi until killing their respective Primal (the issue of summoning Ifrit-egi is sidestepped, since you can't advance ''any'' class into a Job until completing a quest sometime after fighting Ifrit in the story), making them the only job blocked from progressing their ''A Realm Reborn'' Job storyline by Main Story progression.
*** Astrologian draws upon the infinite power of space and stars, and thus have some of the better mana conservation of the healer jobs. Their star-charting ability also allows them to see into the future, and as such many of their buffs and healing strategies in-lore and in gameplay play them to be preemptive healers ready to get a spellcast out before damage is done even though their kit is better served towards being a reactive healer like White Mage. When dealing with The First in ''Shadowbringers'', Astrologians even find a bit of LoopholeAbuse in this logic by focusing downward, since technically the planet ALSO counts a "star", a solution that boggles your job trainer's mind.
*** Red Mages refuse to draw on the land's aether like White and Black Mages, due to their history as descending from mages who accidentally triggered the Sixth Umbral Calamity from overuse of the land's aether, and sidestepping the CastFromLifespan issues brought up with White Mage by using focusing crystals to magnify their aether, allowing for small amounts to translate into larger and more powerful spells; this results in them having no unique way of restoring their own MP, having to rely on their party, ethers, or role actions. It's also explained that their spells work up-front, which translates to Red Mage's versions of the several elemental spells other casters get having long cast times but dealing their damage all at once while getting no spells that apply a damage-over-time effect, compared to others having the standard shorter or even instantaneous cast times but dealing damage over time. Also, as mentioned above, healing without the aid of the land's aether is ''very'' taxing, so even with Vercure's acceleration making it powerful, the MP cost on it and Verraise are both astronomical, and having to frequently heal or revive party members will leave the Red Mage running on empty.
*** Dark Knight, despite being a tank, teaches about the CastFromLifespan nature of tapping into the Darkness, and how they need to be careful with tapping in too deep, which translates to the Dark Knight's un-tank-like focus on MP, which is used up in large chunks with skills that trigger Darkside, and running out of it heavily stunts their ability to fight and hold enmity.
*** While also a tank, the Gunbreaker also uses magic (at least according to lore) by using aether-infused cartridges to produce magic effects from their gunblades. In practice, they gain aether for their abilities by attacking enemies and drawing a portion of their aether into their cartridges. As mentioned previously, this leaves Thancred unable to use all of his abilities as a gunbreaker unless he has someone to charge his cartridges for him.
** Dark Knight itself, like the other classes introduced with the ''Heavensward'' expansion, caught some flak for the fact that you cannot play as it until you actually reach the expansion's content. But in a beautiful case of this that is a bit of FridgeBrilliance, the player's access to the Darkness is built on the events of the story up to that point, turning everything from the tragedy of the finale of the first story arc to the chronic cases of DudeWheresMyRespect from [=NPCs=] into the well from which the player can draw as a Dark Knight.
** Going to Novrandt in ''Shadowbringers'' involves crossing the void between worlds to an entirely different dimension. As such, you initially can't use retainer bells until The Crystal Exarch introduces you Feo Ul, one of TheFairFolk who makes a pact with you that allows them to interact with your retainer on The Source by following your aether there. Even after you can access retainers again though, you always have to return to the Source to access the Aesthetician (the NPC who does haircuts and other minor recustomizations) because, although he is always on the move (thus able to be summoned at any other inn, whether the one in Limsa where you first meet him or ones in the Far East on the other side of the world), he only exists on Hydaelyn, and having Feo Ul, what with their BlueAndOrangeMorality as a Pixie, try to cut your hair would probably end... poorly.
** In regards to ''Shadowbringers'': when you first travel to Norvrandt, the sky is blanketed in brilliant, unnatural light and EndlessDaytime. As you progress through the game [[spoiler:and slay the Lightwardens]], areas of Norvrandt will see a return of their natural day-and-night cycle, which will persist permanently thereafter [[spoiler:(save for near the end of the MSQ, during the DarkestHour]]).
** NewGamePlus is justified by the end of the MSQ of ''Shadowbringers'': [[spoiler:before the credits scroll, the player character is approached by a young child wondering if they are the famed Warrior of Darkness and asking about where they came from. The cutscene ends as the player character appears to be preparing to tell the child the tales of their exploits. Actually accessing it, likewise, is done by talking to a specific NPC, with the implication that you're retelling your adventures rather than literally replaying old content.]]
** When fighting Alexander Prime, he will sometimes cause time to freeze, which also freezes the whole party in place. Players with any buffs or debuffs applied to them will have the timers on them freeze whenever Alexander stops time.
** The BigBad of the Marauder storyline is a feral Aurochs known as Kujata. Part of the reason Kujata is so dangerous is because its victims are inexplicably ''very'' hard to heal and often die from their wounds while being treated. When the time comes to actually fight and kill it, you learn Kujata places the Infirmity debuff on you with every attack -- which drastically reduces how effective healing magics are, making it a race against time because your partner's efficiency at healing the grevious blows you take is nearly nullified.
** The game playfully points out the oddity of the Player Character always having between 3 and 7 people blessed with the Echo and just as strong as them at any given time to justify group content. MUCH later in Shadowbringers you learn that [[spoiler: The Warrior of Light is a reincarnation of Azem, the "Shephard to the Stars" of the ruling class of the Precusor society of Amaurot. Azem's powers were explicitly to work together, empower, and summon allies at will, which carries over to the Player Character's tendency to gather up friends to help tackle obstacles. When the full power of Azem is unlocked in one of the most climactic battles of the story, they gain the ability to summon said allies from as far away as other dimensions, and can even transcend death by calling on the soul of Emet-Selch, one of Azem's best friends. The "Summon friend" spell of Azem's crystal continues to be used well into ''Endwalker'' to justify having party members to fight by your side as the locations of trials and dungeons become increasingly improbable and eventually outright impossible for other adventurers to be around.]]
** Advancing a class into a full job grants many more skills and abilities, which is justified by the way of soul crystals, which contain the skills and memories of previous owners in that profession, letting you draw on experiences that aren't your own. It also explains why expansion jobs start at higher levels (30 for those from ''Heavensward'', 50 from ''Stormblood'', 60 from ''Shadowbringers'' and 70 from ''Endwalker''); conversely, the [[PowerCopying Blue Mage]] limited job starts at level 1, because blue magic was newly-introduced to Eorzea, so the description for its soul crystal mentions that it's new and pristine, with no past deeds carved into it yet.
*** Machinist would seem to be a subversion, as its soul crystal description says the same thing about having no great deeds carved on it yet - the explanation for why you start at a high level anyway is that anything you can do before that point are simple things (mostly pointing the gun at an enemy and pulling the trigger) that are theoretically possible for ''anyone'' to do from the instant they strap on the gear, because like in real life the machinists' firearms are meant to get people with little to no training up to a similar level as knights who've trained all their lives by putting much of the ability within the weapon itself rather than the user's skill. Sure enough, most of the skills and gear you acquire past its start at level 30 are either refining the basics or acquiring/developing new gear to augment your existing gear, like the Rook autoturret and its eventual evolution into a MiniMecha.
*** The ''Stormblood'' Monk questline heavily revolves around the fact that the player advances to jobs from a separate class. The main plot point is that your teacher and his other students, descendents of an organization called the Fists of Rhalgr, are finding themselves complete at the mercy of enemies who know a fighting style specifically designed to counter that of the Fists. The player character, however, is able to stand up against them, and later teach the rest of the group how to fight them on even footing, because they don't ''just'' know the Fists' style, but rather they learned it after starting with the basics of Ul'dahn pugilism.
** A side quest in ''Endwalker'' tasks you with gathering a very poisonous plant that can gravely poison you on mere touch unless you use a pair of gloves to extract the plant without harming yourself. You can still gather the plant without the gloves and doing so will inflict a ''very'' strong poison debuff on you whose damage is higher than your natrual HP regeneration, meaning it's possible to outright die from the poison.
** Enforced with the game's relaunch as ''A Realm Reborn'', as well as the story content in 1.0 leading to the game's original closure: in the waning days of 1.0's service, a conspicuous red dot of light could be seen in night sky, which grew larger over time until it was revealed to be the moon of Dalamud, [[ColonyDrop which was descending towards Eorzea]]. Over the following days, story quests were added revolving around attempts to stop Dalamud's descent, and contain the chaos erupting as a result of its imminent impact. In the end, the heroes' efforts amounted to naught, as Dalamud approached Eorzea, only for its destruction to end up unleashing Bahamut and bringing the realm to the brink of oblivion, with one of the heroes [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture sending the player characters into the future.]] When ''A Realm Reborn'' launched, five years had passed since Bahamut's rampage, and the realm had recovered, [[NothingIsTheSameAnymore yet irrevocably changed]], while player characters returning from 1.0 would see changes to the story to account for their presence during the previous version's events.
** Linkshells are devices that allow people to communicate over long distances, basically like having a cell phone. In gameplay, these function as basically chatrooms for other people with the same linkshell to talk in, but you also receive a linkshell in the story from Minfillia when you join the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and at multiple points she or others will contact you over them, not to mention various other characters who also speak to one another using linkshells. The animations for using them in cutscenes also take into account that not all of the playable races have their ears in the same relative position on their head as a regular human -- Miqo'te and Viera will reach noticeably higher up to place the linkshells nearer to their raised cat and rabbit ears.
** [=NPCs=] will, generally, remember you if you've interacted with them before. This can be as minor as the leaders of the city's adventurer's guild remembering you if you started in that city when you visit them for other quests, to as major as class and job trainers acknowledging your membership if you go there on quest-related business not related to the guild itself. Even the one-off holiday events show signs of the latter. Yugiri in the main story will even change her dialogue accordingly if you're a Ninja when you meet up with her again ("You should train to be a Ninja" to "You fight like one of us, I'm proud of you").
** Members of the Garlean Empire are biologically incapable of casting magic, therefore the only casters you find in Garlean strongholds tend to be Lalafell or Highlander humans (who were drafted after their countries were conquered) and tend to be low ranked at that, or use shock-sticks, in which case they can only cast thunder and paralyze. In story quests where you're fighting alongside characters who have no healing capability like Cid (Garlean and incapable of using magic) or Sidurgu (never in his life touched Conjury) instead of using a cure spell on you like most [=NPCs=] in the same type of story battle, they'll use a powerful Aqua Vitae potion that accomplishes the same effect.
** The Echo is an AntiFrustrationFeature buff that boosts your maximum HP, attack power, and healing potency so that you can clear a battle if you're struggling with it. In lore, the Echo is granted to a select few whose abilities differ from person to person. In the player's case, their Echo grants them ungodly strength and makes them immune to being [[BrainwashedAndCrazy tempered by a Primal]]. During the ''Heavensward'' main story, you come across [[spoiler: the Warriors of Darkness]] and they also possess the Echo. Just like the player, defeating the group has their Echo kick in and makes them stronger in the exact same way as the player.
** Normally, the game does not take into account on what the player's job or class is when a cutscene occurs, but as the game has gone on it's started to acknowledge your job more often. In ''Stormblood'', [[spoiler: Y'shtola]] is gravely wounded and an NPC asks you to help her out. Normally, she would ask you to hold the person down as she heals them. If you are a healer, she asks you to help her heal. One of the Eden raids in ''Shadowbringers'' has Urianger asking if you know how rain is formed. Normally your options are to say you're vaguely familiar with the idea or [[CloudCuckoolander claim "it's an Allagan conspiracy"]], both of which result in Urianger explaining how it works in the game's lore; if you're playing as a Scholar, you can point out that people of your profession are generally well-versed, at which point he apologizes for not remembering and asks you to explain it.
** Why are players only able to teleport to other aetherytes? Because it's ''dangerous'' to do otherwise! [[spoiler:As shown at the end of ''A Realm Reborn'' and later in ''Heavensward'', there is a spell known as "[[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Flow]]" that allows one to, in theory, teleport anywhere in the world by delving directly into the Lifestream. Unfortunately, returning from the Lifestream is nearly impossible to do, and even if you manage it, your body and aether will suffer for it. Thancred managed to return from the Lifestream on his own, but wound up being completely incapable of using magic afterwards, leaving him stranded where the spell plopped him out until the player character happens through the area on unrelated business. Y'shtola wasn't as fortunate: she was only able to return from the Lifestream with aid, but wound up losing her sight. Although she can still "see" the aether of others, doing so greatly taxes her and shortens her lifespan.]]
*** Thancred's loss of magic power also plays a role in ''Shadowbringers'' where he's a Gunbreaker. Several of the Gunbreaker's abilities involve the use of aether; Thancred can't use said abilities since he can't manipulate his aether. Ryne shows that she infuses Thancred's cartridges with her own aether, which allows him to perform his job to the fullest. This stipulation also affects Thancred's performance as a Trust NPC in dungeons, where Thancred can't use all of his abilities unless Ryne is also in the party.[[note]]It's mostly for flavor, however; the "Solid Barrel" combo he uses when Ryne isn't present has the same potency as the "Cartridge" combo he uses when she is, so that players who need an NPC to act as a tank - which Thancred is the only option for in the vast majority of Trust-compatible dungeons - aren't required to also bring Ryne along to let him perform the role properly.[[/note]]
** Each of the casters have a different way of managing their MP that suits the job's lore;
*** White Mage draws on the land's energy to heal, but must be careful to prevent overhealing and using up the ambient aether and leaving them dry, much like how a White Mage needs to be conservative with their MP; casting a weaker Cure 1 over and over to keep a single player healed is far more beneficial than casting the much more expensive Cure II over a long drawn out fight, as spamming the latter will drain their MP dry quickly. Conjury also requires at least a basic understanding and consent of the elements of the world around them; without that, Conjury and White Magic can dip into being CastFromLifespan, which is another way to look at "reckless casting leads to exhausting your MP".
*** Black Mages study the ebbing and flowing nature of the Astral and Umbral eras and apply it to their casting, burning out their MP in fire-aspect Astral stance and restoring it in chunks in the ice-aspected Umbral stance. They also don't start learning any spells with massive impact until becoming Black Mages proper, as high level Black Magic is exceptionally dangerous for Thaumaturges to try to use without a conduit, which their soul crystals act as.
*** Summoner and Scholar are strategists who value strategy, planning, and caution, and as such they manage their mana through the one-minute cooldown Aetherflow buff which restores mana and enables strong abilities, and also keep most of their spells already drawn out with aether-imbued ink in their spellbooks to take the burden off their body's aether. Also, Summoner works on a twofold DefeatMeansFriendship with their summoned Egi; as such Arcanists can't learn other egi until killing their respective Primal (the issue of summoning Ifrit-egi is sidestepped, since you can't advance ''any'' class into a Job until completing a quest sometime after fighting Ifrit in the story), making them the only job blocked from progressing their ''A Realm Reborn'' Job storyline by Main Story progression.
*** Astrologian draws upon the infinite power of space and stars, and thus have some of the better mana conservation of the healer jobs. Their star-charting ability also allows them to see into the future, and as such many of their buffs and healing strategies in-lore and in gameplay play them to be preemptive healers ready to get a spellcast out before damage is done even though their kit is better served towards being a reactive healer like White Mage. When dealing with The First in ''Shadowbringers'', Astrologians even find a bit of LoopholeAbuse in this logic by focusing downward, since technically the planet ALSO counts a "star", a solution that boggles your job trainer's mind.
*** Red Mages refuse to draw on the land's aether like White and Black Mages, due to their history as descending from mages who accidentally triggered the Sixth Umbral Calamity from overuse of the land's aether, and sidestepping the CastFromLifespan issues brought up with White Mage by using focusing crystals to magnify their aether, allowing for small amounts to translate into larger and more powerful spells; this results in them having no unique way of restoring their own MP, having to rely on their party, ethers, or role actions. It's also explained that their spells work up-front, which translates to Red Mage's versions of the several elemental spells other casters get having long cast times but dealing their damage all at once while getting no spells that apply a damage-over-time effect, compared to others having the standard shorter or even instantaneous cast times but dealing damage over time. Also, as mentioned above, healing without the aid of the land's aether is ''very'' taxing, so even with Vercure's acceleration making it powerful, the MP cost on it and Verraise are both astronomical, and having to frequently heal or revive party members will leave the Red Mage running on empty.
*** Dark Knight, despite being a tank, teaches about the CastFromLifespan nature of tapping into the Darkness, and how they need to be careful with tapping in too deep, which translates to the Dark Knight's un-tank-like focus on MP, which is used up in large chunks with skills that trigger Darkside, and running out of it heavily stunts their ability to fight and hold enmity.
*** While also a tank, the Gunbreaker also uses magic (at least according to lore) by using aether-infused cartridges to produce magic effects from their gunblades. In practice, they gain aether for their abilities by attacking enemies and drawing a portion of their aether into their cartridges. As mentioned previously, this leaves Thancred unable to use all of his abilities as a gunbreaker unless he has someone to charge his cartridges for him.
** Dark Knight itself, like the other classes introduced with the ''Heavensward'' expansion, caught some flak for the fact that you cannot play as it until you actually reach the expansion's content. But in a beautiful case of this that is a bit of FridgeBrilliance, the player's access to the Darkness is built on the events of the story up to that point, turning everything from the tragedy of the finale of the first story arc to the chronic cases of DudeWheresMyRespect from [=NPCs=] into the well from which the player can draw as a Dark Knight.
** Going to Novrandt in ''Shadowbringers'' involves crossing the void between worlds to an entirely different dimension. As such, you initially can't use retainer bells until The Crystal Exarch introduces you Feo Ul, one of TheFairFolk who makes a pact with you that allows them to interact with your retainer on The Source by following your aether there. Even after you can access retainers again though, you always have to return to the Source to access the Aesthetician (the NPC who does haircuts and other minor recustomizations) because, although he is always on the move (thus able to be summoned at any other inn, whether the one in Limsa where you first meet him or ones in the Far East on the other side of the world), he only exists on Hydaelyn, and having Feo Ul, what with their BlueAndOrangeMorality as a Pixie, try to cut your hair would probably end... poorly.
** In regards to ''Shadowbringers'': when you first travel to Norvrandt, the sky is blanketed in brilliant, unnatural light and EndlessDaytime. As you progress through the game [[spoiler:and slay the Lightwardens]], areas of Norvrandt will see a return of their natural day-and-night cycle, which will persist permanently thereafter [[spoiler:(save for near the end of the MSQ, during the DarkestHour]]).
** NewGamePlus is justified by the end of the MSQ of ''Shadowbringers'': [[spoiler:before the credits scroll, the player character is approached by a young child wondering if they are the famed Warrior of Darkness and asking about where they came from. The cutscene ends as the player character appears to be preparing to tell the child the tales of their exploits. Actually accessing it, likewise, is done by talking to a specific NPC, with the implication that you're retelling your adventures rather than literally replaying old content.]]
** When fighting Alexander Prime, he will sometimes cause time to freeze, which also freezes the whole party in place. Players with any buffs or debuffs applied to them will have the timers on them freeze whenever Alexander stops time.
** The BigBad of the Marauder storyline is a feral Aurochs known as Kujata. Part of the reason Kujata is so dangerous is because its victims are inexplicably ''very'' hard to heal and often die from their wounds while being treated. When the time comes to actually fight and kill it, you learn Kujata places the Infirmity debuff on you with every attack -- which drastically reduces how effective healing magics are, making it a race against time because your partner's efficiency at healing the grevious blows you take is nearly nullified.
** The game playfully points out the oddity of the Player Character always having between 3 and 7 people blessed with the Echo and just as strong as them at any given time to justify group content. MUCH later in Shadowbringers you learn that [[spoiler: The Warrior of Light is a reincarnation of Azem, the "Shephard to the Stars" of the ruling class of the Precusor society of Amaurot. Azem's powers were explicitly to work together, empower, and summon allies at will, which carries over to the Player Character's tendency to gather up friends to help tackle obstacles. When the full power of Azem is unlocked in one of the most climactic battles of the story, they gain the ability to summon said allies from as far away as other dimensions, and can even transcend death by calling on the soul of Emet-Selch, one of Azem's best friends. The "Summon friend" spell of Azem's crystal continues to be used well into ''Endwalker'' to justify having party members to fight by your side as the locations of trials and dungeons become increasingly improbable and eventually outright impossible for other adventurers to be around.]]
** Advancing a class into a full job grants many more skills and abilities, which is justified by the way of soul crystals, which contain the skills and memories of previous owners in that profession, letting you draw on experiences that aren't your own. It also explains why expansion jobs start at higher levels (30 for those from ''Heavensward'', 50 from ''Stormblood'', 60 from ''Shadowbringers'' and 70 from ''Endwalker''); conversely, the [[PowerCopying Blue Mage]] limited job starts at level 1, because blue magic was newly-introduced to Eorzea, so the description for its soul crystal mentions that it's new and pristine, with no past deeds carved into it yet.
*** Machinist would seem to be a subversion, as its soul crystal description says the same thing about having no great deeds carved on it yet - the explanation for why you start at a high level anyway is that anything you can do before that point are simple things (mostly pointing the gun at an enemy and pulling the trigger) that are theoretically possible for ''anyone'' to do from the instant they strap on the gear, because like in real life the machinists' firearms are meant to get people with little to no training up to a similar level as knights who've trained all their lives by putting much of the ability within the weapon itself rather than the user's skill. Sure enough, most of the skills and gear you acquire past its start at level 30 are either refining the basics or acquiring/developing new gear to augment your existing gear, like the Rook autoturret and its eventual evolution into a MiniMecha.
*** The ''Stormblood'' Monk questline heavily revolves around the fact that the player advances to jobs from a separate class. The main plot point is that your teacher and his other students, descendents of an organization called the Fists of Rhalgr, are finding themselves complete at the mercy of enemies who know a fighting style specifically designed to counter that of the Fists. The player character, however, is able to stand up against them, and later teach the rest of the group how to fight them on even footing, because they don't ''just'' know the Fists' style, but rather they learned it after starting with the basics of Ul'dahn pugilism.
** A side quest in ''Endwalker'' tasks you with gathering a very poisonous plant that can gravely poison you on mere touch unless you use a pair of gloves to extract the plant without harming yourself. You can still gather the plant without the gloves and doing so will inflict a ''very'' strong poison debuff on you whose damage is higher than your natrual HP regeneration, meaning it's possible to outright die from the poison.
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* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'':
** You begin the game with Cecil and Kain, both trained knights in the service of the most militaristic kingdom on the planet. [[ExperiencedProtagonist Both start at level 10 with some pretty good equipment]], which fits their background. Rydia, the first other character who joins you, is a small child that starts at level 1 with minimal equipment.
** Rydia learns black magic (attack spells). Like other ''Final Fantasy'' games, battle spells follow most of the standard element patterns (fire, ice/water, lightning). Rydia learns ice and lightning magic on her own by gaining levels, but not fire. Her hometown was destroyed by a fire, and she ''hates'' fire as a result. She only finally unlocks fire magic when the group needs to proceed past a wall of ice to warn another town of an impending attack, and there are no other black magic users currently in the party. The fact that innocent people will die if they can't be warned in time allows her to overcome her psychological block and cast Fire to melt the ice.
** At Mt. Ordeals, Golbez sends Scarmiglione after Cecil to stop him from becoming a Paladin. Scarmiglione is used specifically because he is undead and Cecil is a Dark Knight using swords based on darkness, which would have no effect on the undead.
** Cecil's Trial is to face his own past as the Dark Knight to gain the Paladin job. The Dark Knight uses the Darkness ability exclusively, which CastFromHitPoints to deal damage. Paladins defend others so the solution is to SheatheYourSword and defend and heal. Also while Cecil resets his level all his stats are roughly where they would be with the level you would be expected at the Trial.
** Rubicante, Archfiend of Fire, is one of the series' shining examples of NobleDemon and LetsFightLikeGentlemen, and this plays out in battle with him. If Cecil and party use a Fire spell when his cloak is down, it'll heal Rubicante. Rubicante will then respond in kind by healing Cecil's party. (He doesn't follow up with a heal when the cloak is up, but the reason for that is more covered by ViolationOfCommonSense.)
** Some characters have their stat growth on level-up logically follow their character arcs. As mentioned above, Rydia start at level 1 and can be decently powerful, but doesn't get her true strength unlocked until spending [[YearOutsideHourInside several years]] in the summons' dimension, where she becomes an excellent summoner and Black Mage with normal stat growth. Palom and Porom are genius magi, but are still young kids so their physical gains are poor. Cecil resets to level 1 after becoming a Paladin because he has no idea how to fight that way or use his new magic, but he catches to up the others quickly because learning a new weapon and magic is relatively easier than building up physical or mental strength. Edward's stat gains are piss poor because he's so poorly suited to fighting (except in the GBA/PSP version where Edward finds genuine courage to fight to the end after his bonus dungeon, where his stat gains become ''[[MagikarpPower explosive]]''). Special mention of course, goes to Tellah, who actually gets ''weaker'' as he levels up, with his MP costs for magic increasing to boot; he's an old man on an adventure his body just can't handle, instead of strengthening himself like a younger character could, he's putting his elderly body through more stress and strain than it can handle, which is a big contributing factor to [[spoiler: needing to sacrifice his life to use Meteor]].
** Similarly the stat gains from level ups stop steadily going up around level 60 and randomly go up or down depending on chance. Training alone will eventually plataeu and it can be actually detrimental if done to excess. This is revisited in other games where stats stop going up in later levels, but here is the only time it might actually make you weaker.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' justifies the "Nobody uses healing items to save people in cutscenes" problem in {{RPG}}s by having [[spoiler:Galuf]] get killed so hard (via [[spoiler:fighting and defeating the BigBad at ''0 HP'' and running on sheer willpower]]) [[DeaderThanDead that not even Cure or Life spells will save him.]]
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', Rude of the Turks confesses to his partner (and the player, and the party hiding nearby) that he has a crush on Tifa, one of the heroes. In fights against the Turks, Rude will never attack Tifa, and if she is the only one standing, he'll never use his stronger attacks against her, and refuses to attack at all one third of the time.
** Cloud is noted in-story to be extraordinarily strong as an Ex member of Soldier, even next to the rest of the party who are some of the most capable people on the planet. In game he is coded to be at a higher level then the rest and even on the same level he is stronger then them across nearly every stat.
** At points in the story Tifa and Cid take over as party leader and dialogue changes to match whoever is in control. In a neat bit Tifa won't have a choice in helping Fort Condor, as she is far more altruistic then Cloud.
** It's stated in the story that Materia can form naturally, and such Materia is said to be rarer than man-made ones (they take at least ''centuries'' to form this way) and implied to be more powerful, as they're made by the planet itself. Some caves with natural Materia inside them can be accessed once the player breeds a gold chocobo, and not only they're the only copies the player can find in the entire game (the only way to obtain more is to master them), they all have particularly potent effects relative to most other Materia in their respective categories. The red one is Knights of the Round (''by far'' the game's most powerful summon), the blue one is Quadra Magic (makes compatible spells linked to it be cast at half power four times in a row), the yellow one is Mime (a very versatile command) and the purple one swaps the user's HP and MP values (which turns them into a SquishyWizard with very low HP, but ''extremely'' high MP).
** In the GaidenGame and Prequel ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'', you play as SOLDIER First Class Zack Fair. It's [[ItWasHisSled not really a spoiler]] anymore that TheHeroDies at the end, but in the meanwhile you get a fun ActionRPG with a LimitBreak mechanic in the form of the "Digital Mind Wave," a ''slot machine'' that's always in the corner and gives you your [=LBs=] or SummonMagic when you line up three portraits of the same NPC. It's a LuckBasedMission and somewhat frustrating to rely upon... until the BolivianArmyEnding, where it throws match after match, letting Zack use his strongest attacks and treating players to {{cutscene}}s of Zack and those characters together. Suddenly the DMW is the heart of the game: it ''dramatizes [[MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes Zack's life flashing before his eyes]]'', as he desperately reaches for his memories of the people he most cares about, hoping to come home to them one last time. It's not as big a PlayerPunch as Aerith's death... but it comes damn close.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'':
** Rinoa [[spoiler: becoming a sorceress]] results in her getting a second Limit Break that raises her magic stats to the highest they can go, and makes her able to cast infinite spells.
*** Related to that, the very first time you're able to use said second limit break, Squall and Rinoa are [[spoiler: in space]] and Angelo, Rinoa's dog and the crux of her original limit break, is elsewhere ([[spoiler: back on the planet]]). During that time, you can ONLY use Rinoa's 2nd limit break. Once Rinoa and Angelo reunite, that is when you get access to both limit breaks.
** Limit Breaks in VIII are a DesperationAttack used the worse a situation is (Low HP and number of dead party members are the biggest factors). After the failed assassination attempt at the end of disc 1 Edea impales Squall with an Ice Spike after they critically wound her and defeat Seifer. After having a HeelFaceTurn and becoming a GuestStarPartyMember, if you get curious to see what her unique limit break is, it's same Ice Spike spell - in other words, she got use of her lategame-strength LimitBreak at the end of Disc 1 because the party had put her to that level of health and removed her party member (Seifer) from combat. The fact that she has to junction to a GF to have access to magic also acts as mild {{Foreshadowing}} that [[spoiler: she's no longer a sorceress, having passed her powers onto Rinoa by accident]].
** Also regarding Edea, the party defeats her at the end of Disc 2 and when she joins in Disc 3, her level and stats will be similar to the party's, they all closed the gap by gaining enough strength to defeat her, while she's grown slightly weaker from being defeated (it's mentioned she's still recovering from her wounds) and losing her ability to use magic without junctions.
** The attack Seifer uses on Squall while they're training in the opening FMV you can later use as his Limit Break 'Fire Cross'.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'':
** All of the character's classes are highly integrated into the plot. Vivi's ability to shoot stuff with fireballs with black magic becomes very important, the hidden Summons inside Garnet are a MacGuffin unto themselves, and Freya, a dragoon, is able to leap to the tops of roofs effortlessly in cutscenes as easily as she can leap into the sky to use her "Jump" ability. Sometimes even their ''personality traits'' become gameplay mechanics; Zidane, the ChivalrousPervert, has a "Protect Girls" skill that lets him jump in front of a female party member to protect her.
** Quina, the BigEater of the group, has a unique ability where s/he can ''eat'' your enemies and potentially learn skills from them. Eat notably doesn't work on human enemies or powerful bosses.
** In at least two battles (one of which is mentioned below) the boss is coded to only target specific party members: Your three aside from Dagger in the fight with Black Waltz Number 2 (to the point were he'll cast AOE spells that in every other circumstance would hit all your party members ''only'' on those three), and Dagger specifically in a battle with the bounty hunter Lani. The former is tasked with returning Dagger to her mother, and if he succeeds in killing all of your party members aside from her, he'll cast a spell to put her to sleep and the [[NonstandardGameOver game will end]].
** In a similar instance to the above, the rematch against [[spoiler:Black Waltz Number 3]] has similar stakes; they are tasked with returning Dagger to Brahne, and if they succeed in killing the rest of the party, instead of attacking, it will start hitting ''itself'' due to a combination of its mission (the only foe left is the one they're supposed to bring back alive) and some rather severe malfunctioning, by virtue of having their ass handed to them earlier. It's possible to win the fight by just letting your other members get killed, then wail on it with Dagger until it kills itself. This also doubles as a convenient [[AntiFrustrationFeatures anti-frustration feature]], since there's a lenghty several minute cutscene between the last savepoint and this bossfight which you'd have to watch every time you lost this fight, if it were possible.
** The opposite happens when you fight Lani. She's a Bounty Hunter charged with bringing the princess back, so all her attacks will be directed at Dagger. She'll even use Scan to figure out her stats. She's also quite vain, so if you physically attack her, [[NotInTheFace she will yell something and counter immediately]].
** When Dagger loses her voice in the plot, during game-play her ability to cast spells is impaired: every couple of turns will fail with a "Can't concentrate." She gets better, though.
** Most characters will skip their post-battle victory poses during plot circumstances that concern them in some negative way, including Garnet losing her voice described above.
** Garnet can't summon her Eidolons on the first two discs and the in-story reason is that she is afraid of them. As a result, the MP costs for her Summons are incredibly high. When she has gotten over her fear of them by Disc 3, the MP costs are considerably lower. [[note]]The player ''can'' get her to summon them before they are extracted, but only through a max MP cheat or consistent levelling. If doing so naturally then this could tie into her becoming more confident in battle.[[/note]]
** At the end of the Disk 2, Garnet tries to get an Eidolon that she can use to save her mother from Kuja in battle. The Eidolon she finds is Leviathan -- whose attack is to conjure up a tidal wave to wipe out his enemies. As Queen Brahne is with the royal fleet on the ocean (while Kuja is airborne on his silver dragon), Garnet is heart broken she can't use Leviathan to help.
** The biggest example of this is probably the [[LimitBreak Trance State]]. After witnessing [[spoiler:Mog transform into Madeen]] using Trance, Kuja deduces that Trance is the key to unlocking a SuperMode for himself. [[spoiler:He's right, and he does... [[NiceJobBreakingItHero by having you defeat him in battle]]]]. It also ties directly into Zidane's [[LimitBreak Dyne]] abilities, all of which are a miniaturised EarthShatteringKaboom. Quite an unusual skill-set for a Thief-type character... [[spoiler:[[TomatoInTheMirror when he finds out that he was intended to be Kuja's successor and Garland's tool for annihilating Gaia, this suddenly makes much more sense]]]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'':
** Similar to ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' above, some characters' abilities are integrated into the plot; Yuna's summoning abilities are the crux of the whole storyline until the 3/4 point, and the whole first half of the game is about travelling to temples to obtain more summons for her. Tidus' Overdrives (and default skill-set) are all based around speed, precision and acrobatics -- all essential skills for a star Blitzball player. He also learns [[TimeMaster Time Magic]].
** Yuna, the WhiteMage, is a SquishyWizard who needs to complete a pilgrimage (see: "the whole first half of the game" above). The rest of the party is her PraetorianGuard. To reinforce the idea that they're here to protect her, each of them can exploit TacticalRockPaperScissors against a specific type of enemy: Tidus's swiftness lets him catch four-legged baddies, Auron's {{BFS}} lets him slice through armored foes, BlackMage Lulu can handle elemental enemies, LongRangeFighter Wakka knocks flying enemies from the sky, and Rikku's VideoGameStealing skill can be used to dismantle robots. Each of them can OneHitKill these enemy types, which comprise the bulk of random encounters throughout gameplay. Meanwhile, Yuna herself is strong against literally nothing; she's either used for healing spells or is TheBigGuy trotted out to use SummonMagic (as Aeons in this game serve as {{Meat Shield}}s).
** At the same time with Yuna, her sphere grid is uniquely placed to be able to go into multiple other characters' relatively early (Especially Lulu's), showing how ThePowerOfFriendship makes her stronger, to the point where she can quickly become as destructive a Black Mage as Lulu and as fast as Tidus. Most notably with how the sphere grids work, if you're not farming excessively you'll probably unlock Lulu's branch in Yuna's sphere grid at around the point in the story where she's starting to truly find her own willpower without having to rely on her guardians.
** When hit by a Lightning-spell in battle, most of your party simply grunt. Rikku, on the other hand, ''screams''. This is either a nod to or {{Foreshadowing}} of her FearOfThunder (depending on when you first see it). In [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2 the sequel]], where she's over it, she doesn't do it anymore.
** At one point Lulu suggests she learn some elemental magic to help her master her fear. Rikku's Sphere Grid runs straight into [[BlackMage Lulu's]], [[ElementalPowers which starts with basic elemental magic]].
** A very subtle one; when fighting Seymour's first two forms, if [[OfficialCouple Yuna and/or Tidus]] are out on the field, he will direct the majority of his attacks at them, which makes sense [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty considering his rather]] [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe awkward fixation on Yuna]]. This can be advantageous if you focus on keeping one of them alive and present (easily done with Haste and Nul-spells) while wailing on him with everyone else.
** Kimahri is a BlueMage and his Lancet ability is what helps him learn the various skills. When fighting his Ronso brothers Biran and Yenke, they will have a lot of the Ronso Rage abilities too.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'':
** The player had the option to choose Tidus's name in the first game, and it's never spoken aloud (due to that being the first voice-acted game in the franchise). In this, the characters won't refer to him by name. Rikku will only say "him" or "you know who", and Yuna's narration addresses Tidus personally so she will just say "you".
** The Dresspheres in the game come from spheres that were made from the memories and thoughts of various people throughout Spira. The Songstress in particular has massive plot significance; the musical-related abilities come from the fact that it was a SoulJar for Lenne. One thousand years ago, she was a singer and the costume is what she wore on stage. As she was also said to be out on the front lines fighting during the Machina War, it makes sense that she has other abilities. Likewise, the singing abilities in the game raise the party's stats, which also makes sense when you consider Yuna later giving a concert to motivate the Spirans to stop fighting amongst themselves. Presumably Lenne used her singing the same way when she was on the front lines.
** If you go to Lake Macalania during Chapter 3, you'll get the Berserker Dressphere from an Al Bhed man who dies in the fiend attacks. When the player ports back onto the Celsius from this, if you talk to Rikku, she won't respond.
** Paine is a very cold and withdrawn character. So if she's put into the flamboyant Songstress Dressphere, she ''will'' complain about it. And she will get very annoyed if you make her sing. She also doesn't change into it during cutscenes, while Yuna and Rikku do.
** Yuna no longer has her SummonMagic due to the Fayth that gave birth to the Aeons being laid to rest at the end of the previous games. When the Aeons reappear, they've been corrupted by Shuyin.
** In the ''Eternal Calm'' prologue, Yuna is seen practicing holding her breath underwater at Besaid. Later in the game, the player has the option of playing Blitzball. Yuna couldn't in the previous game, but she can now. Rikku couldn't play Blitzball in the first game but she could breathe and fight underwater, so her learning in the two year TimeSkip is also justified. The rest of the Gullwings are Al Bhed, who already are used to going underwater.
** Gippal is an Al Bhed who was also a member of the Crimson Squad. So when you face him in battle, his abilities are based around machina (he uses a mortar to attack) in contrast to Nooj and Baralai's -- as at the time he took part in the training, the other two had a taboo about using machina forbidden by Yevon.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'':
** One scene has Fran get induced with extra strength and near insanity, causing her to break free from her restraints. The fight after this scene reflects this by inducing the Berserk status on Fran.
** Manufactured Nethicite and Dawn Shard are plot-central items that are said to interfere with Mist, which is the game's source of magic: as a result, they can be equipped as accessories and increase magic defenses, but also put the wearer under permanent Silence status and reduce their MP to 0, respectively.
** Penelo makes her money as a dancer in Rabanastre. All her Quickenings involve her using various dances to [[DanceBattler cast spells]].
** In the rematch against Ba'gamnan, he will only attack Balthier if he's in the party due to his hatred towards him.
** [=NPCs=] will warn you that elementals [[MagicIsAMonsterMagnet hate magic]] and monsters in general [[ShootTheMedicFirst hate healing more than anything]]; this is absolutely borne out in gameplay.
** Basch, despite being a MightyGlacier veteran warrior with the highest strength and possibly the highest HP in the party, has the lowest Vitality. Considering that he's just been rescued from two years of [[GoMadFromTheIsolation solitary confinement]], malnutrition, and ColdBloodedTorture, it [[FridgeBrilliance makes perfect sense]] for him to have [[DentedIron lingering health issues]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'':
** Lightning runs around with a portable anti-gravity device in the inventory that is never used outside cutscenes... except that she is the only player character who never takes damage from falling (when hurled into the air by an enemy). This is actually a remnant of an [[WhatCouldHaveBeen earlier concept]], where Lightning's powers were all based around gravity manipulation.
** There is a rather sneaky example early on, which becomes this in hindsight. All party members begin with 2 ATB-slots, except Vanille, who has 3. After becoming l'Cie, they all gain 1 -- again, except Vanille, who still has 3. [[spoiler:She's already a l'Cie, and has been for [[Really700YearsOld much longer than the other four playable characters]].]]
** The Eidolon battle against Odin shows signs of this with his in-battle behavior. Before Odin appeared, Lightning was venting her frustration at Hope, who was following her and proved to be more of a hinderance than help because he's a civilian and has little to no combat experience. While battling Odin, he will specifically target his attacks on Hope, as Lightning wanted to get rid of him. In contrast, increasing the gauge on Odin requires Lightning to heal Hope, proving that her anger at him was unfounded and that she really isn't trying to get the kid killed.
* One of the main mechanics of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyBraveExvius'' is what the game refers to as "visions", which are meant to justify the game's gacha system. However, one of the biggest plot twists of the game is a result of this system: [[spoiler:Veritas of the Dark is not Sir Raegen as everyone was assuming him to be (even the other Veritas), but he's revealed to actually have ''been'' Raegen all along -- he was actually a vision of Raegen during the war between Aldore and Hess summoned by Veritas of the Light. This has been previously hinted at with the Lightlord being able to use visions to summon enemies to aid her during her battle with the party.]]
** A more minor example: Sakura focuses on lightning-elemental abilities, being the first ally in the game with Thundaja. This is a direct result of her having previously been Veritas of the Bolt.
** You begin the game with Cecil and Kain, both trained knights in the service of the most militaristic kingdom on the planet. [[ExperiencedProtagonist Both start at level 10 with some pretty good equipment]], which fits their background. Rydia, the first other character who joins you, is a small child that starts at level 1 with minimal equipment.
** Rydia learns black magic (attack spells). Like other ''Final Fantasy'' games, battle spells follow most of the standard element patterns (fire, ice/water, lightning). Rydia learns ice and lightning magic on her own by gaining levels, but not fire. Her hometown was destroyed by a fire, and she ''hates'' fire as a result. She only finally unlocks fire magic when the group needs to proceed past a wall of ice to warn another town of an impending attack, and there are no other black magic users currently in the party. The fact that innocent people will die if they can't be warned in time allows her to overcome her psychological block and cast Fire to melt the ice.
** At Mt. Ordeals, Golbez sends Scarmiglione after Cecil to stop him from becoming a Paladin. Scarmiglione is used specifically because he is undead and Cecil is a Dark Knight using swords based on darkness, which would have no effect on the undead.
** Cecil's Trial is to face his own past as the Dark Knight to gain the Paladin job. The Dark Knight uses the Darkness ability exclusively, which CastFromHitPoints to deal damage. Paladins defend others so the solution is to SheatheYourSword and defend and heal. Also while Cecil resets his level all his stats are roughly where they would be with the level you would be expected at the Trial.
** Rubicante, Archfiend of Fire, is one of the series' shining examples of NobleDemon and LetsFightLikeGentlemen, and this plays out in battle with him. If Cecil and party use a Fire spell when his cloak is down, it'll heal Rubicante. Rubicante will then respond in kind by healing Cecil's party. (He doesn't follow up with a heal when the cloak is up, but the reason for that is more covered by ViolationOfCommonSense.)
** Some characters have their stat growth on level-up logically follow their character arcs. As mentioned above, Rydia start at level 1 and can be decently powerful, but doesn't get her true strength unlocked until spending [[YearOutsideHourInside several years]] in the summons' dimension, where she becomes an excellent summoner and Black Mage with normal stat growth. Palom and Porom are genius magi, but are still young kids so their physical gains are poor. Cecil resets to level 1 after becoming a Paladin because he has no idea how to fight that way or use his new magic, but he catches to up the others quickly because learning a new weapon and magic is relatively easier than building up physical or mental strength. Edward's stat gains are piss poor because he's so poorly suited to fighting (except in the GBA/PSP version where Edward finds genuine courage to fight to the end after his bonus dungeon, where his stat gains become ''[[MagikarpPower explosive]]''). Special mention of course, goes to Tellah, who actually gets ''weaker'' as he levels up, with his MP costs for magic increasing to boot; he's an old man on an adventure his body just can't handle, instead of strengthening himself like a younger character could, he's putting his elderly body through more stress and strain than it can handle, which is a big contributing factor to [[spoiler: needing to sacrifice his life to use Meteor]].
** Similarly the stat gains from level ups stop steadily going up around level 60 and randomly go up or down depending on chance. Training alone will eventually plataeu and it can be actually detrimental if done to excess. This is revisited in other games where stats stop going up in later levels, but here is the only time it might actually make you weaker.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' justifies the "Nobody uses healing items to save people in cutscenes" problem in {{RPG}}s by having [[spoiler:Galuf]] get killed so hard (via [[spoiler:fighting and defeating the BigBad at ''0 HP'' and running on sheer willpower]]) [[DeaderThanDead that not even Cure or Life spells will save him.]]
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', Rude of the Turks confesses to his partner (and the player, and the party hiding nearby) that he has a crush on Tifa, one of the heroes. In fights against the Turks, Rude will never attack Tifa, and if she is the only one standing, he'll never use his stronger attacks against her, and refuses to attack at all one third of the time.
** Cloud is noted in-story to be extraordinarily strong as an Ex member of Soldier, even next to the rest of the party who are some of the most capable people on the planet. In game he is coded to be at a higher level then the rest and even on the same level he is stronger then them across nearly every stat.
** At points in the story Tifa and Cid take over as party leader and dialogue changes to match whoever is in control. In a neat bit Tifa won't have a choice in helping Fort Condor, as she is far more altruistic then Cloud.
** It's stated in the story that Materia can form naturally, and such Materia is said to be rarer than man-made ones (they take at least ''centuries'' to form this way) and implied to be more powerful, as they're made by the planet itself. Some caves with natural Materia inside them can be accessed once the player breeds a gold chocobo, and not only they're the only copies the player can find in the entire game (the only way to obtain more is to master them), they all have particularly potent effects relative to most other Materia in their respective categories. The red one is Knights of the Round (''by far'' the game's most powerful summon), the blue one is Quadra Magic (makes compatible spells linked to it be cast at half power four times in a row), the yellow one is Mime (a very versatile command) and the purple one swaps the user's HP and MP values (which turns them into a SquishyWizard with very low HP, but ''extremely'' high MP).
** In the GaidenGame and Prequel ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'', you play as SOLDIER First Class Zack Fair. It's [[ItWasHisSled not really a spoiler]] anymore that TheHeroDies at the end, but in the meanwhile you get a fun ActionRPG with a LimitBreak mechanic in the form of the "Digital Mind Wave," a ''slot machine'' that's always in the corner and gives you your [=LBs=] or SummonMagic when you line up three portraits of the same NPC. It's a LuckBasedMission and somewhat frustrating to rely upon... until the BolivianArmyEnding, where it throws match after match, letting Zack use his strongest attacks and treating players to {{cutscene}}s of Zack and those characters together. Suddenly the DMW is the heart of the game: it ''dramatizes [[MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes Zack's life flashing before his eyes]]'', as he desperately reaches for his memories of the people he most cares about, hoping to come home to them one last time. It's not as big a PlayerPunch as Aerith's death... but it comes damn close.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'':
** Rinoa [[spoiler: becoming a sorceress]] results in her getting a second Limit Break that raises her magic stats to the highest they can go, and makes her able to cast infinite spells.
*** Related to that, the very first time you're able to use said second limit break, Squall and Rinoa are [[spoiler: in space]] and Angelo, Rinoa's dog and the crux of her original limit break, is elsewhere ([[spoiler: back on the planet]]). During that time, you can ONLY use Rinoa's 2nd limit break. Once Rinoa and Angelo reunite, that is when you get access to both limit breaks.
** Limit Breaks in VIII are a DesperationAttack used the worse a situation is (Low HP and number of dead party members are the biggest factors). After the failed assassination attempt at the end of disc 1 Edea impales Squall with an Ice Spike after they critically wound her and defeat Seifer. After having a HeelFaceTurn and becoming a GuestStarPartyMember, if you get curious to see what her unique limit break is, it's same Ice Spike spell - in other words, she got use of her lategame-strength LimitBreak at the end of Disc 1 because the party had put her to that level of health and removed her party member (Seifer) from combat. The fact that she has to junction to a GF to have access to magic also acts as mild {{Foreshadowing}} that [[spoiler: she's no longer a sorceress, having passed her powers onto Rinoa by accident]].
** Also regarding Edea, the party defeats her at the end of Disc 2 and when she joins in Disc 3, her level and stats will be similar to the party's, they all closed the gap by gaining enough strength to defeat her, while she's grown slightly weaker from being defeated (it's mentioned she's still recovering from her wounds) and losing her ability to use magic without junctions.
** The attack Seifer uses on Squall while they're training in the opening FMV you can later use as his Limit Break 'Fire Cross'.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'':
** All of the character's classes are highly integrated into the plot. Vivi's ability to shoot stuff with fireballs with black magic becomes very important, the hidden Summons inside Garnet are a MacGuffin unto themselves, and Freya, a dragoon, is able to leap to the tops of roofs effortlessly in cutscenes as easily as she can leap into the sky to use her "Jump" ability. Sometimes even their ''personality traits'' become gameplay mechanics; Zidane, the ChivalrousPervert, has a "Protect Girls" skill that lets him jump in front of a female party member to protect her.
** Quina, the BigEater of the group, has a unique ability where s/he can ''eat'' your enemies and potentially learn skills from them. Eat notably doesn't work on human enemies or powerful bosses.
** In at least two battles (one of which is mentioned below) the boss is coded to only target specific party members: Your three aside from Dagger in the fight with Black Waltz Number 2 (to the point were he'll cast AOE spells that in every other circumstance would hit all your party members ''only'' on those three), and Dagger specifically in a battle with the bounty hunter Lani. The former is tasked with returning Dagger to her mother, and if he succeeds in killing all of your party members aside from her, he'll cast a spell to put her to sleep and the [[NonstandardGameOver game will end]].
** In a similar instance to the above, the rematch against [[spoiler:Black Waltz Number 3]] has similar stakes; they are tasked with returning Dagger to Brahne, and if they succeed in killing the rest of the party, instead of attacking, it will start hitting ''itself'' due to a combination of its mission (the only foe left is the one they're supposed to bring back alive) and some rather severe malfunctioning, by virtue of having their ass handed to them earlier. It's possible to win the fight by just letting your other members get killed, then wail on it with Dagger until it kills itself. This also doubles as a convenient [[AntiFrustrationFeatures anti-frustration feature]], since there's a lenghty several minute cutscene between the last savepoint and this bossfight which you'd have to watch every time you lost this fight, if it were possible.
** The opposite happens when you fight Lani. She's a Bounty Hunter charged with bringing the princess back, so all her attacks will be directed at Dagger. She'll even use Scan to figure out her stats. She's also quite vain, so if you physically attack her, [[NotInTheFace she will yell something and counter immediately]].
** When Dagger loses her voice in the plot, during game-play her ability to cast spells is impaired: every couple of turns will fail with a "Can't concentrate." She gets better, though.
** Most characters will skip their post-battle victory poses during plot circumstances that concern them in some negative way, including Garnet losing her voice described above.
** Garnet can't summon her Eidolons on the first two discs and the in-story reason is that she is afraid of them. As a result, the MP costs for her Summons are incredibly high. When she has gotten over her fear of them by Disc 3, the MP costs are considerably lower. [[note]]The player ''can'' get her to summon them before they are extracted, but only through a max MP cheat or consistent levelling. If doing so naturally then this could tie into her becoming more confident in battle.[[/note]]
** At the end of the Disk 2, Garnet tries to get an Eidolon that she can use to save her mother from Kuja in battle. The Eidolon she finds is Leviathan -- whose attack is to conjure up a tidal wave to wipe out his enemies. As Queen Brahne is with the royal fleet on the ocean (while Kuja is airborne on his silver dragon), Garnet is heart broken she can't use Leviathan to help.
** The biggest example of this is probably the [[LimitBreak Trance State]]. After witnessing [[spoiler:Mog transform into Madeen]] using Trance, Kuja deduces that Trance is the key to unlocking a SuperMode for himself. [[spoiler:He's right, and he does... [[NiceJobBreakingItHero by having you defeat him in battle]]]]. It also ties directly into Zidane's [[LimitBreak Dyne]] abilities, all of which are a miniaturised EarthShatteringKaboom. Quite an unusual skill-set for a Thief-type character... [[spoiler:[[TomatoInTheMirror when he finds out that he was intended to be Kuja's successor and Garland's tool for annihilating Gaia, this suddenly makes much more sense]]]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'':
** Similar to ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' above, some characters' abilities are integrated into the plot; Yuna's summoning abilities are the crux of the whole storyline until the 3/4 point, and the whole first half of the game is about travelling to temples to obtain more summons for her. Tidus' Overdrives (and default skill-set) are all based around speed, precision and acrobatics -- all essential skills for a star Blitzball player. He also learns [[TimeMaster Time Magic]].
** Yuna, the WhiteMage, is a SquishyWizard who needs to complete a pilgrimage (see: "the whole first half of the game" above). The rest of the party is her PraetorianGuard. To reinforce the idea that they're here to protect her, each of them can exploit TacticalRockPaperScissors against a specific type of enemy: Tidus's swiftness lets him catch four-legged baddies, Auron's {{BFS}} lets him slice through armored foes, BlackMage Lulu can handle elemental enemies, LongRangeFighter Wakka knocks flying enemies from the sky, and Rikku's VideoGameStealing skill can be used to dismantle robots. Each of them can OneHitKill these enemy types, which comprise the bulk of random encounters throughout gameplay. Meanwhile, Yuna herself is strong against literally nothing; she's either used for healing spells or is TheBigGuy trotted out to use SummonMagic (as Aeons in this game serve as {{Meat Shield}}s).
** At the same time with Yuna, her sphere grid is uniquely placed to be able to go into multiple other characters' relatively early (Especially Lulu's), showing how ThePowerOfFriendship makes her stronger, to the point where she can quickly become as destructive a Black Mage as Lulu and as fast as Tidus. Most notably with how the sphere grids work, if you're not farming excessively you'll probably unlock Lulu's branch in Yuna's sphere grid at around the point in the story where she's starting to truly find her own willpower without having to rely on her guardians.
** When hit by a Lightning-spell in battle, most of your party simply grunt. Rikku, on the other hand, ''screams''. This is either a nod to or {{Foreshadowing}} of her FearOfThunder (depending on when you first see it). In [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2 the sequel]], where she's over it, she doesn't do it anymore.
** At one point Lulu suggests she learn some elemental magic to help her master her fear. Rikku's Sphere Grid runs straight into [[BlackMage Lulu's]], [[ElementalPowers which starts with basic elemental magic]].
** A very subtle one; when fighting Seymour's first two forms, if [[OfficialCouple Yuna and/or Tidus]] are out on the field, he will direct the majority of his attacks at them, which makes sense [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty considering his rather]] [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe awkward fixation on Yuna]]. This can be advantageous if you focus on keeping one of them alive and present (easily done with Haste and Nul-spells) while wailing on him with everyone else.
** Kimahri is a BlueMage and his Lancet ability is what helps him learn the various skills. When fighting his Ronso brothers Biran and Yenke, they will have a lot of the Ronso Rage abilities too.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'':
** The player had the option to choose Tidus's name in the first game, and it's never spoken aloud (due to that being the first voice-acted game in the franchise). In this, the characters won't refer to him by name. Rikku will only say "him" or "you know who", and Yuna's narration addresses Tidus personally so she will just say "you".
** The Dresspheres in the game come from spheres that were made from the memories and thoughts of various people throughout Spira. The Songstress in particular has massive plot significance; the musical-related abilities come from the fact that it was a SoulJar for Lenne. One thousand years ago, she was a singer and the costume is what she wore on stage. As she was also said to be out on the front lines fighting during the Machina War, it makes sense that she has other abilities. Likewise, the singing abilities in the game raise the party's stats, which also makes sense when you consider Yuna later giving a concert to motivate the Spirans to stop fighting amongst themselves. Presumably Lenne used her singing the same way when she was on the front lines.
** If you go to Lake Macalania during Chapter 3, you'll get the Berserker Dressphere from an Al Bhed man who dies in the fiend attacks. When the player ports back onto the Celsius from this, if you talk to Rikku, she won't respond.
** Paine is a very cold and withdrawn character. So if she's put into the flamboyant Songstress Dressphere, she ''will'' complain about it. And she will get very annoyed if you make her sing. She also doesn't change into it during cutscenes, while Yuna and Rikku do.
** Yuna no longer has her SummonMagic due to the Fayth that gave birth to the Aeons being laid to rest at the end of the previous games. When the Aeons reappear, they've been corrupted by Shuyin.
** In the ''Eternal Calm'' prologue, Yuna is seen practicing holding her breath underwater at Besaid. Later in the game, the player has the option of playing Blitzball. Yuna couldn't in the previous game, but she can now. Rikku couldn't play Blitzball in the first game but she could breathe and fight underwater, so her learning in the two year TimeSkip is also justified. The rest of the Gullwings are Al Bhed, who already are used to going underwater.
** Gippal is an Al Bhed who was also a member of the Crimson Squad. So when you face him in battle, his abilities are based around machina (he uses a mortar to attack) in contrast to Nooj and Baralai's -- as at the time he took part in the training, the other two had a taboo about using machina forbidden by Yevon.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'':
** One scene has Fran get induced with extra strength and near insanity, causing her to break free from her restraints. The fight after this scene reflects this by inducing the Berserk status on Fran.
** Manufactured Nethicite and Dawn Shard are plot-central items that are said to interfere with Mist, which is the game's source of magic: as a result, they can be equipped as accessories and increase magic defenses, but also put the wearer under permanent Silence status and reduce their MP to 0, respectively.
** Penelo makes her money as a dancer in Rabanastre. All her Quickenings involve her using various dances to [[DanceBattler cast spells]].
** In the rematch against Ba'gamnan, he will only attack Balthier if he's in the party due to his hatred towards him.
** [=NPCs=] will warn you that elementals [[MagicIsAMonsterMagnet hate magic]] and monsters in general [[ShootTheMedicFirst hate healing more than anything]]; this is absolutely borne out in gameplay.
** Basch, despite being a MightyGlacier veteran warrior with the highest strength and possibly the highest HP in the party, has the lowest Vitality. Considering that he's just been rescued from two years of [[GoMadFromTheIsolation solitary confinement]], malnutrition, and ColdBloodedTorture, it [[FridgeBrilliance makes perfect sense]] for him to have [[DentedIron lingering health issues]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'':
** Lightning runs around with a portable anti-gravity device in the inventory that is never used outside cutscenes... except that she is the only player character who never takes damage from falling (when hurled into the air by an enemy). This is actually a remnant of an [[WhatCouldHaveBeen earlier concept]], where Lightning's powers were all based around gravity manipulation.
** There is a rather sneaky example early on, which becomes this in hindsight. All party members begin with 2 ATB-slots, except Vanille, who has 3. After becoming l'Cie, they all gain 1 -- again, except Vanille, who still has 3. [[spoiler:She's already a l'Cie, and has been for [[Really700YearsOld much longer than the other four playable characters]].]]
** The Eidolon battle against Odin shows signs of this with his in-battle behavior. Before Odin appeared, Lightning was venting her frustration at Hope, who was following her and proved to be more of a hinderance than help because he's a civilian and has little to no combat experience. While battling Odin, he will specifically target his attacks on Hope, as Lightning wanted to get rid of him. In contrast, increasing the gauge on Odin requires Lightning to heal Hope, proving that her anger at him was unfounded and that she really isn't trying to get the kid killed.
* One of the main mechanics of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyBraveExvius'' is what the game refers to as "visions", which are meant to justify the game's gacha system. However, one of the biggest plot twists of the game is a result of this system: [[spoiler:Veritas of the Dark is not Sir Raegen as everyone was assuming him to be (even the other Veritas), but he's revealed to actually have ''been'' Raegen all along -- he was actually a vision of Raegen during the war between Aldore and Hess summoned by Veritas of the Light. This has been previously hinted at with the Lightlord being able to use visions to summon enemies to aid her during her battle with the party.]]
** A more minor example: Sakura focuses on lightning-elemental abilities, being the first ally in the game with Thundaja. This is a direct result of her having previously been Veritas of the Bolt.
