History Headscratchers / FinalFantasy

*** The only one that I've played that I didn't like was XII. I'm just saying that this franchise has had worse RuinedForever moments than the linearity of XIII.

** People have been crying RuinedForever about all the other things, too. BrokenBase is broken, and critics have always been quite vocal about hatred.

* With everything this franchise has gone through, such as [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyII a confusing level system]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyV insane difficulty]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX an annoying mini-game]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII unnecessary spin-offs]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII a time-consuming Junction system]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII an unnecessary Licensing system]], and an InNameOnly [[Anime/FinalFantasyTheSpiritsWithin film adaptation]], how is it that the linearity of VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII was what ultimately [[RuinedForever destroyed]] this franchise?

*** By the way, the above really applies more to the older stuff than to the new Ultimanias, which more or less just expand on the creators' ideas and fleshes out some of the vagueries. But older Square supplements, most infamously with ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' and the "Perfect Works" book, had a bad habit of outright {{{{Retcon}}}}ing stuff that actually happened in the games, with the fan excuse of "well, the budget ran out on the game, ExecutiveMeddling kept them from getting it right, so what's in the book is what ''really'' happened". That's immensely unfair, and even though the more recent stuff's never repeated that debacle, it's left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.

* And, as we've already started: Black Mages bug me. More specifically, ''hume'' Black Mages, as it was shown already that Nu Mous aren't like that. So, what's wrong with the Black Mages face that it gets blackened in such a way that no other job that uses a big hat also get? Is it some kind of curse or anything or simply Square-Enix had to put up with bad resolution sprite designs from FF 3 and never had the guts to say "okay, that's it, let's give these guys some ''faces'' for a change, okay"?
** My personal assumption was that it was some kind of mask.

** It's an [[Main/TheArtifact artifact]] from the NES/SNES era. As such, Square can't just get ride of it because that would enrage the fans. Besides, as pointed out up here, the shadowy faces are indeed a iconic part of Black Mage character design.

** Did you forget that every one of those games take place in a different part of Ivalice and perhaps in a different time period as well?

**** Wow that was fast. And yes, Ivalice is probably the biggest universe to ever appear in the Franchise/FinalFantasy series.

*** But ... wait. If all these games take place in the same world, just different places/times, how do they explain the different magic systems? In Vagrant Story using magic condemned your soul to an incomplete death and people fought for control of the Darkness, [=FF12=] magic was powered by Mist and magicite, and FFT probably had its own system too. How do these conflicting magic systems work in a single world?

** I notice that the mages in the original Final Fantasy and Dragonlance have something similar to each other...notice the evil mages in Dragonlance all wear Black robes...and the good mages wear white robes. Meanwhile the neutral mages are - you guessed it - red. Did the writers of Final Fantasy like that idea of Red being the "Neutral" from dragonlance (I don't know when Dragonlance was originally made, other than the 80s...when Final Fantasy showed up), or was there some idea somewhere that stated Red was sort of "Neutral" that both the writers of Final Fantasy and Dragonlance got the idea from, or did they both ''conveniently'' think of the same idea without having any idea of the other? (It's not the first time. If I recall, Sir Isaac Newton and someone else thought of Calculus at the same time)

*** Maybe it's because their magic is around hurting people...like most fictional portrayal of black magic is, while White magic is about helping people?

** Keep in mind that [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI Strago]] is a subversion. All he needs to do is see the attack to learn it. Just make sure he's not Blinded, Wounded, Muddled, Zombied, or whatever else might prevent him seeing it.

*** My guess is that Blue mages ''can'' learn Black and white magic...but simple "Firaga", "Curaja" and "holy" Bore blue mages...they don't want just that, ''anyone'' can do that! They wanna learn how to ruin opponents mana, they wanna slash you up with sabres, they wanna absorb abilities from ''monsters'' and use White Wind and Mighty Guard. That'll teach those silly white mages.
*** oh yeah...white mages can learn black magic and vice versa. That was Rydia on the phone right there, and the tactics mages.
** Keep in mind that blue mages can't learn ''everything'' their enemies might hit them with. Many enemies have various bizarre attacks that have the same effect on a blue mage as they do on anyone else, it's just that the blue mage doesn't learn them. Attacks like Mighty Guard, Aqua Breath, 1,000 Needles, LV 5 Death, and more are staples of blue magic in the series. This is just {{Wild Mass Guessing}}, but maybe there's something about specific techniques that allows a blue mage to learn them?

** The strangest thing is when they said Nomura did the artwork for XII...Yeah I know. It doesn't even ''look'' like Nomura's art! WHY on EARTH would the ''FanDumb'' get that idea?!

*** Yeah, in their minds.

* How come there are maybe four or five of us who actually don't misblame Nomura for everything? I've seen a lot of old-school final fantasy fans say that every game that has Nomura in the title list is crap? Uhh...okay so then Franchise/FinalFantasy should have stopped at 3 then? No I don't mean SNES 3...Because guess what? ''HE'S BEEN WORKING WITH SQUARE SINCE FINAL FANTASY IV!!!'' He's also only really been a character designer and director. He's had no more to do with the actual video games other than design than the much-worshiped Amano has. (Until ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVersusXIII''...which ironically critics have been praising but the fans will pull the TheyChangedItNowItSucks card) Also...Nomura had absolutely nothing to do with IX's artwork.

** KingdomHearts: KudzuPlot, no wall bangers because everything makes sense as we go along. And how the [[FridgeLogic heck is it Nomura's fault if he's not even associated with a game in the first place?]] You're assigned to a project, you just don't come in and hijack it. Are you sure you've played any of the Franchise/FinalFantasy games lately anyways? Because I've [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII checked]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII all]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX the]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX pages]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2 for]] the most recent FF games and there are no wall bangers listed.

* Why are so many people in the It Just Bugs Me page for Final Fantasy XII complaining about Vaan and Penelo having no real reason to join the party? I mean, if you consider it, a heck of a lot of ''other'' characters didn't have any real reason to join the party in their games either. In VideoGame/FinalFantasyV, Bartz simply tags along for no better reason than because Lenna and the others need help. In VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI, Setzer, Shadow, Gau, Gogo, Strago, and Relm don't have any tangible reason for joining either. In VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII, Cid decides to join AVALANCHE for no better reason than shits and giggles. Tifa only joins the party to keep Cloud company, which is basically the reason Penelo joined Vaan's party. None of these guys have any personal, tangible reason for joining, they just decide to come along. And Vaan's motivations do make a certain amount of sense-at the start of the game he's complaining about his boring life in the gutter and how he dreams of being a heroic adventurer and sky pirate. Fighting monsters and taking on heroic quests is a heck of a lot more fun for him than "running errands for Migelo," as he puts it. So why the critiques?

*** Quina doesn't have any reason to stick around with the heroes in Final Fantasy IX, and the only thing he even ''did'' was lead them to a dungeon. Heck, even Zidane admitted that he was with Quina for the earth fiend as a "leftover", almost as if they thought "okay we need an 8th party member and we can't use Beatrix, Cinna, Marcus, or blank so who do we use...?" Freya also doesn't seem to have that much use storywise after disc 2, and Amarant also seems to be just a rather minor character who has ''one'' arc, but nobody seems to have a problem with these guys either.
** They probably originally intended for Vaan and Penelo to take centre-stage in other Ivalice Alliance games set around the same timeframe - I recall reading somewhere they wanted to make Baasch or Ashe be the hero but they decided against it. (Or just Ashe since she was revealed first next to Vaan if I recall)

*** By the way, the above really applies more to the older stuff than to the new Ultimanias, which more or less just expand on the creators' ideas and fleshes out some of the vagueries. But older Square supplements, most infamously with ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' and the "Perfect Works" book, had a bad habit of outright {{RetCon}}ing stuff that actually happened in the games, with the fan excuse of "well, the budget ran out on the game, ExecutiveMeddling kept them from getting it right, so what's in the book is what ''really'' happened". That's immensely unfair, and even though the more recent stuff's never repeated that debacle, it's left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.

**** What's your point? We have a bunch of different ideas of what happens after you die and different systems of magic in one country, nevermind the entire world. People just figure out different ways to do things.

** Forget ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' - what does Square-Enix have against ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII''?! It's gotten on more recommendation lists than ''II'', yet ''it'' never got released in a special edition package. All there is is just the DS remake, Cloud of Darkness and Onion Knight in Dissidia and...that's it.

**** I think that I once watched a documentary on Final Fantasy and they said the reason it was called Final Fantasy was because since there company was going broke that game was there final chance.

** There's another reason for why they're called ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'', as well: Brand Name Recognition. Why do you think they put similar packaging on related products? So you'd recognize it while browsing through the store - the same goes for Video games, too. (SaGa, WorldOfMana for one) They also put in advertisements, too. ("From the people who brought you ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' comes...Empire Palmecia!") You'd be surprised how many new franchises (brands) are ignored while the newest Zelda or CallOfDuty have people screaming about them on the internet the second they go into development. You just ''know'' that if Square-Enix decided to remake what would be Franchise/FinalFantasy XV under a ''completely'' different title, that it wouldn't get ''half'' the hype it ''would'' be unless it was ''announced'' under ''Franchise/FinalFantasy 15''. (Heck, they could practically run an entire E3 lineup with nothing but new franchises that they're publishing and developing, and an expansion pack for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' and everyone would ''immediately'' fixate on the words with ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''.)
* It just bugs me that Gilgamesh has yet to receive his own game. There's more than enough [[TheEpicOfGilgamesh source]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyV material]] to work with, and plenty of [[FanService cameos]] to go around.

**** And that '''FUCKING LONG TRIP TO THE FINAL BOSS WITHOUT ANY SAVE POINTS''', and hours upon hours of hard work wasted if you got [[TotalPartyKill wiped out]] along the way.

<<|ItJustBugsMe|>>

** There's another reason for why they're called ''Franchise/FinalFantasy y'', as well: Brand Name Recognition. Why do you think they put similar packaging on related products? So you'd recognize it while browsing through the store - the same goes for Video games, too. (SaGa, WorldOfMana for one) They also put in advertisements, too. ("From the people who brought you ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' comes...Empire Palmecia!") You'd be surprised how many new franchises (brands) are ignored while the newest Zelda or CallOfDuty have people screaming about them on the internet the second they go into development. You just ''know'' that if Square-Enix decided to remake what would be Franchise/FinalFantasy XV under a ''completely'' different title, that it wouldn't get ''half'' the hype it ''would'' be unless it was ''announced'' under ''FinalFantasy 15''. (Heck, they could practically run an entire E3 lineup with nothing but new franchises that they're publishing and developing, and an expansion pack for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' and everyone would ''immediately'' fixate on the words with ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''.)

* Why are so many people in the It Just Bugs Me page for Final Fantasy XII complaining about Vaan and Penelo having no real reason to join the party? I mean, if you consider it, a heck of a lot of ''other'' characters didn't have any real reason to join the party in their games either. In {{Final Fantasy V}}, Bartz simply tags along for no better reason than because Lenna and the others need help. In {{Final Fantasy VI}}, Setzer, Shadow, Gau, Gogo, Strago, and Relm don't have any tangible reason for joining either. In {{Final Fantasy VII}}, Cid decides to join AVALANCHE for no better reason than shits and giggles. Tifa only joins the party to keep Cloud company, which is basically the reason Penelo joined Vaan's party. None of these guys have any personal, tangible reason for joining, they just decide to come along. And Vaan's motivations do make a certain amount of sense-at the start of the game he's complaining about his boring life in the gutter and how he dreams of being a heroic adventurer and sky pirate. Fighting monsters and taking on heroic quests is a heck of a lot more fun for him than "running errands for Migelo," as he puts it. So why the critiques?

* With everything this franchise has gone through, such as [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyII a confusing level system]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyV insane difficulty]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX an annoying mini-game]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII unnecessary spin-offs]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII a time-consuming Junction system]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII an unnecessary Licensing system]], and an InNameOnly [[FinalFantasyTheSpiritsWithin film adaptation]], how is it that the linearity of VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII was what ultimately [[RuinedForever destroyed]] this franchise?

**** Wow that was fast. And yes, Ivalice is probably the biggest universe to ever appear in the FinalFantasy series.

* How come there are maybe four or five of us who actually don't misblame Nomura for everything? I've seen a lot of old-school final fantasy fans say that every game that has Nomura in the title list is crap? Uhh...okay so then FinalFantasy should have stopped at 3 then? No I don't mean SNES 3...Because guess what? ''HE'S BEEN WORKING WITH SQUARE SINCE FINAL FANTASY IV!!!'' He's also only really been a character designer and director. He's had no more to do with the actual video games other than design than the much-worshiped Amano has. (Until ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVersusXIII''...which ironically critics have been praising but the fans will pull the TheyChangedItNowItSucks card) Also...Nomura had absolutely nothing to do with IX's artwork.

** KingdomHearts: KudzuPlot, no wall bangers because everything makes sense as we go along. And how the [[FridgeLogic heck is it Nomura's fault if he's not even associated with a game in the first place?]] You're assigned to a project, you just don't come in and hijack it. Are you sure you've played any of the FinalFantasy games lately anyways? Because I've [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII checked]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII all]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX the]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX pages]] [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2 for]] the most recent FF games and there are no wall bangers listed.

*** Yes, we have different ''ideas''. Each of the worlds has different '''demonstrated truths''' about what happens after you die. And dunno if you noticed but magic isn't, you know, ''real'' in our world, so it doesn't matter if our countries have different ideas about it. In each FinalFantasy world, it ''is'' real, and there is conclusive evidence for how it works, is taught, and stored, and ''they're all different''. You're comparing apples not to oranges, but to Killer Tomatoes. There's no point in comparing something in FinalFantasy to our world like that.

** There's another reason for why they're called ''FinalFantasy y'', as well: Brand Name Recognition. Why do you think they put similar packaging on related products? So you'd recognize it while browsing through the store - the same goes for Video games, too. (SaGa, WorldOfMana for one) They also put in advertisements, too. ("From the people who brought you ''FinalFantasy'' comes...Empire Palmecia!") You'd be surprised how many new franchises (brands) are ignored while the newest Zelda or CallOfDuty have people screaming about them on the internet the second they go into development. You just ''know'' that if Square-Enix decided to remake what would be FinalFantasy XV under a ''completely'' different title, that it wouldn't get ''half'' the hype it ''would'' be unless it was ''announced'' under ''FinalFantasy 15''. (Heck, they could practically run an entire E3 lineup with nothing but new franchises that they're publishing and developing, and an expansion pack for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' and everyone would ''immediately'' fixate on the words with ''FinalFantasy''.)

** There's another reason for why they're called ''FinalFantasy y'', as well: Brand Name Recognition. Why do you think they put similar packaging on related products? So you'd recognize it while browsing through the store - the same goes for Video games, too. (SaGa, WorldOfMana for one) They also put in advertisements, too. ("From the people who brought you ''FinalFantasy'' comes...Empire Palmecia!") You'd be surprised how many new franchises (brands) are ignored while the newest LegendOfZelda or CallOfDuty have people screaming about them on the internet the second they go into development. You just ''know'' that if Square-Enix decided to remake what would be FinalFantasy XV under a ''completely'' different title, that it wouldn't get ''half'' the hype it ''would'' be unless it was ''announced'' under ''FinalFantasy 15''. (Heck, they could practically run an entire E3 lineup with nothing but new franchises that they're publishing and developing, and an expansion pack for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' and everyone would ''immediately'' fixate on the words with ''FinalFantasy''.)

*** Is it because a dedicated Chemist could be a potential GameBreaker?

**** And that '''FUCKING LONG TRIP TO THE FINAL BOSS WITHOUT ANY SAVE POINTS''', and wasted hours upon hours of hard work if you got [[TotalPartyKill TPK]]'d along the way.

**** And that '''FUCKING LONG TRIP TO THE FINAL BOSS WITHOUT ANY SAVES'''.

*** By the way, the above really applies more to the older stuff than to the new Ultimanias, which more or less just expand on the creators' ideas and fleshes out some of the vagueries. But older Square supplements, most infamously with ''{{Xenogears}}'' and the "Perfect Works" book, had a bad habit of outright {{RetCon}}ing stuff that actually happened in the games, with the fan excuse of "well, the budget ran out on the game, ExecutiveMeddling kept them from getting it right, so what's in the book is what ''really'' happened". That's immensely unfair, and even though the more recent stuff's never repeated that debacle, it's left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.

<<|ItJustBugsMe|>>

* How come there are maybe four or five of us who actually don't misblame Nomura for everything? I've seen a lot of old-school final fantasy fans say that every game that has Nomura in the title list is crap? Uhh...okay so then FinalFantasy should have stopped at 3 then? No I don't mean SNES 3...Because guess what? ''HE'S BEEN WORKING WITH SQUARE SINCE FINAL FANTASY IV!!!'' He's also only really been a character designer and director. He's had no more to do with the actual video games other than design than the much-worshiped Amano has. (Until ''FinalFantasyVersusXIII''...which ironically critics have been praising but the fans will pull the TheyChangedItNowItSucks card) Also...Nomura had absolutely nothing to do with IX's artwork.

** Keep in mind that [[FinalFantasyVI Strago]] is a subversion. All he needs to do is see the attack to learn it. Just make sure he's not Blinded, Wounded, Muddled, Zombied, or whatever else might prevent him seeing it.

** KingdomHearts: KudzuPlot, no wall bangers because everything makes sense as we go along. And how the [[FridgeLogic heck is it Nomura's fault if he's not even associated with a game in the first place?]] You're assigned to a project, you just don't come in and hijack it. Are you sure you've played any of the FinalFantasy games lately anyways? Because I've [[FinalFantasyXIII checked]] [[FinalFantasyXII all]] [[FinalFantasyX the]] [[FinalFantasyIX pages]] [[FinalFantasyX2 for]] the most recent FF games and there are no wall bangers listed.

** Partly due to gameplay purposes, and partly due to stories. Do you think that having the InfinityPlusOneSword would be any good for someone who wasn't trained how to use that kind of stuff? It's best for them to use the Infinity plus one spell. Weapons do no good if you have no knowledge to use them, or if they're too heavy for you to lift. As for gameplay...Same reason mages are typically a GlassCannon and have crappy physical attack power. If the mage is capable of outdamaging the warrior with the same weaponry, what exactly would be the point of even having the warrior even bother to pick up their sword or do anything but stand in the way and soak up hits? It's to keep them from being overpowered as hell. Even if the characters in ''FinalFantasyXIII'' can do every role, they can't attack for 9999 damage and then heal for that amount within just two turns, you have to switch them to that role. Or, it's fully possible, but they receive penalties for doing it (like say, you don't have the feat to use exotic weaponry, so you take a roll penalty, and oyu don't have a very high magic stat so a magic attack deals less on a non-magic-user)

** Isn't FinalFantasy7 actually available on the Playstation Store right now? If anything, that's probably a safer bet given that {{Fan Hater}}s will try to make sure the game will sell no more than 4 copies since they judge a game ''solely'' off of a VocalMinority of FanDumb, and half the fanbase would [[NostalgiaFilter trash it and whine about it BECAUSE it's different]]. You do know that whenever Square-Enix and Nintendo are behind a remake of a demanded game, everyone is, at the same time, crying that they actually ''did'' remake it despite ''asking'' to have a remake. (Also, I have no idea if Enix actually would have any ''say'' over Final Fantasy.)

** Forget ''FinalFantasy7'' - what does Square-Enix have against ''FinalFantasyIII''?! It's gotten on more recommendation lists than ''II'', yet ''it'' never got released in a special edition package. All there is is just the DS remake, Cloud of Darkness and Onion Knight in Dissidia and...that's it.

** There's another reason for why they're called ''FinalFantasy y'', as well: Brand Name Recognition. Why do you think they put similar packaging on related products? So you'd recognize it while browsing through the store - the same goes for Video games, too. (SaGa, WorldOfMana for one) They also put in advertisements, too. ("From the people who brought you ''FinalFantasy'' comes...Empire Palmecia!") You'd be surprised how many new franchises (brands) are ignored while the newest LegendOfZelda or CallOfDuty have people screaming about them on the internet the second they go into development. You just ''know'' that if Square-Enix decided to remake what would be FinalFantasy XV under a ''completely'' different title, that it wouldn't get ''half'' the hype it ''would'' be unless it was ''announced'' under ''FinalFantasy 15''. (Heck, they could practically run an entire E3 lineup with nothing but new franchises that they're publishing and developing, and an expansion pack for ''FinalFantasyXIV'' and everyone would ''immediately'' fixate on the words with ''FinalFantasy''.)
* It just bugs me that Gilgamesh has yet to receive his own game. There's more than enough [[TheEpicOfGilgamesh source]] [[FinalFantasyV material]] to work with, and plenty of [[FanService cameos]] to go around.

* With everything this franchise has gone through, such as [[FinalFantasyII a confusing level system]], [[FinalFantasyV insane difficulty]], [[FinalFantasyX an annoying mini-game]], [[FinalFantasyVII unneccesary spin-offs]], [[FinalFantasyVIII a time-consuming Junction system]], [[FinalFantasyXII an unneccesary Licensing system]], and an InNameOnly [[FinalFantasyTheSpiritsWithin film adaptation]], how is it that the linearity of FinalFantasyXIII was what ultimately [[RuinedForever destroyed]] this franchise?

*** Also, ''FinalFantasyV'' was the one with the insane difficulty? I think you meant ''IV''.

** Most people get attached to their theories, and having material that contradicts it that's not explicitly part of the source they draw from (which the Ultimania's aren't, at least in comparison to the game itself) is ripe for {{Discontinuity}}. And yes the creators of the game do know more about the setting and characters than the fans do.

*** Is it because dedicated Chemists are potential GameBreakers?