Gameplay And Story Integration / Final Fantasy

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.

Final Fantasy XIV has its own page here.

• Final Fantasy IV:
  • You begin the game with Cecil and Kain, both trained knights in the service of the most militaristic kingdom on the planet. 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 Cast from Hit Points to deal damage. Paladins defend others so the solution is to Sheathe Your Sword 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 Noble Demon and Let's Fight Like Gentlemen, 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 Violation of Common Sense.)
  • 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 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 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 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.
• Final Fantasy V justifies the "Nobody uses healing items to save people in cutscenes" problem in RPGs by having Galuf get killed so hard (via fighting and defeating the Big Bad at 0 HP and running on sheer willpower) that not even Cure or Life spells will save him.
• In Final Fantasy VII, 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 Squishy Wizard with very low HP, but extremely high MP).
  • In the Gaiden Game and Prequel Crisis Core, you play as SOLDIER First Class Zack Fair. It's not really a spoiler anymore that The Hero Dies at the end, but in the meanwhile you get a fun Action RPG with a Limit Break mechanic in the form of the "Digital Mind Wave," a slot machine that's always in the corner and gives you your LBs or Summon Magic when you line up three portraits of the same NPC. It's a Luck-Based Mission and somewhat frustrating to rely upon... until the Bolivian Army Ending, where it throws match after match, letting Zack use his strongest attacks and treating players to cutscenes of Zack and those characters together. Suddenly the DMW is the heart of the game: it dramatizes 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 Player Punch as Aerith's death... but it comes damn close.
• Final Fantasy VIII:
  • Rinoa 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 in space and Angelo, Rinoa's dog and the crux of her original limit break, is elsewhere ( 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 Desperation Attack 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 Heel–Face Turn and becoming a Guest-Star Party Member, 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 Limit Break 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 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'.
• Final Fantasy IX:
  • 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 Chivalrous Pervert, has a "Protect Girls" skill that lets him jump in front of a female party member to protect her.
  • Quina, the Big Eater 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 game will end.
  • In a similar instance to the above, the rematch against 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 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, 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.
  • 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 Trance State. After witnessing Mog transform into Madeen using Trance, Kuja deduces that Trance is the key to unlocking a Super Mode for himself. He's right, and he does... by having you defeat him in battle. It also ties directly into Zidane's Dyne abilities, all of which are a miniaturised Earth-Shattering Kaboom. Quite an unusual skill-set for a Thief-type character... 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.
• Final Fantasy X:
  • Similar to Final Fantasy IX 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 Time Magic.
  • Yuna, the White Mage, is a Squishy Wizard who needs to complete a pilgrimage (see: "the whole first half of the game" above). The rest of the party is her Praetorian Guard. To reinforce the idea that they're here to protect her, each of them can exploit Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors against a specific type of enemy: Tidus's swiftness lets him catch four-legged baddies, Auron's BFS lets him slice through armored foes, Black Mage Lulu can handle elemental enemies, Long-Range Fighter Wakka knocks flying enemies from the sky, and Rikku's Video Game Stealing skill can be used to dismantle robots. Each of them can One-Hit Kill 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 The Big Guy trotted out to use Summon Magic (as Aeons in this game serve as Meat Shields).
  • 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 The Power of Friendship 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 Fear of Thunder (depending on when you first see it). In 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 Lulu's, which starts with basic elemental magic.
  • A very subtle one; when fighting Seymour's first two forms, if Yuna and/or Tidus are out on the field, he will direct the majority of his attacks at them, which makes sense considering his rather 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 Blue Mage 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.
• Final Fantasy X-2:
  • 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 Soul Jar 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 Summon Magic 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 Time Skip 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.
• Final Fantasy XII:
  • 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 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 hate magic and monsters in general hate healing more than anything; this is absolutely borne out in gameplay.
  • Basch, despite being a Mighty Glacier 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 solitary confinement, malnutrition, and Cold-Blooded Torture, it makes perfect sense for him to have lingering health issues.
• Final Fantasy XIII:
  • 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 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. She's already a l'Cie, and has been for 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.
• Dissidia Final Fantasy: 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.
  • During a cutscene, the Warrior of Light uses a Shining Wave to shatter the crystal The Emperor offers him.
  • 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.
  • 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" 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.
• One of the main mechanics of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius 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: 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.