Along the way he meets a number of companions who all end up helping him for some reason or another; Lisbeth, an amnesiac girl with cat ears, a thief named Ibis, a Blue Mage named Ellana, a monk named Fuban, and a walking, talking doll named KioSen, who used to be human.
The game was originally released on velv.net
on August 27th 2002. Even though the original site silently went offline in the early 2020s, it has been uploaded to a number of abandonware and RPG Maker sites, and is still available to play as long as you have the fan translation of RPG Maker 2000 installed on your machine, as well as the fan-updated Singularity Edition on RPGMaker.net that can be installed as a standalone version on current systems. It was notable for being one of the Final Fantasy fangames out there that, despite some odd little shortcomings, was actually fairly warmly received. It incorporated a way to learn spells that worked like a cross between Final Fantasy VIII's draw system and Final Fantasy II's spell tomes, and each character had a unique set of abilities to make them all worth trying out, adding more replay value than was expected of RPG Maker titles at the time.
This game provides examples of:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The first real dungeon is one of these, but thankfully doesn't take long to get through.
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Asteroids with air seals and atmosphere generators? That's fine, but it goes all the way into Willing Suspension of Disbelief when you realise how strong their gravity is. Keep in mind you can walk all the way from edge to edge of some of them in a matter of seconds and see nothing but space on the horizon.
- Action Girl:
- Motor. She basically looks and functions like an android version of Lucca from Chrono Trigger.
- Ellana does a wonderful job of carrying a staff and not playing the way one would expect one carrying such a weapon to play, in that she can do decent attack damage and most of her Blue Magic does damage. Most of her staves are also excellent demon-slaying weapons.
- The Alcatraz: Finel Prison, which emerges into an area that isn't properly terraformed, is infested with monsters and needs to have air manually pumped into the area every two minutes.
- Adaptation Expansion: The Singularity Edition adds a few lines of dialogue to attempt to fill in a few gaps in the plot.
- Aliens Speaking English: Kind of justifiable; any alien civilization not currently living on the game's main planet still has enough connection with it one way or another. Well, except Avanta, which has been trapped in an alternate dimension for an ungodly amount of time, yet is full of books you can read. The ghost on Banaru might qualify too.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The Singularity Edition features a few QoL changes, such as being able to skip throwing 10 Gil into the wishing well the last 350 times while you're controlling Ibis by having him throw all 3500 at once, and being able to buy prize tickets for the arcade at the very end of the game.
- Always Night: The areas in space always appear to be set at night, with the street lamps always on. Apparently, the asteroids always have their bases turned away from the sun.
- Artificial Gravity: Never actually mentioned, but assumed as there's no other way you could walk around on an asteroid so easily.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: Quenlin, and the final boss. To music from Guilty Gear no less!
- Ax-Crazy: Fuban, before he was taken in for training by a martial-arts master.
- Back from the Dead: Deren and Quenlin were presumed dead four hundred years ago, but were in fact in stasis. Fuban plays it straight, brought back from the dead by his distraught mother via necromancy with side effects.
- Backtracking: Haven't made it across Ventry Heights yet? Have fun backtracking all the way to Kogagu Cave for an inn.
- Bag of Holding: Being an RPG Maker game, there's no inventory limit beyond the usual 99 per item.
- Bag of Sharing: The party briefly splits, and shares the inventory when they do.
- The Beastmaster: The game tells us that Ellana is this. She's actually a Blue Mage.
- Belated Happy Ending: Deren is seen floating to the coast of Corret, much as he did in the events before the game started. It's unknown whether anyone will find him, alive or dead, unless you defeat an optional boss, unlocking an extra scene in which a young man - loosely implied to be Ellana and Fuban's son - finds him.
- BFG: Motor's Graviton Cannon Limit Break. Also, Regal Sura, a space station designed to blast a hole in the asteroid belt encasing the solar system.
- BFS: Quenlin brandishes one during his boss fight. Iron Giants in the last dungeons will hit you with these as well.
- BGM Override: During the siege on Necelia, and later when climbing the Tower of Stillness. Very frantic, and creepy, respectively.
- Big Bad: Quenlin is made out to be this. It's really Paradorn, the true name of Obeska, who in turn owes it all to Dr. Fesha, who basically sold out the entire universe to be remembered as the greatest scientific mind of all time.
- Big Damn Heroes: Motor and Ibis catch up to Ellana during the Necelia siege and insist on helping her. They offer the same help to the not-yet recruited Fuban moments later, who is offended by this and runs off.
- Bottomless Magazines: Motor's primary weapon is a gun, and many of her special abilities incorporate firearms in some way. Not only do they use no ammunition, but they don't use any MP either.
- Boy Meets Girl: Ibis and Ellana. However, despite their apparent chemistry, she picks Fuban instead as she realises Ibis' lifestyle isn't for her.
- Breather Episode: Though each one ends badly, especially Necelia.
- But Thou Must!: Lisbeth won't let you refuse Ibis' offer for help.
- Can't Drop the Hero: The game outright tells you this if you try.
- The Cavalry: KioSen's Limit Break, Box Of Toys.
- Central Theme: Making the most of your lifetime and accepting that you only live once unless you're kept in stasis by ancient magic or sheer willpower of course.
- Chekhov's Gun: The weapon prototype stolen at the beginning of the game disappears from the plot for quite some time.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Ibis is a light version of this. He's very polite to Ellana - far more so than he is to Deren - but slips out a few remarks about her looks now and then.
- Combos: The Dream Stooges from Final Fantasy VI are a summoned monster in the game, and use a multi-elemental attack.
- Convection, Schmonvection: The Red Temple has you hopping across lava to tiny rocks sticking out of it.
- Cool Old Guy: Cid Mazahl and Master Fuban.
- Cute Bruiser: KioSen and Ellana.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Deren, if he could just remember any of it.
- A Day in the Limelight: Motor and Ibis take lead character roles for fairly lengthy portions of the game. To a lesser extent, returning to each area after a certain point in the game triggers scenes with each character, either reflecting on their experiences, interacting with another character or telling the party more of their past.
- Dead Character Walking: Averted at times, unfortunately due to the way RPG Maker takes HP levels very literally; if you finish a boss fight with the wrong characters' HP at 0, once the upcoming cutscene splits the party it's Game Over.
- Death by Origin Story: Fuban was resurrected by an unreliable wand called the "Dura Strobe," which causes him to lack humanity, something he's been having to slowly regain.
- Death Ray: Deren and Motor's Limit Breaks, and Regal Sura.
- Debut Queue: The game is about halfway done by the time all seven party members are recruited.
- Declaration of Protection: Deren to Lisbeth, because of her amnesia and the fact he just plain hated the man that was holding her hostage. He also wants help with his own amnesia and as such has them working toward a common goal.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Ifrit and Bahamut. Atlas sics three King Behemoths on you but doesn't directly fight you himself.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Deren humiliates Sho at the beginning of the game by stealing an item of which he doesn't even know the function from him and runs away laughing. Sho originally left Deren to die in a scrapyard for choosing not to work for him any more...
- Doomed Hometown: Arleah would be this for Deren, until he gets his memory back. Necelia gets attacked but ultimately survives.
- Doomsday Device: The sun itself.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Early on in the game after escaping a prison cell. It doesn't fool the boss though.
- Dungeon Crawling
- Bonus Dungeon: The lost lab.
- Disc-One Final Dungeon: Regal Sura.
- The Maze: Ebidar desert, should you choose not to use the warp pipe.
- Noob Cave: Mian Forest, which conveniently gives you all the basic elemental spells and cure if you're patient enough.
- Dynamic Entry: When confronting Coral in Necelia, she is suddenly attacked by a huge man wearing claws. He introduces himself as Fuban and joins the party.
- The End of the World as We Know It: And how! Somehow the supernova of the nearby sun is meant to be able to jumpstart the Big Crunch.
- Escape Pod: Vessels closely resembling these are a primary method of space travel. They look a lot like the ones from Dragon Ball Z.
- Everything Is an iPod in the Future: Averted. Almost every area of colonized space looks rough and rocky, and the well-developed area where all the well-off folk live is gunmetal grey.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Dr. Fesha before the events of the game. She's long since moved on to robotics by the time you meet her, but she still has her more successful experiments on hand as boss monsters, named after the Final Fantasy spell levels no less.
- Fetch Quest: A little girl in Darum can't find her favourite marbles. They've all conveniently rolled to conspicuous places or underneath objects that weren't there before you spoke to her.
- Force Field: How the atmosphere is held in place on asteroid colonies.
- Friendship Moment: After Paradorn has made her final threat to end all life in the universe, the heroes give up. Deren, aided by Motor of all people, berates the team for sitting around waiting to die and storms out. A few moments later, everyone sees the error of their ways and comes at them apologies flailing.
- Fusion Dance: Less of a dance and more of a spell, by the Obeskan High Mage and Quenlin. He's even called "Fusion Quenlin" during the battle.
- Gatling Good: Motor's first special ability, which can one-shot entire enemy groups in the earliest stages.
- Genre Shift: All pretty much optional. There's a peculiar turn-based fighting game, a Chocobo-themed Tamagotchi clone, a space courier simulator, and a mining game. If you want all the summons though you'd best be ready to put in the time.
- A God Am I: Paradorn pulls this off by posing as the more benevolent (albeit humourless) Obeska and convincing people to follow her religion of nihilism and generally doing nothing. She wants more, and is willing to destroy the entire universe so that only her kingdom will remain.
- Grave-Marking Scene: The town of Ress has what Deren desribes as gravestones with recent dates on them. The town may have gone a bit peculiar from the Obeskan religion taking it over but at least they're still burying their dead.
- Guide Dang It!: Thankfully this is an RPG Maker game so you can just open the game in the editor and find out what you're missing.
- Happy Fun Ball: Being a Final Fantasy fangame, the infamous Movers make an appearance in the final dungeon, and will obliterate you if you didn't come packing at least one multi-targeting spell as they will constantly revive one-another. Great for farming Mega Potions though.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Deren taps into his life force to teleport the rest of the party to safety after defeating the final boss.
- Hero of Another Story: Deren himself, believe it or not. It turns out he has near-total amnesia of his life as Kiro Gashmith, the prince of Necelia, four hundred years prior. Honourable mention as well for the fact he accidentally named himself after the favourite sci-fi hero of the doctor who saved his life.
- Hit Points: Which increase in capacity each time you end a battle with too few of them remaining.
- Ho Yay: There's an affection rating system that enables a heart-to-heart scene with Motor or Lisbeth... or Ibis, or Xugen, Deren's BFF from his days as Kiro.
- Improbable Weapon User: KioSen attacks by throwing beakers at the enemy, complete with cute little battle cry. Lisbeth uses bells, but her being a Geomancer and this being Final Fantasy that's not so unusual.
- Industrial Ghetto: Stars Bliss. The western side, anyway. Kortira is also this, complete with talk of an underground music scene.
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests: In the ending sequence, Ibis finds one on a supposedly uncharted planet.
- Infinity +1 Sword: Each character gets one (hell, Deren gets two) and they give a satisfying white flash on contact. The weaker melee fighters gain additional benefits such as instant death or an insane boost to their magic power.
- Info Dump: Lisbeth to Deren, and then Deren to everyone else, when the party reunites at Tazuu Falls. See the Wham Episode entry below for details.
- Informed Attribute: This gem from an NPC in Kortira:
- "I'm listening to some solid tunes!"
- Insistent Terminology: Much like many other English language Final Fantasy games, the summoned monsters are referred to by a word unique to the game. In this case it's Dainsev.
- Intentional Engrish for Funny: The Meteor Shower minigame in the Singularity Edition steals some quotes from the Homestar Runner games menu.
- Interface Spoiler: Occasionally, at the start of a cutscene, a stat bonus announcement for a character who has yet to join the party or have their name revealed will appear on the screen.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Deren and Lisbeth. Unless you're considering Deren and Fuban's actual ages as well, in which case it might as well be the entire party.
- It's Raining Cat Girls: How Deren meets Lisbeth. This is also what causes his lost memories to begin to resurface, and ironically what causes Lisbeth to lose hers.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ibis. He means well, for someone whose first encounter with the party is a failed attempt to mug Deren.
- Kaiju: Kogagu, the guardian of the Kogagu Caves. Some of the summoned monsters have to be fought to recruit them as well.
- Killed Off for Real: None of the boss fights end in Disney deaths, which is quite a refreshing change. Everyone you defeat in combat stays dead. Except for Paradorn, of course, who must be fought twice.
- Kill Sat: Regal Sura qualifies, especially when it wipes out Arleah.
- Lady of War: Ellana is shown to be a very capable fighter despite her prim appearance and demeanor.
- Large Ham: Quenlin. Deren even says he'll think of it as a dramatic face off when briefing the team on an upcoming encounter with him.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Lisbeth and Deren can't remember who they are or where they come from, but thankfully can still speak English fluently. In Deren's case, said English hasn't evolved in four-hundred years, nor has it when he migrates to space looking for work. Lucky him.
- Last Disc Magic: Unless you grind to masochistic proportions and exploit the game's item-trading system, you'll be waiting until quite late in the game to find all the -aga level spells, as well as the usual even stronger Final Fantasy mainstays.
- Lazy Backup: Considering all seven of them are shown traveling together throughout the game.
- Leitmotif: Deren, Lisbeth, Ibis, Ellana, KioSen, Obeska and Quenlin. There are also special battle themes for Paradorn's spawn in the four temples, Quenlin, and Paradorn, and they are all awesome. The title screen also plays a MIDI of the song Duvet by Boa, whose lyrics seem to reflect Motor's and Lisbeth's reactions to Deren.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: By the time you first arrive at the Astral Tower, Ibis and Ellana have left the party, and Motor then has to temporarily leave as the tower repels robots somehow, leaving Deren and Lisbeth to climb the tower alone. The other three then meet up again and form a secondary party. Said party splits up yet again later on, recruiting Fuban and KioSen in doing so. The seven all come together at Tazuu Falls, at which point they - with the exception of some one-on-one boss battles - do not split again.
- Limit Break: A cross between Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VIII; they're very rarely activated at low HP, but the game at least offers the command up to the player.
- Losing the Team Spirit: When Paradorn gloats that her plan is now unstoppable and nobody can think of a viable solution.
- Love Triangle: Ellana is caught between the flirtatious-yet-chivalrous Ibis and the hot-tempered Fuban. She picks Fuban in the end, which
Word of God stated was based on a real life experience. - MacGuffin: The weapon prototype, and later the four wishes.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Motor's Micro Missiles skill.
- Mad Scientist: Dr. Fesha performs experiments with little regard for the consequences of them, even seeing her biological experiments as obstacles to throw in someone's way as a minor roadblock.
- Magitek: The Specran race seem to be proficient in this with their methods of space travel.
- Mega Manning: Sort of; Ellana need only witness an enemy casting blue magic in order to learn it.
- Messianic Archetype: Lisbeth starts out as this, but has to pass the torch to Deren when her powers as such are drained by the bad guys.
- Metal Detector Puzzle: With no indication as to how close you are to finding anything. And it's the only way to obtain the Phoenix summon. Have fun!
- Money Spider: The random encounters keep you quite rich in this one.
- More Dakka: Some of Motor's special skills get pretty brutal.
- Mythology Gag: The optional superboss Watcher Omega drops a completely useless item, much like its predecessors in 5 and 8. It does have a spell and piece of equipment worth having, but they have to be earned during the battle.
- New Era Speech: President Heran's is cut short by an aide walking on stage to distract him.
-
Nintendo Hard: Thanks in part to the stat-raising system that is based on Final Fantasy II's, though thankfully it's much easier to gain powerful spells in this one, and beating bosses automatically boosts each character's base stats. - Non-Human Sidekick: KioSen, on account of having merged himself with a doll by accident. He gets better.
- Nuke 'em: Regal Sura was designed to do this to Vesta Belt, but was never quite finished.
- Older Than They Look: Happens multiple times.
- Deren and Quenlin were both put into stasis by the Wish, making them both over four-hundred years old.
- We never do learn exactly how old Fuban is, but it's implied that he's older than most of the party by a couple of generations due to necromancy.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Paradorn intends to destroy the universe over and over in order to prevent her city from being destroyed.
- One-Time Dungeon: The storage facility at the beginning, which is a linear sequence of dialogue and generic trooper fights.
- Only One Name: Motor, Lisbeth, Ibis, Quenlin, President Heran and Dr. Fesha. Just about every other major character not only has a surname, but both their names even get mentioned in-game.
- Orphan's Plot Trinket: Lisbeth's Precious Locket accessory, which is how the heroes learn her name.
- Our Presidents Are Different: The Finel Capital is run by four governors collectively known as the Finel Quartet. During the game's intro they announce that they are, for no real reason, changing the system to have a single president. It's all part of an evil plan to replace governor Heran with Quenlin so that Dr. Fesha can essentially pull the strings of the government and ultimately sell out the universe for a bit of fame.
- Pamphlet Shelf: As per typical RPG standards, the libraries in Avanta and Osha.
- Party in My Pocket: Only Deren (or the designated leaders of the split up parties) is shown while you're playing, but cutscenes have all seven characters present.
- Permanently Missable Content: Averted! There's not a single item or spell that you can't go back for or find elsewhere, even if "elsewhere" means "grinding for hours for items to trade."
- Plot Coupon: The four temple wishes, which Deren needs to stop the sun going supernova. True to RPG tradition, they're too late and are pipped at the post by the big bad.
- Powers as Programs: Filled Cryna orbs cause a character to instantly gain the ability to cast the spell they've absorbed.
- Precision F-Strike: It's not what you think. With the game's dialogue mostly being as PG as it is, Deren gets so angry during the team-wide Heroic BSoD when they think they've lost that he let's slip a "friggin'" before storming off. A defeated boss at one point drops an S-bomb too.
- Pre-Meeting: Some red-haired kid tries to mug Deren. Ibis later forces himself into the party and turns out to be one of the most helpful friends they make.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Quenlin, as well as Coral and Reef to a lesser extent.
- Punch-Clock Villain: The FC Troopers. When you're walking around Finel Capital you can speak to them without incident and even meet one relaxing in a park with his helmet off.
- The Purge: Paradorn's whole plan.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: One of the game's most contentious aspects. Probably the most common one was the amount of times Gs were replaced with Qs, and nobody seemed to know why. The Singularity Edition was originally started as a fix for this.
- Scenery Gorn: Most of the asteroid colonies you visit are strewn with litter, pollution, and graffiti. Impressive to say they're just a modification of RPG Maker 2000's default cavern graphics.
- Schizo Tech: A major thing in the game, allowing for some very diverse locations. Finel is the only nation in the game's world that uses technology, but due to losing their sovereignty years before the events of the game, they had to use their technology to migrate to space. A few places on the southern hemisphere of planet Coyas, the main planet of the game, have begun to adopt technology, but for the most part they live with low-tech and rely on magic.
- Shifting Sand Land: The Ebidar Desert.
- Ship Sinking: The ending. Ellana, who is shown standing next to Ibis in almost every cutscene, suddenly chooses to marry Fuban when he decides to accede the throne of Necelia, knowing he'll need her help, and probably because Ibis' lifestyle didn't suit her; the one Fuban was about to take on was far closer to how she had lived before the events of the game.
- Sphere of Power: Cryna orbs, which absorb the latent magical energy present in all living things.
- Stat Grinding: No experience points for you! The system is quite easy to use though, and even fleeing combat has benefits now.
- Take Your Time: "That nova could happen any moment" really means "anyone else fancy another round of Star Fighter? No? Well how about going to explore that hidden temple to the west of the Imil Gulf to fight the Queen of Magik, a fight we may well lose thus dooming the universe? Ooh, and after that we can go mining in Kortira to win that Phoenix Dainsev!"
- Terraform: Finel does this on a rudimentary level by making air seals on asteroids and pumping them full of breathable air. Their entire nation is basically built around this.
- Welcome to Corneria: Many NPCs have exactly one line of repeatable dialogue for the entire game.
- Wham Episode: Earlier on in the game, the party splits up. As soon as all seven are reunited, we learn what's really going on. The Obeskan religion is a comparatively peaceful front for the far more malevolent Paradorn, who wants to use the sun within Hell's Dome to destroy the entire universe. Lisbeth is a member of the Specran race from planet Frena, and was supposed to travel to the other surrounding planets to obtain a power called the Wish to re-establish the barrier around the sun that would've protected it from exploding, and would have also stopped the likes of Paradorn from using that to destroy everything. However, Lisbeth expended all the energy she'd already absorbed from the temples trying to stop Paradorn's cultists from murdering her, so it all rests with Deren, who just happened to be trained on using the same Wish energy four hundred years ago, back when he was Kiro Gashmith, a member of Necelian royalty, because his friend Acaden was also a member of Lisbeth's cat person race. Yeah, it's all a bit much to take in on a first playthrough.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Sho is never heard from again after Deren steals his MacGuffin. We also never find out what happened at Finel Capital after their usurper essentially ran off to join the circus and eventually got killed, which surely wouldn't thrown their administration into chaos.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Lisbeth feels this towards Deren when she first cracks her amnesia, thinking he only helped her to help himself. She is kidnapped moments later and pretty much takes it back.
- You Don't Look Like You: Many of the standard monster graphics from RPG Maker are simply renamed to match up to Final Fantasy counterparts. Some of the in-game monsters avert this, though, by being lifted from Final Fantasy IX, of all games.
