- Dissidia seems to joss this, indicating that all the worlds are in different universes connected thanks to the Void.
- Or, they did die, and were reborn on Spira as humans... in Zanarkand. And then proceeded to become Aeons. After death in the ending, they came back via materia from the Lifestream in FF7, keeping summon-form because they technically didn't reincarnate. After being summoned enough times there, they gained enough power (MP) to exist independant of a summoner, then left for the Summon Realm to help out the other various worlds.
- From now on, every time I read the words Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory I shall be mentally replacing it with Everyone Is A Human In Zanarkand.
- Dissidia Final Fantasy appeared to actually confirm this in the first trailer, all but confirming that the abnormal events of bringing together heroes and villains from the first ten incarnations of the world in this game is essentially Chaos trying to stop the cycle between the twelfth and thirteenth incarnations, and Cosmos being forced to act abnormally to continue it. Speaking of which...
- Further corroborated by the fact that Squall Leonheart seems to have descended from Leonheart of FF 2, and a book in FF 8 even seems to reference FF 2's storyline.
- The vast differences in advancement of civilization (the early games have kingdoms and empires, whilst 7 and 8 have countries with corporations or modern civil governments as did Zanarkand-age 10, and 12 seems to be somewhere in the Renaissance) and technology (no tech except the very rare airships in everything up to 5, Magitek in 6, full tech in 7 and 8, back to medieval in 9, full tech in Zanarkand knocked back to dark ages by Sin in 10, and back to tech again in 12) can be explained by having the timeline of FF on a wave curve of advancement versus decay - when the curve is going up, civilization is advancing - populations are growing, countries modernize, tech advances, etc. - then it reaches a peak and hits a downward slope of decay - tech fades into uselessness or begins having Dark Tower-esque dysfunctions, modern civilizations degrade back into feudal system, and so on. (This is, of course, assuming the games were released in chronological order.)
- Combining this with a slight re-interpretation of the "Trapped in the Time Loop"/Dissidia theory, we could also say that there is truly only one major villain in the FF universe - Garland, constantly being reincarnated:
- FF1: The Fiends turn Garland into Chaos. The Light Warriors slay him, Time Loop, presumably there's some sort of temporal crash eventually. Garland's soul, empowered by becoming Chaos, haunts the earth.
- FF2: Garland either reincarnates as Emperor Palamecia, or possesses him. Killed by Firion's group, attempts an immediate reincarnation (Light Emperor), but the quick action of some already-dead heroes prevents that.
- FF3: The Imbalance. Whenever the forces of Light or Darkness get out of balance, Garland siezes the opportunity and manifests through them. He did it once before as an Incarnate of Light and was beaten, tries again this time around as Cloud of Darkness and fails again.
- FF4: The Lunarians are presumably a peaceful species, Zemus being the only exception - we can chalk that up to Garland's influence. Drives Zemus into a hate-fed rage over many years, so powerful that when Zemus is killed Garland can harness that energy to forge himself a new body - poof, Zeromus.
- FF5: Reincarnates as Enuo. Gains power, masters Void Magic... gets himself killed. Before he can attempt a new plan his soul gets bound to a tree, so he starts messing around with that and eventually merges with it, creating ExDeath. Manipulates events to get himself free, tries to go after more power with the Void... ends up overestimating his own abilities in this form and screws up, hence NeoExDeath. Killing him resets the cycle, back at square one.
- FF6: Reincarnates as Kefka, but without knowledge of who he is or what his purpose is - perhaps a side effect of the NeoExDeath screwup. Goes through life fairly normally, though there are slight hints of his evil potential, as he signs up for the military and ends up becoming an officer. Volunteers for the Magitek project, which breaks his psychosis and partially revives the Garland personality, but now twisted with insanity. This time around he finally gets what he wants, and nigh well obliterates everything, but gets killed off before he can finish the job.
- FF7: I'm partial to the Jenova is the Real Villain theory myself, and personally I think she makes more sense in this line of thought. Comes to earth, screws with the Cetra, gets sealed away rather than killed. Found and used for experiments, Sephiroth gets created, giving Jenova a perfect puppet. She mentally manipulates Sephy into doing all the stuff he does through the game. Decides to challenge the heroes herself finally at the end, first alone (Jenova Synthesis), then tag-team fused with Sephiroth (Bizarro - tell me I'm not the only one that sees the second head on Bizarro looks female, suggesting a woman hanging with her arms around Seph's neck and shoulders). When that fails Jenova/Garland is dead, sending the soul back to prepare for another reincarnation, but s/he gives Seph the rest of their power, hoping he can finish the job, and of course he doesn't. AC on the other hand was out of Garland's control - that was Seph/Seph's clones trying to do things on their own and failing miserably.
- FF8: Garland decides to try the mind-control/possession route again. Notice how all the sorceresses go berserk after a while? That's Garland messing with their brains. Unfortunately his control isn't as precise this time around, especially after Ultimecia tries that crazy "Time Compression" trick. Let's not try that plan again.
- FF9: Reincarnation isn't working. Mind control isn't working. Let's try Chessmaster. Garland (the FF1 one, not the one from this game, of course) decides to sit back and influence the world indirectly, rather than deliberately controlling things. Kuja, the rejected prototype? Let's encourage those feelings of overconfidence and, later, worthlessness and desperation. A magic crystal that controls life? Let's influence him to blow it up! When that fails to kill the heroes and obliterate the world, hey, Kuja just destroyed a Cosmic Keystone of life energy! Garland takes advantage of all that stray unused energy and incarnates again as Necron. Fails again.
- FF10: This time Garland decides to combine reincarnation with a little bit of civil manipulation. Incarnates as Yu Yevon, who turns himself into Sin. His body can only be destroyed by a really powerful Aeon, and when it does he just possesses that and turns it into a new Sin, yay eternal reincarnation! Furthermore, let's convince the whole world it's their fault Sin's here, so the only way to get rid of it is to keep killing it, fueling the cycle. Then someone got tired of that plan and decided to make someone who wouldn't play by the rules. You think by now, you'd have expected something like that, Garland...
- FF12: This is the one, at least for me, that doesn't seem to fit in this theory. Neither Vayne nor Venat really has the kind of mentality that most of the former FF villains had by endgame. Thoughts?
- Garland/Chaos is Ivalice (the world, not the country). That's why so many major adventures happen there. Alternately, he just hasn't shown up yet, and when he does it will link all the previous ivalice stories.
- No, neither Vayne nor Venat were really fitting with Chaos' ideals; the other Occuria are. Meaning that you are actually the bad guys. This seems to be a trend with Ivalice games.
- Mayhaps Garland/Chaos has had little to do with Ivalice. Perhaps all the reincarnating in Final Fantasy X drained most of his power so he was only able to affect the events in XII very little, such as starting the war. Perhaps he had some sort of plan to regain power and so was manipulating things until the heroes killed Vayne Solidor/Vayne Novus/The Undying and brought peace.
- So where does XIII stand on that then?
- Well, maybe Pulse is the same planet from FFVII a long time after it went all natural, and Garland was the Maker that created the fal'Cie. Hell, the some of the fal'Cie apparently try to bring back the Maker which could've been Garland's plan to be resurrected again.
- Combining this with a slight re-interpretation of the "Trapped in the Time Loop"/Dissidia theory, we could also say that there is truly only one major villain in the FF universe - Garland, constantly being reincarnated:
- Jossed by Word of God, FFX takes place in the same universe as FFVII, but on another planet and at an earlier point in time, so earlier in fact, that the boy Shinra in X-2 is not just a Shout-Out, but the ancestor of all humans on Gaia after the Cetra.
- Maybe not. Perhaps all the games don't take place on the same world but rather in the same universe. Additionally each game might not be in chronological order so the theory could still work.
- Completely Jossed by Word of God in the form of an official Ultimania guide, each Final Fantasy game takes place on a different world in a different dimension, all of which are connected thanks to the Void.
- Jossed by duodecim, since Cosmos lost the war (though it was already implied in the original Dissidia)
- Jossed by After Years. For one, Golbez piloted the Lunar Whale away to find Fusoya. For two, Edge and Rydia kind of establish a relationship (and at the very least Rydia shows she is too busy rebuiling Mist). Finally, Kain becomes the head of the new Red Wings, so he's not about to leave.
- B-but he WAS a Summon in Dissidia...
- And he's in the sequel...
However, between Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII'', something went wrong. People who had the "magic gene" married each other, maybe even formed societies, and the gene spread like a cancer, becoming essential part of the people's DNA. This allowed anyone to train themselves as mages/summoners/etc if they wanted to do so.
- This mystifies me as FF III, FF IV, and FF V held summons, maybe they all left the normal world for fear of their use and that adds to the events of FF VI, then they return as summons and teach magic (as Espers) which ANYONE can use. At the end of FF VI all the Espers vanish to help restore the Earth being part of the life force. I think this would become the new Materia for FF VII
When all the Hum(ans)e, Bangaa, Veira, Mithra, annoying hobbits from FFXI, yeti, etc leave the room the moogles belittle them for their lack of pom-poms.
Moogles are dicks.
Kupo actually means "Shit" In polish.
- Except that Word of God says Final Fantasy Tactics A2 takes place in the real (real as a fictional video game setting can be) Ivalice.
- Also...
- Artifact Title because the original game was supposed to be Hironobu Sakaguchi's last game. It could also refer to the fact that the Warriors of Light in the first game end a Stable Time Loop, making it the final iteration of a fantasy. This could, by extension, be applied to some of the other games. Final Fantasy VIII also features a Stable Time Loop (sort of) and Final Fantasy X features the final pilgrimage to defeat Sin.
- There is one theory for FFVIII. Who will dare to come up with a theory for every game?
- Possibly Jossed by Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, where it's established that the crystals are magical terraforming agents sent by The Creator; its extremely doubtful that Materia, no matter how big, could actively make a planet more earthlike by mere presence with no active user.
- Though that's only true for the FFIV Universe. The Crystals play different roles and have separate makers in each version.
- Its heavily implied to also be true in I and V, given that the effects of the loss of the crystals in both of those games is entirely consistent with the loss of Cosmic Keystone terraforming agents. "The wind stops, the sea is wild, the Earth begins to rot", etc. Even if they weren't sent by The Creator, they're still terraforming agents that operate independent of human users, whereas most Materia is inert and inactive without users after leaving the Lifestream. Plus, since materia is a product of the lifestream, not the lifestream itself, the fact that loss of a Crystal has major environmental effects shows that they're much more important, cosmologically, than materia; for a similar effect using materia, you'd have to destroy the Lifestream itself.
- Though that's only true for the FFIV Universe. The Crystals play different roles and have separate makers in each version.
Late in Pern's history, medical and military science achieved "soft" SF levels; phasers, medical tricorders, etc. The only caveat was that the correct device needed be used for the correct ailment; a detoxifier wouldn't close a wound, neither would an ocular surgical laser purge poison, or an energy-suture heal blindness. Military robots were constructed, though primarily used commercially as security forces, with only a select few being equipped with superpowered weapons. Power sources were all ZPMs. The Pernian human race launched a massive military satellite, codenamed "Sky Fortress", to do away with this "thread" bullshit once and for all. They destroyed the Red Star, resulting in the unholy mother of all Threadfalls. Dragons and humans both were subsequently driven to near-extinction. In-development bioweapons, part of "Project Eidolon", broke free, some of them truly horrific in nature, such as "Lich", a project to extend human lifespan with nanotechnology that instead ended in Body Horror. The robots became self-aware, concealing their nature from other creatures with dark robes and ridiculous hats. Because of the highly destructive and mysterious nature of their equipment, and their dark robes, they became known as "Black Wizards". A cult also sprung up around the healing tech; the "priests" became known as "White Wizards". Later on, some humans learned how to operate equipment from defunct Black Wizards, furthering the confusion. In any case, this is the reason spells are bought the way they are. The reason some individuals, IE Terra or most of the FF4 cast, can cast spells naturally is due to descent from an Esper or Eidolon.
- And some of the characters are recurring.
- Cloud is Lightning
- Yuffie is Rikku
- Cid Highwind is Cid Highwind
tl;dr Final Fantasy is really Final Softsciencefiction; all the magic is sufficiently advanced technology and all the weird critters are bioengineering projects that went wrong or were left half-finished.
- What I mean, is that it will be a downloadable 2D game to please the old school fans. It will have 16-Bit graphics, PS1-style FMVs, and the occasional voice acting.
- With the 25th Anniversury of the franchise being next year, I'm sure they'll have something for us. Maybe not a game in the main series, but a spin-off following the classic style.
- Wasn't the game "The four heroes of light" supposed to be that ?
- Final Fantasy Dimensions was an episodic game made during 2010-2012 and was made for NTT DoCoMo, iOS and Android, it is also a throwback to Final Fantasy V.
- With the 25th Anniversury of the franchise being next year, I'm sure they'll have something for us. Maybe not a game in the main series, but a spin-off following the classic style.
- Final Fantasy is the most stripped-down, bare-bones version of the story, probably its initial inception in medieval times or a summary on Wikipedia.
- Final Fantasy VII is told circa the 80's, between schoolkids or written down in novel form.
- Dissidia is fan-fiction. Even moreso than it is now.
- To flip this theory, the cartoon moogles came first. The so-called Moogles of Final Fantasy XII originated as the remaster version of the Hummingways and later evolved pom-poms. The people of Ivalice dubbed them Moogles after they noticed the resemblance, and the name stuck.
- Recurring characters like Shinryuu & Omega, Gilgamesh, and the summons are actually Planeswalkers.
- First of all, this is Self-explanatory since his appearance in Final Fantasy XII, but John DiMaggio's absence as of Dissidia Final Fantasy perplexes me. Now, onto business - the main reason he's here in the first place because ExDeath was the one to summon him first as an indestructible henchman. One bump in the continuum later, Bender loses his memories on his way, and ExDeath dubs him something or other. (To be continued)
- In the first continuity, once the Stable Time Loop is resolved, someone finds the airship that the Warriors of Light discovered and uses it to finally get to the northern continent, where he finds Lufenia and discovers more technology that they used. From there, technology became predominant, leading to Final Fantasy VI, which led to Final Fantasy X, which led to Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy VII, which led to Final Fantasy XIII, where Pulse is the Planet from FFVII and Fal'cie are the Lifestream after having millions of years to change and eventually take on multiple physical forms, which later became independent beings that formed factions, one that built Cocoon and another that stayed on Pulse. Since the events of FFVII, Materia have returned to the Lifestream and manifested in XIII as the Crystarium and l'Cie sigils.
- In the other continuity, the airship is destroyed or stops working before anyone finds it and the story continues with magic as the dominant force. This leads to FFII, to III, IV, V, IX, and XII. XI and XIV are not canon due their being Multiplayer nature.
No, really. It's a multi-dimensional travel thing.
- Jossed, since Kain stated in After years that he was about the same age as Ceodore (Cecil and Rosa's 17-year old son) when he lost his father, and Kain in Final Fantasy II looks to be about maybe 5 or 6 years old when Ricard dies
- Of all the ____ is a Time Lord WMG, this is probably the most supportable one.
Drakonis ruler of Mavolia(which Medusa/Anise from Dawn of Mana created and if she's the same Medusa as Sword of Mana then Drakonis is behind her creation of Mavolia which he now rules) in Legend of Mana and the Dragon Emperor of Seiken Densetsu 3 is called Tiamat in Japan(Tiamat is female so She is The Dragon Emperor???).
Considering all this does this mean Garland/Chaos is the one who sealed the mysterious Echoes(Which the Thanatos are servants of) away by creating both Fa'Diel and the place which under Medusa's control of the Thanatos would become Mavolia?
In all the games where Shinryu and Omega appear toguether, the first one you kill canonically is Shinryu. When you "kill" him, he actually opens up a portal in space and time and escapes to the Rift. Let's asume it, a incredibly powerful and immortal dragon can't be defeated by mere humans. So what does Omega do when he finds that his enemy has escaped again? First, he tracks down those who has defeated him (your party) and unleashes its rage against you, because you basically sent Shinryu to another dimension.
You always think you've defeated it (Omega), but it doesn't matter if you win or lose, as the outcome is always the same: Omega creates a copy of himself (like a baby-omega), and then it destroys itself, and with the energy created from the explosion it opens a portal in the Rift and sends the copy through the it. Then, the new Omega adaptes itself ad changes a little bit, so it slowly evolves til he is ready to kill Shinryu. You know tha room ful of Omegas in FF V Advance? I think that was a strategy. It commited suicide several times, so he could keep changing till he would adopt a new form.
But all of this is useless, because you are always there, fighting Shinryu despite the fact that you can't really kill him, and making Omega's quest harder in the process. Now, picture this: what if Omega only acts that way because of its programing? Maybe it's able to think and feel, but he must destroy Shinryu because that's what he was created to. Put it this way: imagine that, every time it destroys itself, Omega feels a pain that can't be described with words, and every verson of Omega share memories with the last one. When it finds you, it viciously tries to kill you because, somehow, you always manage yourself to arrive to Shinryu before it and prolongue its paint a little bit longer.
Also, there is absolutly no evidence for any of this. Hey, I guess that's why they call them "Wild mass guessings"
- For the case of FF10, it's a bit different; his fayth is supposed to be an old sage, but he died before he gets the chance to willingly seal his soul in a statue in a state of dreaming.
- It stands to reason that the world of FF8 has many, many more GF than the ones the party happens to stumble across during the storyline. And the Ultemania guide claims that even the GF known to use can take on a variety of forms. So in FF8 Ramuh might either just hanging out somewhere off-screen (he might be the old guy in Timber who likes the water so much) or he's an alternate form of Quezacotl.
- In FF10, he might be a fayth, but his temple was destroyed by Sin and he's lost deep below the oceans.
- Bonus theory: The framing story of the Tactics Advance series takes place on Earth, not future Ivalice. The souls of Ivalice were migrated here by Ashley Riot in an attempt to save them from the spread of the Dark in his world.
- Half confirmed. Half jossed. FF16 was announced for the PS5, but is not a launch title.
- Midgardsormr, from FFXIV, may even originate in this world, fleeing from it to Hydaelyn to escape its destruction with his seven eggs.
(Please move these to 16's WMG page when it goes up.)
- Jossed. FF16 was announced only for the PlayStation 5.