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Am I the only one who gets flashbacks to MKR with the whole Goblez section? It reminds me of the scenes with Zagato and the waterfalls? Maybe I am the only old school anime fan, but I found this section reminiscent of that with the requests to assist...
It wouldn't be the only time that particular era of anime and manga (including both magical girls and mecha anime) were referenced. I admit I haven't seen Rayearth, though, so I can't attest that you're seeing something that's there or not.
I think the simplest answer is that the entire staff is of the approximate age to have stuff like MKR as a subconscious imprint on their brains, whether or not they consciously intend to reference it. At the same time, Rayearth was very reliant on fantasy RPG archetypes, so it could just be that FF14 is drawing from the same classical well. (The way the botched rescue sequence plays out is also similar to MKR, at least in the broad strokes of having to fight the captured princess after beating her captor.)
But hey, I got an excuse to flip through my hard-copies of the manga again.
Well, Final Fantasy 4 and Rayearth are both 1990s Japanese fantasy…so it wouldn’t surprise me if there is some general overlap/tropes from the times being used, huge shoulders included.