Connected Worlds

[Enkidoh]

*sighs* Not this again...

Don't take everything you see at face value - the development team already came out long ago and said that Hydaelyn is not directly connected to any other FF world - the references to other FF games and characters are just for fanservice and are not the 'originals' (excepting Gilgamesh, Shantotto and Lightning's appearances in the game, which were rather convoluted in explaining their appearances here anyway). The Crystal Tower was also confirmed as not being the FFIII version, but again, just a name reference.

This is the quote from the development team that all but shouts this (that was formerly found here, but the thread in question seems to have disappeared, but I saved Bayohne's post for posterity):

Q55: There are a lot of names from Ivalice such as Dalmasca, Belias, and Zodiak that have been mentioned, is there some connection between Hydaelyn and Ivalice?

A55: To be absolutely clear, there is no connection between FFXIV’s Hydaelyn and FFXII’s Ivalice. Likewise there is no connection with FFXI’s Vana’diel. Each are their own individual world. Based on this, there are connections between the things that appear in the world, and we’ll be revealing more in the future.

Think of FFXIV like FFIX - it's a celebration of every FF game that came before it, but it is not a 'hub world' like Dissidia. Yes, there's the Void, but even here in FFXIV, that's just a placeholder term used by Eorzeans to describe 'anything considered 'unEorzean' - hells, they even call squirrels and mice 'Voidsent'.

So apart from a few minor direct crossovers like the Lightning event and Gilgamesh, references to past FF games are just in name only and are not directly connecting FFXIV to any other FF title.