Quote Originally Posted by TouchandFeel View Post
Dark Knight was a class in FF 3, which is before Cecil who was in F4. Cecil uses a Dark Sword, which are magic swords imbued with darkness and more closely resemble a European long sword or maybe a bastard sword and not a katana. Mystic Knight (which is different than Rune Knight, the class of Celes from FF6) didn't appear until FF5. Also, while not super explicit as to classes, Leon from FF2 is classified/considered a Dark Knight.

Just wanted to clear that up.

But yes, FF11 was the only one that had Dark Knights use scythes and that one game by no means defines the series as a whole. It can be used as a reference point though.
No. Dark Knights were not in FF3 until the DS release, 16 years after the original. In the original, they were "Demon Swordsman" or "Magic Swordsman" (the actual Japanese name being Makenshi, as opposed to the Japanese name for Dark Knights, Ankoku Kishi), though the most popular fan translation called them Mystic Knights, and they used level 1-3 white magic (which is why you can't really consider them Dark Knights). Their weapons are all katana, with the exception of the Moonring Blade and Ragnarok sword.

Cecil uses the same types of swords (curved and single-bladed; you can tell because of the slight extension at the top of the combat sword sprite) as FFIII Mystic Knights, which makes sense because FFIV is basically FFIII fanfic. However, they've never been given Japanese names like other katana in the series in any English translation, and Edge wields the swords with those typical names.

Pretty much all of this has been retconned into what you said, but I prefer to study the originals. :P