What makes a Final Fantasy a Final Fantasy?

[Ark_mage2]

One of the goals it seems for the development team is to give the game a Final Fantasy feel by brining in more traditional elements. The two big things everyone seems to want are Chocobos and Airships, but we already know that those two are coming eventually. I was wondering what other aspects of previous Final Fantasy titles people wanted to see incorporated? Personally I would like to see the traditional summons (Ifrit, Shiva, Alexander) incorporated into the game, if not as actual summons, at least as npcs.

But more than that what does a game being a Final Fantasy game, besides the name, mean to you?

[Malakhim]

Well the "traditional" summons are already in the game in the form of the primals worshipped by the various beastmen tribes in the game. In fact, if we used the amount of summons there already are in the series, we can probably infer that more beastmen tribes will be added later on.

Anyway what makes a Final Fantasy game? I don't think it's as simple as chocobos and cactuars, although those are important. I think it's also a standard. When I think of Final Fantasy, I think of a top notch audio/visual experience, and that while there are recurring themes, no two games are the same experience. I think of some engineer dude called Cid, of airships, of a blend of swords and sorcery fantasy creatively blended with technology from different areas(even non-existent ones). Finally, I think of an aesthetic that while thematically similar to other pieces of media, manages to be completely unique.

There's probably more I could say, but that's what I think of FF in a nutshell.

[Laughlyn]

¤ Tonberries, Kappa, Ghosts?
¤ Hi-Potion (non of the ingame gimped ones we have right now)
¤ Phoenix Downs? (for those with no raise ability)
¤ Gil-Toss? (lol um ya...)
¤ Under-sea traveling? (Or the moon?)
¤ Interactive puzzle-solving? (moving boxes to reveal blocked paths, etc)
¤ Whatever became of the old "Cottage" feature in the older FF games?

[raseol]

. fun and engaging story
. great cutscenes
. interaction with lots of npc's
. hunting missions, also like the one where you have to collect samples of every monster in every area
. dark summons, i used to love them even though i didn't beat all of them
. all kinds of races mixed together in one city, i loved how everything was actually normal
. tactical gameplay, to an extend not amazingly difficult :P
. weird missions that dont make sense in the overall story, like cloud's dress up party
. weapons that you need to collect and then put together at a special place
. abilities that need to be collected in a weird manner, like stealing it from a monster
. fun introductions of a, new, character
. there has to be a ruin of some sorts with an amazing secret, which you are obviously going to exploit
. the idea of fantasy becoming and mixing with reality, like having airships when everybody is still swinging a sword