Monster Names

[Zantetsuken]

Final Fantasy games are pretty blatant in their anti-religion stance, off the top of my head there's a guy in Camp Drybone that questions the whole Ifrit thing - "worship me or burn in hell for eternity, doesn't sound like much of a choice to me" which is clearly a dig at Christianity. There's probably way more that more observant players will have picked up on than that one snippet that caught my attention.

This vid does a good job of putting together the pieces from previous titles- http://youtu.be/MLhiWw3pzQk

That video is full of cherry picking in order to support it's author's biases. He blindly confuses Religious imagery (which is used to flavor FF games), with story themes in FF games.

Final Fantasy (series) stories usually begin as anti-government/empire, and always boil down to either anti-Nihilism or anti-Determinism/fatalism.

• FFI - Chaos/Garland have world stuck in time loop. (**anti-Determinism/fatalism theme**)
• FFII - Emperor of Palamecia (*anti-Government/Empire theme*) is controlled by Demon who wishes to reduce the world to nothing with the power of hell (**anti-Nihilist theme**)
• FFIII - Cloud of Darkness wants to return the world to a state of nothingness (**anti-Nihilist theme**)
• FFIV - Cecil must free the world from his power-hungry King (*anti-Government/Empire theme*) and then must face Zeromus who hates and wants to consume all of existence(**anti-Nihilist theme**)
• FFV - Exdeath/Neo-Exdeath seeks to use the void to reduce all creation to nothingness. (**anti-Nihilist theme**)
• FFVI - Terra and the Returners fight the Empire (*anti-Government/Empire theme*) and then Kefka who is crazy and wants to destroy the world (**anti-Nihilist theme**)
• FFVII - Cloud and AVALANCHE launch attacks on Shinra Corp (*anti-Government/Empire theme*) and ultimately face Sephiroth who wants to call down meteor, destroy the world, and consume the lifestream. (**anti-Nihilist theme**)
• FFVIII - Squall and his friends battle their rivals and eventually uncover their own pasts and a Sorceress named Ultimecia who seeks to compress all time, devour all reality, and gain infinite power (**anti-Nihilist theme**)
• FFIX - Zidane and his band defy the power-hungry Queen Brahne (*anti-Government/Empire theme*) discover a maniac who wants to rule the world, and finally stumble upon Necron, a being who wants to destroy life and existence itself. (**anti-Nihilist theme**)
• FFX - Tidus and Yuna work set out on a pilgrimage to stop 'Sin' who perpetually reappears in a spiral of death (**anti-Determinism/fatalism theme**). Along the way they encounter Seymour Guado, who wants to become 'Sin' and exterminate all life on the planet. (**anti-Nihilist theme**)
• FFXI - The heroes face off against the Archduke of Jeuno and his brother who seek to rule the world by opening the 'gate to the gods' (*anti-Government/Empire theme*) and later fight Promethia who seeks to devour all life in Vana'diel. (**anti-Nihilist theme**)
• FFXII - Princess Ashe and a rogue band of outlaws set out to overthrow the Archadian empire (*anti-Government/Empire theme*) who conquered her kingdom of Dalmasca and killed her husband. They later uncover a plot by which the gods use stones of power to manipulate people and control history. (**anti-Determinism/fatalism theme**)
• FFXIII - Lightning, Snow and others are purged by the government of Cocoon 'Sanctum' (*anti-Government/Empire theme*) and must fight back against a fate imposed upon them (**anti-Determinism/fatalism theme**) by Barthandelus who attempts to use them to destroy himself and the entire world of Cocoon .(**anti-Nihilist theme**) in order to summon the 'Maker'

There are plenty of positive portrayals of religion/gods in FF games actually: From the prayers of the heroes in FFIV, to Altana in FFXI, to the generaly positive portrayal of the Churches and Gods of Eorzea, as well as Bhunivelze in FFXIII-3. Even Vanat's (FFXII) motivations could be considered to be altruistic depending on how you look at them.

So to say FF is thematically anti-religion is to be completely ignorant of the facts.

In fact, philosophically, FF's Anti-Nihilism might be considered Anti-Atheism as Atheism is ipso facto Nihilism