The Worlds of Final Fantasy, Conected or not and if so, how?

[Davy_M_Jones]

I at least agree that there doesn't need to be more than one.

[Enkidoh]

People really need to give all these connected worlds threads a break or at very least stop making new ones...........

In the most objective sense, any idea of such a connection does even exist in any form at Square Enix they have shown multiple times that it won't have and real effect or impact on each worlds lore and storylines. As such never having any real impact they for all intents and purposes do not exist to them. Besides beyond cross promotion and tongue in cheek references to the past a writer is not going to want to be held back by numerous connections to past stories.

Not here to start a flame war, I just think theres better topics to discuss then a vague issue that SE will ever offically confirm yet never deny.

These kinds of threads are popping way too often

^Listen to this man, he gets it.

A few years ago, a friend and I came up with a FF-unifying theory. Here's how it goes:

Final Fantasy is full of repeating themes, roles and events.

Advanced fallen civilizations:
Lunarians ~= Lufenians = Cetra = Zilart = Ancients = Allag, Belah'dia, Nym, etc. = Magi ~= Bevelle

Which sometimes separate themselves from the rest of the world:
Moon ~= Sky Fortress = Tu'lia = Floating Continent = Nym

Powerful conquering empires:
Baron = Palamecia = Gestahl = Shinra = Garlemald = Galbadia = Archadia = Bevelle


And other broad categories that I'm not quite awake enough to remember right now. But this repetition of arch concepts calls to mind the story of the first Final Fantasy, where the world was trapped in a 2000-year time loop. The same events are happening over and over again...but not exactly the same. It's only a closed loop if you view it in two dimensions; the cycle is constantly traveling along another axis, making the universe a time spiral. A coil, repeating but never intersecting. This puts FF1 at the end, chronologically, since the cycle is broken at the end. It also implies that, since the themes had decayed into basic archetypes by so much repetition, more uniqueness means it's closer to the point of origin, and more cleaving to archetypes means it's closer to the end, allowing for a rough timeline to be created. So 1, 3 and 9 would all be relatively close to the end. 2 and 7 would occur at similar points on the curve, but with many coils between them. And, for the following reasons, 5 and 6 would be very near each other:

Kefka (FF6) = Enuo (FF5)

A powerful wizard wielding the power of unmaking (Void), brought low by 12 heroes, and whose defeat severed ties between worlds. This description applies equally to Kefka and Enuo. This isn't to say they are one and the same; merely that their roles are nearly identical, placing them at the same point on the curve, with bare few turns between to change them. Additionally, this could mean that, whatever else Gogo is, he doesn't have to be a slider, just really old.

Of course, this looping construct could, theoretically, make hopping between "worlds" even easier -- the traveler isn't so much breaking a barrier between universes, but simply moving sideways through time. (And what exists outside the coil? Void! Ahaha, that just came to me.)

Another strong tie I like:

AVALANCHE (FFVII) = Warriors of Darkness (FFIII)

As the Ancients spoke of in FF3, there was once a time where the the world swung too far toward Light. In that time of need, the Warriors of Darkness were called upon to restore balance. Shinra threatened to destroy the world wielding the power of life itself; AVALANCHE arose to restore the natural cycle of the Lifestream. Seems a pretty direct comparison to me.

That's about all I can remember right now. I'd love to hear if anybody has thoughts on or further contributions to this.

All speculation, and, as source materials such as the Ultimania guides and interviews with SE's past and present FF development team members such as Hironobu Sakaguchi have proven beyond all doubt, each FF world is independent of the other - they each take place in their own seperate universe (or, in FFV's case, three universes!).

Accordingly, again as FFXIV's development team have officially stated in the past, FFXIV's world is not directly connected to any other FF world - it's not FFXI's Vana'diel, FFXII's Ivalice, FFXIII's world, FFVII's Planet or any other FF world in a different time period. Yes there is a vague thread linking each FF world via shared themes and elements, which is what the series has always been about, but the idea each FF game takes place in the one universe at different times periods is, well, utterly ridiculous. Yes it's fun to speculate, but these sorts of things tend to generate into flamewars when inevitably they are officially debunked by the development team by fans who refuse to accept the 'official' information, so really, as Nama said, having multiple threads on this subject really aren't needed.

[RomildaRayne]

All speculation, and, as source materials such as the Ultimania guides and interviews with SE's past and present FF development team members such as Hironobu Sakaguchi have proven beyond all doubt, each FF world is independent of the other - they each take place in their own separate universe (or, in FFV's case, three universes!).

Except that FFVII and FFX share a universe; the Al Bhed named Shinra's descendents eventually leave Spira and use the technology he was developing for use on the Farplanes to create the Mako Reactors and harness the Lifestream. This is stated in Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega and Final Fantasy X-2 Ultimania.

The Depths of the True Moon in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, which unlike the optional dungeon in Final Fantasy IV's re-releases cannot be considered non-canon, is also a veritable boss rush of enemies from Final Fantasy I to Final Fantasy VI summoned by the Creator.

To be clear, I don't agree with the above speculation, but the Final Fantasy Universes are connected to an extent.

[WellFooled]

Except that FFVII and FFX share a universe; the Al Bhed named Shinra's descendents eventually leave Spira and use the technology he was developing for use on the Farplanes to create the Mako Reactors and harness the Lifestream. This is stated in Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega and Final Fantasy X-2 Ultimania.

Kazushige Nojima said this in that Ultimania:

After quitting the Gullwings, Shinra received enormous financial support from Rin, and began trying to use Vegnagun to siphon Mako Energy from the Farplane. But, he is unable to complete the system for utilizing this energy in his generation, and in the future, when traveling to distant planets becomes possible, the Shin-Ra Company is founded on another world, or something like that....... That would happen about 1000 years after this story, I think.

The words "or something like that" and "I think" suggest to me that these are just his musings, nothing set in stone. Its very likely these ideas were what produced the character of Shinra in FFX-2, but they aren't included in the game. If every musing from the developers were canon, Tidus would be a construction worker and Cloud would have slicked back black hair.

FFVII's Ultimania just asks a question:

The results of this cannot be seen in FFX-2, but maybe one day his descendants will establish a "company that supplies the energy of the planet"?

Again, it flirts with the idea, but never confirms it and none of this was ever stated in either of the two games.

To be clear, I don't agree with the above speculation, but the Final Fantasy Universes are connected to an extent.

They're all connected in the fact that in the real world they are all part of the same game series so naturally there will be reoccurring things that can't be explained in lore, but sometimes it doesn't need to be. Bosses from other Final Fantasy games show up in bonus dungeons because it's a video game, it isnt explained in the canon of the game's universes because they don't need a reason beyond that.

[Kaiser-Ace]

So IS the Ultimania the official sorce? Cause I've not herd it stated as being concreat fact either. It always looked to me like a compilation of interviews where (Some) on the fan questions were either answered or joked about. I read some of it and I never saw any thing but the clasic "We can neither conferm nor deny" cliches that devs give to questions they'd rather not answer.

[RomildaRayne]

They're all connected in the fact that in the real world they are all part of the same game series :p so naturally there will be reoccurring things that can't be explained in lore, but sometimes it doesn't need to be. Bosses from other Final Fantasy games show up in bonus dungeons because it's a video game, it isnt explained in the canon of the game's universes because they don't need a reason beyond that.

I agree with what you've said until this point because the (True Moon's) Depths are not an optional dungeon; I specifically made the distinction between the bonus dungeons in re-releases of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy IV for that reason. There is a purpose, in the lore, for those bosses to be there as they were summoned by the Creator, even if it is mostly fanservice. Gilgamesh actually calls out Bartz's name, making it almost certain that he is the same Gilgamesh of Final Fantasy V.

[Malakai]

The way the Void in this game is set up is a mix of both the Interdimensional Rift of FF5 and the World of Darkenss of FF3. In 1.0 mobs that were literally called voidsent would come out of portals where the aether energies were imbalanced. In the later part of 1.0 Atomos would appear over certain Aetherytes at camps and drain them of their energies returning that back to the void. So it's akin to how crystals are used to summon primals into this world and then when defeated they go back into the aetherflow. However the void has the ability to drain that aetherflow into it's own world. And now we have CT with Cloud of Darkness verifying the void for the world of darkness exists. Also we don't know how big that world actually is. Shantotto was saying she ripped open a vortex with her magics and wound up in Eorzea it seems that anyone who posses knowledge of black magic can open a portal. THM's and BLM's in FFXIV via NPC's and lore history have been known to open up portals to the void. Hence why they aren't so keen on letting just everyone join up. And now with Gilgamesh and Enkidu (the real one not the chicken) both in our world and knowing how Gilgamesh was lost in the Void after being Banished there must have found a way to be able to freely access and enter and leave when he deems fit to do so. So the void theory is the only one that can make sense of being able to have interdimensional travel since the void was the beginning of all things and the crystals were born from the void. When the crystals were born they created their own worlds. This is one of those worlds.

The only real connections in FF tho that have a lot of lore and connection to it is the Ivalice theory.