After I had finished playing Final Fantasy X, I put it away somewhere and thought "I'll have a beer". A month or two, maybe three, after this, I began studying an epic poem by a guy called Edmund Spenser. You may have heard of him and if you havn't, I can't be bothered to explain. In the most simplistic description ever, he was a ye olde Englishman who wrote stuff.

I only needed to study book one of the Faerie Queene, but this is a whole tale in its own, with a beggining and end. It tells the story of a princess called Una (I shit ye not) whose parents are trapped in there castle by a huge dragon. Una calls on the help of the Redcrosse Knight, who is her guardian, to journey with her back to the castle and kill the dragon. OK, the similarities I'm finding here arn't just Yuna with the Y missing and a guardian, but they are pretty much what got me thinking. Basically, the characters of the Redcrosse Knight, Una, and Redcrosse's dwarf, go on a journey and fight strange monsters and people. These all represent different aspects of religion and different sins etc, but this isn't important. The fact is, that all the poem needs is a battle system and you have a Renaissance England edition of FFX. In the poem the character of Duessa appears to be all nice and floaty and in a way seduces the Redcrosse Knight, only to leave him without any energy and at the mercy of Orgroglio (sp) the giant, who takes the Redcrosse knight and locks him away. Una meets up with Sir Arthur the Knight (the same in the knights of round table, etc) who is older and more experience than the Redcrosse knight, who rescuses him and guides. Arthur the Knight was Auron, just with more flowery words, Redcrosse was Tidus and Una was Yuna. Duessa was a female Seymour, appearing to be alright, but there was a definate shiftyness about them. The dragon that traps Una's parents in the castle, reminded me of Sin, but without all the family inclinations.

Here, the similarities end, but its since reading this that I've realised that all the FF's are the epics of our day. They all have many traits similar to the earliest and most influential epics of Homer, the most obvious being great journey's, huge battles and homecomings.

Do you think FF plot writers, and writers for other linear (and some non-linear) RPG's would have been aware of this and would have read such epics, or is it mere fluke? I guess this kind of involves all Final Fantasy games and most RPG's, so should be in general gaming, but the main bulk of it was all about FFX, so, shit happens. I'm now fed up of typing.

:) That was most interesting, thanks Mepho!


As for the question... I believe that since inspiration lurks everywhere, the FF people certainly were influenced by various stories, myths, movies. Maybe they even read this poem of yours, who knows?
(Did you see my thread about the similarities of FFX and Matrix 2?)

FF6: Star Wars :)
FF9 has a bit of Blade Runner.

I was reading a "Star Trek" book a few days ago when I came across a discussion of "Oversoul," which is in FFX-2. Of course, I don't think they got it from the "Star Trek" book, but it definitely originated from somewhere.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Or something.

Either it could be coincidence, or someone at Square was feeling too lazy to actually come up with a wholly original plot.

Still, it's interesting to see games companies borrowing from popular mythology.

@Agent
I first encountered "Oversoul" in the manga/anime Shaman King, I believe. It's some kind of special attack... ;)

Well, it was pretty blatant that the developers borrowed creatures from myth, such as Odin etc. And names from ancient epics, like Gilgamesh etc.

I just wondered if they were well read enough to borrow literary techniques from classic works and use them as foundations for there games. That would be cool.