Final Fantasy IV

The cast of Final Fantasy IV circa the DS release. Spoony Bard included for free!

Birthed from womb of dragon's maw
And borne unto the stars
By light and darkness cast aloft
Are dreamtide oaths resworn
Moon is swathed in ever-light
Ne'er again to know eclipse
Earth, with hallow'd bounty reconciled

Yet fleeting is the reverie
When moon from shadow has egressed
Guided forth anew by light made manifest
Two bound by ties of blood
By Time and Fate when wrest apart

Unto lunar light and Gaian breast
—The Mysidian Legend (DS Edition)

The fourth entry in the face-meltingly popular Final Fantasy game series.

The main character of this tale is Cecil, a Dark Knight in the service of the King of Baron. After questioning the recent warmongering of his king, he is demoted to errand boy and sent to a village called Mist in order to deliver a package and slay a dragon menacing its borders. He is joined by his best friend and rival, a Dragoon named Kain. Once they reach the village, they discover that nothing is quite what they have been told: they have been used as disposable pawns in Baron's ongoing crusade to capture the Power Crystals that exist around the world. Cecil vows to stop the evil intentions of Baron, but first, he must atone for the sins that he committed in its service and overcome his own inner darkness.

Have you noticed something strange already? Yes, this was the first Final Fantasy game to have an actual plot beyond a generic "you are heroes, go save world from evil" story that was pretty much the standard for most RPGs at the time. As strange as it may seem to be to people who are used to the idea of an RPG beginning with twenty hours of real-time cutscenes, this was huge at the time of release.

Since the second and third Final Fantasy games hadn't been released in the US when Final Fantasy IV came out, the US release of Final Fantasy IV was titled Final Fantasy II. The US Final Fantasy II was easier than the Japanese version; before the US version was released, it spawned another Japanese version, "Final Fantasy IV Easytype", whose difficulty level was scaled down even farther (thus, the US version was less difficult than the original Japanese version, but significantly harder than Easytype). The US Final Fantasy II also suffered from severe censorship ("You spoony bard!", anyone?). Many of the fan-favorite lines were kept in the re-translated re-releases.

Received a cell phone sequel called The After Years (also available on Wii Ware and the PSP), which stars the old cast and some of their children teaming up again to prevent the same catastrophe from happening again. It, along with Final Fantasy IV itself, was released on the PSP in March 2011 in Japan and April every where else. Also includes a Midquel called Interlude to connect the plots better. Both games use new graphics and is the largest 2D graphical change to the original other then the cellphone version. This version is heavily based on the GBA version, only thing taken from the DS version is translations of terms (e.g. Carnellian Signet rather then "Bomb Ring").

Final Fantasy IV is considered by many to be one of the best of the series, partly because it was first released before the series developed an Unpleasable Fanbase. It's been remade/ported numerous times: this has garnered some distaste for the game as its story and battle system haven't aged well. In addition to being half of the Final Fantasy Chronicles compilation on the PS 1, Final Fantasy IV has been ported to the GBA, and was the second game (after Final Fantasy III, which didn't make it over beforehand) to be remade with 3D graphics on the Nintendo DS. It's also the first remake to add voice acting, if only for key scenes.

Tropes used in Final Fantasy IV include:
  • Advancing Wall of Doom: The Demon Wall in the Sealed Cave.
  • Alien Sky: Two moons.
  • All Myths Are True: The Mysidian Legend, naturally, turns out to not only be dead-on accurate, but the basis for the entire game.
  • Always Check Behind the Chair: Many areas have hidden goods or passageways, but Eblan Castle deserves special mention due to the sheer prevalence of this trope. In summary, there are: secret corridors on basically every floor; a Sutra hidden behind the throne; a pit that you have to edge your way across to reach a chest; and then, just to confuse you, a different pit that you'll only fall through if you try to cross it. That's not even getting into The Very Definitely Final Dungeon's obsession with paths under paths under paths, all obscured by the top-view.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: And all you get for completing it is unlocking a few entries in the Art Gallery. But even then you need a complete Bestiary to do it, and that's a Guide Dang It because several enemy encounters are rare and difficult to get.[1]
  • An Economy Is You: Played perfectly straight, but especially notable in that the weapon/armor shop in the first town is locked until you return there later in the game and obtain the key. Not exactly the best business model...
  • Anti-Villain: Rubicante is an Affably Evil Type I variant. He might even be a Punch Clock Villain.
  • Anyone Can Die: The game makes it looks like this, but only one playable character is dead for good toward the end.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You can only have five people in your party. This game's method of dealing with it? Killing off the spares. Though only one stays dead, which makes it all the more obvious. Seemingly averted when Baigan joins your party (who would have been a sixth party member), but Palom and Porom reveal him to be a monster on Golbez' side before you even have a chance to go to the menu screen.
  • The Archer: Rosa can use other weapons, but is best with these. Originally, almost everyone could use bows, but this was changed in the DS version.
  • Ascended Meme: "You Spoony Bard!" is the Trope Codifier for the series, being kept in all releases of the game when the rest of the script has been re-translated. It has even worked its way into other Final Fantasy games and beyond.
  • As Long as There Is Evil: The Trope Namer is Zeromus' Final Speech. He makes good on this promise in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.
  • The Atoner: Cecil, Kain, Golbez at the end of the game and in The After Years.
  • Author Appeal: This game contains more or less all of Amano's favourite art trends... Cecil is the typical pale willowy man with frizzy white hair, blue lips and very pale skin. He also has what Amano loves... spiked armour and a cape. Rosa and Rydia meanwhile are clad in catsuits, and as for capes... it's probably more efficient to list the main characters who do not wear a cape (Cid, Kain, Yang and arguably FuSoYa, who wears a robe).
  • Awesome but Impractical: The Meteo/Meteor spell. It does high damage, but it's blunted by its high casting time, high MP cost, the 9999 damage cap, and by the time Rydia levels up enough to learn it, she can do just as much damage with Flare or Bahamut, which cast faster and cost less MP.
  • Awesome Moment of Crowning: Cecil, Rosa and Yang all become monarchs in the epilogue.
  • Badass and Child Duo: Cecil and Rydia at the beginning of the game, up until Tellah joins the party.
  • Badass Beard: Fusoya.
    • Tellah and Cid also have manly beards, but Fusoya's is by far the largest (and therefore, most manly).
  • Badass Boast: Rubicante.

Rubicante: "Was it Flame? Let me show you how it's done."

  • Badass Grandpa: Tellah, Fusoya and Cid.
  • Badass Mustache: Yang.
  • Baleful Polymorph: Pig, Toad and Mini. Some of the mages in Mysidia will use them on you when you revisit the town as a Dark Knight.... and continue to use them after you've transformed into a Paladin!
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: Possibly. The Enterprise simply goes straight up out of the screen's range when entering the Tower of Zot, and the exterior of the tower is never actually seen, so the party could be reaching the thinner layers of Earth's atmosphere when they reach it, or possibly even out into space. It's adverted later on with the Red Moon, which has a breathable atmosphere despite being smaller than our own moon, due to the Lunarian's advanced technology.
  • The Battle Didn't Count: Golbez pulls this off no less than THREE times.
  • Beneath the Earth: The underground world of the dwarves, featuring mountain ranges, a sea of magma, and the lower part of the Tower of Babil.
  • Big No: Well, Big "WHY?!", in the DS remake.
  • Black Magician Girl: Rydia, since she focuses on offensive spells after the Plot-Relevant Age-Up.
  • Blind Idiot Translation: The SNES English script had many, many mistakes. The reception this got actually led to a certain someone getting hired, and began a trend of improving translation quality in the industry.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Cid is a perfect example.
  • Bold Inflation: The Dark Elf speaks in ALL CAPS in the SNES version. "YOU CANNOT USE METALLIC WEAPONS. YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!"
  • Bonus Boss: Some of Rydia's summons, Zeromus EG and the Dark Summons in the GBA version, and two more in the DS version, accessible only on a New Game+.
  • Bonus Feature Failure: The Complete Collection release for PSP comes with a new Interlude chapter connecting this game to The After Years... except all it does is show Ursula being born and gives a Hand Wave to why the Maenads look like Rydia, while many of the other questions of the sequel about the Creator and the Maenads go unanswered. The Interlude chapter is also built on the original game's engine, right down to enemies having the same stats and some areas having mostly the same enemy encounter groups, and is fully linear with absolutely no exploration or backtracking.
  • Boring but Practical: The game's stinginess with MP recovery items (see below) means that you'll be relying on regular weapon attacks quite a bit. Not to mention that many characters use little or no magic to begin with.
    • This is fixed in the DS remake. Rosa's 'Pray' ability has a much higher success rate than the original game and heals MP as well as HP. It is also possible to teach a character 'Bless', which is an MP regen spell. Quite useful, considering how much more important MP is in the remake (in the end-game your mages are double-casting every turn, and the 'Phoenix' skill which revives fallen allies heals them equal to the percentage of MP the Phoenix-caster has.
  • Bowdlerise: The "spoony bard" line is actually one of the least blatant examples in the SNES version. Much worse are the recurring Never Say "Die" elements, leading to lines like "A girl from Baron was kept from falling down", or the total elimination of anything remotely religious like references to Hell. The latter manifests itself in cringe-worthy lines like "Fall flat into the deep ravine!" or "Come with us, Edge... To the Dark World!!". Cecil's Dark Knight equipment was also changed, with Hades armor becoming "Black" and the Deathbringer sword becoming simply the Black sword.
    • "Spoony" is actually an archaic term meaning "foolishly lovestruck", which fits Edward perfectly, so it's less bowdlerization and more "who even says that anymore?".
    • The blade above Rosa's head during her captivity is changed to a metal sphere. At least that's roughly as deadly as the original item.
    • Also concerning Rosa, her Holy spell becomes White, and Holy elemental becomes "Sacred power".
    • In the PSX Remake, Rosa is stated to be ill due to Desert Fever. In the DS Remake, she is stated to be "on the verge of dying."
      • It seems she's dying from Desert Fever, as it returns in the After Years and the cure is exactly the same (though it's re-translated as a Sand Pearl). It's a deliberate call back, and the only differences are it's Harly who catches it, and she's with you at the time.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Kain, Yang and Golbez at different points in the game.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Rydia, when you first meet her, acts a bit like this, though to be fair, you had just killed her mother. She has a moment like this after her Plot-Relevant Age-Up as well. A far better exemplar of this trope is Palom, whom players admit to loathing even after his monumental black magic power essentially breaks the game.
  • Broken Bridge: Several, including mountain passes being blocked by fire or ice until you clear the right plot events or recruit the right party members. Also, an underground passage leading to your next objective remains sealed until you complete a certain task.
    • There are also two retroactive Broken Bridges that later appear at two places where the characters take drastic 1-way movements. If you attempt to jump down the waterfall in the Watery Cave a second time, Cecil will remark that the current is too strong, and you will not be allowed to jump. The second is in the Eblan Cave, where one of the Eblan guards blocks the final passage to the Tower of Bab-il (and an eventual dead-end at an airship dock). Clearly, someone thought to prevent players from stranding themselves without an airship and rendering the game Unwinnable.
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Golbez and FuSoYa manage to take out Zemus, which only succeeds in releasing his spirit Zeromus. This also severely weakens them to the point where their most powerful attacks do absolutely nothing.
  • Cartography Sidequest: Given to you by Namingway in the remake.
  • Cast from Hit Points:
  • The Cavalry: Just as the Giant of Babil awakes to raze the planet, the heroes stand horrified and at a loss as to what to do. Cue the entire armed forces of the world arriving to Hold the Line.
  • Combat Medic: Rosa can be this, if you choose to equip her with a bow. Her Aim ability gives her increased attack power and accuracy with a bow: while it's not near enough to match the damage output of, say, Cecil or Kain, it's still better than your average White Magician Girl. And that doesn't even take Holy Hand Grenade into consideration.
  • Comically Missing the Point: You can win the mirror-battle at the top of Mt. Ordeals by just attacking and killing the Dark Knight, and the game will proceed as normal.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: Averted, when your airships require special modification to fly over lava in the underworld. Played straight, when you're on foot in that same underworld and able to walk right next to the same lava with no ill effects.
  • Cool Old Guy: Cid. And Tellah. You spoony bards!
  • Cool Ship: Several of them, airships, no less: Enterprise, Falcon and the Lunar Whale.
  • Cosmic Forces Trio: Cecil Harvey (Preserver), Kain Highwind (Destroyer) and Rosa (Creator).
  • Creepy Doll: Calcabrina.
  • Crutch Character: Tellah, whose physical stats actually lower as he levels up: he's an old man, and it's meant to simulate his aging. His 90MP, second-tier magic and possession of the Osmose spell (absorbs MP from enemies, so strategic use means Tellah will never run out of MP) is a godsend when you first get him. Even though he unlocks his third-tier spells later on, his 90MP cap is a crippling hindrance by that point and your other spellcasters will have overtaken him.
    • This seems to be a trait of the old characters in the game because FuSoYa also never gains anything in MP, no matter how many times he levels. At least until Level 70, but by that point, you probably won't have him in your party any more.
  • Cute Monster Girl: Higher-resolution graphics in the DS and PSP releases result in some female monsters becoming this. Meet the Lamia for example.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: The Titan summon. When seen in a cutscene, it causes an earthquake that permanently alters the world map. In later use, it's a normal summon spell. Not to mention that Rydia's Level 1 at the time and doesn't even have enough mana to summon it yet.
    • Also, Cure spells used in cutscenes manage to completely heal the whole party, even when they barely hit double digits when multi-targeted in battle.
      • Not to mention that they seem to be able to revive a fallen character, a trait normally reserved for the Raise spell.
    • It's been mentioned Tellah's cutscene use of Meteo exceeds his maximum MP (90) by 9, but moments before, he casts four spells that add up to 110 MP.
  • Damsel in Distress: Rosa, for a while. It might be Justified Trope that she can't get herself out, since she has Golbez and Kain guarding her, and unless you've been doing some serious Level Grinding, she doesn't know Teleport. Not that she could cast it, since she's chained to a wall.
  • Darker and Edgier: The entire story begins with the heroes angsting over war crimes they've committed... Then our heroes are asked to wipe out an entire town. It Got Worse when characters start getting Disney Deaths right and left.
  • Dark Reprise: "Final Battle", the theme of the final battle against Zeromus, contains haunting echoes of "Airship" and "Overworld".
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Most of the more powerful Eidolons must be defeated before you can summon them.
  • Depending on the Artist: The designs of the entire cast vary greatly between sprites, artwork and renders. Look no further than The Hero: Cecil's Super NES field sprites have him in blue as a Dark Knight and gold as a Paladin with purple hair, but in battle, his Paladin armor is white, and his hair is blue-purple, while it's white in his portrait. This is even carried over to re-released with refined character designs: in the PSP release, Cecil's battle sprite has spiked white hair with a tiara-like headpiece covering it, but his portrait has flowing white hair with a headband under the hair.
  • Developer's Room: Hidden in the Lali-Ho Pub in the Dwarven Castle. Interesting in that it includes some of the developers as random encounters in the area. It was removed from the American SNES release and restored in the PS 1 and GBA release. The Developer's room showed up again in the DS re-rerelease in the same place, with a completely new set of author avatars and in-jokes because it's a different team this time around.
  • Different As Night and Day: Palom and Porom.
  • Discard and Draw: Cecil and Rydia.
    • Not so evident in the original North American SNES version with Cecil, since the "Darkness" ability he gives up upon becoming a Paladin was Dummied Out: his class change simply results in "Whoa, commands other than 'Fight' and 'Item'!".
  • Disc One Final Dungeon: The Tower of Zot. It appears right after you acquire the Earth Crystal which, up to that point, you've been led to believe is the last one. Only once this dungeon is cleared does the game then reveal The Underworld of the Dwarves and the four other Crystals therein.
    • The Giant of Bab-il would be something of a Disc Two Final Dungeon.
  • Disc One Nuke: Tellah's high-end spells, from the time he obtains them until the party enters the Tower of Zot. Consider that Tellah's Lit-3/Thundaga (on Cagnazzo) and Weak/Tornado (on Dark Dragon) spells can make two out of the three boss fights during that time into 1- or 2-shot battles. Within the Tower of Zot though, the lack of places to rest and monsters that won't give up MP to Osmose makes his 90 MP too much of a limitation.
  • Disney Death: Yang, Palom, Porom, Cid.
  • Disney Villain Death: This is what happens to Scarmiglione after battling him.
  • The Doll Episode
  • Dope Slap: Porom, to Palom, many times.
  • Drop the Hammer: Cid wields large two-handed hammers as his weapon of choice.
  • Dual-Wielding: Yang and Edge can do this.
  • Dummied Out: Many commands, status-ailment-healing items, and one-use spell-casting items were removed from the original North American version of the game.
    • One was Cecil's Dark Wave, but his mirror image can cast that without a problem. This led to a lot of confusion and a bit of resentment on the part of SNES players when their shadow-self attacked exclusively with a power they themselves never had access to. It also made the resulting puzzle (i.e. letting him attack with the HP-depleting spell and defeat himself without you attacking) more difficult to figure out.
  • Dying as Yourself: Edge's parents.
  • Elemental Embodiment: The Four Fiends of the Elements.
  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: A Final Fantasy staple.
  • Eleventh-Hour Superpower: When you first meet Rydia, she can only summon Chocobo (and Whyt in the DS remake). Enraged at Cecil and Kain for the death of her mother, she summons Titan, creating a huge fissure in the landscape.
  • The Empire: Baron sort of becomes one early in the game. It does attack and ruin various nations to steal their Crystals, but it doesn't expand its borders.
  • Equal Opportunity Evil: Baron's forces consist of both humans and monsters. This is made most apparent during the Siege of Fabul, where Golbez sends his troops to steal the Wind Crystal.
  • Equipment Spoiler:
    • You can find throwing stars for Edge in Eblan Cave before he joins the party at the end.
    • The armor shop in Mysidia sells Paladin equipment: it can be bought before you have someone who can use it.
  • Eternal Engine: The Tower of Zot, the Tower of Babil and the Giant of Babil.
  • Eucatastrophe: Right before the final battle.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Rubicante. He heals you to full strength before both battles he's involved in. He also apologizes to Edge when Lugae transforms his parents into monsters, saying Lugae had no authorization to do so, and Rubicante didn't want that in the first place. He's also the only Archfiend to not try and kill you with his last breath.
  • Evil Tower of Ominousness: The Tower of Babil, which is massive enough to rise from the world underground all the way up high in the skies above the surface of Earth.
  • Fake King: The King of Baron.
  • Fighting a Shadow
  • Fighting From the Inside: Edge's Parents.
  • Fission Mailed: At least thrice. It happens in the fight with the Dark Elf. And again in the fight with Golbez. And again in the one with Zeromus. The game just loves this trope.
  • Five-Man Band:
  • Four Is Death: It's in the title, which means bad things for the cast. In linear order from the start of the game, Kain is presumed dead, Rydia, Yang and Edward are lost at sea, Palom and Porom perform a Heroic Sacrifice, then Tellah performs one, followed by Yang and Cid. In other words, more than half the main cast almost dies during the course of the game. They get better later except for Tellah.[2] And let's not forget poor Anna.
    • The more blatant example are the Archfiends.
  • Fragile Speedster: Edge. He's the fastest character in the game, bar none (and in the DS version, he's almost absurdly quick). However, he only has an average amount of HP, and he takes far more damage than Cecil or Kain do.
  • Frankenstein's Monster: Barnabas.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Edward, who is established as a wimpy musician, not a talented fighter, and a bit of a coward, has the Hide command, which even happens automatically if his HP run low.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • Rydia doesn't learn Fire until a plot event, because she gained a phobia of fire when Cecil burned down her village. Of course, with excessive Level Grinding, it's possible to have her learn Fire 3 before said plot event.
    • When you get to Damcyan Castle, you find it under attack and filled with injured and dying people. Yet despite having two white mages in your party and most likely dozens of potions and phoenix downs in your inventory, you can't do a thing to help any of them. This becomes utterly ridiculous when an important NPC passes away in your healer's arms without him even attempting to heal her, and despite there being TWO magical healing pots capable of fully restoring all your health with a single touch in the very same room. What, he couldn't be bothered to cast a Cura spell or carry her 20 feet over to one of them? Didn't want to interrupt her dramatic final words? For Odin's sake, one of the dying soldiers pitifully begs you to take him to one of the healing pots, but the game just won't let you help him! Even if Tellah is too enraged to help, Cecil or Rydia should be capable of doing something.
      • Especially strange considering the game averts this in several other places. Like Rydia casting cure on the party after they lose wind crystal the Rosa casting Cura on Edge after his defeat, or Tellah at least trying to Heal the twin's petrification.
    • Titan is only able to alter the World Map upon its first appearance. Because Rydia isn't skilled enough to summon him without hurting herself or her environment yet.
    • After falling for the pitfall trap in the Tower of Bab-il, you'd think a Warp spell would've taken the party back up a floor. Yet nobody even suggests the idea.
      • Also, the tower itself appears on the Overworld map surrounded by a large black hole. You'd think it'd be possible to fly an airship through, much like the hole that's sometimes open near Agart, but you'd be wrong.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Cecil, to Edward, after the Red Wings firebomb Damcyan into oblivion and Edward is in Heroic BSOD mode.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Zemus/Zeromus pre-Crystal use is exactly this, right down to being giant and in space and looking a little bit like a flea.
  • Glass Cannon: Rydia. Nice spells, but with 30HP, it's hard work keeping her alive long enough to level up in the beginning. Even later on, when she comes back in Dwarven Castle and saves the party from Golbez, depending on how leveled you are, she's got about a third of Cecil's HP.
  • Global Airship: You get a few of these throughout the course of the game.
  • Going Mobile
  • Good Costume Switch: Cecil.
  • Guide Dang It: The DS port never tells you that A) Augment distribution is used to unlock other augments from characters who leave the party, and B) Augments will eventually affect the stat growths of the characters who have them. You'd need a guide anyway to put those growths to proper use because there's no way guesswork alone would let you figure out how to use them to max the stats of your final party!
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Cecil and Golbez are Half-Lunarian: their father KluYa was FuSoYa's brother.
  • Harp of Femininity: Edward the feminine Prince of Damcyan is a master harpist.
  • Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The battle of Fabul. Even though your party wins every fight with no casualties, you keep getting pushed back.
  • Healing Spring: Although the water is contained in pots in this installment.
  • Heel Realization: In the opening sequence, when Cecil tries to tell the King about his men's (and his own) doubts regarding their latest missions: he is promptly relieved from command and sent out to a nearby village to deliver an item that sets it ablaze. This is what really starts his path of redemption.
  • Helpful Mook: Of the Accidentally Assisting variety. The Tricker, found in the last dungeon, only casts Scan on itself unless you use the element it's weak against. If you fall for the trap, he "supercharges" and counterattacks with the -ga spell of the same element. Since it's still weak against said element, if you set your party up with Reflect beforehand, it'll keep hitting itself and counterattacking until it kills itself. With a name like "Tricker" though, it's fairly obvious... The GBA version renames it to Lil' Murderer. The trick is still fairly obvious.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: So, so very many examples, though most of the characters who attempt this fail to die and come back for the Battle Royale With Cheese. Tellah is the only one who stays dead.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: It is implied that this is what would have happened to Cecil if he had stayed a Dark Knight.
  • Humongous Mecha: The Giant of Bab-il.
  • Idiot Ball: When the party defeats Golbez, they walk away, leaving him right next to the crystal he's trying to steal. Cue Not Quite Dead followed by Villain Teleportation.
  • I Have Many Names: Namingway's ever-shifting moniker.
  • I Lied: See You Said You Would Let Them Go below.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Edward's harp.
  • Inconsistent Dub: From Super NES to Playstation to Gameboy Advance to DS to PSP, every time the game is re-released things get renamed.
  • Inn Security: Cecil vs. the Baron Guard in Kaipo.
  • Interface Spoiler: Or Foreshadowing, more like. Meteor costs more MP than Tellah has or ever will... There's only one way it can go, really.
    • Less of a spoiler in the DS version, where multiple characters try to warn Tellah of the consequences of casting it because he doesn't have the energy reserves he used to.
  • Joke Character: Edward.
    • Less so in the DS remake where his abilities were improved significantly: he is now at least a proper Musical Assassin that can inflict debuffs on enemies he hit as well as able to heal the entire party. Not to mention "Salve" hits the entire party with the effects of one item. The full effects, not divided among the members like in previous incarnations. This makes potions and hi-potions better than White Magic early on.
    • Even less so in the GBA version. Give him his new equipment and unleash him in the final dungeons. He tears them apart.
    • YMMV on that regardless. When he first joins the party, he has access to weapons that temporarily disable the strongest monster in any encounter group while your stronger fighters take care of the rest, and his Hide command makes a certain explosive encounter much easier. He fits more into Lethal Joke Character territory if you can figure out how to use him right, which was clearly deliberate.
  • Joke Item: Some of the low level monsters have a tiny chance to drop a spell to summon them for Rydia. Summon Imp is exactly as useless as it sounds.
  • Karl Marx Hates Your Guts: Ethers and Elixirs sell for 10000 gil and 100000 gil, respectively. So you'd think that any random Ether or Elixir you find in pots or treasure chests would be an easy 5000 or 50000 gil if sold at a store, right? Nope, apparently, their resale value is only 1 gil! Some merchants must be making a killing on margins like those. It would be pretty game breaking otherwise.
    • ROM hackers have found that there is code that specifically makes Ethers, Dry Ethers and Elixirs: exactly those three items, sell for 1 gil instead of half their purchase price, giving the appearance of an Obvious Rule Patch to prevent players from making a small fortune at the beginning of the game.
  • Kiai: Yang's battle shout. At least the PSX version's is so much better than SNES' hilariously embarrassing "ACHOOOO!".
  • Lady Land: Troia Castle. This is also a major case of Getting Crap Past the Radar since Troia is Irish for whore.
  • The Lancer: Kain, naturally. It's even his class name on the SNES.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Yang, briefly.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: After the ship sinks, Cecil washes up right next to the city he razed and plundered at the beginning of the game.
  • Last of Her Kind: Thanks to Cecil and Kain, Rydia is the only summoner left alive.
  • Leitmotif: This was the first Final Fantasy game to make extensive use of the technique. Almost every major character has one, including some of the villains and other NPCs.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Edward in the GBA version has crazy powerful harps at the end of the game. The final boss becomes a bit of a pushover.
  • Lethal Joke Weapon: The spoon (renamed the knife in newer translations), a one-of-a-kind item that can be thrown for 9999 damage against any enemy.
  • Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: The battle against Rubicante (he heals your party fully before the fight begins).
  • Level Map Display: The Sight spell displays a map.
  • Look What I Can Do Now!: Golbez appears and wipes the floor with Cecil's group, until Rydia returns and effectively destroys Golbez's summon.
  • Lost Forever: Cecil's Dark equipment if equipped during his class change, as well as treasures in a few places:
    • The Tower of Zot, after it's destroyed.
    • The upper half of the Tower of Bab-il, after you leave it.
    • The Giant of Bab-il.
    • The lower half of the Tower of Bab-il, after Giant of Bab-il sequence.
  • Lost Tribe: The Lunarians.
  • Love Makes You Evil: This trope sort of comes into play. Kain's jealousy of Cecil as a result of his unrequited feelings for Rosa make him a lot easier to be controlled by Golbez.
  • Love Triangle: Kain has feelings for Rosa, but she has feelings for Cecil instead.
  • Luck-Based Mission: In the DS version, the battle versus the CPU. It pretty much boils down to how quickly the Attack Node begins to attack... its only attack Laser Barrage is guaranteed to two-shot your entire party (and it'll usually one-shot Edge and Fusoya). If you can off it before it fires the lasers twice, you have the battle in the bag... unless you kill off the Defense Node. Prepare for the carnage of Object 199 if you do.
    • The fact that FuSoYa's "instructions" were not redone and still describe the original battle better than the redone one doesn't help. In fact, if you do what FuSoYa says, you're screwed.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Golbez is Cecil's brother Theodor.
  • MacGuffin Delivery Service: More than once with the crystals.
  • Mad Scientist: Dr. Lugae.
  • Magical Land: Feymarch.
  • Magic Knight: Cecil learns white magic once he becomes a paladin.
  • Magic Music: Pretty much Edward's whole purpose as the prototypical Final Fantasy Bard.
  • The Man Behind the Man: At first, it looks like the King of Baron's the Big Bad; however, it turns out that he was killed and replaced by the Shapeshifting Cagnazzo, a minion of Golbez, the king's supposed Dragon. Late in the game, it's revealed that Golbez is the Brainwashed and Crazy victim of More Than Mind Control just like Kain and the real Big Bad is Zemus.
  • Meaningful Name: The four Elemental Fiends are all named after demons in Dante's The Divine Comedy: Scarmiglione, Cagnazzo, Barbariccia and Rubicante.
    • Don't forget Calcabrina!
    • The Tower of Bab-il and Kain are names that should ring a bell for anyone at least mildly familiar with The Bible. Kain even gets Abel's Lance in the GBA remake to drive the point home.
  • Monster Town: Feymarch and the town of Mythril. The former hosts various enemies you fight in the game and several Eidolons, while the latter features townsfolk based off the Toad, Pig and Mini status effects.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Cecil and possibly Kain, after the massacre at Mist.
  • Never Say "Die": This trope is in full effect in the SNES translation, to the point of bowdlerization. However, in a rare Tropes Are Not Bad way, this actually makes the game's many Disney Deaths more believable. After all, why should the player believe that such-and-such is dead if the characters don't believe it either?
    • Also manifests in spells like "Fatal" instead of "Death", or "Swoon" for "dead" characters.
      • Even before the translation, this was the first Final Fantasy to have the loss of all HP count as a Non-Lethal KO instead of actual death. Otherwise, the cast's now-frequent cutscene performances would be awkward. Especially if you were planning on giving them phoenix downs.
  • New Game+: In the DS version, after defeating Zeromus, you can play the game again, inheriting all those augments you gave to your characters. And If you gave the previous game augments to characters that weren't going to be in your final party, you will be rewarded with these characters' abilities as augments. You can play New Game+ only three times in a row though.
  • Ninja: Edge.
  • Nintendo Hard: The DS version ramps up the difficulty significantly from previous versions. Even though your characters gain levels much faster than in the original, it's still possible to get one-shotted by random encounters. Mind you, this wasn't the easiest game in the world to begin with, at least not in the original SFC and PSX versions.
  • No One Could Survive That: Multiple examples, first starting with Scarmiglione returning immediately from Not Quite Death before Cecil reaches paladin-hood.
    • Cid jumps down from an airship at a very great height holding a nuke bomb in his hand which explodes right in front of his face. Yet he doesn't lose any of his limbs.
  • No Pronunciation Guide: Many Western fans were... surprised... that Cecil's name is pronounced the same as "sessile" (though both a long "e" and a short "e" are valid pronunciations for the name). You can hardly fault Square for not providing English pronunciation guides for names of English origin. Rydia'd be a straight example {"RID-e-ah", not "RHY-de-ah").
  • Not His Sled: Gameplay variation. Many bosses in the original game had a particular weakness or strategy associated with them that made them easier to beat. The developers remembered these when it came time for the DS remake, and players trying those old tricks found the bosses had been programmed to punish them for trying it again.
  • Not So Harmless: Dr. Lugae initially appears to be a harmless nutjob with a malfunctioning Frankenstein-type robot, before turning into a fairly dangerous boss. Only after Lugae dies do you discover how monstrous he truly was, with what he did to Edge's parents.
  • Oh, Wait!: Golbez insults Kain this way at one point.
  • Ominous Floating Castle: The Tower of Zot, which seems to be well outside of Earth's atmosphere.
  • Omniscient Morality License: Leviathan shows up to crash your entire ship in order to abduct your summoner, destroying the mission to stop The Empire, and possibly jeopardizing the fate of the world. The aftermath leaves one party member an amnesiac pawn of said empire, another bedridden until the very end of the game, The Hero stranded alone on a continent that hates him, and presumably all the ship's crew dead. Everything works out uncannily in the end despite (or even because of) debilitating injuries to plot-important characters. Nobody ever brings up the whole, murderous Sea Monster thing.
  • One-Time Dungeon: The Tower of Zot which collapses once finished with.
  • One Steve Limit: Averted. First, you meet the Spoony Bard Edward Chris von Muir. Later, you meet the Highly-Visible Ninja Edward Geraldine. To make sure the player doesn't get confused with this, Edward Geraldine goes by the alias Edge. Actually an unintended result of the translation. Edward was originally named Gilbert (with his red-haired love interest Anna), while Edge was still Edward "Edge".
  • Outside Context Villain: The Lunarians: Zemus, Golbez and their Lost Technology like the Giant of Bab-Il.
  • Outside the Box Tactic: The Wall (Reflect) spell is integral to defeating Asura, who heals herself twice, at the end every round, in addition to attacking your party. The catch? You have to cast Wall on her. That way, when she attempts to heal herself, Wall reflects it heals your party instead. Asura inflicts insane amounts of damage and recovers 2,500-3,300 HP per recovery spell, making her borderline impossible to defeat without this trick.
  • The Paladin: Cecil.
  • Parental Abandonment: A couple of playable characters lose their parents due to the villains (and one loses hers because of the heroes). Death by Childbirth is added to Cecil and Golbez's background in the Nintendo DS version. It's actually sort of present in the original version as well, just not explicitly spelled out.
  • Parental Bonus: During the new Namingway quest in the DS remake, he asks the characters for some Rainbow Pudding to give his new girlfriend. When they next see him, he complains about how, upon going to give her the pudding, he found another guy "giving her a present of his own."
  • Peninsula of Power Leveling: It's possible to fight enemies from around Mythril and Troia when first arriving at Mysidia by heading north of Mt. Ordeals and around the mountains on the southwest side and heading to the very northern tip of the continent. Interestingly, the path can only be traversed on foot, not on a chocobo. Battles there give Cecil 2,000-3,000 per victory.
  • Percussive Maintenance: In a non-mechanical example, this is used on Yang after the party finds him unconscious in the Sylph Cave.
  • Perverse Puppet: Calco, Brena/Brina and Calcobrena.
  • Plot Induced Stupidity: Because the ability to swap characters hadn't been invented in the original release, most of the Stupid Sacrifices mentioned below happened mainly to open up a slot in the party for the next plot-relevant character to fill.
  • The Power of Friendship: The player characters who couldn't make it to the final boss fight use this to reinvigorate your party when all seems lost.
  • The Power of Love: Several moments, such as Edward defeating the Sahagin and Kain defeating Zemus's last attempt at mind control come from their love for a certain person. In addition, giving Twincast to Cecil and Rosa yields Ultima, strongest attack in the entire game bar none.
  • The Power of Rock: Turns out the Dark Elf is weak to this. Or at least harps.
  • Powers as Programs: The Augments from the DS version.
  • Professor Guinea Pig: If you destroy Balnab/Barnabas before Dr. Lugae, Lugae merges himself with his creation to attack.
  • Punched Across the Room: Or as it occurs in the Tower of Bab-il, "Punched across the room, through the door, and landing several tiles away."
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Elemental Fiends. One of them has a Quirky Miniboss Squad of her own.
  • Randomly Drops: The Pink Tail. It is dropped by Pink Puff/Flan Princesses. In the room where you can find those monsters (which is a very small room with only one uninteresting treasure), you have an 1/64 chance of encountering a formation of five of those things. Each of those things have a 5/98 rate of dropping ANY items at all, and a further 1/64 chance that the dropped item will be a Pink Tail. If you just run around that room, you have a 0.006% chance of getting a pink tail (or you'll on average get 1 tail every 10056 battles). In some versions, you can use an item that guarantees the encounter with five Flan Princesses, increasing the odds to 0.3% per battle, or 1 tail every 251 battles on average. Good luck, you'll need it.
    • The Rainbow Pudding in the DS version, which is necessary for finishing the Namingway quest and earning all the augments, has a drop rate of 0.4%. You can only get it from the various Flans. And the Treasure Hunter augment only boosts this drop rate to 0.8%. The DS version also adds numerous other types of Tails necessary for getting the only equipment that can be carried into New Game +. They all have the same horrible drop rate as the Pink Tail.
    • Pink Tails are by no means the ONLY really rare drop in the game, just the most famous one. There are a lot of other things in the game, like the hidden summons (Goblin, Mind Flayer, Cockatrice and Bomb), that are randomly dropped and every bit as rare as the Rainbow Pudding. To add insult to injury, the Goblin summon is pretty much useless despite being as rare as Mind Flayer (damage, sap and paralyze), Cockatrice (Multitarget Petrification), and Bomb (damage equal to Rydia's health, without harming her). Equipments ranging from mid-game destroying equipments like Rune Staves and Lilith Rods, and other ultimate equipments like Crystal Rings, extra Protect Rings, extra Ribbons, Dragon Whips and so on are all randomly dropped and at least nearly as, if not just as rare as the Pink Tail, just that the monsters that drop them tend to be commoner encounters.
  • Rare Candy: The Golden and Silver Apples, which will increase the max HP of the character they are used on by 100 or 50 HP, respectively. There is also the Soma Drop which increases the selected character's maximum MP by 10.
  • Remake Difficulty Spike: The DS Release is a lot harder than other releases. Enemies have more HP and better AI and attacks, and a lot of them are upgraded to Demonic Spiders as a result: the Flame Beasts in the Tower of Zot can kill your entire party except maybe Cecil in one attack. As for the bosses, take Golbez: in all other releases, he's an Anticlimax Boss that can be killed in about two turns, not counting you reviving your party. In the DS release, he's a Barrier Change Boss that some consider That One Boss. Several bosses were redesigned so that trying whatever strategy worked wonders on them in the original result in horrible, horrible death if you try them in the remake.
  • Revive Kills Zombie: You can hurt undead monsters by using healing spells on them. Not to mention that (especially in the DS version), the best way to kill Scarmiglione without invoking his counters is to use healing spells and potions on him.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Tellah tried, but just didn't quite pull it off, though he did whip out the most powerful Black Magic spell known.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Quite a few of your party members are nobility, or promoted to such by the game's end.
  • Screw You, Elves: This (sort of) happens with Edge and Rubicante. Not so much of a Screw You to the archfiends, but more to their way of thinking.

Rubicante: "I respect men like you. Men with... courage. But you are a slave to your emotions, and so will never know true strength.
Edge: "You think our rage ... a weakness? Then let me show you how wrong you are!"

Kain: "He wished this village torched!"
Cecil: "But why?...WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!!"

  • Slapstick: Yang's wife and her... unorthodox method of dealing with enemy soldiers and amnesiac husbands. All get bashed over the head with her frying pan.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Edge: he's the first ladies' man to ever appear in the series!
  • So Long and Thanks For All the Gear: A frequent occurrence on one's first playthrough, thanks to all the party members that leave your party or (apparently) meet their demise without much advance warning.
  • Space Whale: Doubles as a spacecraft, capable of flying the heroes to the moon.
  • Spirit Advisor: Kluya for Cecil, Anna for Edward.
  • Split Personality Merge
  • Spoony Bard: Prince Edward is the Trope Namers, and Tellah the Meme Mutator.
    • This line even gets a Shout-Out in the Developer's Room: "But the bard was spoony! We checked!"
  • Squishy Wizard: Rydia. She has the worst HP out of your final party, but she can slaughter enemies in no time, even before she gets spells like Meteor, Leviathan or Bahamut.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: After all of his travels with the White Mage/Combat Medic keeping the party healthy and the Lady of Black Magic/Master of Summon Magic laying waste to all that stood in their way, Cecil suddenly decides the women are a liability and orders them off the Lunar Whale before the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. Thankfully, Rosa and Rydia are not amused, and they stow away to the Moon with them anyway.
  • Stripperiffic: Suffice to say the female mages do not wear the concealing robes of their predecessors.
    • Rosa has wardrobe problems. Never knew that underwear goes under your clothes or just simply does not like to wear a dress or skirt? You be the judge.
    • The fiend Barbariccia also fits the wardrobe.
  • Stupid Sacrifice:
    • Cid's apparent death: there's no actual reason that he needs to jump with the bomb. He could have thrown it. It's hard to imagine that he couldn't build a remote controlled bomb either, considering how he has a remote control airship. And he couldn't control the speed of his descent, so carrying it wouldn't have altered anything. Then he winds up surviving anyway, so it just comes off as a transparent method to bump him from the party in favor of Edge. Stupid as it may be, it's still a pretty awesome moment. Gameplay wise, made even worse. Immediately before this happens, Yang pulls a sacrifice of his own, which leaves you with four members already. There was no reason to bring Cid back into the party for this sequence, as you already had a free spot for Edge. Yang didn't need to be in the room to stop the cannon if all he did was blow up the controls. Rydia could have set the whole room on fire or used a summon from a safe distance. Isn't it possible that he had to redirect the actual cannons? Destroying the controls may have only stopped subsequent shots, which leaves the problem of the first volley.
    • Palom and Porom's sacrifice. Not only does one of them know Teleport, they're also traveling with a mage powerful enough to bring the whole castle down. Right after he recovers the memory of every spell he's ever known.
      • Furthermore, Palom and Tellah, being Black Magic users, know Fire spells. The doors at each end of the hallway are quite clearly (in the DS remake, at least) made of wood. Which fire can burn. Would it really have been so hard for Palom and Tellah to cast their strongest Fire spell at the door they had to go through?
      • There's probably a ton of ways out of this, but the two noted above may be a case of Gameplay Story Segregation. This event immediately comes after fighting a boss with a multi-hit near insta-death move, ergo he's supposed to be powerful. The implication may have been that they were too weak to try anything else if one assumes the basic fire spell is too weak to destroy the wall, or they just lack the magic power to teleport.
  • Summon Magic: Rydia.
  • Tagalong Kid: Rydia, at least at the start, Palom and Porom.
  • Taken for Granite: Palom and Porom.
  • Technicolor Death
  • That's No Moon: The Red Moon is eventually revealed to be a giant spacecraft constructed by the Lunarians, a race of highly-advanced aliens.
  • This Cannot Be!: Golbez's reaction to Tellah casting Meteor in the Tower of Zot.
  • Time Limit Boss: Odin, and the Demon Wall.
  • Time Skip: Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.
  • Tin Tyrant: Golbez.
  • Too Awesome to Use:
    • Many healing items, especially MP recovery potions, are rare and prohibitively expensive for most of the game. Tellah and FuSoYa's advanced spells fall under this as well. Their limited MP, combined with the scarcity of MP recovery items, means that you'll likely be sticking to their mid-level spells most of the time.
    • Ethers cost 10000 gil, to be exact, and (except on the Easytype version) are only available for buying very late in the game. However, at that point, this is averted because when you reach the moon, you can steal ethers from a plethora of enemies, including the very common Black Flan.
    • Remedies can be this too in the non-easytype versions, costing 5000 gil (which is 50 times what they cost in the easytype versions) and not being available to even buy until about a third of the way through the game.
    • Any "dummy" item.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Cecil. After he becomes a paladin, he becomes significantly stronger in every stat, can wield much stronger equipment and can destroy anything that made you cry tears of frustration when he was a Dark Knight. The best part? This is when Paladin Cecil is Level 1, compared to Dark Knight Cecil who's anywhere from 15-20.
    • The same can be said for Tellah and Rydia, possibly Edge, although his is much more Cutscene Power to the Max.
  • Took a Shortcut:
    • Namingway in the DS version.
    • Also Rydia when she comes back... the normal route going through a cave infested with monsters and over seas of lava that even the airship can't cross at that point in the story. Given the powers that the King and Queen of the Feymarch have (as shown in the intro of The After Years), they certainly could have warped her there. Heck, even in the SNES version, Leviathan can travel between the cave in the underworld and the oceans of the overworld. There is also a teleporter at the bottom floor of the monster town (SNES and GBA versions, at least) that can send the party directly outside the Cave. Having just spent years and years living there, Rydia probably knows about it.
    • Let's not forget Rosa near the beginning of the game: somehow, she gets through the monster-filled Mist Cave, past the burnt-out village of Mist, past the impassable mountains created by the earthquake, and still manages to reach Kaipo at about the same time Cecil and Rydia do, if not before. Maybe she stowed away on the Damcyan-bound Red Wings and parachuted into the Kaipo desert? Which actually makes a bit of sense with the original translation of "A girl from Baron was kept from falling down", at least to the mind of a young player.
  • Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Inverted with Rydia: she has an innate talent for magic, but the trauma of watching her village being burned to the ground makes it difficult for her to use fire spells.
  • Trick Boss: Calcabrina, Lugae.
  • Two Guys and a Girl: Cecil, Kain and Rosa.
  • Unexplained Recovery: Everyone except for Anna and Tellah.
  • Unstable Equilibrium: Avoided. Cecil is powerful enough to plow through all but the rarest Random Encounters on his own for a good hour into the game. In fact, it really feels more like an Escort Mission when he's paired up with Rydia and Edward, at least at first. The only time you might be in danger, when Undead show up, you get Tellah, who is even more powerful than Cecil and comes with the Fire and Cura Spells. Subverted in the remake, where he's more balanced with the early encounters.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Edge. After Dr. Lugae turned his parents into monsters and he was forced to kill them, Rubicante tells Edge that emotions hold humans back. After this, through his Unstoppable Rage, Edge learns the spells Flood and Blitz.
    • Same goes for Tellah as well. After his daughter Anna was killed in the siege of Damcyan, he was determined to avenge her death by killing Golbez.
  • Updated Rerelease: A LOT, perhaps tying with Final Fantasy I. It's been released on the SNES (TWICE), PlayStation, Wonder Swan, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS and on mobile phones, as well as the Wii Virtual Console! And it is now on the PSP in the form of the Complete Collection, with The After Years and an "Interlude" chapter bridging the two parts together. All with upgraded aesthetics.
  • Useless Item: The Fire Bomb in the SNES version. It wasn't completely Dummied Out: it's just only dropped by Red Dragons in the Lunar Subterranean. By that point, their damage is a pittance compared to what any of the characters can do in a single round.
  • Useless Useful Spell: Averted the DS remake. While the bosses are still immune to the really bad statuses (Death, Stone, etc), casting Slow is practically required to make some of them manageable. Additionally, the Stop and Paralyze effects are damn near required for the later dungeons, or else the random encounters will chew you up and spit you out.
    • Healing magic is horrible outside of battle. This finally gets fixed in the DS version.
    • Averted in the Japanese original and the Playstation 1 remake. Most enemies are vulnerable to at least one status ailment, and some of the trickier fights (or fights above your characters' current level) become much more manageable with judicious use. Virus/Bio and Stop in particular were extremely effective in handling fights. Played straight in the American original and Easytype, where the difficulty level was reduced to the point that hammering basic attacks was sufficient. Played straight in a different fashion in the GBA remake, in which various bugs made the game the easiest of all versions.
  • Video Game Remake: After receiving a Game Boy Advance port, the game was reworked from the ground up in full 3D for the Nintendo DS.
  • Video Game Stealing: In versions previous to the DS remake, Edge ran with this to an absurd degree: there was no limit to how many times you could steal an item from an enemy. They apparently just had an unlimited supply of these items (never used, of course) kept in Hammerspace.
  • Villain Song: Not an official one, but this fan-made one is about as good as they come. Doubles as an Ear Worm!
  • Villain Teleportation: Golbez does this so many times, it's not clear why he needs to send his armies to attack the castles guarding the crystals when he could just jump in and grab them.
  • The Walls Are Closing In: One bad guy traps the heroes in one of these during a Cutscene as they try to escape his lair after taking him out. Palom and Porom, the two cute kid mages, sacrifice themselves to save the others by turning themselves to stone and stopping the walls.
    • The sequence where you actually have to fight the Demon Wall to the death as it advanced counts too. If the wall advances all the way, your party members start dying instantly one by one.
  • Weak-Willed: Kain.
  • We Buy Anything: Unremarkable standard use of the trope, but it does become amusing in Mysidia where the merchants will happily buy Cecil's dark/evil equipment that the townspeople curse so much.
  • Welcome Back, Traitor: Kain again, and it happens twice no less.
    • The second time he comes back, Edge actually defies the trope by calling him out on it, asking Kain what he expects them to do if he gets brainwashed again. Kain's response is succinct: kill him.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Cecil and Kain. Obviously.
  • What Does This Button Do?: Dr. Lugae, while he's manually operating Barnabas. It turns out that it's Barnabas's self-destruct button. He built the damn thing.
  • When Elders Attack: Tellah does this to Edward in a scripted battle, hitting him with his cane and calling him a Spoony Bard.
  • Whip It Good: Rydia.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Subverted with Cecil, who is The Hero. Golbez has an odd relationship with this trope: in the original version, there was no way to know for sure if he fit the archetype, since he never took his helm off. Since he's Cecil's brother though, it was a reasonable assumption. The DS version seemingly averted it, as he clearly has brown hair in flashbacks, but on the other hand, we only ever see Golbez's face in flashbacks from when he was a child, so that could have changed in the intervening years. The After Years confirms this impression, as Golbez appears without his armor in that game, and definitely has white hair. Of course, by then, it's subverted, as he too has reformed, and his role throughout the entirety of The After Years is decidedly non-villainous.
  • White Magician Girl: Rosa is the prototypical example of the personality, even though she's better off using a bow. Porom also fits the character type, both in personality and skillset.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: To War of the Worlds, if you examine Zemus's motives closely.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Rydia's initial aversion to Fire stems from Cecil and Kain "accidentally" burning down her home village and killing nearly everything in it.
  • With This Herring: Averted: Cecil is an experienced soldier. You start at Level 10 with your black knight gear (and in most versions, a Cast From HP multi-targeting damage ability) and easily cleaving your way through Level 1 imps.
  • Wizard Beard: Fusoya.
  • Wonder Twin Powers: The Twincast ability. Palom and Porom have it natively, but you can use Augments in the DS version to put them on other characters, which can change the spell you might get. Giving it to Cecil and Rosa gives them the Ultima spell which, if the damage cap is raised, out-damages everything else in the game.
  • Worthy Opponent: Rubicante is a sort of Noble Demon. He fights you with your whole strength (healing the party before the fight every time), spares Edge life once, tries to explain Edge how one should fight, apologies for the bad deeds of his subordinates and doesn't try to kill once he knows he has lost, which other bosses often do.
  • Written Sound Effect: Either a "POW!" or a *whack* on several occasions where Porom gives Palom a well-deserved hit.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: Rydia's Plot-Relevant Age-Up after her journey to the Land of the Summoned Beasts.
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: By about halfway through, the good guys should just be going "Here, take the damn crystal" as soon as Golbez appears.
  • You Kill It, You Bought It: If you kill enough Goblins, Bombs, Cockatrice and Mindflayers: they have Randomly Drops of their own summon that Rydia can use. This must mean their own souls are intact enough for her to control.
  • You Said You Would Let Them Go: Cecil's deal with Golbez: Troia's crystal for Rosa. Guess who holds out on his end of the deal?
  1. ↑ The Trap Door enemies, you have to let them transform into other monsters because those monsters cannot be fought in any other way. Meanwhile, Edge's section of the game takes him through the Tower of Babil, and several enemies are only met on a staircase a single screen long, and if you go to the top of those stairs the story progresses and those encounters are Lost Forever.
  2. ↑ But as far as you know during the first play of the game, your comrades drop like flies.
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