Blaugust 2022 – FFIV in my FFXIV?
Yes Please!
Posted on August 30, 2022 by Aywren
Long before patch 6.2 came out – which contains a TON of FFIV references – I had the idea to gather up as many FFIV references in FFXIV as I was aware of. I wanted to originally make it a series of posts, but looking at the list I came up with, that would takes weeks to complete.
Instead, I decided to spend one of the final days of Blaugust writing out a compilation of where my two favorite games in the Final Fantasy series come together. I’ll be using a combination of images from the different versions of FFIV – both the 2D and the 3D versions. So if you see a difference in graphics, that’s the reason why. Some things just were better represented in 2D or 3D.
My History with Final Fantasy
While FF1 on the NES was my gateway to Final Fantasy, FF2 (FFII) on the SNES was my gateway to JRPGs as a genre. It was the game that showed me that games can tell great stories and have characters you care about – we’d never seen anything quite like it back then.
There’s a bit of confusion about old skool Final Fantasy titles in the US. While we got FF1 for the NES, Squaresoft didn’t release the actual FF2 and FF3 to us.
Instead, we got FF4 (FFIV) with the SNES system – but they named it FF2 because the US audience had no idea we didn’t get those other games (no Internet at the time). It didn’t make sense to jump two numbers in the series, I suppose. Also, our FF2 was a slightly altered and dumbed-down version of FF4j – they seemed to think we weren’t ready for hardcore RPG games.
Anyhow, eventually the truth came out and future releases of the game were named FFIV in the US. But my original love for the game started when it was FFII.
It has been a game that changed my life, quite literally. I met so many people because of it, including my best friend of over two decades. I still write and draw a webcomic that’s set in the FFIV universe, and the characters I created for my old fanfic are still ones that I love and even have brought into FFXIV today – including my main, Ben!
So with all that out of the way, my dedication to FFIV is just as strong as it’s ever been. And to see FFXIV, my other favorite in the series, finally paying homage to my absolute favorite has put me over the moon (pun intended). I feel like they’ve done a fantastic job with FFIV references, even where they’ve tweaked things to fit the FFXIV world. I’m really looking forward to how they resolve the current storyline!
Let’s look at some of the FFIV references I know of in FFXIV!
FFIV Accessories
Digging back deep, our first references to FFIV were in the Heavensward expansion preorders and digital Collector’s Edition.
Preorder bonuses included the Baron Circlet and Earrings (pictured above). The CE included the dark knight Cecil helm and a Kain minion.
FFIV Minions
Speaking of minions – we now have almost all of the FFIV main cast except for Cecil himself. And I find that very mysterious!
As I noted, we got Kain in the digital CE of Heavensward.
Rosa, Rydia and Edge are purchasable from the Mog Store.
The Palom minion was a preorder reward for Endwalker while his sister, Porom, was part of Endwalker’s digital CE.
We also got Calca and Brina minions, which are attached to the Calcobrena fight.
Calcobrena
The Calcobrena boss fight at the end of the Anti-tower was the first piece of actual game content that was a FFIV reference. I used to joke that of all references they could make, it had to be something as creepy as Calcobrena!
As you can see, they kept the design pretty in line with the original.
Along with two minions, we also got a housing item of the smaller doll.
Lunar Whale
Also known as the Big Whale from the original FF2 translation. This is a 8-person mount that you can purchase from the Mog store.
In FFIV, it was the only ship that was able to take the heroes to the Moon.
As you can see, it, too, is very close to representing the design of the original ship.
The Moon
Did I mention the Moon? Let’s talk about the Moon.
The Red Moon in FFIV was extremely important and where the final boss fight of the game took place. I think that’s why many of us expected the Moon in FFXIV to be the final stop for the expansion (LOL).
Like the Moon in FFXIV, the Moon in FFIV started to turn red in indication of incoming danger during the game’s storyline. It also contained a giant crystal tower (similar to Bestways Burrow) that was the home to a group of people who used the Moon as a space ship to escape the destruction of their home. So the stories are quite similar!
Face on the Moon
I was absolutely delighted when I saw they kept the face on the Moon in FFXIV!
This face was in FFIV and was an Easter egg reference to the face on Mars.
You can find the face on the Moon in FFXIV at the Kydonia Knolls.
Hummingways/Loporrits
Speaking of the moon, let’s talk about the bunnies. The inspiration for Loporrits in FFXIV came from a race of rabbits who lived on the moon called Hummingways. They didn’t speak, but instead made that cute little humming sound you’ve probably heard coming from Loporrits.
Interestingly enough, this appears to be the exact sound bite from the original Hummingways in FFIV.
Anyhow, there was one Hummingway that came to the Blue Planet called Namingway. He was there to offer to change the names of your characters if you wanted to.
Unless you found the Hummingway cave on the Moon, you likely didn’t know there were more or even where they came from. But you can certainly see where they look quite similar!
Eblan
This didn’t feature anything large in FFXIV, but as a FFIV fan, I noticed it. In Garlemald, there are references to Eblan in things you can gather there – Eblan Danburite, Eblan Alumen, Eblan Lintels, etc.
Eblan was a city of ninjas in FFIV, so it’s curious why they decided to use the name for gatherables in Garlemald, but there you have it!
Tower of Babil and Zot
The Towers of Babil and Zot were also dungeon locations from FFIV.
Babil was a HUGE tower that reached from the underworld up through a mountain and into the sky.
Similar to FFXIV, this is the tower where you fought Dr. Lugae and Barnabas.
The tower of Zot, on the other hand, was thought to be a floating location in FFIV. There was no seen way into the tower aside from airships in the game. This is what a floor of that tower looked like:
Similar to the Zot in FFIV, this is where you faced the Magus Sisters.
They looked a little different from their FFXIV counterparts, though!
Interestingly enough, this was also the place you fought Valvalis (Barbariccia) in FFIV.
Moonward Gear
The first set of Tome gear you could buy in Endwalker, known as the Moonward gear, is a tribute to gear worn by the main FFIV characters.
Kokkol
While FFXIV players know Kokkol as the spunky blacksmith Lalafell in Labyrinthos, he is based on a blacksmith character by the same name in FFIV. This blacksmith lives in the underworld with the Dwarves, though it’s unknown by his sprite whether he was actually a Dwarf himself.
He can forge the legendary blade Excalibur if you bring him the ore that he needs!
I was pleased as punch to see a rather rare reference like this in FFXIV!
Music
I probably won’t remember every music reference in FFXIV, but I’ll give it a try.
The Calcobrena fight was a remix of this song:
Lunar Whale mount music is a remix of this song:
The music for Bestways Burrow is a remix of “Welcome to Our Town”:
The music you hear if you get into a battle within Bestways Burrow is the EXACT oldskool version of the FFIV battle theme! I was so excited to hear it unchanged!
Whenever you get a meanwhile in FFXIV that cuts to Golbez and the Fiends, you hear a remix of “Meanwhile”:
A remix of this song often played during patch 6.2 when seeing things in the Void or around Zero:
The infamous Four Fiends music:
How Troia sounded before it was fell:
Four Fiends and Golbez
Last but not least, the series of boss fights that spanned throughout FFIV were Golbez and his four fiends. We’ve seen two so far in FFXIV:
Milon (Scarmiglione)
Vavalis (Barbariccia)
The shorter names were what they were known by in many of the US version releases. But the names we get in FFXIV were the actual names the devs appointed them. Of course, all of these longer names are in reference to demons in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Just a little FYI!
Finally, Golbez.
Golbez is of great interest to me because he was the character that first sparked me to begin writing fanfic when I was a teen. We never learned within FFIV (not counting changes in canon in the DS version) exactly who he was or what he was like before this story happened, so I took it upon myself to make up my own story.
Ironically enough, the “Golbez” character in my FFIV-based stories became Ben. Who is my main in FFXIV. Good times!
If you’ve read through all of this, congrats! Thanks for listening to the rambling of a FFIV fan.