It’s easy to feel as if Final Fantasy XIV has a functionally infinite well of material to draw from, and it was especially easy back when the game first relaunched. Naoki Yoshida specifically said that he wanted to make the game something of a celebration of series history, and at the time, there was a lot to draw from! But the thing about having a lot of potential things to draw on is that all that potential eventually collapses into actual, and here we are with several expansions down.

That is not to say that FFXIV has mined everything in the franchise down to the bones, but it does mean that a lot of the lower-hanging fruit has already been explored… and a lot of the higher fruit, too. But there is still a fair amount of material to draw upon. So rather than focus on a title-by-title rundown, I wanted to highlight the games that definitely could still have material yoinked for future adaptation, games that do have references but still have a lot more to draw out.

Final Fantasy VII

I commend Naoki Yoshida for his restraint with this title. FFVII has long been a cheat code for Square-Enix, pretty indisputably the most popular mainline series entry aside from FFXIV (with some wiggle room for metrics) and definitely the most popular single-player entry. And yet we’ve never seen anything drawing heavily from the game as a whole in FFXIV. There are little references here and there (like the chat samples in the menu using the characters) but no big adaptations outside of the Weapon line!

Part of this is because FFVII is a more dieselpunk setting than mainline FFXIV, and part of it is also that the individual parts of FFVII are very closely tied to its plot. You can’t really have players go to Midgar, for example, and the more open but iconic areas like the Gold Saucer form those isolated references I mentioned before.

But there’s still more that can be pulled out here. Cosmo Canyon, North Crater, and the City of the Ancients might require some work to bring into the game, but all of them have potential for crossover moments. There’s also nothing stopping us from, say, winding up on another reflection where that dieselpunk gap isn’t as much of a gap after all. Hint, hint.

Final Fantasy VIII

So our big pull from this game was the Eden series and the addition of Gunbreaker, but here’s my weird theory: I think there’s actually potential for this to get more pull when/if we go to Meracydia. Not because I expect Meracydia will have the largely modern tech of FFVIII’s world, but because I think there’s a lot of potential in the whole line of sorceresses that define a lot of FFVIII’s story.

Why do I think that’s in Meracydia? Call it a hunch, but we know that at one point the Goddess Sophia was a major part of Meracydian life. We also would be well-served to remember that Diabolos originated in FFVIII, and it’s clear that the Void is tied into Meracydia from Azdaja’s fate. And there are plenty of dungeons, settings, and concepts that can be pulled in there, especially as the game is working to develop its new greater-scope antagonists.

Just a hunch.

Final Fantasy X

I have been expecting a Sin raid series basically forever. It feels like such an easy layup. Not only is Sin an obvious actual boss to fight, but Sin itself also serves as a dungeon. Part of me feels like the main reason it hasn’t happened is just because it’s so easy to plug in when you don’t know what to do for a raid series. “Oh, yeah, it’s Sin time.” Wait, that sounds like it means something else.

Honestly, I expected us to get a lot more FFX references in this expansion than we actually did, but there are so many areas and concepts in this game that it really feels like the ripest possible fruit the game hasn’t yet reached for. Which is cool! I am glad that this vein is right here, ready to be tapped. And it is easily one of the best games in the series, so that works too.

The one weakness that it has, which I feel is relatively minor in this case, is that unlike most games in the franchise, it doesn’t really have many defined dungeons. The game feels much more like a seamless experience in that regard, which is a good thing for its structure, but it does mean that fewer places outside of the depths of Sin stand out in the same way. Fortunately, Final Fantasy X-2 does have a couple to potentially pull from…

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles

“Wait, are you serious?” I am absolutely serious over here. The Crystal Chronicles series is not my particular jam, so it has never held a tight grip on my heart or mind, but I think it’s easy to overlook how many entries it has or how much lore it actually had developed. Even if you disregard the two WiiWare spinoffs, this series had four entries and a remake, it got critical praise, and it is a full-fledged series with its own mythos and identity. And while it is not my jam simply because I never got into it, it is as much as part of this franchise as any other title.

Now, there is perhaps a bit of a tone difference between FFXIV and this subseries, which is worth being aware of when drawing references from it. It’s not night and day, but the CC subline does skew a bit lighter and a bit younger. However… so what? Final Fantasy V is a more light-hearted adventure than Final Fantasy IV or Final Fantasy VI and no one (including me) is arguing that it shouldn’t be a part of the overall experience.

I would, honestly, mark the heck out for seeing this series get its due in FFXIV. And seeing as we’re starting to dry out the mainline titles, heck, why not?

Final Fantasy Explorers

This particular spinoff really never got its due in part because it wasn’t clear what it was supposed to be. It wasn’t really marketed beyond the title, and when you actually got into it, it was kind of like the Monster Hunter series had a child with Final Fantasy XI only with local multiplayer. How do you sell people on that? Apparently, by not even trying?

However, the thing is that this game just suggests piles of content. You have an island covered in ruins, magical crystals, and so forth. People want those crystals for various reasons, and you need to go collect them. As anything from a new exploration area to the premise of an entire expansion, it’s kinda just sitting there!

Although it does have the downside that I don’t think anyone really has nostalgia for this particular spinoff, so that doesn’t help.

Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to [email protected]. Next week, I’m obviously going to be talking about the live letter and what was revealed during it, so… look forward to that, reaction fans!

The Nymian civilization hosted an immense amount of knowledge and learning, but so much of it has been lost to the people of Eorzea. That doesn’t stop Eliot Lefebvre from scrutinizing Final Fantasy XIV each week in Wisdom of Nym, hosting guides, discussion, and opinions without so much as a trace of rancor.