🛑 I’VE MOVED! Check out my new channel for retrospectives, reviews, and critiques here: ruclips.net/channel/UC6D4FlECbW_1KT_Z472LukQfeatured Hi everyone, thanks for watching. Sorry about my terrible Japanese pronunciation! The idea behind this video was something that hit me while I was playing through the original Final Fantasy in preparation for making my retrospective. I didn’t realize just how much inspiration the game took from D&D. Final Fantasy and D&D are two of my favorite things in the world, so this got me curious. I ended up going on a deep dive to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Turns out, it goes on and on… To keep the video short, I left a lot of stuff out, and I’m sure there are things I missed, too. Let me know if you know of more connections between Final Fantasy and D&D! If you have any questions or comments, let me know! And thanks for supporting me. 😘
Hey. Can you translate each summon in Final Fantasy? Alexander, Carbuncle, Diablos, Leviathan, Odin, Fenrir, Garuda, Pheonix, Ramuh, Siren, Sylph, and Titan escape me.
I don’t think it was a secret. Sakaguchi wanted to create a way to play Dungeons and Dragons on the nes. I never knew this until I played through Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 which is Dungeons and Dragons with its own story like Final Fantasy. I noticed the similarities between the two games.
As you walk up the sprialing staircase, the path flattens out into a large bridge. The bottom seems worlds away, but on the other side lay a glowing pedsetal. "We cross the bridge." Roll Initiative. You engage a Warmech!
🤣 I bought Unlimited SaGa when it was new but never got around to playing it (because everyone seemed so disappointed with it). Now I'm kinda curious to try it!
This is quite a curious idea and one I only had an inkling of how much "inspiration" was "borrowed" from Dungeon and Dragons. Though the more I think about it, they never really shied away from that concept when referring to FFI. Even the CG cutscene for FFI shows the Warrior of Light facing down a giant Red Dragon, I can almost bet as a reference to that iconic D&D box art.
That's actually a really good point, lol. I never thought about it like that but it makes sense! Both the Warrior of Light and the fighter on the Basic box set even have horns on their helmets! 🤯
With regard to spells, a lot of the damaging spells also line up with offensive D&D spells, though it's debateable whether this was intentional. Notably: FIRE & LIT, at level 1, correspond to Burning Hands & Shocking Grasp. FIR2 & LIT2 (level 3), line up with Fireball & Lightning Bolt. ICE2 (level 4) matches with Ice Storm. NUKE (level 8) could also be a reference to Meteor Swarm, which is tenchnically level 9 in D&D, but could have been adapted to fit FF's 8-level spell system. That's all I've got off the top of my head, but there could easily be more. It also seems pretty clear to me that the Red Mage is supposed to be a bard. D&D bards are jack-of-all-trades casters, and the red mage's weapon and armor selection (mostly light blades and armor) sync up pretty closely with the bard's. And of course there's the red mage's impeccable fashion sense.
Thanks for sharing! 😀 NUKE's original Japanese name is "Flare". I looked through the 1E and 2E spell lists for something that could have been the inspiration but I didn't find anything obvious...
I find it a bit funny how Japan's gaming and animation industry works. They set out to create something for everyone, and immediately they're (often) drawn to the west. I don't know what the west truly did right that draws the Japanese to it, but I always love when they get it right, or "more right" than we do.
This video is very well made. It's criminally underrated and deserves more views. You earned a sub from me after watching this video. I loved how you talked about the monsters because that is my favorite part of D&D
This video was fricken fantastic! So much stuff I never new. Thanks so much! Is there a way you could list all the old D&D references and other FF references you used for this? I'd also love to go down this historical rabbit trail!
Glad you liked it! Unfortunately I don’t have a good resource of my references. If I made the video today I probably would’ve collected a bunch of sources for people to look at if they were interested in digging deeper, but I didn’t have that in mind back then! Mostly, I went through all of the original spell, item, and monster names and cross referenced them against the D&D books that were available at the time. I’m a huge nerd so I have a lot of old D&D books on my bookshelf that I was able to use lol. So a lot of it was basically going off of my own memory/knowledge and then fact checking all of the details to verify my assumptions. Beyond that, I read a lot of articles and interviews about the making of FF1 that had some insight into the design process, especially Akitoshi Kawazu who was the main D&D fan on the team! Sorry I can’t be more specific than that! I’m thrilled that someone else found all the connections as fascinating as I did. :)
While I like the idea of Red Mages being based on Raistlin, I had always considered their balance of magic and melee (along with their pimpin’ headwear) to be a reference to the original gish class: the Bard.
Yup! I was blown away when I started to look into this and realized just how much inspiration the game took from D&D. I could have probably made the video three times as long if I wanted to... 😀
I've been looking for a comprehensive summary video like this. I came here for the mages and Tiamat/Bahamut, but ended up learning a little more, which I appreciate a lot.
I started playing the pixel remastered last night. I was surprised by the lack of MP system at first like many of the other FF games that I have played (6-10,13) I quite like the fact that you can’t one have more than three per level, it adds an element of strategy. Also, it is the first Final Fantasy were a town literally feels like a safe haven, travelling from town to town genuinely feel very dangerous.
Imagine if instead Square went to the D&D guys to show them the prototype to get the rights to make an NES game called "Dungeons and Dragons". Final Fantasy might never even have existed.
D&D is a public domain franchise, so legally speaking you can't 'steal' stuff from it Now, D&D itself is guilty of stealing literally everything it has going for it from various countries' mythologies, folklore and just storytelling in general Edit; oh, and Lord of the Rings The 'halfling' race in D&D was such a glaring case of copyright infringement that Tolkien actually took them to court over it Is this a case of 'rules for thee but not for me' or are you just a hypocrite?
True! Although that's a different D&D monster. By my count, out of Final Fantasy's 124 unique monsters, less than 10 were not found in the Dungeons & Dragons monster manuals :)
>Akitoshi was a big fan of Western RPG and board games Excuse me, but what do you mean by "was?" (while staring at Unlimited SaGa and SaGa Scarlet Grace) >Beholder From what I've heard, there was lots of Japanese companies getting caught with this, so they had to make a quick fix. Supposedly, one of the iconic name change occurred is Suzuki-Dogezaemon from Jump comic manga "Bastard!". (This is supposedly where Dogether boss from Castlevania Rondo of Blood gets its name from)
While they took the red mage in concept from Dragonlance, it's actually like an Elf with some cleric spells. So I'm guessing they were working with B/X or BECMI instead of AD&D. Maybe using the AD&D monster manuals as they were cross compatible until 3rd edition came out. Some of the locations seem to be taken from the Mystara setting as well. Sometimes I wish they'd make a modern game with new takes on vancian magic.
That's a good point, I didn't think about that! 😀 I didn't like how restrictive Vancian magic felt in FF1 but I really liked it in FF3. Because they were much more generous with the number of spell slots you got, it made the system work really well imo, much better adapted to a JRPG environment!
@@Altercate yeah they kinda did a 1/1 to D&D when it came to the spell slots table and I don't think mages can do as much outside of casting so they needed the extra slots. Though they were kinda ridiculous in 3 lol. I had 36 level 1 spells at one point. I'd say, at whatever level they'd have a future vancian magic system I would have it, at the level you're supposed to fight the bbeg, 16 for first level and 2 less for each subsequent level.
The "verb" stole feels wildly inappropriate. Took feels more apropos. They didn't go full Pathfinder, but they did treat D&D like they treated lore from around the world, much like how D&D used lore from around the world, actually. That said, I REALLY enjoyed this video. Great job, talented stranger.
So if you look at how the game's campaign is structured, with its vast wilderness littered with dungeons, crazy random encounters, and occasional 'points of light' in the form of towns, its zoo dungeons which do not make any sense, and its weird mix of fantasy and science fiction, and then you take a look at the exploration and bestiary of the original '0 edition' D&D, you'll see that FF1 is pretty much LITERAL translation of a classic hexcrawl campaign into an 8-bit game, to the extent that hardware limitations would allow. It's pretty amazing, actually. You can argue all you want for how much RPG is in an RPG in the context of western vs Japanese-style RPGs, but there is no denying the fact, that in terms of mechanics and structure Final Fantasy is the distilled essence of a 0ed campaign, in a tiny NES cartridge.
Well said! Looking at the monster list for FF1, it really gives me that old school vibe of throwing together a campaign for your friends by randomly selecting the big bad evil guys from the Monster Manual 🤣
Next do: Everything D&D stole from Lord of the Rings, followed by Everything Lord of the Rings stole from Medieval fantasy. The point of this video...smh.
Hello Altercate, here is a tip for youtube. Most successful youtubechannels focus on one specific thing only. Even though the creator of the channel has many interests, he only makes videos about one topic, and it makes much more sense to do that from the youtubeviewer perspective. There are many people who are interested in sc2 and there are many people who are interested in story telling in videogames. However if you had to assemble a group of people who care about both of these things at the same time, it would be much harder. The videos about sc2 consistently do better than the other ones on your channel, so I would reccomend to you to focus on that. Also if I find your channel through a sc2 video and then go to your channel, the entire page will be void of sc2 content, and I will probably not sub. Another thing is that youtube seems to really favour channels that consistently upload. These are my tips, hope they help.
I came for the opposite. I saw matters related to classical Final Fantasy and video essays on some interesting topics that are quite niche. To try and pigeon-hole creators is a quick way for some to lose that creative spark.
🛑 I’VE MOVED! Check out my new channel for retrospectives, reviews, and critiques here:
ruclips.net/channel/UC6D4FlECbW_1KT_Z472LukQfeatured
Hi everyone, thanks for watching. Sorry about my terrible Japanese pronunciation!
The idea behind this video was something that hit me while I was playing through the original Final Fantasy in preparation for making my retrospective. I didn’t realize just how much inspiration the game took from D&D.
Final Fantasy and D&D are two of my favorite things in the world, so this got me curious. I ended up going on a deep dive to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Turns out, it goes on and on…
To keep the video short, I left a lot of stuff out, and I’m sure there are things I missed, too. Let me know if you know of more connections between Final Fantasy and D&D!
If you have any questions or comments, let me know! And thanks for supporting me. 😘
Hey. Can you translate each summon in Final Fantasy? Alexander, Carbuncle, Diablos, Leviathan, Odin, Fenrir, Garuda, Pheonix, Ramuh, Siren, Sylph, and Titan escape me.
I don’t think it was a secret. Sakaguchi wanted to create a way to play Dungeons and Dragons on the nes. I never knew this until I played through Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 which is Dungeons and Dragons with its own story like Final Fantasy. I noticed the similarities between the two games.
Your comment got me interested in those games
I’ve been loving D&D for years and only recently I played FF1 and the amount of similarities were incredible! Thank you for such an awesome video
Thank you so much! 😍
As you walk up the sprialing staircase, the path flattens out into a large bridge. The bottom seems worlds away, but on the other side lay a glowing pedsetal.
"We cross the bridge."
Roll Initiative. You engage a Warmech!
Awesome narration! 😂
"Japanese developers shouldn't imitate western games"
- Square Enix 2022
The irony
That explains why Unlimited SaGa was the way it was. Kawazu channeled all his love for the dice into the game.
🤣 I bought Unlimited SaGa when it was new but never got around to playing it (because everyone seemed so disappointed with it). Now I'm kinda curious to try it!
This is quite a curious idea and one I only had an inkling of how much "inspiration" was "borrowed" from Dungeon and Dragons. Though the more I think about it, they never really shied away from that concept when referring to FFI. Even the CG cutscene for FFI shows the Warrior of Light facing down a giant Red Dragon, I can almost bet as a reference to that iconic D&D box art.
That's actually a really good point, lol. I never thought about it like that but it makes sense! Both the Warrior of Light and the fighter on the Basic box set even have horns on their helmets! 🤯
I have learnt tons of things from the video. Thank you a lot !! I didnt know ff1 stole from d&d this much :D
Glad you liked it! Yeah, I had no idea it went this deep before I started looking into it after playing the game 😀
With regard to spells, a lot of the damaging spells also line up with offensive D&D spells, though it's debateable whether this was intentional. Notably: FIRE & LIT, at level 1, correspond to Burning Hands & Shocking Grasp. FIR2 & LIT2 (level 3), line up with Fireball & Lightning Bolt. ICE2 (level 4) matches with Ice Storm. NUKE (level 8) could also be a reference to Meteor Swarm, which is tenchnically level 9 in D&D, but could have been adapted to fit FF's 8-level spell system. That's all I've got off the top of my head, but there could easily be more.
It also seems pretty clear to me that the Red Mage is supposed to be a bard. D&D bards are jack-of-all-trades casters, and the red mage's weapon and armor selection (mostly light blades and armor) sync up pretty closely with the bard's. And of course there's the red mage's impeccable fashion sense.
Thanks for sharing! 😀 NUKE's original Japanese name is "Flare". I looked through the 1E and 2E spell lists for something that could have been the inspiration but I didn't find anything obvious...
If you check out the original Bard ad&d art, it is 100% a red mage
I think FF did it better. But without d&d.. we would have must of the RPGs we have today. Thank God for d&d
Amazing video, detailed content and my personal hero! Congrats on 2k subs bro much deserved! Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much bro! Your support means the world to me 😍
Well, that's good. And now we need a Final Fantasy tabletop game!
I find it a bit funny how Japan's gaming and animation industry works. They set out to create something for everyone, and immediately they're (often) drawn to the west.
I don't know what the west truly did right that draws the Japanese to it, but I always love when they get it right, or "more right" than we do.
This video is very well made. It's criminally underrated and deserves more views. You earned a sub from me after watching this video. I loved how you talked about the monsters because that is my favorite part of D&D
Thank you so much for saying that, that really makes my day! 😍
All rpgs are based from d&d
Wow, this is great! 10/10!
Thanks bro!! I thought you would like it 😍
Inspiration is very important.
This video was fricken fantastic! So much stuff I never new. Thanks so much! Is there a way you could list all the old D&D references and other FF references you used for this? I'd also love to go down this historical rabbit trail!
Glad you liked it! Unfortunately I don’t have a good resource of my references. If I made the video today I probably would’ve collected a bunch of sources for people to look at if they were interested in digging deeper, but I didn’t have that in mind back then!
Mostly, I went through all of the original spell, item, and monster names and cross referenced them against the D&D books that were available at the time. I’m a huge nerd so I have a lot of old D&D books on my bookshelf that I was able to use lol. So a lot of it was basically going off of my own memory/knowledge and then fact checking all of the details to verify my assumptions.
Beyond that, I read a lot of articles and interviews about the making of FF1 that had some insight into the design process, especially Akitoshi Kawazu who was the main D&D fan on the team!
Sorry I can’t be more specific than that! I’m thrilled that someone else found all the connections as fascinating as I did. :)
While I like the idea of Red Mages being based on Raistlin, I had always considered their balance of magic and melee (along with their pimpin’ headwear) to be a reference to the original gish class: the Bard.
That’s a thought! 😀
I find it quite interesting that something so typically japanese (JRPGs) has roots in something so typically western (D&D).
Yup! I was blown away when I started to look into this and realized just how much inspiration the game took from D&D. I could have probably made the video three times as long if I wanted to... 😀
I've been looking for a comprehensive summary video like this. I came here for the mages and Tiamat/Bahamut, but ended up learning a little more, which I appreciate a lot.
Awesome, glad I could help :)
Maybe being shameless to make billion are acceptable by society?
I started playing the pixel remastered last night. I was surprised by the lack of MP system at first like many of the other FF games that I have played (6-10,13) I quite like the fact that you can’t one have more than three per level, it adds an element of strategy. Also, it is the first Final Fantasy were a town literally feels like a safe haven, travelling from town to town genuinely feel very dangerous.
Imagine if instead Square went to the D&D guys to show them the prototype to get the rights to make an NES game called "Dungeons and Dragons". Final Fantasy might never even have existed.
It's crazy how things work out sometimes... No one, not even Square themselves, could have ever expected how big Final Fantasy would get!
D&D is a public domain franchise, so legally speaking you can't 'steal' stuff from it
Now, D&D itself is guilty of stealing literally everything it has going for it from various countries' mythologies, folklore and just storytelling in general
Edit; oh, and Lord of the Rings
The 'halfling' race in D&D was such a glaring case of copyright infringement that Tolkien actually took them to court over it
Is this a case of 'rules for thee but not for me' or are you just a hypocrite?
This was exactly my thoughts. I find D&D players so extremely smug about their game.
Amazing retrospective. You helped me appreciate 2 and 3 more. May the light shine upon you.
Thank you for the kind words! 😍
And that's why I stole FF1 for the first campaign I ever ran.
My players have told a great story through it. Love those guys.
That’s awesome! What did your players end up doing?
Finding references to Sahuagins, Bahamut and Tiamat in Baldur's Gate 3 brought me to this video
Awesome haha
While there was no Black Dragon there was the Undead Dragon or Zombie Dragon.
True! Although that's a different D&D monster. By my count, out of Final Fantasy's 124 unique monsters, less than 10 were not found in the Dungeons & Dragons monster manuals :)
Well, researched and interesting, thank you!
Thank you! 😀
If you compare the first D&D games on PC and the first Final Fantasy you can also see a lot of similarities
.
That's very true! It's hard to believe that Final Fantasy had such an origin these days when you look at how far the series has come 😀
>Akitoshi was a big fan of Western RPG and board games
Excuse me, but what do you mean by "was?" (while staring at Unlimited SaGa and SaGa Scarlet Grace)
>Beholder
From what I've heard, there was lots of Japanese companies getting caught with this, so they had to make a quick fix.
Supposedly, one of the iconic name change occurred is Suzuki-Dogezaemon from Jump comic manga "Bastard!". (This is supposedly where Dogether boss from Castlevania Rondo of Blood gets its name from)
While they took the red mage in concept from Dragonlance, it's actually like an Elf with some cleric spells. So I'm guessing they were working with B/X or BECMI instead of AD&D. Maybe using the AD&D monster manuals as they were cross compatible until 3rd edition came out.
Some of the locations seem to be taken from the Mystara setting as well. Sometimes I wish they'd make a modern game with new takes on vancian magic.
That's a good point, I didn't think about that! 😀 I didn't like how restrictive Vancian magic felt in FF1 but I really liked it in FF3. Because they were much more generous with the number of spell slots you got, it made the system work really well imo, much better adapted to a JRPG environment!
@@Altercate yeah they kinda did a 1/1 to D&D when it came to the spell slots table and I don't think mages can do as much outside of casting so they needed the extra slots. Though they were kinda ridiculous in 3 lol. I had 36 level 1 spells at one point. I'd say, at whatever level they'd have a future vancian magic system I would have it, at the level you're supposed to fight the bbeg, 16 for first level and 2 less for each subsequent level.
@@ThaetusZain I'd love to see a fresh take on Vancian magic! They might have to cut down a bit on the random encounters, though! 😅
The "verb" stole feels wildly inappropriate. Took feels more apropos. They didn't go full Pathfinder, but they did treat D&D like they treated lore from around the world, much like how D&D used lore from around the world, actually.
That said, I REALLY enjoyed this video. Great job, talented stranger.
11:15 One of my friends has this book. I pointed out the centaur on the cover looks like Chuck Norris. And now she can't un-see it
LOL, yeah I see what you mean!
So if you look at how the game's campaign is structured, with its vast wilderness littered with dungeons, crazy random encounters, and occasional 'points of light' in the form of towns, its zoo dungeons which do not make any sense, and its weird mix of fantasy and science fiction, and then you take a look at the exploration and bestiary of the original '0 edition' D&D, you'll see that FF1 is pretty much LITERAL translation of a classic hexcrawl campaign into an 8-bit game, to the extent that hardware limitations would allow. It's pretty amazing, actually. You can argue all you want for how much RPG is in an RPG in the context of western vs Japanese-style RPGs, but there is no denying the fact, that in terms of mechanics and structure Final Fantasy is the distilled essence of a 0ed campaign, in a tiny NES cartridge.
Well said! Looking at the monster list for FF1, it really gives me that old school vibe of throwing together a campaign for your friends by randomly selecting the big bad evil guys from the Monster Manual 🤣
Why are D&D players so smug though? D&D itself has taken a lot from other sources too.
Wow I never knew this
Yup, I was surprised at just how much stuff there was! 😀
This is great!
Thank you so much! 😀
I like dungeons & dragons, final fantasy & dragon quest!
Awesome video!! As FF fan, it made me look more about D&D, a game I know little of. Keep the good work!!!
Thank you so much! Glad you liked the video! :)
This was really fun to watch, thanks for sharing all the info. 💜
I’m glad you liked it! 😀
No dice rolling what are you talking about.
✌️
Great stuff. Looking forward to your DQ content as well!
Thank you! :)
First! HYPE!!!
That was FAST! Love you bro! 😍
Every villain has an origin story.. Kawazu, your opaque systems will be remembered forever.
Well said! :)
keep it up man, your videos are really well done
Thank you so much, that really means a lot to me! 😀
Awesome video!!!!!
Thank you so much! 😍
Next do: Everything D&D stole from Lord of the Rings, followed by Everything Lord of the Rings stole from Medieval fantasy. The point of this video...smh.
Exactly!! Makes me laugh at how D&D people act so high and mighty.
Hello Altercate, here is a tip for youtube. Most successful youtubechannels focus on one specific thing only. Even though the creator of the channel has many interests, he only makes videos about one topic, and it makes much more sense to do that from the youtubeviewer perspective.
There are many people who are interested in sc2 and there are many people who are interested in story telling in videogames. However if you had to assemble a group of people who care about both of these things at the same time, it would be much harder.
The videos about sc2 consistently do better than the other ones on your channel, so I would reccomend to you to focus on that.
Also if I find your channel through a sc2 video and then go to your channel, the entire page will be void of sc2 content, and I will probably not sub.
Another thing is that youtube seems to really favour channels that consistently upload.
These are my tips, hope they help.
Thanks for the advice! 😀
I came for the opposite. I saw matters related to classical Final Fantasy and video essays on some interesting topics that are quite niche. To try and pigeon-hole creators is a quick way for some to lose that creative spark.