Franchise: Final Fantasy

In the climax of Kingdom Hearts III, Spoiler:Donald Duck uses Zettaflare, a previously unseen spell within either Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy, powerful enough to destroy a solar system. This made Spoiler:the irritable cartoon waterfowl the most powerful mage in the Final Fantasy franchise at the time, to the humor and ire of various players.

In Final Fantasy XVI, Spoiler:Bahamut, who after Spoiler:Donald's use of Zettaflare became the former most powerful mage in the Final Fantasy series, would use Zettaflare during its battle in the game, regaining its former title.

Back in the 90's, Disney was planning on doing a four issue comic based off of the Final Fantasy series. Most of the cover work was done by Mike Mignola (creator of the Hellboy comics). Only two covers for the proposed comic were drawn. Kurt Busiek, who wrote the comic, explained a bit about working on the comic:

I didn't actually pitch for the project. I was asked to write it by the editor, either because he liked my work or because I was in the same state as the Square offices or both. So I visited the offices, they loaned me a bunch of stuff, I played the game and wrote up an outline.

It was after that that they told me they liked my outline but they were working on the new iteration of the game, so could I retool that story to be about that? They sent lots of reference on the new game, and there was just no way to do the first outline with characters from the new game, so they paid me a kill fee for the outline and I started from scratch with the new story outline.

The comic was quietly cancelled in 1993 when Disney's Hollywood Comic studio closed its doors.

According to Yoshinori Kitase, when the series switched from 2D pixel graphics on Nintendo's platforms to 3D on the PlayStation, the developers made an intentional change in tone from medieval themes to a more modern, cyber punk-ish style to emphasize the new technology.

The Final Fantasy series is known for its many religious references such as churches and real-life religious symbols being in the games, as well as borrowing names of fictional/mythical creatures for enemies or summons. However, some games go much deeper, alluding to different schools of thought and/or the mysticism of various religions.
• Final Fantasy IV bases the conflict between Kain and Cecil off of the biblical story of Cain and Abel, and even alludes to it with an in-game item.
• Kefka is thought to represent the Antichrist or even Satan himself.
• Sephiroth is also thought to represent the Antichrist or Lucifer. His design is similar to a fallen angel's.
• Final Fantasy X is centered on the corruption of organized religion. It is also thought that Tidus is meant to represent Jesus.
• The concept of l'Cie is an allusion to religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism where the point of living is to reach to the afterlife, and if you don't succeed in your current life, you simply try again and again.

According to an interview with Hiroyuki Ito, many aspects of turn based systems were inspired by professional sports; the design feature for characters to line up facing the opponent was inspired by formation setups from American football, and the ATB Gauge was inspired by Formula One Racing.

The recurring enemy Coeurl, the giant leopard-like creature with very long whiskers, is named after and based on a similar alien creature from the short story Black Destroyer written by A.E. Van Vogt in 1939.

The song "Prelude", which is in every Final Fantasy game in some form, was made in 5 minutes. Nobuo Uematsu was asked to make one more song at the last minute, and Uematsu threw something together. He's still very embarrassed by it because it still appears in the Final Fantasy games.

Character and logo designer, Yoshitaka Amano, originally worked for the anime company Tatsunoko production, designing several of the well known and popular characters such as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Space Knight Tekkaman, and Neo Human Casshern.

The recurring summon, Shiva, is an inaccurate interpretation of the Hindu god of the same name. The summon is always shown to be a female ice monster, while the Hindu god is a male/androgynous god who is associated with fire.

In America, the name Final Fantasy I is correct. When Final Fantasy II & III first came out, they were in fact FF IV & FF VI renamed II and III. For some strange reason they skipped FF II, FF III and FF V. It was only when FF VII came out that the series's naming was back in order.

The recurring characters Gilgamesh and Enkidu are actually based off of the characters of the same name from The Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's oldest recorded literary work dating back to 2000 BC Sumeria. Gilgamesh himself was named after the title character and a great king of Uruk, a region in Sumeria, who reigned around 2650 BC. Final Fantasy's Gilgamesh's bombastic warrior personality is mentioned in The Epic of Gilgamesh as the other Gods hated his pompous god-like personality and his claims of being 2/3 God, 1/3 human. Gilgamesh's quest for Excalibur in Final Fantasy is similar to Gilgamesh's quest for immortality in Sumerian epic. Enkidu is also similar to his Sumerian counterpart. Enkidu's beast-like appearance in all of the Final Fantasy games he's in are reminiscent of his upbringing in The Epic of Gilgamesh. Enkidu was created as a wild beastman to match Gilgamesh's strength so he could kill him. The two became partners after the fight ended in a draw and they became best friends. This is similar to how their Final Fantasy counterparts are usually inseparable and are battle partners.

There are two recurring names for characters; "Biggs" and "Wedge". These names come from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (Biggs Darklighter & Wedge Antilles). It's thought that the reason these character names are included is because the director of several Final Fantasy games, Yoshinori Kitase, originally wanted to become a film director after watching Star Wars. Biggs and Wedge also show up in Chrono Trigger and Kingdom Hearts II.

A character named Cid appears in almost every game in the Final Fantasy series.