Since the series' inception, gameplay in the majority of mainline
Final Fantasy games has followed certain conventions of the role-playing genre. Players take control of a party of characters, commanding anywhere between three and eight during battles. Players must face a variety of enemies who continually try to damage the player; in battle, the characters can select a variety of commands from a menu, such as "Fight", "Magic", "Item", as well as other special skills such as "Steal", "Throw", or "Summon". The battle is won when all enemies are defeated. Up until
Final Fantasy XI, battles were triggered through random encounters: starting with
XI and continuing in following games, enemies were visible in the field and could be avoided. Like other role-playing games,
Final Fantasy most commonly uses an experience point-based leveling system, where each battle awards experience points and gaining levels increases character statistics such as health and magic. Magic is another common role-playing element in the series. The method by which characters gain magic varies between installments, but is generally divided into classes organized by color: "White magic", which focuses on spells that assist teammates; "Black magic", which focuses on harming enemies; "Red magic", which is a combination of white and black magic, "Blue magic", which mimics enemy attacks; and "Green magic" which focuses on applying
status effects to either allies or enemies. Different means of transportation have appeared through the series. The most common is the airship for long range travel, accompanied by chocobos for traveling short distances, but others include sea and land vessels. Following
Final Fantasy VII, more modern and futuristic vehicle designs have been included. For
Final Fantasy XV, a car dubbed "Regalia" was introduced as both a ground-based transport and later as a vehicle that could be converted to function as an airship. Airships are often unlocked for players fairly late in the game.
Battle systems The battle system of the original
Final Fantasy was designed by
Akitoshi Kawazu. When creating it, he closely followed the mechanics created in the Western tabletop game
Dungeons & Dragons, particularly the incorporation of enemy-specific weaknesses that were otherwise missing from Japanese games at the time. He also added elements such as weapon and item abilities based on their successful implementation in
Wizardry. This first version of the battle system was a traditional
turn-based system with characters appearing on the left-hand side of the screen, a feature later adopted by multiple other role-playing games (RPGs). For
Final Fantasy II, Kawazu designed the battle system based around a more focused approach to story, along with accommodating for character classes being locked to specific characters. In
Final Fantasy II, character abilities improved based on the number of times they were used and the number of hit points accumulated during battles: if a character used magic, they would become strong in magic while other attributes would suffer. For
Final Fantasy III, the system changed back to a traditional class-based model: Kawazu said that the reason for this was because no-one could fully understand the system he had created for
Final Fantasy II. The battle system most closely associated with
Final Fantasy is the "
Active Time Battle" (ATB) system: while utilizing a turn-based combat system, action meters are assigned to all characters that empty when they act in battle. Each player character being issued a command when their action meter is filled: enemies could attack at any time despite player actions being in progress, adding an element of urgency to battles. The ATB system was designed by
Hiroyuki Ito. According to Kawazu, Ito was inspired while watching a
Formula One race and seeing racers pass each other at different speeds. This gave him the idea of different speed values for the individual characters. Ito himself described the inspiration as his wish to balance pure turn-based mechanics with real-time battle mechanics, which played into a movement in Formula One where cars were shifting towards using semi-automatic gearboxes. For
Final Fantasy V, Ito evolved the system further as he felt the version in
IV was incomplete. A mechanic introduced in
Final Fantasy VII was Limit Breaks, special cinematic moves that have become a staple of the series. The ATB system was in use until
Final Fantasy X, which switched to a system called the "Conditional Turn-based Battle" system: while reverting to a purely turn-based model, it included additional elements such as in-battle party member switching.
Final Fantasy XI,
XIV, and its sequel
A Realm Reborn used real-time command-based combat systems and removed random encounters, playing in a similar fashion to other contemporary MMORPGs.
Final Fantasy XII used a similar real-time command-based system to
XI: dubbed the "Active Dimension Battle" system, characters fought enemies in environments without random encounters, with players acting on commands set by the player. The battle system for
Final Fantasy XIII was designed to retain the strategic elements of earlier games while emulating the cinematic action of
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. While retaining the ATB system, elements such as magic points were removed, and a strategic role-change system dubbed the Paradigm System was implemented, with the roles being based on
Final Fantasy jobs.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 continued using the Paradigm system with added gameplay functions based on criticism of the first game, while
Lightning Returns changed to a more action-based, single-character version that incorporated design elements cut from
XIII.
Final Fantasy XV used an action-based system that was described as a "realistic" version of those used in the
Kingdom Hearts series and spin-off game
Final Fantasy Type-0. Unlike mainline
Final Fantasy games up to this point, the players could only control one character out of the four-strong party. While the team experimented with multiple character control, it was decided that it presented too many development difficulties. The battle system of
Final Fantasy XVI, designed by
Capcom veteran Ryota Suzuki, again focused on action with a single protagonist with a focus on switching elemental abilities gained from the world's summons. Battles were also split between standard combat with smaller enemies, and large cinematic battles with their own mechanics.
Classes Character classes in
Final Fantasy are often referred to as "jobs"; they have been present in the series since the first game, where players chose each character's job from the outset. Kawazu created this system to give players freedom to customize the party. For
Final Fantasy IV, jobs were attached to specific characters. Each job in a
Final Fantasy game has unique abilities which develop as the player's level increases. In some games, the player can assign a character a specific job at the start of the game, while other games allow characters to combine and learn abilities from a number of jobs. In addition to other abilities, a character's job usually determines the types of weapons and armor that they can use.
Final Fantasy III saw the introduction of the Job Change System: through special crystals, the four player characters were granted a variety of jobs that could be switched at any point by the player. The Job Change system was initially proposed by Sakaguchi as he wanted to give players freedom to customize the party members. The Job System has continued to have a strong role in the series, being most prominent in
Final Fantasy V with 22 available jobs. Jobs have recurring functions throughout the series. Some of the more traditional classes include the Warrior/Fighter, the Dragoon, the Thief, and variations on magical classes such as White and Black Mages. More original classes have appeared throughout the series, such as Bards, Scholars, and Summoners. Due to the series' popularity, they have become staples of RPGs since their debut. The complexity and scope of the job system, as well as whether or not characters are capable of changing jobs, varies from game to game. The original
Final Fantasy XIV did away with the Job System in favour of a character class-driven system where equipment determined skills and growth. For the later stages of
XIV and later
A Realm Reborn, the Job System was reintroduced as a second level to the class system. Many Jobs, such as the Dragoon, the Summoner, the White Mage, the Black Mage, and the Red Mage have become closely identified with the series.
Summoning A different system is "Summoning", a mechanic where characters can
evoke summoned monsters ( in Japanese) to aid the party through cinematic actions. The concept of summoning was proposed for the first
Final Fantasy but was not implemented until
Final Fantasy III. Summons can be either optional acquisitions or tied to story events and particular characters. The names of summons derive from multiple cultures, including
Egyptian, Middle-Eastern, Asian, and Classical mythology. As groups within the games, they have been referred to by several names (Espers, Guardian Forces, Aeons, Eidolons, Astrals, Primals, Eikons), and have taken either core roles in the story or less prominent roles as tools for the player characters. == Art design ==