Works CitedHii, Sharleen. “Introduction to Final Fantasy” http://www.neo-highwind.com/intro/index.shtmlThe Religions Behind Final Fantasy Alicia Ong History of Computer Game Design: Technology, Culture, and Business March 22, 2001When Dungeons and Dragons, one of the first role-playing games (RPG), came out, it drew the criticism of many Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian groups. They asserted that the game encourages "blasphemy, assassination, insanity, sexual perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, Satan worship, and necromancy."1 No causal links between violence and role-playing games have been found,2 which raises the question of why these groups are so staunchly opposed to these games in the first place. In terms of violence, RPG’s are generally less violent than their first-person-shooter counterparts, and unlike Diablo or Shivers 2 which features demons and devils on its box cover, RPG’s feature the heroes of the game, whose goals are to vanquish evil. Perhaps the issue here is the fact that RPG’s expose people to non Judeo-Christian mythologies, more non-traditional views of religion, and of course, the “occult.” However, despite what these fundamentalists believe, RPG’s are not the cause of society’s fascination with the occult. In fact, the very opposite is true. The popularity of RPG’s in the United States stems from society’s growing acceptance of alternative religions. Hironobu Sakaguchi's Final Fantasy series is a prime example of this. Produced by Square Soft, Final Fantasy was originally a third party product of Nintendo until Square switched to Sony in 1996.3 It then produced Final Fantasy VII for Sony, the first uncut Final Fantasy title released in the United States. Nintendo had been censoring language and religious references in the previous Final Fantasy games,4 limiting what the main design team could do in terms of the plot and theme. This main design team consisted of Sakaguchi—who designed all the games in the main Final Fantasy series, as well as Final Fantasy Tactics—and Tetsuya Nomura, who 1http://www.religioustolerance.org/d_a_d.htm 2 http://www.religioustolerance.org/d_a_d.htm 3 http://www.landfield.com/faqs/games/video-games/final-fantasy/part1/ 4 http://www.thegia.com/letters/l0799/08.htmlhelped design the characters for Final Fantasies VII and VIII and the storyline of Final Fantasy VII.5 Alternate mythologies and the “occult” have always been present in the series. Every Final Fantasy has the concept of the spell and the spellcaster. In fact, most gamers could not even imagine trying to make it through the game without at least one white spellcaster, one who casts healing and resurrection spells. In addition, some of the more powerful weapons in some games are named after Greek gods. For example, there is the Aegis shield, which is Athena’s emblem6, the Artemis bow, and Apollo’s harp, just to name a few. Chronologically examining the series in depth, we see the same focus on non-Christian beliefs. Final Fantasy I, released in America in 19907, featured four Light Warriors, destined to save the world from Chaos, but in order for the warriors to defeat Chaos, they first needed to recharge four orbs, the orbs of earth, fire, water, and air. Strikingly, those four elements play a large role in Wicca as well as today’s other Neo-Pagan religions. Even more striking is the other Final Fantasy game released in 1990, Final Fantasy Legend I for the Game Boy. In this game, the player’s goal was to venture up the Tower of Paradise (a tower ironically filled with monsters). At the very top of the tower, the player faced the final enemy, and who was this final enemy? It was Ashura, the very Creator Himself! It is a reference to both Hinduism (the Ashura were a race of demi-gods that Brahma had created8) and Christianity. That is, the player is encouraged to destroy a creator somewhat akin to the Christian God, a creator who tests to see if people are worthy of Paradise, one who sentences those who are not to eternal punishment. 5 http://www.neo-highwind.com/intro/intro3.shtml 6 http://www.4cbiz.net/rudnik/greece/olymp/ 7 this date as well as future dates of game releases in this essay from http://sugoi.ctw.cc/Data/Special/FFChrono/ 8 http://www.landfield.com/faqs/games/video-games/final-fantasy/part1/In 1991, Final Fantasy II, which was actually Final Fantasy IV in Japan, was released in America. In addition to fighters and spellcasters, a new class appeared: the summoner, who is able to call forth monsters to attack the enemy. Among the summonable creatures the summoner could call was Behemoth, which according to the Apocrypha, was a form of the primeval monster of Chaos that had to be defeated before God could begin the process of creation.9 In 1994, Final Fantasy III (VI in Japan) came out, and the player received a couple of new summon monsters like Fenrir and Terrato. Both from Norse mythology, Fenrir the Fenris Wolf and Terrato the Midgard Serpent were created by Loki the trickster god.10 Summoning them could wipe out some enemy parties in one turn, which isn’t too surprising considering summon monsters in general tend to be among the strongest weapons a player can obtain in a game. Perhaps this is what the Religious Right is referring to when they say that video games “encourage the player to worship pagan deities for power,”11 seeing as these summon beasts are rather powerful as well as non-standard Judeo-Christian in origin. On September 7, 1997, the long-awaited Final Fantasy VII was released. Like its predecessors, it contained non-orthodox references. Midgar, the city where at least one-third of the game takes place, is in Norse mythology—the Norse Midgard refers to the realm of the living, where all humans live. Sephiroth the main villain refers to “a code of sorts...the English word ‘cypher’ comes from ‘sephiroth.’ The word is Hebrew for ‘numbers,’...[which] have ten different aspects. The Kabbalists (Jewish mysticists [often categorized as part of the occult]) believe that unlocking the Sephiroth is the key to interpreting the scriptures from the bottom up, and thus reaching Yhwh (God, Yahweh, Jehovah, etc).”12 In this case, Sephiroth did not want to 9 http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/4022/tempBehemoth.html 10 http://www.landfield.com/faqs/games/video-games/final-fantasy/part1/ 11 http://www.gocke.net/Internet.htm 12
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