5 Weirdest Locations in the Final Fantasy Universe

JRPGs tend to present weird plots involving time, space, dimensions, and more strange elements. Final Fantasy is not different; fans of the franchise are used to visit the most bizarre places. From craters to floating worlds, this series of games involve imaginative, original locations that surface from the collective imagination of the designers.

We wanted to present you, fans or not of the series, some of these places. That is why you can find here the five weirdest locations in the Final Fantasy universe.

Inside Sin – Final Fantasy X

You will notice that almost all of the locations shown here are final dungeons. This one belongs to Final Fantasy X. After debilitating Sin, the party goes inside the giant monster to defeat Yu Yevon and bring an end to Spyra’s cycle of death.

There, Tidus and the others find different, weird areas, like a foggy corridor, an abstract maze or a strange building floating above a fake Zanarkand. There they meet Tidus’ father, Jecht, who is also Braska’s Final Aeon. The group has to fight him, as well as all the Aeons Yuna gathered throughout her journey, to force Yu Yevon to appear and eliminate him. 

So you are basically inside a giant, murderer shell that protects the summoner that started it all, who is now a weird bug, and to defeat your own father who is getting deprived from his humanity, who will in turn make you disappear because you are a dream. Yeah…

Memoria – Final Fantasy IX

This is the penultimate location the protagonists have to visit before the ultimate showdown in the Crystal World. Memoria is a mysterious place borned from the memories of Gaia in Final Fantasy IX. This linear dungeon allow the characters to experience fragments of their past and the History of the planet.

Garland guides Zidane through the collective memories of the whole planet, discovering the tragic truth about Kuja and Terra. The group also experiences the destruction of Alexandria, Gaia’s birth and its earliest moments. All of these places lead them to the Crystal World, the beginning of all time.

The weirdness of this area extends to the gameplay, since the moogles are now replaced by a strange sphere, and there are now invisible save points as well. Final Fantasy can sometimes be extremely creative.

Orphan’s Cradle – Final Fantasy XIII

Orphan’s Cradle is another final dungeon, this time from Final Fantasy XIII. This place was created by the fal’ Cie Eden and exists in an alternate dimension. It protects the Orphan, the fal’ Cie that powers Cocoon and the being that the lu’ Cie are destined to slay, before turning intro crystal or becoming Cie’th.

This bizarre, giant room reconfigures itself several times, changing the layout of the dungeon. This happens because the Cradle contains tesseracts, four-dimensional extensions of cubes, that rearrange at will.

There are also three female fal’Cie inside the Oprhan’s Cradle, who create three dimensional gates to different places of the world: Vallis Media, Gran Pulse and the Narthex, where Orphan rests.

True Moon – Final Fantasy IV: The After Years

There are three different moons in the universe of Final Fantasy IV: the normal one, the Red Moon, where the Lunarians sleep, and the True Moon. Its arrival marks the beginning of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. It is the final location of the game and one of the largest dungeons in any RPG — it has forty-three different floors!

This True Moon is actually an enormous spacecraft used by the Creator, the main antagonist, to travel across the universe to find Crystals that he uses to conduct experiments on the evolution of life. The Creator’s race lived aboard an entire fleet and perished before they could find a new home.

The protagonists have to stop the descent of the True Moon, which is programmed to crash against the planet, before it is too late. Before that, the Creator gathers all the crystals of the world, which contain data on the human race’s evolution. Even the classic Final Fantasies had weird scenarios.

Valhalla – Final Fantasy XIII-2

Valhalla is a location in Final Fantasy XIII-2 that Serah and Noel visit a couple of times. It is a city located in an alternate dimension, where time and life do not exist. Lightning is brought to this place by the goddess of death, Etro, to serve as her guardian against Caius and his forces.

This weird location is supposed to be the resting place of the souls of the dead, which eventually resurface from the crystal sea and are reborn in a new form. Lightning can see the entire span of time from Valhalla, but cannot leave it. That is why she calls Serah and ask her for help to solve the time paradoxes that are affecting the spacetime-continuum.

The fal’ Cie from the first Final Fantasy XIII are looking for Etro’s gate, a portal that leads to Valhalla. It was the main force that drives them to turn the group into lu’ Cie and harvest human souls in Cocoon to open the gate.

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As you can see, there are really weird and bizarre locations in Final Fantasy, but there are much, much more we could not include. The plots of the franchise are sometimes confusing, filled with time paradoxes, interdimensional spaces or even dreams.

What do you think of these locations? Can you think of any other that could not get on this list? Let me know in the comment section below!