Final Fantasyis a series of video games first and foremost, but a positively sprawling intellectual property as well. The smash success of a Japanese role-playing game franchise teetering toward its four-decade anniversary has brought us anime, films, informative compendiums, high-quality figurines, a collectible trading card game, and more.
On the ‘more’ list is a string of tie-in novels set within the universes of specific installments in the Final Fantasy series, or in some cases, reinterpreting their events in a more literary fashion. The bulk of these works enrich the universes of Final Fantasy 7 - an ongoing production fixation within Square Enix, to be sure - and Final Fantasy 13, which was given a great deal of creative attention for years.
But there’s more. Final Fantasy 15’s canceled second wave of DLC chapters has been made into a book. The NES-era Final Fantasy games were given more novel-like spins back in the late 1980s. There’s even an… erm… infamous… Final Fantasy 10 novella. It’s a lot - and it begs the question, how much of this is worth reading? It’s all subjective, of course, but we’ll do our best to answer.
10Final Fantasy X-2.5 ~Eien no Daishō~
On paper, the idea of a sequel novella to Final Fantasy 10-2 isn’t a bad idea. But when it was literally put to paper, everything quickly unfurled. Kazushige Nojima, the author of Final Fantasy X-2.5, has no shortage of impressive credits to his name. The scenario writer of Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, Final Fantasy 10, Final Fantasy 7 Remake - surely, any FF fan must enjoy at leastoneof these.
What the heck happened? When Final Fantasy X-2.5 was first published in Japan, overseas fans who got a whiff of its bizarre tale largely prayed to Yevon for key misunderstandings in the attempted translation. But as the fan translations became clearer, things only seemed to get worse.
Whether you love or hate the notion of Tidus returning to Yuna at the end of 10-2, it’d be pretty weird to just kill him off all over again, right? And it would be weirder still if he died because he kicked a bomb disguised as a blitzball, yeah? And it’d be a real shame if the whole thing happened because he got into an argument with Yuna, who he can’t stop looking at because ‘she’s so hot’, aye? Oh, and if Sin comes back, that would nuke the victory in the first game, eh?
The only nice thing we can say about this book is that Square Enix had the good graces not to publish it in the West.
9Final Fantasy XIII: Episode Zero: Promise
There is a considerable qualitative gulf between Final Fantasy X-2.5 ~Eien no Daishō~ and Final Fantasy XIII: Episode Zero: Promise. That doesn’t make this bookgood. Novelist Jun Eishima worked with FF13 key personnel Motomu Toriyama and Daisuke Watanabe to pen this 200-plus-page prequel to the main game, and the individual chapters centering on separate characters vary vastly in decency (Sazh’s is a standout; Hope’s and some of the Fang stuff is decidedly less so).
Furthermore, Episode Zero: Promise feels in many ways like a book thatbreaksa promise - a promise to fully engage players within the game itself. The 13 days building up toward the game’s beginning (we see what you did there, Square) are given short shrift, seen in flashbacks, but never fully explored. So much could have been cleared up, transforming FF13 into a more cohesive and well-told story, if greater portions of Episode Zero were depicted, or even discussed, within the script.
8Final Fantasy II Muma no Meikyū
Final Fantasy II Muma no Meikyū (Nightmare’s Labyrinth) was released in Japan in 1989, a few months after the launch of the game itself. Despite its 281-page length, it manages to reduce the story’s impact in some odd ways. Key secondary characters like Cid and even Ricard are nonexistent. Everything pertaining to the power of Ultima is nixed. Final Fantasy 2’s final dungeon doesn’t happen - things are tidied up beforehand in this adaptation.
There are some bright spots, however. Giving the character of Guy some much-needed texture is a welcome sight, and the villainous Emperor Mateus is explored in further detail as well. Turns out it’s all Satan’s fault. Yes, that Satan.
7Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments Before And Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments After
We’re combining Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments Before with Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments After. The former contains a collection of events leading into FF13-2, and the latter… well, you can guess when that one takes place. These books are significantly worse about making us wish their content could be depicted in cinematic fashion than Final Fantasy XIII: Episode Zero: Promise (which is actually ported over into Fragments Before as its initial chapter). There is just. So. Much. Here. That ought to have beenthere.
So, why rank them higher, then? They’re simply far more engaging. For all our headaches about the way the so-called Lightning Saga was told, we can’t deny that Fragments After clicks especially well in the unfortunate form it had to take. In offering Final Fantasy 13-2 a needed coda before the final game, Lightning Returns, heavily invested players will likely feel a stronger sense of satisfaction with the bigger picture.
6Final Fantasy XV Prologue Parting Ways
Released on Square Enix’s FF15 website (and remarkably,still available), Final Fantasy XV Prologue Parting Ways is a rare deal - it exists within the ‘Final Fantasy XV Universe’, but itdoesn’tcome across in the same fashion as Kingsglaive, Brotherhood, and all those other tie-ins that should have made it into the game in some way. (Yes, there is a very clear trend here in both FF13 and FF15.) It delves into the hours just prior to Prince Noctis and his BFF retainers' departure from Insomnia, and it does so innocently enough.
You get some actual pseudo-screentime from characters like Gladio’s father, Clarus. Dratus, a major figure in Kingsglaive, pops up for longer than ten seconds like he does in the game. Even Nyx is here. But again, it doesn’t feel like mandatory stuff tossed aside for multimedia. That alone earns it props, and the easygoing writing style is nice, too.
5Final Fantasy VII The Kids Are Alright: A Turks Side Story
Say that five times fast. Anyway, Kazushige Nojima penned this back in 2011, and it finally got an official English version in 2019, no doubt to capitalize on the pending launch of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Set between the events of FF7 and its sequel CG flick, Advent Children, the Turks are the main stars here, but more notable are the introductions of Kyrie Canaan and Leslie Kyle. Both Kyrie and Leslie would then go on to appear in Remake, and as we march closer and closer to the looming launch of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, we know that at least Kyrie is returning.
The Kids Are Alright is another example of a merely decent bit of fiction-reading that nevertheless surpasses lesser Final Fantasy tie-ins on account of passable prose and a lack of any blatantly bad ideas.
4Final Fantasy XV -The Dawn of the Future-
Here’s a weird one. Final Fantasy XV -The Dawn of the Future- novelizes the canceled Final Fantasy 15’s ‘season two’ DLC episodes put on ice in the wake of Director Hajime Tabata’s abrupt departure from Square Enix in late 2018. Technically, one of those episodesdidrelease as planned: Episode Ardyn. But Episode Aranea, Episode Lunafreya, and Episode Noctis were all canned - and an alternate finale for the game’s storyline, which would have been pretty rad, died by proxy.
Compelled to do more than simply scrap their story outline, Square tapped the services of one Jun Eishima once more. The Dawn of the Future begins with a retelling of Episode Ardyn - because a.) why not; b.) it relies upon a different version of that DLC’s ending to help instigate the other chapters. The remainder of the book is devoted to the stuff that never saw the light of day in Final Fantasy 15 proper.
It’s bittersweet as all get-out that this is what we’re left with. We’re not in love with some of the prose, either; Ardyn’s portion comes across as a bit gamified in presentation (which tracks, we suppose), and Aranea’s seems to suffer a similar fate - it very much feels like the broad outline for a gameplay mission that it is. Lunafreya’s and Noctis' fare better, and we guess that matters most. Boy, do we wish we could have fought Bahamut in-game instead.
3Final Fantasy I * II * III: Memory of Heroes
In 2012, frequent Dragon Quest novel scribe Takashi Umemura gave the first three Final Fantasy games a new lease on life in Final Fantasy I * II * III: Memory of Heroes. Retelling those games' events, and most notably, assigning names to the heroes of the original Final Fantasy, it’s a bit of a mixed bag (for all its funk, the Final Fantasy 2 portion was arguably handled slightly better in Muma no Meikyū), and it takes enough liberties with Final Fantasy 3 to seem downright divorced from the game at certain points.
Still, it’s a fairly decent time overall. It’s available in English now, and we recommend checking it out if you’re a fan of the oldest-school FF there is.
2Final Fantasy XIII: Reminiscence -tracer of memories-
Easily the best of Final Fantasy 13’s books, Final Fantasy XIII: Reminiscence -tracer of memories- strongly enhances the (rather bizarre) last scene in trilogy-ender Lightning Returns by providing some actual time in the new world’s strangely… modern-day Parisian… setting. The FF13 leads and a handful of others retain their memories of the world that has ended, the world all of humanity has come from - and the mystery has piqued the diligent interests of a journalist named Aoede.
Framing the story in this fashion gives us a firsthand perspective of how the migrated denizens treat the newfound reality, as well as providing neat codas to all the big-picture actors from the games. It borders on our consistent issue with wishing we saw this stuffinthe games, but not too badly.
1Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts
Nowhere’sa Kazushige Nojima in his prime. Written in 2021 and given the English-language treatment in 2023, Final Fantasy VII Remake Trace of Two Pasts delves into the childhood and adolescence years of heroines Aerith Gainsborough and Tifa Lockhart. Both main sides of the book are compelling in their own right, and Aerith’s content is especially solid. It wraps up with a third part, a translation of Final Fantasy VII Remake: Picturing the Past, which documents a meeting between a Shinra trooper and a younger Aerith.
By turning Trace of Two Pasts' Aerith and Tifa chapters into a getting-to-know-you chat between the two women early into the party’s post-Midgar days, Nojima instills it all with a certain airiness. Knowing both Aerith and Tifa will be all right at the ends of their respective tales doesn’t diminish things; in fact, we’d say the lower-stakes premise is warm and welcome. If you’re going to pick up just one Final Fantasy book - and presuming you like FF7, of course - let it be this one.
