Story
The game starts by showing a sequence in which Cecil, the Dark Knight of Baron, is on a mission with the unit he commands, the Baron Red Wings. This fighting force, deployed by airship, is currently under orders from the king to retrieve a crystal in the city of mages, Mysidia. While the city is peaceful and currently poses no threat, Cecil and his Red Wings invade the city and take it by force.
Upon his return to the Kingdom of Baron, Cecil hands over the crystal to the king, but his conscious bothers him to the point of questioning the king. This does not go over well and the king strips Cecil of his command. Cecil’s best friend, Kain, leader of the kingdom’s Dragoons, vocally comes to his friends aid, only to be stripped of his command as well. The king then orders them to deliver a package to the Village of Mist first thing in the morning.
Distraught, Cecil heads to his room. Along the way we are introduced to the Engineer, Cid. He also voices displeasure that his airship creations are being used to terrify peaceful peoples. Next Cecil is met by his girlfriend, the White Mage, Rosa. She attempts to comfort him to little avail as Cecil reveals to her that he is very confused by the king’s actions. Not only did the king command him to attack peaceful people, but he also learned the ways of the Dark Knight at the king’s behest as well, a role which is now placing him in a seemingly evil position.
Cecil and Kain head out the next morning to Mist. In order to reach the village, they have to go through some caves. Guarding the cave’s exit is the Mist Dragon which Cecil and Kain kill. As soon as the two set foot in Mist, their package opens automatically, unleashing a horde of monsters known as bombs that explode around the city, killing everyone. Kain finally realizes why they were sent to Mist. The king had been fearful of the village’s people as they were all summoners. Clearly, the king wanted the two to exterminate them all and remove the threat.
The pair then hears a girl crying and they follow the sound. The girl is crying over her mother, whom is dead. When they ask her what happened, she tells them that her mom’s dragon died and therefore, she did as well. Cecil quickly remembers the Mist Dragon they killed and realizes they indirectly killed her mother. The girl hears this and is infuriated at the two despite Cecil’s pleas for forgiveness due to their ignorance. Kain tells Cecil they should carry out the king’s wishes and kill the girl, but Cecil talks him down. Despite this though, the girl attacks them both and summons Titan who causes a massive earthquake that ends up isolating Mist from the east.
Cecil awakes to find the girl unconscious and Kain missing. Realizing that Titan’s earthquake has made traveling back to Baron impossible, Cecil picks up the girl and heads east across the desert to the oasis town of Kaipo and takes the girl to an inn to recover. During the night, soldiers from Baron come to arrest him and kill the girl. Cecil fights off the soldiers and defends the girl. At this point, she finally believes that he meant her and the rest of Mist no harm and she told him her name, Rydia.
The next morning, Cecil and Rydia awake to news that a girl from Baron has turned up in the town sick. Cecil is shocked to find that this girl is none other than Rosa and she has been stricken with Desert Fever. Cecil is told that a Sand Pearl would be needed in order to heal her and so Cecil and Rydia set forth to the desert kingdom, Damcyan.
While heading through the Underground Waterway in order to reach Damcyan, Cecil and Rydia met an old Sage, Tellah. He too seems to have business in Damcyan as he is looking for his daughter. He joins the pair as he says he cannot defeat the beast guarding the exit alone. The trio defeats the monster and make their way towards Damcyan…only to see it completely leveled the Baron Red Wings. After the party enters the castle, Tellah finds his daughter, Anna, lying on the ground severely wounded. Soon after, the price of Damcyan, the Bard, Edward, enters and Tellah starts to fight him. In which we get the wonderful line:
Anna breaks up the fight between the two and the party learns that there is a new commander of the Red Wings, Golbez. It was Golbez that destroyed Damcyan and stole the kingdom’s Fire Crystal. As Anna dies, Tellah swears revenge on Golbez and leaves the party and Edward joins in his place.
Edward then offers to lead Cecil to the Antlion Cave so they could get a Sand Pearl. After they retrieve one, they return to Kaipo to heal Rosa’s illness. As the party rested for the night in Kaipo, Edward went outside to play some music and lament his loss. While playing, he is soon attacked by a monster. His natural instinct was to run; however, he saw Anna’s spirit and she encouraged him to fight. After emerging victorious, Edward found the courage inside of him to continue fighting.
The next morning, Rosa has been healed and joins the party. They decide their next order of business is to protect the remaining crystals and set out to the Kingdom of Fabul to help protect the Wind Crystal. In order to get there, they have to cross Mt. Hobbs; however, the entrance is blocked by a sheet of ice. Rydia, who is the only one in the party that can use Black Magic is scared to cast a fire spell to melt is, as she still remembers how her village burned to the ground. With some encouragement from Rosa, Rydia clears the path and the party heads up the mountain.
As they reach the peak, they see a Monk, Yang, fighting off some of Golbez’s minions. The party comes to his aid and helps him kill the fiends. Cecil informs Yang that his kingdom is in grave danger and they must make haste to Fabul. Yang joins the party and they head down the other side of the mountain and make their way to Fabul Castle.
Once they arrive, Yang warns his king of the oncoming attack. The king initially doesn’t trust the information due to Cecil’s presence and finds it hard to believe the words of a Dark Knight. Yang though eventually convinces the king Cecil means them no harm and will fight with them. As Baron attacked, the men of the party were put on the front lines and Rosa and Rydia were sent to the crystal room as backup. Eventually, Cecil, Edward and Yang were forced back into the crystal room and were attacked by a familiar face, Kain. Cecil attempted to fight off Kain but lost the duel. Golbez then game into the room and made quick work of the rest of the party, taking the Wind Crystal and kidnapping Rosa as well.
After their defeat, Cecil tried to figure out a plan to get Rosa back. Knowing that Baron’s navy was weak, he asked the king to lend him a ship to sneak into Baron. The king agrees and the party set sail for Baron. However, on their way there, they became caught in a whirlpool. From this whirlpool, the king of the seas, Leviathan emerged and sank the boat, scattering the party.
Cecil awoke to find himself washed up on the shores of Mysidia, the same town he attacked at the beginning of the game. Knowing though that Mysidia had access to the Devil’s Road that went directly to Baron, he went into town hoping to get some help. To no surprise, no one in the village was happy to see him in the least; in fact, the townspeople would exact revenge on him if he talked to them: the dancer in the town would place Cecil asleep and turn him into a pig and the barkeep would serve Cecil a nice big heaping glass of poison on the house. Cecil eventually made his way to the elder, who said he would aid Cecil only on one condition: turn away from the path of the Dark Knight by climbing Mount Ordeals and become a Paladin. Cecil agrees, and the elder offers the aid of two young, but talented mages, the twins Palom (Black Mage) and Porom (White Mage).
As the trio heads up the mountain, they encounter Tellah once again. He tells Cecil that he is in search of the ultimate Black Magic, Meteor, believing that with the spell, he would be able to kill Golbez. After Tellah joins up with the party once again, they finally make it to the peak, only to be met by one of Golbez’s Four Elemental Archfiends, Scarmiglione, the Archfiend of Earth. After they take him out, they enter a room full of mirrors. Inside, a voice, calling Cecil his son, tells Cecil to take a sword, which turns him into a Paladin. However, there is one more part to this test, Cecil must fight his past and is attacked by his former Dark Knight self. Cecil is able to win the battle by letting go and not attacking the darkness he once wielding. The voice tells him his transformation is complete and after it disappears, Tellah also manages to learn Meteor.
Cecil returns to Mysidia, shocking the entire town by his transformation. Upon meeting with the elder once again, he tells Cecil about the ancient legend inscribed on his sword. The elder believes that Cecil is the one that he is the Chosen One that the legend speaks of. The elder then agrees to open up the Devil’s Road and Cecil makes his way to Baron along with the twins and Tellah.
Upon their arrival in Baron, Cecil learns that Cid had been tossed in jail by the king because he refused to let the king see his new airship and that a new officer had been appointed in Baron that was a skilled martial-artist. Investigating further, Cecil finds out this officer is Yang. Yang, however, attacks the party instead of welcoming them and they are forced to smack a bit of sense into him. Coming back to his senses, Yang joins the party and with his key, the sneak into the castle through the Underground Waterway.
After they enter the castle, the party quickly learns that Golbez has taken control of everyone in the castle and even the king was replaced by the Elemental Archfiend of Water, Cagnazzo. After the party defeats him, they encounter Cid once again whom had escaped from prison. Cid once again joins the party, but as they try to leave the castle, Cagnazzo comes back from the grave to try and trap the party in a hallway. With all doors locked and the walls moving in to crush the party, Palom and Porom turn themselves into stone to stop the walls and save the party.
After lamenting their new loss, Cid leads the party to his new airship, the Enterprise, which he has hidden underneath the castle. As soon as the party takes off, they are surrounded by the Red Wings. One airship pulls alongside the Enterprise and Kain comes forth to issue Cecil an ultimatum: go to Troia and bring him the Earth Crystal or Rosa would die.
Cecil then heads out to Troia and explains his situation to the governing body, the Epopts. While they are sympathetic to his plight, they reveal that they no longer have control of the Earth Crystal as it has been stolen by the Dark Elf. With a new target attained, the party heads out to battle the Dark Elf, but before they do, they discover a wounded Edward, who is still recovering from the ship wreck. He wants to offer his assistance, so he gives the party a Whisperweed so that he can keep in contact with them.
As Cecil and company enter the cave, they find out that the Dark Elf has a magnetic shield cast on the entire place, rendering all metal weapons and armor useless. The party manages to confront the Dark Elf, but since his only weakness is metallic weapons, they are quickly defeated. Thanks to the Whisperweed, Edward tries to help the party and crawls out of bed to his harp and starts playing. The music irritates the Dark Elf and causes him to drop his metallic shield which allows for the party to beat him and they retrieve the Earth Crystal.
After the party returns to Troia, Kain contacts Cecil and tells him to board the Enterprise and meet him. Kain then lead the party to the Tower of Zot and said Rosa was awaiting at the top, but her time was running short. The party climbs the tower and defeats the Magus Sisters at the top. Then they encounter Golbez, who has no intentions of letting Rosa go. Tellah in a rage attacks Golbez and unleashes the Meteor spell on him which severely wounds him; however, Tellah collapses after casting the spell. Seeing an opening, Cecil rushed towards Golbez, but was knocked away. Golbez went to deliver a killing blow to Cecil, but stopped for seemingly no reason and decides to retreat. He calls Kain to him, but releases that Tellah’s spell must’ve broken the hold he had on him, forcing him to leave by himself. The party then comforts Tellah in his dying moments, as his body couldn’t handle the casting of Meteor, and promise they would finish the job and defeat Golbez.
The party then talks to Kain who is finally of sound mind again, and he quickly remembers that Rosa is attached to a death trap and she doesn’t have much time left. Cecil rushes into the next room and saves Rosa just before a scythe comes crashing down on her chair. The party attempts to leave the tower, but is stopped by Barbaricca, the Elemental Archfiend of Wind. With Kain back in the fold, the party takes her down, but like Cagnazzo, she attempts to kill the party from the grave by causing the tower to collapse. Rosa gathers the party together and, with her magic, teleports the party safely to Baron.
The whole party is overcome by a feeling of failure as Golbez now has all the crystals. However, Kain says that he only has half, as Golbez talked of four Dark Crystals existing in the Underworld and once he obtains all eight, “the path to the moon” will open. Kain has the key to opening up a path to the Underworld as well, the Magma Rock. The party then heads to the city of Agart in which they drop the Magma Rock into a well which causes the earth to shake and a hole open up in the mountains, allowing for the party to take the Enterprise down below.
As they entered the Underworld, the party discovered they were too late as the Red Wings were already attacking a castle. They got caught in the crossfire and had to crash land close to a castle. Inside they met King Giott, king of the Dwarves and they agree to help him defend their crystal. Cid, however, leaves the party to repair the Enterprise and make modifications on it in order to withstand the heat of the Underworld. After Cid leaves, Yang senses something in the crystal room and the party goes in to investigate. Inside they find Luca’s dolls (the king’s daughter) and they attack the party as they are under Golbez’s control. After defeating the dolls, Golbez appears and fights the party. He summons a shadow dragon which begins to take out everyone except for Cecil. Just before Cecil is defeated, a much older Rydia appears and defeats both the shadow dragon and Golbez. Somehow though, Golbez is able to have one of his hands steal the crystal and escape.
Rydia rejoins the party and they plan to try to take back the crystals from the Tower of Babil. However, this plan quickly falls apart as they learn that the Super Canon is to be used against the Dwarves. After defeating Dr. Lugae, the heroes find the key and try to stop the canon. Realizing they are too late, Yang kicks them all out of the room, takes the key, locks the door, and sacrifices himself to stop the canon. The party then tries to continue to the crystal room, but Golbez realizes they are there and is able to toss them out of the tower. Cid then scoops up the party from certain doom on the Enterprise, but the Red Wings give chase. Cid tells Cecil to go to Baron and have his workers do something to the ship. After this, Cid jumps off the ship and sets off a bomb, sealing the path to the Underworld as the party reached the surface.
Following Cid’s orders, Cecil returns to Baron and his crew fits the Enterprise with a claw that will allow them to pick up the hovercraft they had used previously, allowing them to go to the kingdom of Elban. Seeing the castle is in ruins, the party moves into the Elban caves, and see Elban’s Prince, the Ninja, Edge, fighting the Elemental Archfiend of Fire, Rubicante. Edge is defeated and Rubicante leaves. The party helps heal Edge and he agrees to join them.
With the party now back at five, they re-enter the Tower of Babil from the surface. As they near the cyrstal room, they encounter Edge’s parents, who, thanks to Dr. Lugae’s experiments, transform into monsters and attack the party. Edge brings them to their senses and they let go of their experimental bodies, die and rest in peace. Rubicante appears once again and an enraged Edge attacks along with the rest of the party. After Rubicante is defeated, the party enters the crystal room, only to fall into another trap. Luckily for them though, this trap leads them to another airship, the Falcon. The party escapes the tower on this ship and return to the Dwarves for aid.
King Giott then informs the party that there is one remaining crystal in a location called the Sealed Cave. Giott gives Cecil Luca’s necklace which is the key to entering. The party also finds out that Cid is not dead and is recovering in the hospital. Hearing that they have a new ship that can’t cross lava, Cid gets up the strength to rally the dwarves to help modify the Falcon so they can enter the Sealed Cave.
The party retrieves the final dark crystal and after narrowly escaping an enchanted wall that was trying to crush the party (and will forever go down as one of the toughest and craziest fights in the series), they leave the cave. As they reach the exit, Golbez is able to gain control over Kain once again, causing him to betray the party and steal the final crystal.
The party returns to the Dwarves frustrated by failure once again. It is at this point Giott wonders if the legend he heard will come true. Cecil is shocked to hear that it is the same legend that was told to him at Mysidia. Giott informs him that the legends talks of a ship that can actually go to the moon. Upon hearing this, Cid makes a final modification to the Falcon, attaching a drill to it so the party could break through to the surface.
The party quickly heads to Mysidia where they find out the elder is praying for the legend to come true and for something to appear to help the party. His prayer is answered as a huge ship called the Lunar Whale rises from the sea. The party climbs aboard and they head to the moon. There, they find a Lunarian named FuSoYa who drops the biggest bombshells of the game on Cecil. He tells Cecil that he his not fully human and that his father was from the moon and feel in love with a woman on Earth. He decided to stay on Earth and marry that woman, and had two kids with her. FuSoYa continues and says that Golbez is not acting of his own according, rather, an evil Lunarian named Zemus has been controlling him the whole time. Zemus’ grand scheme was to have Golbez gather all the crystals so the Giant of Babil could be activated, allowing Zemus to destroy the Earth.
Armed with this information, FuSoYa joins the party and they return to Earth to stop the Giant of Babil. The party arrives to see the machine causing massive havoc on the Earth; however, they see Cid, along with the leaders of the rest of the world launch a counter-attack on the Giant of Babil, stopping it in its tracks. This allowed Cid to sneak the party inside the Giant in order to destroy it. Inside the Giant, they encounter the Four Elemental Archfiends back from the dead and they must defeat them all in a back-to-back-to-back-to-back battle to proceed. After laying the Archfiends to rest for the last time, they party finds the Gaint’s CPU and destroy it.
Angered by “his” plan failing, Golbez faces the party, intent on killing them. FuSoYa, however, is able to break Zemus’ hold on him and reminds him of who he really is: Cecil’s brother. Finally back to his true self, Golbez and FuSoYa return to the moon in order to destroy Zemus for good. Cecil decides that he should follow after them and boards the Lunar Whale, telling Rosa and Rydia to stay behind. However, as they arrive on the moon, Cecil discovers Rosa and Rydia hid on the ship and were determined to face this final battle with the rest of the party.
The five head to the Lunar Core and witness Golbez and FuSoYa destroy Zemus. Soon after though, Zemus’ hate consumed him and transformed himself into Zeromus and he took out everyone in the area. Highly weakened, Golbez hands Cecil a crystal, saying it would be the key to weakening Zeromus. Cecil engages Zeromus despite being in a weakend state. It is at this moment that prayers from all the people of Earth reach the moon and revive Cecil and the party (and during this scene, we discover Palom and Porom are actually alive and well). Restored to full health, and backed by the power of the crystal, Zeromus is defeated.
After the final battle is over, FuSoYa decides it is time to start his slumber once again, and Golbez decides to join him, as he cannot face the people of Earth after all he has done. Before he leaves, Cecil forgives him and calls him brother for the first time. Cecil, Rosa, Rydia, Edge, and Kain all return to Earth and as they do, the moon ends up returning to space, revealing that it was actually a false moon and just a vessel all along. The ending shows Cecil and Rosa getting married and Cecil being crowned king of Baron. Everyone in the game is in attendance (and a very big hint is dropped that Rydia and Edge will soon be together as well) except for Kain, whom is training on Mt. Ordeals, vowing to never return to Baron again until he proves himself worthy.
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