Ivalice timeline

[Freya]

So there are a few games in this world.

Tactics
Tactics Advance
Tactics Advance A2
Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy XII, Reverant Wings
Vagrant Story


WHAT IS THE TIMELINE. I DON'T UNDERSTAND. I WANT TO PLAY ALL OF THEM IN THE CORRECT ORDER.


there is too much.

someone explain.

[Bolivar]

XII & Revenant Wings take place thousands of years in the past.

Tactics Advanced and TA2 are meta-fiction games where someone from the real world entered imaginary fanfiction of those games.

Tactics takes place to the West of Rozarria and the original Ivalice, thousands of years after some calamity killed off a lot of the races in XII.

Vagrant Story is a few decades or centuries after, somewhere in the remains of the Arcadian empire.

The Ogre Battle games likely share the same universe, as they have Zodiac Stones and divine-chosen Dynast Kings. I suspect they take place earlier, since Denam rises to power from a lowly nobody but in Tactics, kings share his name (Denamunda dies just before the game). My educated guess is they take place across the sea somewhere to the northwest. The Ivalice games were likely originally conceived as Episodes in the Ogre Battle Saga (OB:MotBQ is Episode V, Tactics Ogre is Episode VII).

[Colonel Angus]

FF Wiki page has the timeline & backhistory.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Ivalice

[Freya]

That's less fun and non eoffy

[Wolf Kanno]

XII is the first game in the series and Revenant Wings takes place after it but feel free to ignore it because it pretty much has no real impact on the series whatsoever.

FFTA2 is the next game in the franchise taking place a few years after Revenant Wings but has a never-ending story thing going on for it.

After the Cataclysm we get FFTactics which takes place about a thousand years or so from the FFXII timeline and then Vagrant Story takes place in some distant future from there.

No one really knows where to place FFTA because it's version of Ivalice isn't necessarily the Ivalice of the rest of the series but some kind of fantasy version that took elements of the real Ivalice and the St. Ivalice to create a pseudo-world. Yet we know it actually happened because the book Luso to reach the real Ivalice is the same book Mewt used to create his dream Ivalice.

Tactics Ogre is a separate franchise but Ivalice can be seen as an FF re-imagining of the world which is why they share common names and themes.

[Freya]

I thought Vagrant story was like way before everything else.

Oh wait so tactics orge is related too? Ack this is almost as confusing as the KH entries.

[VeloZer0]

Tactics is the only game in the timeline that is any good, so I wouldn't worry about playing them in order anyways.

In reality the connection between the (FF12/TA stuff) -> (FFT) -> (Vagrant Story) is so marginal I could imagine a casual player not even realizing it exists.

[Fynn]

No, Tactics Ogre is not related. They share similar themes and stuff, but it's a different world. All the things Bolivar said are just wild mass guessing - none of that has ever actually been stated as canon.

And when it comes to TA, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that St. Ivalice is the farthest future of Ivalice we've ever seen and the imaginary Ivalice is based on the land's past. Which would explain why Luso gets to go the real Ivalive of the past in TA2.

[Skyblade]

No one really knows where to place FFTA because it's version of Ivalice isn't necessarily the Ivalice of the rest of the series but some kind of fantasy version that took elements of the real Ivalice and the St. Ivalice to create a pseudo-world. Yet we know it actually happened because the book Luso to reach the real Ivalice is the same book Mewt used to create his dream Ivalice.

Not necessarily. Mewt was implied to have use the Gran Grimoire, while Luso used the Grimoire of the Rift. This would be why Mewt shaped a world, why Luso was merely transported to a different world, because he wasn't using the same Grimoire, and the power of the two is different.

[Wolf Kanno]

No one really knows where to place FFTA because it's version of Ivalice isn't necessarily the Ivalice of the rest of the series but some kind of fantasy version that took elements of the real Ivalice and the St. Ivalice to create a pseudo-world. Yet we know it actually happened because the book Luso to reach the real Ivalice is the same book Mewt used to create his dream Ivalice.

Not necessarily. Mewt was implied to have use the Gran Grimoire, while Luso used the Grimoire of the Rift. This would be why Mewt shaped a world, why Luso was merely transported to a different world, because he wasn't using the same Grimoire, and the power of the two is different.

Except the Gran Grimoire is kind of a catch all term for a reality warping tome, so the Grimoire of the Rift itself could be the same Grimoire that Mewt used to change the world. It is kind of suspicious that Luso is able to get to Ivalice by finding a strange book in a library run by a guy who had a similar run in with a magic book. It is very likely that Mewt's Gran Grimoire and the Grimoire of the Rift could be the same book just used differently based on the users desire. It just seems kind of convenient that Mewt could find two magical books in his lifetime, whereas the idea it is the same book makes a bit more sense. That is my thought at least.

Hell in Vagrant Story the Gran Grimoire isn't even a book. Course none of this is helped by all three games where the Gran Grimoire pops up are all during different stages of Ivalice concept still being ironed out by the development team and being developed by different people. Vagrant Story wasn't really part of Ivalice until after the fact, Advance was kind of meant to be a stand alone title and by TA2's time, the development team decided to try to stitch all the games together, which is why the timeline is kind of funky.

In my opinion, I feel Matsuno had intended FFXII to be a reboot of the Ivalice world as opposed to being directly connected to FFTactics and FFTA. He considered Vagrant Story to be a stand alone game and only later warmed up to the idea of it being a distant sequel to FFTactics. The very nature of FFTA put that game into it's own spin-off category but then FFTA2 decided to link it to the main series, yet that game was developed without Matsuno's involvement.

[VeloZer0]

In my opinion, I feel Matsuno had intended FFXII to be a reboot of the Ivalice world as opposed to being directly connected to FFTactics and FFTA. He considered Vagrant Story to be a stand alone game and only later warmed up to the idea of it being a distant sequel to FFTactics. The very nature of FFTA put that game into it's own spin-off category but then FFTA2 decided to link it to the main series, yet that game was developed without Matsuno's involvement.

Wait... a reboot to a continuity that existed sketchily at best? I've always had trouble understanding what linking these games added, but this makes it even more nonsensical.

[Bolivar]

Given the MO of the development team, I just can't imagine that Vagrant Story and FFXII were original conceived as a stand-alone and reboot, respectively. Wasn't the FFT narrator quoted in VS?

Oh wait so tactics orge is related too? Ack this is almost as confusing as the KH entries.

At the very least related conceptually. The team who created the main console Ivalice games were originally a part of a studio named Quest. Their signature titles were a series called Ogre Battle, a sprawling franchise where each game takes place in a different location, with the game design of a different genre, loosely connected by certain lore, with heavy emphasis on medieval warfare and intrigue.

Sound familiar?

They only made two of at least planned seven episodes, so my rough guess is that the scenarios of FFT, VS, and FFXII are at least partly derived from the original concepts of other Ogre Battle Episodes. The only reason Ivalice exists is probably because Enix owned the Ogre Battle IP pre-merger, as the two series share many races, myths, and designs.

What led me to suspect Ivalice might be more than a spiritual successor was the translation for the 2011 remake of Tactics Ogre. Alexander O. Smith and Joseph Reeder were very meticulous in what they changed and kept the same, down to the smallest detail, and Matsuno plays a large role in the English localization, knowing English fairly well himself. Given their attention to the smallest nuance, I do think it says something when certain names were carried over or left the same.

[Wolf Kanno]

Matsuno said VS was not going to be part of the Ivalice world originally and changed his mind afterwards. My reasoning for XII being a reboot is that starting with XII, Ivalice became more of consistent world, helped by being closer together in the timeline but the XII era of Ivalice begs a lot of questions about FFTactics world. I mean Moogles in FFTactics are largely extinct beyond the summon spell and the description of them in the game's lore describes them as being closer to the Moogles encountered in FFV and VI than the talking, mechanically inclined bunny creatures featured in FFTA and XII. VS has some subtle references to Tactics with a couple of name drops, but most of it's strong connections to Ivalice were created in XII with the Empire being placed in Valendia, the Kildian religion popping up and the concept of Pailings and the similarities between Mist and the Dark appearing, which were all absent in FFTactics. Hell, FFTA's Gran Grimoire is direct shout out to Vagrant Story where the concept originated from in the Ivalice titles, but it's nature and power are completely different in both games and only related by name.

I don't believe that Ivalice and Zetegenia are really connected. In my own interpretation, Ivalice is basically Matsuno trying to reboot the Ogre Battle franchise with Square's better finances and development. So Ivalice is basically a spiritual successor and most likely used ideas Matsuno had planned for Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre but I feel it would be a stretch to say they are part of the same universe. Basically Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre are to the Ivalice Alliance what Xenogears is to Xenosaga. Same concepts, design, themes, and even similar plot elements but they are too many little discrepancies to make them fit neatly and instead references to the previous work should be viewed as a fun shout out than some evidence of connection. Square didn't even own the rights to the franchise until after the merger and by then Matsuno had already created FFTactics, Vagrant Story and was working on Tactics Advance and FFXII, Ivalice was well on its way and Quest had also expanded the Ogre Battle universe itself.. I guess it's possible to retcon them into continuity but I doubt fans would be pleased by this. Most fans of the Quest series are still bitter about Matsuno jumping franchises and making FFTactics.

Basically my point is that I don't think Matsuno planned out Ivalice from the get go like he did with the Ogre Battle franchise, instead he's been backtracking with new games he makes to make them connected and frankly it is not quite as smooth as some franchises like say Suikoden, which even the games not made by the original creator are pretty meticulous about not altering established canon. Ivalice was sort of made into a franchise by force of will and some heavy handed reference dropping in new titles. I don't believe he really meant for Ivalice to expand into a giant world until sometime during XII's development which is when he actually started to talk about it like a franchise as opposed to just the individual games.

[Pete for President]

Tactics is the only game in the timeline that is any good, so I wouldn't worry about playing them in order anyways.

Whaaaat Vagrant Story is an excellent, wonderfully crafted game that has little to none shortcomings.

I rank it even higher than Tactics as stated in my top 25 thread:
TT; http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread....rd-show!/page4
Vagrant Story: http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread....rd-show!/page8

[Wolf Kanno]

I must admit that as time changes, my love for Vagrant story only increases while my love for FFT get's a bit dimmer.