in·tro·duc·tion / n. 1. Introducing or being introduced. 2. Formal presentation of one person to another. 3. Explanatory section at the beginning of a book, etc.

Welcome to the Final Fantasy Compendium.

Let's take a few moments to answer some questions you might have about this site.

• Q. What makes your site different from all other sites?
  A. We cover everything. Every single game directly related to the Final Fantasy series is covered here. We are not a news site. We are not an image site (though there are always people who use it as such). We are not, in fact, a gameplay site, though you can certainly find gameplay help here. We have no bias against either earlier games in the series or later ones; everything is given equal coverage, from the original NES classics to the brand-new PS2 offerings.
  
  We have a twofold goal. The first is to present the story and setting of the Final Fantasy games in a complete and full form. This includes the full story of every game, characters, places, organizations, species, and terms you might come across. The second is to showcase the styles and themes that pervade the series in terms of crossovers. These include monsters, summons, jobs, items, magic/abilities, etc.. We want to give you an overall view of the series as a whole rather than concentrate on any individual game.
  
  
• Q. So how are you different from Wikipedia?
  A. Contrary to popular belief, the FF Compendium is not in competition with Wikipedia; in fact, the FF Wiki is one of our affiliates. Wikipedia is a great resource and an excellent way to find detailed information. However, we do have some advantages. Wikipedia can be edited by everyone, and though that's a good thing, it can also be its downfall, as you never really know at any given time that what you're looking at is definitive. Only we, as FF experts, can edit our site. Though we're not perfect, we can guarantee that inaccuracies won't be randomly inserted into our site by ignorant others. In addition, we have far more freedom of style and form than Wikipedia does; we can use layout and Javascript to present material that Wikipedia can't. We also have a few pages (like Name Origins and Ex-Crossovers) presenting conjectures rather than bare facts, and we can provide some media that they can't.
  
  
• Q. Can I quote your site or use images from it?
  A. Please contact us before using either images or text from this site in any way on another site.
  
  
• Q. Why don't you add this piece of information I got from Ultimania?
  A. For those not in the know, Ultimania is a set of guides released by Squaresoft/Square Enix itself. Though this might seem to make it definitive and official, I've seen too many inaccuracies and contradictions in the information from there. Unfortunately, I can only use information directly from game manuals or the game itself in my coverage, to ensure that only absolute facts are presented here.
  
  
• Q. What about this piece of information I got from someone who played the Japanese version of a game?
  A. Unfortunately, stuff that hasn't been officially translated generally cannot be used by us. We simply don't have a way to confirm that the translation is accurate. We would require at least two independent translations of the material to be able to use it. This includes, for example, the Japan-only sequels to FF: Unlimited.
  
  
• Q. (FF8 SPOILER WARNING) Why don't you write the theory that Mateus is Paramekia/Famfrit is Dark Cloud/Ultimecia is Rinoa, etc.?
  A. Though there are plenty of theories tossed around, we restrict ourselves only to those that have been definitively proven - in other words, where there is no reasonable possibility that they are not true. So far, practically the only one that fits this heading is Squall being Laguna's son; the comments by Kiros and Ward near the end of the game, coupled with Laguna's and Raine's history, can only lead to a single conclusion.
  
  
• Q. Why did you put job X together with job Y in the Job pages, or monster Z with monster W?
  A. Our decisions about what job goes together with what other job is the result of a long and complicated conversation. We have several criteria and we even weight different ones differently. We try our best to make sure that you're seeing a good overview of the role that job has played throughout the series; we don't look just at abilities, but also appearance, equipment, and the availability of other jobs in the same game. Similarly, with monsters we also look at appearance and their role in the particular game.

What's Not Covered: Only "real" Final Fantasies are covered. This does not include the Game Boy FFs, since they're actually parts of other series (see Release Info). I also do not cover any other Squaresoft game, including the Chrono series, Xenogears, or anything else. Games that have Final Fantasy crossovers are mentioned in External Crossovers, and are given their own pages; this includes Ehrgeiz, the Chocobo games, and Kingdom Hearts. However, these games' elements are not featured in the rest of the site.

This site took a hell of a long time to put up, so I made a few shortcuts inside it so that I wouldn't have to retype everything out all the time. 8-) It's nothing big, but you really should know what I mean when you see certain things.

First thing: I took out the "Final Fantasy" when referring to titles. You won't see "Final Fantasy 4" or even "FF4" but only "4". FF Tactics is referred to as "Tactics" and Mystic Quest as "MQ". The movie, "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" may be referred to as "FF: TSW". FFX and FF10 are used interchangably. "Final Fantasy Unlimited" is frequently called "FFU".

However, note that there are several versions of some of the games. Some games have differences between the original Japanese version and the translated version; some (like 1, 2, and 4) have more than one version! (See Release Information for more info on this.) Whenever you see a number followed by "j" this refers to the original Japanese version (e.g. "5j"), and an "a" refers to the American version (although this is used far less frequently). Recently, several games have been given completely different translations. In these cases, "n" refers to the NES version (e.g. "1n"), "g" to the Game Boy Advance version, and "p" to the PlayStation version. More will doubtless be added as new remakes are released.

Italicized entries: Any text you see in full italics refers to either the FF animes or the FF movie. Although not strictly part of the FF universe, they're close enough to be included in this site.

Alphabetization: All of the entries in the lists on this site are alphabetized. Note: Dashes do NOT count in the alphabetization (for example, D-District Prison is listed AFTER Daryl's Tomb but BEFORE Deep Sea Research Center - I count them as "Da", "Dd", and "De" respectively). Also, numbers come before letters in the list, and spaces come before any non-space character.

Abbreviations: Here are some abbreviations I'll be using throughout the site:

FF - Final Fantasy. Get used to it.

SD - Super-Deformed, also known as "chibi". This is an art style in which the heads are extra large and the bodies are extra small. Most RPGs, up until Chrono Trigger in '93 or so, used this style.

NPC - Non-Player Character. This refers to any character in any game which is not directly controllable by the player.

FMV - Full Motion Video. This is a medium used in post-SNES games which is essentially a video of computer graphics animation (rather than in-game animation).

CG - Computer Graphics. This refers to a still image created using computer imaging programs (as opposed to hand-drawn art).

Summons: Everyone knows what they are but they've got tons of different names. The Summon spells/Phantom Beasts/Espers/Guardian Forces/Eidolons/Aeons will all be referred to as "Summons" throughout the site. However, if you see "GF", it would refer to an Summon from FF8, "Esper" to a Summon from FF6/FF12, "eidolon" is a Summon from FF9, and "aeon" is from FF10. OK?

The FFCompendium has been mentioned twice in Electronic Gaming Monthly - once in August 2001, and once again in July 2004. For the 2004 issue, you can view the full page, or just take a closer look.