The long-awaited release of the Final Fantasy 7 remake has not only reminded millions of why they love the game so much but of how downright weird the Final Fantasy series has historically been.
While it’s nearly impossible to recount every weird moment in Final Fantasy history, there are some that stand out from the pack. Here are just five of the times that Final Fantasy was the strangest series in gaming.
Macarena Temple Scene From Final Fantasy X
It feels safe to say that Final Fantasy X‘s early experiments with adding voice acting to the series led to some…mixed results. While not all of the voice acting in the game was awful, There was no getting around the awkwardness of the early voice acting technology and the questionable nature of the performances themselves.
That’s especially true of the game’s leading character, Tidus. While Tidus’ laugh is the most infamous moment of “acting” from Final Fantasy X, it has nothing on the scene in which Tidus suggests that a character named Seymour has gone to the “Macarena Temple.” When a character corrects Tidus by informing him that he went to the Macalania Temple, Tidus replies with a high-pitched “Aye!” in reference to the Macarena song.
It’s an utterly bizarre joke that was not only in the original script but seems to imply that the Macarena dance craze existed in the Final Fantasy universe. One of Final Fantasy X‘s translators explained that they tried to do the joke in a way that made sense in the game. It didn’t work.
Final Fantasy 2’s Combat System
Granted, this is more than a moment, but Final Fantasy 2’s combat system isn’t just one of the weirdest moments in Final Fantasy history but one of the strangest combat concepts in video game history.
Basically, you level up your skills in Final Fantasy 2 by using them. For instance, the more you use a basic attack or an offensive spell, the faster you level it. On paper, it’s a logical and simple way to convey character growth and process.
Where the whole thing falls apart is when you need to start leveling a character’s defensive abilities. Doing so requires you to take damage which, in the course of regular combat, isn’t usually an ideal scenario. As such, many players began entering fights against low-level enemies in order to continuously damage themselves and eventually level their defense high enough to survive later fights.
It was a monotonous and bizarre system that was thankfully refined and altered in future installments.
Everything About Don Corneo
Final Fantasy 7 is a particularly weird game even by this series’ standards. What’s truly remarkable is that many of those weird moments seem to have been forgotten about over the years as Final Fantasy simply secured a reputation as one of the greatest RPGs ever made.
However, there is at least one moment from the game which no fan will ever forget. Actually, if we’re being technical, it’s a series of moments all involving a character named Don Corneo.
From the time Don Corneo comes into the game until the time he leaves, you will have navigated a surprisingly seedy underbelly of Midgar that sees you cross-dress, almost fall victim to a room full of muscle men, and come to the unsettling conclusion that there seems to be a thriving sex-trafficking operation in this game. It’s all just so, so…weird.
FFX-2. Leblanc’s Back Massage
Look, everything about the pop star-fuelled world of FFX-2 is strange. It’s one of the franchise’s weirdest hours, and we’re pretty sure that it was all intentional.
Even still, the part of the game where you give a character named Leblanc a sensual back massage easily ranks among the weirdest moments in a series that is anything but normal.
Not only does Leblanc’s voice acting suggest she was receiving some very specific directions about what is happening during this scene, but the surprisingly involved minigame mechanics that you’re required to navigate in order to complete these scene means that you’ll likely be sitting through some awkward moans for an embarassingly long time.
Final Fantasy 8’s Flying School
Again, we could easily just say “Final Fantasy 8: Everything” and call it a day, but in terms of moments (or at least extended scenes), we’ve got to give a shout-out to FF 8‘s flying school.
About midway through Final Fantasy 8, you start to learn a few things about your school. For instance, there seem to be actual dinosaurs at the center of the academy and the whole thing is apparently being funded by a strange alien creature who lives in the basement. Oh, and you also learn that the entire school can fly, which actually becomes an irreplaceable asset in the giant air battle that soon follows.
Granted, there are outright stranger moments in this game, but this was the sequence that alerted you to the fact that Final Fantasy 8 was about to get downright weird with it.