In being stories about saving the world, each game also asks you to spend untold hours living with the prospect of its demise. Another way of explaining that triumphantly ironic title is that each Final Fantasy is about journeying in the shadow of the final fantasy - the apocalypse. The Final Fantasy games are so-called because the very first instalment was to be Square's swansong, its last release before going bankrupt.
A smart combat system straining under the weight of a characterful but ponderous pseudo-medieval soap opera, with some of the grandest bosses and dullest sidequests in FF history.
