After reading the first part of this you might come to the conclusion that Final Fantasy VII specifically is a soap opera. So to prove that it’s the entire series, part 2 will not mention FF7 at all.

As before, beware of spoilers below.

In a typical soap opera, this usually means there are twins involved. Both are involved in an accident, one dies. But which one? Before anyone realizes it, the live twin pretends she’s the other, and takes over her dead sister’s life. Sometimes all a case of mistaken identity needs is someone who looks similar to someone else. But even this is optional. I once saw a small bit of a soap opera where one woman was blind, and a man who she actually hates managed to have a relationship with her because he pretended to be her boyfriend (who was conveniently missing).

By now you must be thinking I’m going too far. There are no blind characters in Final Fantasy! True, true (as far as I know). But there is at least one character who not only pretended to be someone else… she pretended to be another gender. Faris Scherwiz of Final Fantasy V appears to be the male captain of a pirate ship. He is the strongest member in the party once he joins you. Oh and he’s also a she. And she is really Sarisa Highwind Tycoon, long lost sister to Princess Lenna. That’s right. He is a princess. She was separated from her family when she was young and raised by pirates. That has to be the plot of some soap opera out there.

Final Fantasy XII has the more typical soap opera impostor twin. Basch’s twin brother Noah, aka Gabranth, pretends to be Basch and frames him for the murder of the king. The murder starts a war, Basch is seen as a traitor, and in general bad stuff goes down. All thanks to one guy pretending to be someone else. Typical.

There is always an eyepatch. Always.

In Final Fantasy (IX), there is Beatrix.

One of the most commonly used plot devices in soap operas is amnesia. Do you need someone to do something completely out of character? Want someone to conveniently forget something? Simply give them amnesia! Side effects include the option to pair the character with someone they actually hate, and the ability of other characters to lie to the amnesiac. Do anything with amnesia!

I promised I wouldn’t talk about Final Fantasy VII, so I won’t mention the time Cloud lost his memories while he was poisoned.

Instead, I’ll talk about Terra Branford of Final Fantasy VI. Terra is at first controlled by the Empire. She is a tool and has no feelings or thoughts of her own. This is thanks to a slave crown she wears. When this crown is removed (surprise surprise!) Terra suffers from amnesia. “I was a tool of destruction and evil? Hmm… Can’t say I remember that.”

Another instance of amnesia occurs in Final Fantasy VIII. Here pretty much every playable character except Irvine Kinneas suffers from memory loss thanks to magical beings whose purpose is… to cause long term memory loss. Yeah. There’s no better way to cause plot twists than to reveal something that a character has conveniently forgotten until the middle of a game.