Final Fantasy 18 (Bushido Games)

Final Fantasy 18 is a Japanese role-playing game for the Sony Playstation 6 developed by Square Enix and Italian developer Bushido Games.
Unlike many Final Fantasy games, this one is set in the real world, more precisely in Hitachi, Japan, and it follows a customizable protagonist (canon name Hiroshi/Hiromi) as they protect the city from the USA invasion. The game is about the childhood of Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy's creator, as he survives through the Allied bombings of Japan. 
It concludes the "Rosfield Saga", started with Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy Q.
== Setting ==
This game is set in Hitachi, Japan, in 1945, during World War 2.
The war, however, is portrayed in a very supernatural way. While the Allied forces are mostly represented using period-accurate weapons (minus the Magic Repressors which they use to repress the Japanese mages), the Japanese fight with white and black magic, blade weapons, dragoons, and even the powerful Chocobo Cavalry. 
There are also Moogles ("Kupokats" to the Americans"), which are on the verge of extinction and, like Chocobos (which the Americans call "Nazihorses"), are led to complete extinction after the game's events, when the Americans completely destroy Hitachi and kill the last Moogle.
World War 2 is portrayed as a Japan vs USA war, with the Soviet Union being ruled by Trockij and a vassal of the US, while Germany is a fully shintoized Japanese colony ruled by prefect Kaoru Suzuki. Hitler is a mangaka in this timeline, she came out as trans and she goes by the name "Erika", while Josip Jugashvili was exiled by Trotskyists and later converted to Shinto after a miko saved his life. Northern France is also part of the Japanese colony of Germany. Italy is independent but ruled by a Shinto religious order whose leader, the Scion of Amaterasu, is never referred to by name (it's not known whether or not it's actually Mussolini, as the Scion of Amaterasu has to give up their name once they are named that). The term "Nazi" is used as a racial slur for "Japanese" (from the name of alien race Japanese are the descendants of) and by extension to any person who manifests the inherent magical power (of alien origin) that the Japanese have. The Holocaust also never happened since Japanese aren't anti-semitic and Shintoism forbids racial purges, but the Japanese actually eradicated catholicism and forced christians to convert to Shinto. Instead there's a Jewish State in China and it's the Americans who massacre Japanese people because of their inherent magic power.
The change in timeline was an effect of Bahamut's Time Crash at the end of Final Fantasy XVI.
Japanese people are descended from aliens called the "Najizoku" (from the planet "Najihoshi"), of which Izanagi (Japan's creator god) was the king before planet Najihoshi got destroyed. The Najizoku had the power to manipulate elements due to the Mana in their body (Magic), however, as the Najizoku interbred with humans, their magic became weaker and only few of them could still use it, making Japanese behave mostly like other humans. Due to the time crash, however, the Japanese's mana grew stronger and they were again able to use magic, which led to them winning the First World War and colonizing not only East Asia (China and part of Russia), but also part of Europe such as Germany and Northern France, the Hawaii and most of Central and South America. The USA, however, studied their magic and created magic-repressing machines such as the anti-magic fields that protects Los Angeles and San Francisco. 
== Plot ==
The game starts in 2024, with former game developer Hironobu Sakaguchi on his deathbed narrating his childhood in World War 2 to his great-grandson/daughter, who he named after the person who had saved him as a child: the great-grandchild is shown first-person and the name inputted for them becomes the avatar's name too.
As he tells them of the person who sacrificed their life to save him from the bombing, the player gets to create said avatar, choosing their gender, looks, Job Class and stat distribution.
The story starts with the avatar being brought to the Sakaguchi house by the Moogle Mog, who tells mother Aki that he found them near the sea. They're adopted into the Sakaguchi family alongside Mog and soon they get to know Aki and her sons Tadanobu, Yukari and little Hironobu. Soon, young Hironobu develops a fondness for them as they take care of him while his mother is absent. 
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The avatar sometimes has headaches and dreams and control switches to a certain Admiral Rosfield (Clive Rosfield if the avatar is female, or Sophie Rosfield if the avatar is male) of the US Army as they decimate the Japanese with their Sword of Another World and their dragon Eikon Bahamut. Rosfield often refers to the Avatar as "The Non-Nazi" because they're not actually from Japan, but from the same world as them. 
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Hironobu is kept hostage on the American dreadnought Leviathan: Rosfield and admiral Xenophon Mithrandir have planned to keep Hironobu hostage and force him to watch the destruction of his entire city if the "Non-Nazi" and the rest of Class Q don't come on the Leviathan for a final duel. Mithrandir wants to fire right away, but Rosfield tells him that they want the "Non-Nazi" to be saved. Thinking that he only wants them to reform, Mithrandir agrees and gives a term of a month before Rosfield has to nuke the city with Bahamut's Megaflare. 
The Japanese attack the dreadnought Leviathan before its main cannon could fire a nuclear shell on Hitachi. The party is stopped by Mithrandir. He fights them using his tech armor. Captain Yukari/Tadanobu then decides to sacrifice themselves to let the rest of the class reach the cannon: as the party goes forward, Tadanobu/Yukari impales Mithrandir with her spear/blasts Mithrandir with a magic orb, as a huge number of men blocks the gates and blasts the captain with bullets until they die. Rosfield, being the last admiral alive, orders most men in the ship to focus on stopping the captain of Class Q and lets the team hack the cannon in exchange for a duel against the Avatar. 
As the avatar loses, weird images appear to them, and they lose control of themselves until they summon a creature made of flames: the Eikon Ifrit, and match Rosfield's Bahamut blow per blow in the skies of Hitachi. As the avatar falls and regains control, it's revealed that they and the admiral are from a continent named Valisthea, in another world far away from Earth. In the past, Rosfield was a bastard child of an Archduke, and had been forced to choose a side in the Conflict of the Two Flames, a war between three factions, one led by their brother Joshua Rosfield, heir of the Archduke, the other by their adoptive sister Jill Warrick, and the third by a certain Ifrit Dominant named Clive/Sophie, who was also their half-sibling through a secret common-born mother. Being unable to choose a side due to them loving all three equally, they had joined forces with Bahamut to cause a time crash and reset the world, so that all three factions would have gotten part of what they wanted and there would have been no conflict. The new timeline had a second Rosfield and a second Ifrit Dominant, but the main timeline's Ifrit Dominant was one of the few people to survive the conflict and as such was saved by Bahamut, who linked their psyche with Rosfield after sending them to Japan. The protagonist then has a dialogue line: "I am Sophie/Clive, but I'm also a Sakaguchi...". Rosfield orders the MC to throw their adoptive brother in the sea and prove that "their mind may be Nazi, but the blood is Valisthean": the player has two prompts: "Let's return to our world!" or "I'm Japanese! My name is [name chosen by player]!". 
Choosing the second option leads into a good ending, the first leads to a non-canon bad (and historically inaccurate) ending where the player throws Hironobu Sakaguchi in the sea, then they are reclassed to Valisthean, defeat the whole party at the same time and return to Valisthea with Rosfield as Hitachi is destroyed by Bahamut's Megaflare. If you romance Rosfield, they have to choose the first option and are locked into the bad ending. Knowing that they're half-siblings, they refuse the romance, but they still think themselves as a part of Rosfield's world instead of as a "Nazi". 
In the good ending, as the party escapes from the ship, Rosfield opens a portal and waits for the Non-Nazi and their party to "prove them that their mind is stronger than their blood". 
After they enter the Edge of Creation, a dimensional vortex materialized by Bahamut, the party fights Rosfield. Defeated, they send the rest of the party home, telling them no harm shall come to them, as American troops have been forced to retire from Hitachi, and the city won't be nuked. Meanwhile, Rosfield returns to their world and challenges the Avatar to one last duel in front of the castle of Rosaria, Ifrit versus Bahamut, to the last blood. After the Avatar complies, Rosfield stabs them in the heart with his sword, making them impulsively summon Ifrit (as such reclassing them to Valisthean). Ifrit and Bahamut then fight each other, and Bahamut is defeated, killing off the Shield once and for all. Before dying, the protagonist of Final Fantasy XVI sends the hero back to Japan, saying: "Return to your world, defend it with the last drop of you blood, and carve your own future... You're a Nazi now, so stay where you rightfully belong. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Cid's backup plan, they're going to...", which the protagonist then replies "I promise". (another of the few times the protagonist speaks voiced dialogue). 
Post-credits, president Harry Truman is discussing with Cid Oppenheimer about the failure of admiral Rosfield's Bahamut, and orders to use Cid's backup plan on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Meanwhile the protagonist and young Hironobu hug each other, which then transitions to 2024, when old Hironobu closes his eyes.
== Gameplay ==
This game plays more like Persona than traditional FF games, with a calendar system which allows the player to choose how to spend their days between school time at the Imperial Academy and free time.
The game has Social Links, events where the player interacts with various characters, selecting dialogue options to communicate with them and participate in their character development. 
At certain dates in the calendar system, the plot advances and the player goes to fight the US Army in occupied zones. Those dungeons can be tackled at the pace the player wants to, until the moment when they expire and cause an automatic game over.
After reaching level 8 with most opposite gender SL (there are exceptions, such as your stepmother Aki, the Moogle Mog, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Pier Astolfo Mitama and Nobuo Uematsu, who are impossible to romance, and Yukio Mishima, Kenzo Takada, Asirrera Kamishiro and Misumi Kobayashi, who are same-sex relationships), you can decide to romance them and, once maxed, the Social Link ends with them getting married. Note: romancing Rosfield locks you into a bad (and obviously non-canon) ending.
== Party and social Links ==
=== Party members (and their respective classes): ===
==== Class Q: ====
Protagonist (Hiroshi/Hiromi): an avatar created by the player. Their true name is Clive/Sophie and they're the Ifrit Dominant from another world called Valisthea.
The captain of Class Q (Tadanobu if the avatar is female, Yukari if male): your adoptive brother/sister, a teacher at the Imperial Academy and the captain of the team. The one who is chosen as the captain is playable and will die at a certain point of the game, while the other is a non-party Social Link. Tadanobu is a Red Mage, Yukari is a Dragoon. 
Yasumi Nakamura: One of the avatar's classmates and the first to befriend them. He's a Paladin. 
Tsuruhime Tsuchikawa: Another of the avatar's classmates. Initially shy, she later opens up to them. She's a Samurai 
Asirrera Kamishiro: An Ainu from Hokkaido. She loves Erika Hitler's yuri mangas, and seems to have gotten a crush on Asuka due to their common passion. She's a White Mage. 
Mog: the Moogle who found the protagonist and brought them to the Sakaguchi house. He's a Scholar. 
Kanetsugu Jugashvili: The son of a Shinto monk who was originally a fugitive from the Soviet Union and the Japanese miko who saved his life. He's a Monk. 
Nobutada Yoshida: A boy who lived in poverty, but was taken in the academy due to his exceptional talent in black magic. He's a Black Mage 
Asuka Kawakami: The last descendant of the ancient ninja clan of Kawakami, that had protected Hitachi from harm in feudal times. Like Asirrera, she's a fan of yuri mangas written by Erika Hitler. She's a Ninja. 
Hisahide Tsukahara: The son of admiral Tsukahara of the Imperial Marine Corps. He's a Warrior. 
=== Other Social Links ===
Social Link characters include all the party members, but also non-party characters such as Clive/Sophie Rosfield (automatic, advances with the plot), Mog, the music-gifted child Nobuo Uematsu, the writer and soldier Yukio Mishima, your adoptive mother Aki, your adoptive brothers Tadanobu and Yukari, a teacher of black magic named Misumi Kobayashi, the armor crafter Kenzo Takada, the J-Pop idol Miku Kadokura and an Italian warrior named Pier Astolfo Mitama (who escaped to Japan to avoid being captured by the partisans).
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== Classes ==
The classes are: Paladin, Warrior, Monk, Samurai, Dragoon, Ninja, Black Mage, White Mage and Red Mage.
Special classes, such as Scholar, Dark Knight, Summoner, Chocobo Knight, Blood Mage, Chronomancer, Berserker, Faceless, Fascist and Valisthean, cannot be selected as main class, but only gotten as secondary classes from sidequests and Social Links. "Valisthean" is Rosfield's personal class and the Avatar is turned to it only for the final boss of the bad ending. 
The Chocobo Knight allows the user to mount a Chocobo and use spears. Its moveset is based on Chocobo attacks. 
The Faceless class plays out mostly like a Ninja, wielding daggers, shuriken and ninjato, however it's more magic-based and can learn Blood Magic (dark magic, instant kills and other debuffing spells that are cast from HP instead of MP), and also has unique techniques focusing on transforming into various monsters and using their techniques (Face Stealing). It's the closest thing the game has to Blue Mages. 
The Fascist class is focused on summoning multiple blades of light out of thin air, warping and striking directly with a composite blade that can disassemble into a Buster Sword similar to Cloud's, a gunblade similar to Squall's, a pair of daggers similar to Zidane's, and a throwable one-handed katana similar to Noctis'. Even the only armors that are compatible with this class are all references to past FF games (such as Cloud's soldier uniform, Noctis's clothes, Squall's SeeD uniform, etc). Despite the name, it has absolutely nothing to do with actual nazis, but the name comes from the fictional Italian martial art "Fascio di Spade" ("Bundle of Swords" in Italian). 
The Valisthean is based on Rosfield's playstyle in Final Fantasy 16, using various Eikon Powers.
== Trivia ==
Since the player character Rosfield from FFXVI had the male gender as canon (and canon name "Clive"), the protagonist of this game is canonically female (canon name: "Hiromi"). She's supposed to be an amnesiac Sophie (female player character from XVI) who was canonically the Dominant of Ifrit and has been sent to Earth alongside Clive after XVI ended. 
This is the first single-player Final Fantasy game to have avatar creation, and the first to feature another mainline FF's main character in it.
This is the first FF game with real people in it (writer Yukio Mishima, fashion designer Kenzo Takada, video game developer Hironobu Sakaguchi and composer Nobuo Uematsu). Though the actual Uematsu wasn't alive in WW2, as he was born in 1959.
This is the first FF mainline game that is a sequel of another. In this case, of Final Fantasy 16.
This game has a Cid, the scientist Cid Oppenheimer, but he's only mentioned and seen through screens and digital voices, as he spends the whole game still in the US. This makes him one of the few Cids to technically not appear in the game. He's said to have invented the atom bomb (also known as the "Divine Judgement" in the game), and he's shown ordering its launch on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the game, however he's in the USA and as such the avatar never meets him. This Cid's name is the third not to be pronounced as "Sid": this and the one in Final Fantasy XVI are pronounced "Cheed", while the one in Final Fantasy 17 is pronounced Shido and is his last name. 
Due to censorship, the "Fascist" class was translated to German as "Schwertmeister" ("Swordmaster") and to Italian as "Asso di Spade" ("Ace of Blades"). The martial art "Fascio di Spade"'s name is left unchanged. 
In this game, the terms "Fascist" and "Nazi" are used completely out of context, and have completely different etymologies and meanings from real life. In real life, a "Fascist" was an Italian who supported the Japanese, while in this game's timeline, it refers to practitioners of the martial art "Fascio di Spade" (Italian for "bundle of swords"). Italians and other Europeans who support the Japanese invasion of Europe are instead called "Otaku", "Nipponists" or "Shintoists". A "Nazi" in real life did refer to Japanese people in rare occasions, but was mostly used to mean German soldiers following dictator Adolf Hitler and the real-life etymology of said term is from "Nationalsozialistische Partei" (a party which was never created in this alternate history, as Hitler became a world-famous mangaka). In FFXVIII's timeline, however, "Nazi" is an American racial slur explicitly referring to Japanese people and also to any other human who can use magic due to Japanese blood, and the etymology of said term is from "Najizoku" (the alien race the Japanese are descended from), or their ancient king Izanagi, or "Nuts Asian". In real life, Japan has never been called "Nazystia" ("Land of Nazis") by American people, but only Zipangu or Catai. 
The game isn't in any way meant to be propaganda for real-life nazism or fascism, and is just meant to criticize US imperialism. It's also a protest game against the hate of Asians (especially Japanese) in the USA. 
This game became famous outside of Japan when the hashtag #stopasianhate became a trend on Instagram. However it was banned in Italy and the USA due to people not understanding its core message and wrongly dismissing it as "Nazi propaganda". Due to the popularity of bootleg copies of this game between Asian-American people, the "Nazihorse" and the flag of the Japanese Colony of Germany and France have become a popular symbol of Asian pride. An organization against the discrimination of Asians has been named "Class Q" in reference to the party in this game. 
Originally, plans for this game involved players playing as a Japanese Nazi in the actual WW2, and even be able to eat Jews and draw power from Jew Blood. This was changed into an uchronic ww2-like setting without Hitler (and where the Holocaust never happened) to avoid being offensive. 
== Adaptations ==
This game and its prequel Final Fantasy XVI have been adapted into an anime titled "Final Fantasy the Animation XVI(II)". The first 8-cour narrative arc adapts XVI until Rosfield decides to side with Bahamut, then, the second four-cour arc adapts this game. Even when acting as the protagonists, Rosfield and the avatar are not silent in the anime, and they have the canon name Clive and Hiromi respectively. Hiromi gets a canon design, is canonically a Fascist (a class she cannot start with in-game), and her canon romance is with Clive Rosfield, though Hironobu convinces her to break it and kill him, preventing the bad ending you would get in the game if you romance them. 
== Spin offs ==
A spin-off named "Figli del Tradimento- a Final Fantasy XVIII story" tells the story of Pier Astolfo Mitama from the Armistice of Cassibile to when he came to Japan. Unlike Hiroshi/Hiromi, Pier Astolfo is a fully voiced character. 
The game stars Pier Astolfo, his wife Kazuko (mentioned in the social link as having been killed by partisans), Elisa Raiya (another character mentioned by Pier Astolfo, an Italian Otaku warrior who fought the Americans and saved Pier Astolfo's life from the partisans) and Miku Kadokura (who has been detained by Americans during her Italian tour). 
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