Final Fantasy is a series of games that stretch back to the mid 80s and the last ditch effort by a dying software company known as Squaresoft to salvage its stock. Since then it’s become the most recognizable name in video gaming. With it comes a whole array of terms and names that don’t necessarily make sense to the lay person. For those of you whose boyfriends, children, or siblings sit and play into the wee hours of the morning something you can’t possibly understand, I introduce to you a one shot cures all guide to understanding Final Fantasy. This is the A-Z Guide to Final Fantasy.

Airships – Ah yes, the airship. It’s been a tradition throughout the history of Final Fantasy of taking to the skies for transportation with giant, amazingly detailed airships, usually as a way to navigate the ridiculously large maps that make the game entirely too tedious if you have to walk everywhere. The role of the airship is always different, but count on it to show up and make your journey easier and a little more stylish.

Biggs and Wedge – Recurring characters always make playing a game series fun because you get to be in on a joke that no one else gets unless they’ve played along with you. Biggs and Wedge (affectionately named for two Star Wars X-Wing pilots) are just two among many recurring characters in the series. The most famous of these is Cid, the often times engineer who will pop up and help out with a busted airship or even join in the fight when you need him.

Chocobo – These big yellow birds are your ground transport more often than not. They pop up in almost every final fantasy game and often play a big role in goofy mini games. They’re so popular that they’ve gotten their own game outings in quirky titles like Chocobo Dungeon and Chocobo Racing.

Draw – Among many variations in the series, the draw system was a simpler way of operating magic in Final Fantasy VIII. The series often takes its game elements and thinks of new and interesting ways to mix them up. Most games tend towards the more traditional magic system of spells and magic points where you have a set amount of MP that depletes every time you use a spell.

Espers (summons) – The summons are one of the many things that you’ll see in every game of the series. These giant, mythical forces are often found in ruin somewhere where you’ll be forced to fight them for dominance afterwards they’ll become your servants or helpers or however they want to describe themselves. They’re big and powerful and can usually deal an immense amount of damage (as well as take an immense amount of MP to use).

Final Fantasy – Cheap right? Final Fantasy is what you’re reading about right now. Started in 1986 by a dying software company, the series has seen more than 20 incarnations over the years, each of them different from the last, each trying to create an epic RPG experience that’s like no other game out there.

Gil – The monetary system in Final Fantasy isn’t dollars or yen, it’s gil although gil tend to equivocate to yen more than dollars. The Gil is an elusive creature most of the time, playing a different role in most games you play. Some, like FFVIII make it rather easy to acquire, while the newest entry, FFXII make it almost impossible to ever have enough of the stuff.

Holy – Yes it is a spell usually given to a white mage at a later point in the game, but it’s also a way to look at the writing of the games, often taking in and utilizing religious aspects to enhance the story and the gameplay. Holy is as common as meteor and ultima as a spell that will mean more than just a spell by becoming a part of the story.

Judge – Technically only showing up Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII, the idea of the judge is similar to the rest of the games. These are essentially external villains which will follow you about throughout your journeys and interfere with your purpose. You’ll find them large and obnoxious and often times very hard to kill, and occasionally trying to be funny…but rarely succeeding.

Kingdom Hearts – Another game series from Square Enix featuring mostly Disney characters and worlds, but also taking from many Final Fantasy games (usually of the Playstation era) for characters and enemies. You’ll see Cloud, Aerith, Yuffie, and Cid of Final Fantasy VII fame as well as Squall, Tidus, and many more. Don’t miss out on an epically hard battle with Sephiroth at the end of either game either.

Limit Breaks – Introduced in Final Fantasy VII, the limit break is a way to throw some extra damage at an opponent after a certain amount of time spent fighting. The gauge will build up and you’ll be able to unleash a super attack that will cripple or defeat your enemy. It varies from game to game what it does. In Final Fantasy VIII for instance it’s a random feature which will increase in frequency when your health gets lower.

Moogles – Moogles are cute little fuzzy white…things. They resemble teddy bears but are their own distinct creatures. They usually stay the same, but in Final Fantasy Tactics and XII look a little more grown up. The Moogle is usually a merchant, a save point, a gardner, something helpful to you as you try and complete your quest.

Nobuo Uematsu – This is the man behind all of that wonderful music in each and every one of your Final Fantasy games. With the exception of Final Fantasy X-2, he’s crafted every single soundtrack for a sequence title and some of the most memorable tunes in video gaming, including that ever so good to hear battle won tune. He’s won tons of awards and should you see him on the street try not to whistle too loud.

Online – The series went online in a controversial move to use a main sequence title for the experiment in 2003. Final Fantasy XI though, whatever you may think of it, is one of the most popular MMORPGs around these days (Besides the obvious winner in World of Warcraft of course). It’s available for the PC, the PS2 and the Xbox 360, though at this point it’s in long overdue need of an overhaul and upgrade.

Playstation – The playstation era began in 1997 when Squaresoft jumped from Nintendo’s ship due to hardware limitations in the new Nintendo 64’s cartridge format. The cost of a Final Fantasy VII cartridge would have been outrageous and Sony’s new console ran on cheap and simple CDROMs, so the move was made and the series exploded in popularity. Not only did production pick up, but sales and fan response as well. Final Fantasy still appears on Sony’s console today instead of Nintendo (though Nintendo has slowly been wooing them back with titles like Crystal Chronicles and Final Fantasy III).

Quest – You’re on a quest. Simple yeah? Honestly, I’m lazy and how many words start with a Q, especially in a specific topic.

Random Encounters – The battle system in Final Fantasy has for almost the entire series revolved around random encounters and battles with invisible foes. As you walk, the chances of a battle go up and eventually you’ll find yourself in a battle with a random number of random enemies. It’s the game’s way of keeping you on your toes. However, entries XI and XII have gone to the active, live battle mode in which you actually run up and attack your enemies as they see you.

Square-Enix – The company behind all the magic. Formed in 2003 from the merger of the two biggest names in the book, Square-Enix is the amalgamation of more than 2 decades of RPG excellence from two of the biggest names in the game.

Tactics – The tactics series is technically only two games, started on The Playstation and continued on the Game Boy Advance in a sequel. The two games are departures from the storytelling and massive worlds of Final Fantasy, instead relying on strategy based battle only gameplay. The games are immensely popular among the strategy fans of the RPG genre and even lent Final Fantasy XII it’s locale.

Ultimate Weapon – The various weapons in a Final Fantasy game are half the fun. After hours of gameplay you’ll find yourself looking through a variety of hidden spaces and chests looking for hidden bits and pieces to your ultimate weapon. It’s often big, bulky, and incredibly powerful, and usually every player in the game has a variation of one.

V (IV-VI) –The 16 Bits – The V series of games, starting with Final Fantasy IV and ending with Final Fantasy VI, were the 16 bit entries in a series that was just getting started. I only include these three because over the course of three games, Square turned Final Fantasy into what it is today, with epic battles, monstrous storylines and amazing characters that would carry on into the next generation. That and I tend to be a long lost Nintendo fan.

Weapon (ultima, etc) – These ultimate creatures are usually found at the end of the game as final optional bosses with immense, ridiculous amounts of HP and almost no forseeable way to defeat them. It will take you hours sometimes to complte the task. And that’s why they’re so fun.

XP – XP is the name of the game. You run around, you kill things and you get XP to gain your levels. Without this vital bit of numerical data you’ll never level up and be able to defeat the next creature before you.

Yoshitaka Amano – Amano is the artistic mastermind behind many of the series’ characters. While he did the art exclusively for the first five games, he merely does supplemental work these days, including cover art, character sketches, and concepts. His name is eternally tied to that very specific Final Fantasy art style.

Zodiac – The zodiac is a common enough theme in any game, and final Fantasy takes what it can. You’ll see specific examples in games like XII, in which there are 12 summons and so on, but also in other games, you’ll see weapons and enemies of a celestial nature.

There are hundreds more terms that would make this list complete but these are your ABCs for now, the basic lexicon of Final Fantasy that will get you through a strained conversation with your RPG obsessed buddy.