Final Fantasy XIII-2 allusions

This is a list of allusions from Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Final Fantasy series

 * Mog is called "Piggy Kitty" by Noel when a Breshan researcher asks him about it. Moogles first appeared in Final Fantasy III where they said "nyaa", Japanese onomatopoeia for "meow" which was soon replaced with "kupo". Moogles in some games resemble a pig; hence the 'name'.
 * Chocolina's nickname, Choco-boco-lina, refers to Choco and Boco, two recurring names for chocobos.

Final Fantasy

 * When playing Slots in Serendipity, the sound effect for hitting one of the jackpots is the "Getting an Important Item" theme, first heard in the original Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy II

 * Caius's armor and accessories are based on Yoshitaka Amano's artwork of Leon.
 * In the quiz Brain Blast, the answer to one of the questions is "Wild Rose". This password was used by the rebels of Fynn. Another incorrect answer to the same question is "Ekmet Teloess", which was a Key Term that was used to open a door.

Final Fantasy III

 * The colors of Noel's swords, red and yellow, are based on those of the original protagonist of Final Fantasy III from Yoshitaka Amano's artwork.
 * One of possible answers for a Brain Blast question – "What was the name of the device used by Sanctum's elite soldiers that allowed one to control gravity?", is "Noah's Lute".

Final Fantasy IV

 * Zenobia returns as an actual boss in Final Fantasy XIII-2 (due to a paradox) even though she died in the first game. Considering this which technically makes her an undead, and her physical resemblance in terms if arms and tentacles, make her similar to Scarmiglione.

Final Fantasy V

 * The maximum HP of both Tonberry and Don Tonberry, 393,939, refers to the maximum HP, 39,393, of the Tonberry from the game it first appeared in.
 * Gogmagog and Aloeidai's backstory is based on Omega and Shinryu where in both games they are said to be each others enemies that travel the void. Also, Gogmagog and Aloeidai doesn't meet each other during course of the game, similarly to Omega and Shinryu.
 * A downloadable monster, Omega, is based on his Final Fantasy V appearance.
 * One of possible answers for a Brain Blast question – "What was the name of the device used by Sanctum's elite soldiers that allowed one to control gravity?", is "Galuf's Bangle".

Final Fantasy VI

 * In the casino Serendipity, the player can exchange their winnings for an item called "Setzer's Dice". Its description says Setzer's "consummate skill once drove Serendipity to the brink of ruin". Setzer Gabbiani is a Gambler in Final Fantasy VI and the first gambler to appear in the series.
 * The answer to one of the questions in Confounding Quiz—"What legendary creature was found in a block of ice on Gran Pulse?"—is "Valigarmanda." In Final Fantasy VI, Valigarmanda was found frozen in the Narshe Mines.
 * Terra Branford is mentioned in the Confounding Quiz and is said to be an actress. She is said to be dating Jeff Roni, a double reference to Edgar Roni Figaro; Jeff refers to Geoff, the Japanese version of his alias Gerad.
 * Downloadable monsters, Ultros and Typhon, are based on their Final Fantasy VI appearances. During their fight Ultros flirts with Serah, states his hatred for muscle-heads, and introduces Typhon in the same fashion and similar choice of words as in his final fight with Terra and company in Final Fantasy VI.
 * Gilgamesh found Masamune in a poisoned river in a kingdom called Doma. Despite many years, it doesn't age.
 * When the Flowering Cactuar is caught, its name changed to "Cactrot" alluding to the initial translation of "cactuar"—"cactrot".

Final Fantasy VII

 * Caius putting Yeul to rest in the sea by Valhalla at the beginning of the game mirrors the scene where Cloud Strife rests Aerith Gainsborough in the lake of the Forgotten Capital.
 * In the quiz Brain Blast one of the answers to a question is "Honee Bee Inn". This refers to the Honey Bee Inn location in Final Fantasy VII.
 * Another question in the Brain Blast quiz references Cloud Strife's Chocobo race at the Gold Saucer to free his companions from the Corel Prison.
 * In the quiz Brain Blast, one of the answers is "Patisserie Red Thirteen", referring to the character Red XIII.
 * When collecting a paradox weapon in Academia 4XX AF, the desk clerk jokingly tells Serah and Noel they have to choose between a large box and a small box. This is likely an allusion to obtaining Aeris's level 4 limit break, Great Gospel, which is in the smaller of two sealed boxes.
 * The Sister Ray is listed as one of the possible answers in Brain Blast.
 * In the Brain Blast quiz, one of the answers are lyrics of the song playing during the battle with Safer∙Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel.
 * Serendipity bears an intentional resemblance to the Gold Saucer, including the fact that the camera view is set at a distance rather than following the characters closely.

Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-

 * In the quiz Brain Blast one of the answers to the question "What was the name of the mission to drive out the inhabitants of Bodhum when a Pulse fal'Cie was discovered?" is "Project Genesis" and "Project: Fill the world with flowers", and in other question given by Captain Cryptic, LOVELESS is one answer too.
 * Hyperion (Teioh) is referenced as being the fastest chocobo in the chocobo races.

Final Fantasy VIII

 * The answer to one of the questions in Confounding Quiz—"Which celebrated movie introduced the gunblade, a now-popular toy among kids?"—is "The Sorceress's Knight". This refers to Final Fantasy VIII where Laguna Loire stars in said movie, wielding a gunblade.
 * Watts is referred to in an incorrect answer to a Brain Blast question.
 * The abilities Bargain Hunter and Haggler were initially available only in Final Fantasy VIII under the names Haggle and Sell-High, respectively.
 * PuPu may rarely drop an Elixir: this refers to the situation that in Final Fantasy VIII PuPu requests Elixirs from the party. This may be seen as a joke of PuPu having too many Elixirs.
 * The seeress-Guardian relation can be compared to sorceress-Sorceress Knight relation in that seeress and sorceress is a female gifted with special powers and Guardian and Sorceress Knight act as seeress and sorceress's protector, respectively.

Final Fantasy IX

 * Several of Noel's dual blades are named after Zidane's thief swords, mainly: Rune Tooth, Sargatanas, and The Tower.
 * Stiltzkin's Journal is a set of accessories named after the moogle Stiltzkin.
 * In the quiz Brain Blast, Tantalus is mentioned in several questions, which involve some kind of love play. Tantalus is a popular theater troupe from Lindblum in Final Fantasy IX.
 * In the quiz Brain Blast, one of the answers is "Stiltzkin's Bakery".
 * Gilgamesh found Excalibur in a hidden room in kingdom of Alexandria. It dazzles with rainbow's colors.

Final Fantasy X

 * The idea of an Eidolon having a dark counterpart originates from the International Version of Final Fantasy X where the party can fight Dark Aeons as a challenge.
 * The term "Guardian" originates from Final Fantasy X, where guardians were charged with summoners' protection. In Final Fantasy XIII-2, a Guardian is charged with seeress' protection.
 * The answer to one of the questions in Confounding Quiz—"What is the name of the exciting underwater sport that requires a ball?"—is "blitzball".
 * O'aka is offered as one of the possible answers in a question from Captain Cryptic regarding a shop offering monster materials.
 * Zanarkand is an answer to one of the Captain Cryptic questions.
 * Gilgamesh found Muramasa in the abandoned ruins of Zanarkand. It is said that spirits of those who died from Sin rest within the blade.
 * One of possible answers for a Brain Blast question – "What was the name of the device used by Sanctum's elite soldiers that allowed one to control gravity?", is "Cloudy Mirror".

Final Fantasy X-2

 * The concept of enemies fighting alongside party members is taken from the International version of Final Fantasy X-2, where monsters can be recruited and used in battle with its "Creature Create" system.
 * One of the incorrect answers to a question in Captain Cryptic's Confounding Quiz is "Magical Dances, I & II", which were key items used to learn special abilities for the Songstress dressphere.

Final Fantasy XI

 * The music that plays on acquiring a Fragment Skill from the Mystic in Serendipity is a shortened fanfare of the chocobo theme, which was first heard as the sound effect in Final Fantasy XI.

Final Fantasy XII

 * One of the Great Mog Wisdom fragments is called "Teatime Mont Blanc in reference to the moogle by the name of Montblanc.
 * The name Undying is also used as the name of the final boss in Final Fantasy XII.

Final Fantasy XIII

 * Twilight Odin, a corrupt remnant of Odin, is found and fought at the Vile Peaks as a reference to the original encounter between Lightning and Odin.
 * The final dungeon, Academia 500 AF, changes its configuration similarly to the Tesseracts of the Orphan's Cradle.
 * Full ATB skills are unlocked when reaching Stage 11 of the Crystarium. In Final Fantasy XIII, they are unlocked in Chapter 11.
 * New Bodhum looks similarly to the playable area of Bodhum. They both even share a large beach with a pier, a NORA bar, and a similarly styled 'wall' of sorts which in Final Fantasy XIII prevents further exploration of the town.

Final Fantasy XIV

 * Caius's given name is an alternate spelling of Gaius, one of the primary antagonists of Final Fantasy XIV.

Final Fantasy Type-0

 * Items found in Augusta Tower in the Japanese version of the game has the suffix "Type-", similarly to the title of another Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy project.

Dissidia Final Fantasy

 * Gilgamesh found Zantetsuken, also known as Chaos Nail, during his Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy appearance. It is said that it is Chaos's nail which is rare and is theorized to be made of crystal. The power of death is said to be endowed within this blade. This could be an allusion to him being the only character to canonically defeat Feral Chaos in Cid's nightmare, as he had no link to the primary events of Dissidia outside of fighting Bartz and meeting Squall and company.


 * "Serge" is one of possible names for Paradigm Pack monsters.

Kingdom Hearts Series

 * When Lightning beckons to Serah in the dream of New Bodhum, she emulates Riku's iconic scene in Kingdom Hearts where he reaches for Sora to follow him. In Kingdom Hearts Riku is engulfed in darkness; after having her proposal refused Lightning is similarly engulfed in chaos.

Allusions to the Numbers Thirteen and Two
Being the sequel to the thirteenth installment of the series, Final Fantasy XIII-2 makes some references to the number itself. It occasionally even makes references to both the numbers 13 and 2 together. Although many of these are not necessarily deliberate allusions to those numbers (whether they are or not is speculative), they are nonetheless present.


 * In all three of the game's fully rendered cinematics, there are thirteen tolls of a bell. In the opening cinematic and the mid-story cinematic there are thirteen tolls while Lightning narrates; in the closing cinematic there are thirteen tolls of a bell before the credits roll.
 * In Academia 4XX AF, there is an Ark floating in the sky called the Thirteenth Ark.
 * In the paradox ending, "Transcript: The Future is Hope", Snow mentions that he must visit thirteen different eras in order to resolve paradoxes by collecting thirteen Crystals.
 * The DLC "monsters" Lightning, Amodar, Nabaat, Ultros, Typhon, Gilgamesh, and PuPu all have a maximum level capacity of thirteen.
 * There are various instances in the game to suggest there are twenty-six hours in a day, or thirteen hours before noon and thirteen hours after noon.
 * At the beginning of the opening cinematic, a large clock is seen in Valhalla, and the hands point to the number thirteen.
 * In the Temporal Rift puzzle The Hands of Time, there can be a maximum of thirteen positions on the clock.
 * In the Serendipity card game Chronobind, there are thirteen hours on the clock.
 * There are thirteen categories for the fragment entries.
 * If one counts the Paradox Scope battles, the Chaos Bahamut battles, and the DLC, Caius is fought a total of thirteen times.
 * The Brain Blast quiz says that the skyscraper's observation deck in Academia was built on a floor 132nd based on the incident of 100 AF, alluding to the numbers of the game: "13" and "2".
 * In Final Fantasy XIII, the threshold for a five-star rating for a normal battle was 13,000. In XIII-2, the score is 15,000: 13,000 + 2,000: XIII-2.
 * Including "Paradox", there are thirteen versions of "Paradox" theme in the game.
 * There are thirteen artefacts.

Folklore

 * Gogmagog is a reference to, a giant from British folklore.

Greek Mythology

 * Atlas is a reference to, a who rebelled against the gods and was punished to hold the sky on the western edge of the world.

Norse Mythology

 * Lightning's story is set in Valhalla, "a realm beyond time" where the temple of the goddess Etro is placed, in which she fights alongside her Eidolon, Odin, repelling attacks from Caius. In Norse mythology, is the hall of the honored dead, who will fight for  at.
 * Lightning in her new attire resembles a, one of the female warriors who bore the valorous dead to Valhalla. Caius calls her the "warrior goddess", another title for a valkyrie.
 * Furthermore, three valkyrie names are referenced through fragments in the Yaschas Massif 110 AF: Gerhilde's Blossom, Waltraute's Flower, and Ortlinde's Bloom.
 * The Arbiter of Time Valfodr is named after the Norse god Baldr. Valfodr is also an alternate name for the Norse god Odin, which translates as, "father of the slain".

Sumerian Mythology

 * was a mythical hero of the ancient . He was king of the city of, and had a series of adventures with his great friend, the wild man Enkidu.

Roman and Byzantine Empires

 * Most of the Undying are named after enemies of the Roman Empire, except for Wladislaus, which is named after a Polish king, and Raspatil, though its Japanese name is Attila.

Religious tradition

 * One of the questions in Brain Blast mentions "sabbath" as an event where people gather to watch monsters dance and frolic. In many religions, sabbath is a weekly day of rest.

Christianity

 * The seven Chocobo Chicks in Serendipity (Haughty, Sloth, Wrath, Neid, Luxuria, and Greed) are named after the seven deadly sins and act on their namesakes to an extent.
 * There is a sequence involving a guy named Brant who enjoys puns. One of these puns is "Need an ark? I Noah guy!", a reference to the ark build by Noah on which two of each type of animal the world was placed in order to escape a cataclysmic flood.

Super Mario franchise

 * The red-capped, white-spotted Delicious Mushroom adornment is an allusion to the red-capped, white-spotted Super Mushrooms from the Super Mario series of video games. In those games, contact with a Super Mushroom causes a player's character to grow larger. The description for the Delicious Mushroom is "A mushroom that looks like it might help you grow bigger..."

Pokémon franchise

 * An answer to a Brain Blast! question is "Ochu, I choose you!". "I choose you" is a recurring phrase in Pokémon media, and is often associated with the character Pikachu, whose name ends with same last three letters.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

 * An answer to a Brain Blast! question is "Hasta la vista, kupo!", paraphrased from Arnold Schwarzenegger's from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Star Wars Franchise

 * Three of the answers to a particular Brain Blast! question reference Star Wars.
 * One of the answers is "Do or do not, there is no try," referential of a line of Yoda's in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
 * Another answer is "May the light be with us!" a spin on the phrase "May the Force be with you" from the series. The correct answer to the question is "You're from the rebel army!," a reference to the Rebel Alliance from the original Star Wars trilogy.

Other TV Shows

 * One of the possible answers in the Brain Blast! question is "Desperate Housewives of Eden" - referencing both the Desperate Housewives series and The Real Housewives of the Orange County series.
 * One of the possible answers in the Brain Blast! question is "Murder, Bodhum Wrote" - referencing the Murder, She Wrote series.
 * In a "Great Mog Wisdom" fragment entry it is revealed that a vidshow called 'The Katzroy Files' was made using Sazh Katzroy as inspiration for the lead character. The name 'The Katzroy Files' may be an allusion to the show The Rockford Files.
 * The Miniflan Fragment mentions a group of five miniflan with the following colors: blue, black, pink, yellow, and red. This colors correspond to colors of the outfits of a popular TV series, Power Rangers.

Illuminati

 * A possible name for a recruitable monster is "Illuminati".

Other

 * The Elixir energy drink is referred to in one of the possible questions in Captain Cryptic's Confounding Quiz: What was the design found on elixir cans that portrayed the incredible journey of the legendary l'Cie? The correct answer is: A white background with pictures of the l'Cie.