Sea (location)

The Sea is a recurring terrain type on the World Map in the Final Fantasy series. It is a feature in most maps and cannot be traveled on without use of another vehicle, such as a Boat, a Canoe, or a Submarine. Many vehicles that can only travel on certain depths, for example, the Canoe and Buggy can only travel over shallows, while various types of advanced chocobo and the Tiny Bronco can travel over deeper water, but not the entire ocean.

The sea is used to separate different continents in games and keeps the player from progressing to later parts of the story earlier in the game. An example of this is in the original Final Fantasy where the player starts limited to Cornelia and the Chaos Shrine. The player must complete the events of the Chaos Shrine dungeon to trigger the finishing of the Drawbridge to bridge the continents leading to further areas.

In a few occasions, enemies can be fought in the sea. In the earlier entries of the Final Fantasy series, players would get into random encounters when traveling over the sea in a boat. Oddly, these encounters can be escaped from, despite the fact the battle occurs on their own boat.

Notable World Maps lacking seas include the Underworld and Moon from Final Fantasy IV. The former uses lava as a replacement, and the latter lacks a replacement.

Final Fantasy
The only way to travel by sea is via the Pirate Ship, obtainable by defeating the Pirates at Pravoka. At first the player can only sail between the Cornelia, Pravoka and Elfheim continents, however once the Nitro Powder is used to clear a new passageway for the pirate ship to sail through, the player will be able to sail through all deep waters.

Random encounters can occur whilst traveling in the sea; however they are not as frequent as they are on land.

Final Fantasy V
Random encounters can occur while the party travels on the sea by boat.

Final Fantasy VII
The sea appears in Final Fantasy VII and separates each continent from another. The only ways to cross the sea is using the Tiny Bronco, Highwind, Submarine, Cargo Ship from Costa del Sol or a gold chocobo. Under the sea is also explorable in this game as using the Submarine will let you explore the depths of the sea, you can find the Sunken Gelnika and Emerald Weapon down there. The Junon Underwater Reactor can also be seen but not entered from the sea as going through Junon is the only way to reach it.

Final Fantasy VIII
The sea again appears in Final Fantasy VIII and has few ways to cross it. Balamb Garden, once it becomes mobile, and the Ragnarok are the transportation to cross the sea. A boat is also used during the Siege of Dollet but is only ever seen then.

Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy IX offers much more ways to travel across the sea than Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII and features several Boats and Airships to explore Gaia with. The Blue Narciss and the Alexandrian Fleet are the boats used along with the airships The Cargo Ship, The Hilda Garde Boats, Hilda Garde I, Hilda Garde II and the Hilda Garde III, The Invincible, the Prima Vista and the non-usable Red Rose, used as a warship by Queen Brahne.

Final Fantasy X
The sea travel element is scarce in Final Fantasy X, at Besaid's beach the water can be swam in, but not very far from the shore. Baaj Temple has water that can be swam in as well. In Kilika and other locations the ocean is simply a background feature. The boss Geosgaeno is fought twice underwater, once at the start of the game and once after the player acquires the airship as an optional fight.

The sea is otherwise seen on the map, when selecting a location for the airship. Oceans in fact make up a considerable portion of Spira.

Final Fantasy X-2
The sea again plays little importance in Final Fantasy X-2, even though it's an important environment feature in locations such as Besaid.

Final Fantasy XII
The sea appears in a variety of places within Final Fantasy XII, Dalmasca Estersand has a river, but it can only be crossed midway through the game and has a fishing minigame on offer, once the player has acquired a fishing rod, the Ogir-Yensa Sandsea and Nam-Yensa Sandsea contain sea, though made of sand not water, which when gone up close to can cause a Yensa enemy to appear.

The Ridorana Cataract and the Pharos at Ridorana have sea around them, Reddas sent fleets of boats to the Pharos at Ridorana but they were all destroyed by the waves around the Ridorana Cataract. The Port at Balfonheim has sea around it, but is used as the background.

Final Fantasy Tactics
There's a terrain tile called Sea in the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy Tactics, but the newer translation change it to Ocean for the PSP version. These tiles appears on the battlefield maps of Dorter Slums, Brigands' Den, Port City of Warjilis, random battles in Fovoham Windflats, and Orbonne Monastery.

A Geomancer standing on the Ocean terrain tile will use Torrent to deal Water-elemental damage with a chance of inflicting Toad to any enemy units within five squares.