Element (term)

Elements are special properites based on energy that are present in many attacks in almost every game. Characters and monsters may or may not be weak to, resistant to, immune to, or absorbant of these special properties. Each game has several of them; most games have eight. They are usually Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Earth, Water, Holy, and Shadow. Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy VIII did not have Shadow element, and instead had a Poison element. However, Final Fantasy VII had spells such as Demi placed into the "Gravity" element. Most games feature Fire Ice, and Lightning being in a trinity of sorts, as there are three levels of magic usually associated with them, although some games may have three levels of magic of another element. Final Fantasy VII, for example, had three levels of Earth elemental spells. Some games, most notibly Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy X, had fewer than eight elements. Final Fantasy IV did not feature a Wind element, although several spells such as Weak have wind-based graphics. Final Fantasy X did not feature Earth, Wind, or Poison/Shadow.