



When dealing with the classical elements, we can't forget how often they play a significant role in Square Enix games. The first Final Fantasy has the Light Warriors facing off against four elemental fiends: Lich for earth, Kary (Marilith in the Japanese version) for fire, Kraken for water, and Tiamat for air. FF4 also uses elemental fiends, this time named after demons from Dante's
Inferno: Scarmiglione for earth, Cagnazzo for water, Barbariccia for air, and Rubicante for fire. (Due to limited space, translation errors, or possibly a combination of both, the original North American translation referred to these four as Milon, Kainazzo, Valvalis, and Rubicant.) Final Fantasy IX has four Chaos Guardians with the same names as the Fiends from the first game, and Mystic Quest has the Vile Four: Flamerus Rex, Ice Golem, Dualhead Hydra, and Pazuzu. Also making significant use of the classical elements are the Mana games, in which there are eight Mana Spirits. Four represent the elements we all know and love, while the others are associated with wood, the moon, light, and darkness. Kind of an odd combination, I'd say, but what are you going to do?




Elements are also significant to Chrono Trigger, but instead of the typical four, we're instead presented with fire, ice, lightning, and shadow. The first three seem to be the most typical families of spells in role-playing video games. It's also fairly typical for lightning to work well against water monsters, fire against ice monsters, and, oddly enough, ice against fire monsters as well.