The Final Fantasy franchise is known for its strong characters, and its main heroes are every bit as important in leading their respective rosters. From Cecil’s gradually emerging courage to Bartz and Zidane’s tomfoolery, the main character of a Final Fantasy often sets the pace for the rest of the cast and story. There are some leads that don’t quite hold the same role as the others, however, and two of those are Final Fantasy 12’s Vaan and Final Fantasy 15’s Noctis Lucis Caelum.
These two are somewhat set apart from other Final Fantasy leads by their need to bounce off of other characters to show their own personality traits. Much has already been said about how Vaan was not originally planned to be the main character of his own game, and Noctis needs his three best friends around to feel complete. Still, comparing the two of them makes for an interesting discussion on how their respective plots and games unfold.
Vaan and Noctis are both young men on quests to save their respective worlds. That’s not a novel thing in Final Fantasy, but how they go about it is. Vaan starts things as a lowly street urchin whose brother died in a recently-lost war. After an ill-conceived attempt to loot some treasure from his city’s occupied castle, he ends up falling in with some heroic sky pirates and the growing resistance formed by the sole remaining member of the old royal family.
Noctis, on the other hand, is the sole remaining member of his royal family, and is on a road trip with his best friends and guardians to both ensure the safety of his fiance and to stop the Empire of Niflheim from conquering the world. Both of those plans go awry when it turns out that ancient, mystical forces are conspiring to destroy the world, and Noctis experiences significant loss along the way.
So, both Noctis and Vaan are dealing with the loss of loved ones, and they are fighting uphill battles against empires. Things end there in terms of their story similarities, aside from them both sharing a role as the audience surrogate. Noctis is always at the head of his party, leading the charge towards Lunafreya’s current place of refuge. Once the party unites after a timeskip, he cleanly slots back into his role as the leader, and faces down Ifrit and Ardyn to avenge his nation, his loved ones, and save the world; Vaan, unfortunately, mostly just tags along. He does play a key role in influencing the fallen princess Ashe towards taking the path that’s best for her nation rather than herself, but otherwise is just another helper in the rebellion’s efforts.
The duo are somewhat comparable in terms of their placement as protagonists, but otherwise Vaan and Noctis are very different people. Vaan is an energetic and sly youth, and while he can be rude at times due to his naivete, he is capable of planning elaborate operations when sufficiently motivated. Growing up on the streets, he spends most of his time working for his boss, playing with his friends, and occasionally stealing a little on the side. He wants to become a famous sky pirate and sail around Ivalice, and gets the chance to start working on that through his adventure. In his later appearances in Ivalice Alliance games, he has indeed become a sky pirate of some renown, but has not lost his heroic spirit.
Noctis certainly shares said spirit, but usually in a more subdued fashion. He’s a quiet fellow who enjoys spending time with his friends and pursuing his hobbies. Even though the true stakes aren’t quite clear for a while, Noctis and co. are still on the run from an empire for much of Final Fantasy 15, and it is telling that they are still willing and able to make so many stops along the way. Still, despite his quirks, Noctis is also an avenger and duty-bound heir to the Lucian throne, and is determined to kill Ardyn both to satisfy his own hatred and to save the world from the plague of monsters and darkness sweeping across it.
The two heroes fight in similar, yet very different ways. Both are known for mastery of multiple weapons, with Noctis running the gamut of classic job-associated weaponry and Vaan being able to choose to specialize depending on how he progresses through his license board. However, the similarities in their base games end there. While they are both generally associated with swords and can unlock big super attacks to wipe out enemies, they ultimately fight in very different ways. Vaan fights with whatever method the player directs him towards, though is typically grounded and does not move around very much. Noctis, meanwhile, moves around constantly with his warpstrikes and frequently takes to the air.
Weirdly enough, Vaan and Noctis do have visually similar fighting styles — when fighting games are brought into the mix. Vaan’s playstyle in the PSP classic Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy actually bears a surprising resemblance to Noctis’ typical weapon switching and acrobatic combat. Dissidia 012 is a high-flying game that is meant to emulate the fighting seen at the end of Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children, something Final Fantasy 15 still aspired to years later.
In addition, Vaan’s unique character gimmick is that all of his Bravery attacks use a different weapon, and every attack that makes him switch weapons is stronger than if he’d used the same attack twice. He doesn’t play like that anymore in Dissidia NT, the entry that actually includes Noctis, but the fact remains that his 012 self foreshadowed Noctis quite well.
Ultimately, Noctis and Vaan are two very different people trying to reach somewhat comparable goals. Vaan wants an adventure, and is happy to help his new friends take back his home kingdom and even humanity’s freedom along the way. Meanwhile, Noctis is the driving force behind his party moving towards his wedding with Lunafreya and making peace with Niflheim, but never loses focus of his love for his friends.
Both end up saving their respective worlds in the end, and Final Fantasy 15’s alternate ending in its The Dawn of the Future novel ends up surprisingly close to how 12 ended. Ultimately, it will be interesting to see how Clive stacks against these two once Final Fantasy 16 is out.
Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age is available for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. Final Fantasy 15: Royal Edition is also available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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