"T🌞ouch grass." Two simple words with loaded meaning. It's an idiom, and it's designed to impolitely declare that the person with whom you're speaking... really needs to hop off the internet for a while and experience the real world. They're too far in. They're too disconnected. They're worked up, and at this point, a trip outside is downright❀ necessary.
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We can't order characters to disconnect from the internet and smell the fresh air. It wouldn't do any good; they're not real. But we can use "touch grass" not as an idiom, but as reality within the confines of fantasy. We can rank how long it takes for each game's core cast to be granted the chance to touch the grass, should they so desire. To be out among nature, rather than stuck inside the stuffy barriers of whatever it is that they're opening predicament has thrust upon them. Why would we do this, you might ask? Why not, dear reader? Why not?
16 🦋 Final Fantasy 13
Final Fantasy 13's cast, by and large, can only dream of touching grass. Cocoon, the game's primary setting, is a technological floating continent which is, according to director Motomu Toriyama, roughly the size of North America. Tens of millions live here, and most will seldom 🌳see a blade of grass attached to anything bigger than a houseplant. It's cramped in Cocoon.
It isn't until the story brings two of the six main characters, Sazh Katzroy and Oerba Dia Vanille, to a nature preserve called Sunleth Waterscape that honest-to-goodness greenery abounds. A prior chapter is set in a region called the Gapra Whitewood, which, when I remembered this, briefly had me wondering whether I had forgotten a tree-filled horizon prior to the Waterscape. Nope. In true Cocoon fashion, the "Whitewood" is - while qu꧒ite pretty - just a bunch of crystals and broken-down robotics.
Estimated Time of Grassy Arrival: 15 Hours
15 ও Final ꦇFantasy 7
Final Fantasy 7 was screwed from the startꦯ. The entire opening act of this groundbreaking game is set in Midgar, a massive city choking on its own soul-sucking fumes. Midgar's presentation is a no-holds-barred criticism of anti-environmentalist capitalism gone all the more amok, which doe🌜sn't exactly give the level designers much room for plant life.
The same holds true for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the 2020 reimagining of FF7's Midgar arc. There's flora here and there in the cyberpunk city that never sleeps, but it's a severe rarity. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirꦺth, ﷽the second part in the ongoing Remake trilogy, does get the grass going far more swiftly; but for the purposes of this list, we're sticking with Remake as its own "beginning".
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Moving through Midgar at a fairly brisk clip, the original FF7 will get you out onto the world map in about five hours. Since FF7 Remake is entirely a Midgar-based affair, it's a hellishly long time before Avalancheཧ sees green. This makes it tricky to rank without separating the two games entirely, so let's split the difference. Remake would have taken the cake here by far, surpassing FF13 even if we don't count that game♍ until the 25 hours it takes to reach the nature-rich Gran Pulse beneath Cocoon.
Estimated Time of Grassy Arrival: Five Hours (Original); 35-40 Hours (!!) (Remake)
14 🎃 ꦗ Final Fantasy 16
With a more thoroughly medieval setting than any mainline single-player Final Fantasy has gotten since FF9, Final Fantasy 16 doesn't seem like the sort of game that would bar its hero, Clive Rosfield, from touching grass for several🦹 hours. But consider this: Valisthea is an oppressive land, and terrible things happen nigh-constantly to the be⛎st of its people.
Terrible things like not being able to touch grass for a long time. The beautiful kingdom of Rosaria, with its quaint castle at the center, has plenty of grassland. But 16's prologue doesn't show us young Clive getting the chance to touch any of it. Rather, he is sent into a swampy bog called Stillwind. Upon his return to the😼 Grand Duchy's castle, things quickly escalate, and it's fire, not foliage, that Clive must conten💝d with.
But good things do happen fro✱m time to time. Not too far into FF🅷16's first act, Clive, Jill, and Torgal (the goodest boy ever) traverse Rosaria's verdant landscape together. Good for them.
Estimated Time of Grassy Arrival: Seven to Eight Hours
13 🌸 Final Fantasy 9 🧸
After a stormy cutscene followed by a gorgeous first look at the city of Alexandria, you're given control of Zidane Tribal aboard an airship for five minutes, and then you're the lovable Black Mage, Vivi Ornitier, stumbling through town. There's some back-and-forth between the two, b📖ut you'll be in Alexandria for a solid 45 minutes or so.
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Thereafter, it's Evil Forest time. Look, uh, there's grass galore in the Evil Forest, but no one in their right mind is going to stand around to happily grasp any of it. Goblins and other foul creatures haunt this plaꦍce, including vicious carnivorous plants larger than any man on Gaia. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave - the whole place turns to stone if you try.
Needless to say, Zidane, Vivi, and the others do manage to break free of the Evil Forest eventually, but by the 𝐆time you hit the world map, where the grass isn't trying to kill you anymore, a couple of hours have passed.
Estimated Time of Grassy Arrival: Two Hours
12 ✤ Final Fantasy 12
Unlike FF7 and FF13, Final Fantasy 12 does not open with high-tech marvels prohibiting anything close to a nature stroll. Rather, its first half an hour or so is a linear sprawl through a military installation, followed by 🃏quite some time spent in and around the desert city of Rabanastre.
This is where things get a bit tricky, isn't it? "Touch grass" means experiencing nature. There's nothing unnatural about the Dalmasca Estersand, but save for the occasional bits o💃f shrubbery and tall cacti, you'll not fin🍌d anything but blistering heat. It's hardly what I'd call the "right" brand of fresh air.
One of Rabanastre's main exits, however, leads to the Giza Plains. This totally counts as touching grass. The dry season is a bit of a barren environment, but there's still a measure of relaxation to be found. The wetꦇ season is rainy as heck, but teeming with vege♊tation. Touch grass, Vaan Ratsbane.
Estimated Time of Grassy Arrival: 1.5-2 Hours
11 Final Fantasy 10 🌱
Final Fantasy 10's first moments are a mysterious flash-forward to a♑ time when Tidus and the other Guardians are gathered around a campfire near their ultimate destination, the ruins of Zanarkand. The Summoner they have sworn to protect,⛎ Yuna, looks on with quiet resolve.
I could have counted this, but they're surrounded by a bunch of ruins. It's not a fun place. Plus, it's a sneak peek into the future; when the cutscene plays, first-timers aren't going to know what the heck they're looking at. Once the scene is finished, we see Tidus back in a very-lively rendition of Zanarkand, and then Sin attacks, and he's tossed off a ledge, and then he's stuck in a more aquatic sort of ruins, and then he's aboard a ship, and then he's tossed from that, and finally, he drifts to Besaid.
ꦆBesaid is an island village, and it's scenic as all get-out. I chose a pic from Besaid for F💯F10's entry here, so that you can see what I mean when I say that grass is one hundred percent touchable across vast swaths of this beachfront property. It takes about an hour to get here, but Tidus is in for some nice sights when he makes landfall.
Estimated Time of Grassy Arrival: One Hour
10 Final Fantasy 14 💞
The case of Final Fantasy 14 isꦬ a curious one. The answer is either 30 minutes or two hours (with the caveat that I am, of course, estimating my answers every time). What's the variable? The job class you choose as your first. That selection dictates which of three cities you start in: the by-the-sea Limsa Lominsa, the forest-shrouded Gridania, or the desert-rich Ul'dah.
Regardless, you've got some cutscenes to conten🐽d with, followed by a trip via carriage to your chosen destination. Your first order of business will be to meet with 🤡your initial point of contact, who will then set you free to do some nascent exploration.
If Limsa Lominsa is your starting ground, there's a lovely sea breeze, promising fun fishing exploits, as well as semi-tropical nearby routes across the large island. Gridania is straightforwardly situated in what is likely the vastest forest on the planet, so yeah, it's nature time to a tee. Ul'dah, however, is ♔a jewel within heated dunes nearly as uninviting as those beside FF12's Rabanastre. If that's your stomping ground, it's going to be a while.
Estimated Time of Grassy Arrival: 30 Minutes (Limsa Lominsa and Gridania); Two Hours (Ul'dah)
9 🌠 Final Fantasy 11 💮
It takes about as long to get out of your starting cities in Final Fantasy 11 as it would in Final Fantasy 14, but with an almost identical caveat. Once again, it boils down to which of the three cities you choose, which are more verdant, or the third - Bastok. Think of Bastok as a proto-Ul'dah; actually, don't, because Bastok has plent💦y of culture that is nꦛot at all like Ul'dah's. But I digress. There's desert surrounding it. Hence, it takes longer to touch grass. Simple enough.
Bastok's a bit swifter to reach an appropriate amount of greenery to fulfill the requirements of our very, very, very scientific demands, as the desert isn't quite so, I don't know, dry? If you𒁃 set out from San'doria or Windurst, it's about even with Limsa Lominsa and Gridania.
Estimated Time of Grassy Arrival: 30 Minutes (San'doria and Windurst); 1.5 Hours (Bastok)
8 ও Final Fantasy 6
Terra, or rather '??????' for the first little while, 🙈enters the snowy rebel town of Narshe in a big ol' Magitek Armor alongside co-pilots Biggs and Wedge. That's how Final Fantasy 6 kicks off. You're there to shoot down these fine folks, and you'll do so, until Terra becomes a problem for the Empire she serves in her own right. Not long after that, you're Locke, treasure hunter. Or thief, but don't tell him th𒐪at.
The point of all this is that you're in a snowy town for a whil🍬e. I tend to clear FF6's first location in about 25 minutes or so. Yes, your next destination is another goshdarn grassless desert. But! There's grassland on the world map along the way there. Touch it.
Estimated Time of Grassy Arrival: 25 Minutes
7 𝔍 Final Fantasy 8
✱A kickass cutscene with Squall Leonhart and Seifer Almasy trading rivalry-fueled blows via gunblades is how Final Fantasy 8 begins. It's a breathtaking opening sequence which periodically shows us glimpses of Rin𝓀oa Heartilly and Sorceress Edea as well.
When Squall awakens in Balamb Garden's infirmary, he's got a quick class, an optional tour for exchange student Selphie Tilmitt, and he's soon off with Instructor Quistis Trepe to see the Fire Cavern together. The Fir♛e Cavern is a hot spot for... I'm not finishing that sentence, this is too che🥂esy even for me.
Along the way to the Fire Cavern, there's belovඣed grassland galore, and I urge Squall to touch it. He, more than any other Final Fant💞asy protagonist, probably needs to touch grass. More so than Lightning, yes. Don't go into the forest, though. Actual dinosaurs there.
