#kain ff4 is of course only partly inspired by richard

[invisibletinkerer]

Dragoons

Final Fantasy II introduced the iconic character class of the Dragoon.

(As an aside, "dragoon" is actually a mistranslation. The Japanese word is 竜騎士, meaning "dragon knight". A dragoon is, historically, a particular kind of soldier who has a horse to ride for transport, but does not ride a horse in battle. That makes him more mobile than a foot soldier, but cheaper than a cavallerist since he doesn't need a trained war horse. Quite unrelated to how the term is used in English-language Final Fantasy games! But "dragon knight" sounds so generic, and I kind of like the sound of "dragoon", so I still use it.)

The dragoons of FF2 aren't really much like what the class is known for later, either. The trademark "Jump" command doesn't exist yet, and Richard's default weapon is a sword, not a spear. His armor in the original NES game is a generic knight's armor, with a helmet that covers his whole head. The WSC version (published in 2001) has changed Richard's armor into something that looks a lot more like Kain's, with a dragon themed helmet that leaves half his face bare, but that's a retcon after the fact.

What distinguishes FF2 dragoons is that they ride dragons (specifically wyverns). That's their whole gimick! I'm sad that this was dropped in the other games, although I guess it'd be hard to implement in a battle system. FF5 does feature wyverns prominently, but there's no particular connection to the dragoon class.

The playable dragoon character's name in FF2 is Richard, a name that is used in FF4 for Kain's late father, who was also a dragoon. It's a neat reference, but I have seen fans try to twist it into the two Richards being one and the same, and sadly that doesn't work at all. (Even disregarding the fact that the two games, like all main FF games, take place in completely different worlds.)

In FF2, the dragoons and their wyverns lived on the island of Dist, but were massacred by the Evil Empire before the game begins. Richard is the last surviving knight (because he was out of commission while inside Leviathan!). The other two survivors are one wyvern and her egg, and a widow named Elena and her unnamed son. Elena's husband and the boy's father was a dragoon named Philip. Richard does promise to take care of them - presumably to join their family, since they are the last of his people. But he dies during the story before he can make good on that promise. So even if the boy was Kain, as I've seen suggested, the dragoon father he would have remembered would have been Philip, not Richard.

That said, I like Richard. I can imagine it's one of those names that come up again and again within the dragoon community.