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{{trope}}
Mode of transport late in the game that allows you to travel to nearly any location on the [[World Map]] fairly quickly. This is almost always [[Zeppelins Fromfrom Another World|something that flies]]. Often, [[Schizo-Tech|it's far beyond]] the [[Technology Levels]] of the rest of the world, having been created by the resident [[Mad Scientist]], or taken from an [[Lost Technology|ancient civilization]].
 
This is usually awarded after you've visited every part of the map in the course of the plot except one, where you will face the final [[Boss Battle]]. It allows the player to quickly access unfinished [[Sidequest|sidequests]] while avoiding the tedium of [[Random Encounters]] and the maze-like terrain of the [[World Map]]. Airship acquisition may also [[Opening the Sandbox|open up]] [[Take Your Time|many hours]] worth of sidequests.
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== Role-Playing Games ==
* The ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series [[Alternate Continuity|don't share a world]] for the most part, but one of the recurring parallels is a character named Cid, who provides an airship in the late game.
** ...except in ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]'', where Balthier's airship was a prototype model scheduled to be scrapped, but he obtained it before Archades could do so. But the building of the ship itself was probably on Cid's orders. {{spoiler|Seeing as Balthier is ''related'' to Cid, this is probably close enough.}}
** Some games in the series actually provide you with an airship early in the game, but impose limitations on it (such as being unable to land in most terrain or unable to fly over mountains). ''[[Final Fantasy III (Video Game)|Final Fantasy III]]'' actually goes through several models, ending up with a veritable behemoth of an airship complete with shop and inn, but which ''still'' can't fly over most mountains. Another type doubles as submarine and is faster, but can't pass over mountains.
*** ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|FFXII]]'' does this too, giving you the Strahl once you escape Nalbina, but as well as not being able to control it until the endgame, it's disabled for a significant time after you go to the Tomb of Raithwall (due to a fleet exploding above it), half of the places you go you can't fly to, (the entire Southern Continent is a no-fly zone), and when you go to Archades (which requires trekking across an entire continent and can take 10+ of game time), you decline to use it because it would attract too much attention.
*** ''[[Final Fantasy VIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VIII]]'' gives you {{spoiler|Balamb Garden}} halfway through Disc 2, which functions more like a hovercraft; towards the end of Disc 3 you get the Ragnarok, which plays the trope straight
** The airships in ''[[Final Fantasy VI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VI]]'' were acquired through party member Setzer. VI's Cid was a completely different, non-playable character. It's one of the few airships to suffer from a random encounter, if only one.
*** ''[[Final Fantasy III (Video Game)|FFIII]]'' [[Older Than They Think|had random encounter on airships]], with the assistance of the ship's cannons. This was only in select locations, however.
** ''[[Final Fantasy X (Video Game)|Final Fantasy X]]-2'' has the Celsius, which is manned by Yuna's sphere hunting rival Leblanc.
** ''[[Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings]]'' starts you off with an absolutely massive airship. The player can custom name this airship, and it is gradually added onto throughout the game, eventually containing the "Sky Saloon" a massive market/eatery area. On top of this, as the game goes on, {{spoiler|people gradually move in, and you have what amounts to an entire community on your hands by the end of it}}.
** However, neither ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Video Game)|Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' ever gives you an airship (although some do exist) and the respective Cids have nothing to do with them either. Not that it matters since you move on a static worldmap grid and random encounters are mostly avoidable.
** Ditto on the original ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics (Video Game)|Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', except that Airships are lost technology, {{spoiler|you actually fight the last boss on the deck of an old airship.}} Random encounters are rather less avoidable however, and there are times when an airship would have been nice.
** ''[[Final Fantasy XIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XIII]]'' averted this for the first time in the main series. The fanbase was not pleased.
*** The party doesn't make much use of them in the game due to the fact that most of the airships they find are {{spoiler|fal'Cie, and at least one is made up of the detached body parts of the [[Big Bad]]. Sazh makes a passing note on this. The party does find a honest-to-God, regular airship late in the story, but they crash it in a cutscene.}}
* Not a ship so much, but ''[[Borderlands (Video Game)|Borderlands]]'' allows you access to the "Fast Travel Network" moderately late in the game, after you "fix" it. You can only use it to visit places you've already been (and DLC, presumably to prevent "I BOUGHT IT AND IT DOESN'T WORK" complaints), and there's a bit of [[Fridge Horror]] when you realize that, since it uses the New-U stations to teleport you around, it's really just killing you in one place and recreating you in another.
* ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'' has the Epoch ([[Hello, Insert Name Here|which may be called something else]]), which not only can fly you to any part of the map, but can allow you to travel to any of the game's preset time periods.
** It doesn't really get to be a [[Global Airship]] until Dalton modifies it, adding wings. Until then it's just a time machine that's rooted in place: but it's still known as the "Wings of Time" because it can fly across time but not space.
* The car from ''[[Fallout 2 (Video Game)|Fallout 2]]'' allows you to cross the map quickly, but it still leaves you vulnerable to [[Random Encounters]] and terrain.
* Exception: ''[[Breath of Fire III (Video Game)|Breath of Fire III]]'' ditches the standard Global Airship of the series for a series of teleporters throughout the land. It cuts down on travel time, but not by much...
** The first ''[[Breath of Fire I (Video Game)|Breath of Fire I]]'' had Nina's giant bird transformation instead of an airship.
** ''[[Breath of Fire II (Video Game)|Breath of Fire II]]'' had Nina's sister in giant bird form, or a small floating continent.
* Common in the [[Tales Series(series)]]. ''[[Tales of Phantasia (Video Game)|Tales of Phantasia]]'' and ''[[Tales of Symphonia (Video Game)|Tales of Symphonia]]'' had the Rheiards, and ''[[Tales of the Abyss (Video Game)|Tales of the Abyss]]'' had the Albiore. In both cases, they are important parts of the storyline and are acquired around the third of the way, far before you reach [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]] -- although in the Albiore's case, it had to be powered up through late-game [[Sidequest|Side Quests]] before it was truly able to go everywhere.
** ''[[Tales of Vesperia (Video Game)|Tales of Vesperia]]'' also had this, with a normal sea-going ship hooked up to a flying whale.
* ''[[Secret of Mana]]'' had a cannon-based travel agency in the early parts, but later the heroes acquired a flying white dragon as their Global Airship. The sequel, ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]'', included ships, a limited cannon-travel system, and a giant sea-turtle before procuring the use of the flying white dragon which appeared in ''Secret of Mana''.
* The Fly HM move in the ''[[Pokémon]]'' series.
** As many fans will affectionately point out, this move can be used by many creatures far too small to easily carry the protagonist's backpack, let alone the protagonist, or across a region of a country. Typically, Flying-type [[Com Mons]] are capable of doing so despite their initial forms being tiny (to the point that some actually have the world "tiny" in their species descriptions in the Pokédex, such as Pidgey being a Tiny Bird Pokémon and Pidove being a Tiny Pigeon Pokémon).
* In the ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' series, the player has a literal global ''space''ship, the ''Ebon Hawk'', which can instantly transport the party between planets. However, there is usually no quick transportation between locations on the same planet (except for the "Return to Ebon Hawk/Transit Back" instant travel function in the first game). Also, in the first game, interplanetary travel was prone to [[Random Encounters|random enemy starfighter encounters]] with a [[Unexpected Gameplay Change|mandatory arcade sequence.]]
* In ''[[Skies of Arcadia (Video Game)|Skies of Arcadia]]'', which takes place on a collection of [[World in Thethe Sky|islands floating in the sky]], airships are a standard method of transportation, and you literally can't go anywhere without one. The "airship effect" of avoiding random battles and getting to places quickly is achieved by obtaining an improved engine which allows travel in the upper atmosphere. Your airship doesn't start out as "global", but various upgrades allow you to reach progressively more areas of the game until you can go everywhere.
* ''[[FinalSaGa Fantasy Legend III3]]'' (a ''[[SaGa]]'' game renamed for the American market) has a special airship: a time-and-dimension-travelling stealth jet of sorts called "the Talon". Repairing the Talon is the major focus of most of the game, and after the midpoint the Talon is finally back in the air, heavily equipped with Cannons, Missiles, shops, a free Inn and whatever other weapons and clever doohickeys the player can find scattered throughout the worlds.
* In ''[[Dragon Quest VIII (Video Game)|Dragon Quest VIII]]'', the party eventually gains the ability to transform into a magic bird ([[Party in My Pocket|collectively]], it would seem) and fly about. Before this, a certain sidequest lets you obtain a bell you can use to summon a Great Sabercat to ride, enabling faster ground travel. As part of the story before obtaining the bird power, you find a magic ship that's stuck on the shoreline. After a tiresomely long series of events, the ship is finally brought onto the water, and can be used to travel across the sea. As a nice touch, all three modes of transportation (Sabercat, ship, bird) have a unique music track.
** Same goes for ''[[Dragon Quest III (Video Game)|Dragon Quest III]]'', although this is explicitly the party riding a magical bird, and you can't use it for {{spoiler|the World of Darkness.}}
** ''[[Dragon Quest IV (Video Game)|Dragon Quest IV]]'' lets you obtain a hot air balloon.
** In ''[[Dragon Quest V (Video Game)|Dragon Quest V]]'' has first a magic carpet, then a flying castle, and eventually a dragon.
** ''[[Dragon Quest VI (Video Game)|Dragon Quest VI]]'' the plot will eventually upgrade {{spoiler|the horse that has been traveling with you since the beginning of the game into a flying Pegasus}} that will carry you around the world. Before that we get both a flying bed and a flying carpet which will also avoid any random encounters but are impeded by mountains, forests and small hills.
** ''[[Dragon Quest VII (Video Game)|Dragon Quest VII]]'' has a ship you get early on in the game to explore the world (and which is upgraded late in the game), which is sufficient to get almost anywhere. For the remaining 1% of the world, you eventually get a flying rock that will take you there.
** ''[[Dragon Quest IX (Video Game)|Dragon Quest IX]]'' starts with the ship, but later in the game you get to fly {{spoiler|the [[Cool Train|Starflight Express]]}}.
* ''[[Lufia 2 Rise of the Sinistrals]]'' had first a boat, then a ''submarine'' -- which, while slower and underwater, did fulfill many of the same functions as an airship, namely the ability to avoid encounters and access the next areas of the game. Eventually, of course, the sub got another upgrade and was an airship as well.
* The Gummi Ship in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' starts off needing to go through a rail-shooter sequence everytime you move a space on the world map. You later get a part that lets you skip this in spaces you've already visited. The second game makes this instantly available, but also makes the Gummi sequences much more fun to play.
** ''[[Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep]]'' has the protagonists transforming their Keyblades into their transport (Although it's not an actual, ship, per se). Gameplay-wise, it functions similarly to ''II'''s.
* In ''[[Blue Dragon]]'', when Zola rejoins the party shortly after you defeat the Rockwind Wolf Ghost, she arrives in a [[Global Airship|Mechat]] that you can then use to go anywhere you want.
* ''[[Golden Sun (Video Game)|Golden Sun: The Lost Age]]'' gives you a ship at about the one-third point, but it's a normal sea vessel, and you still have to deal with random encounters (just mermen and scallops). It's not until about two-thirds through the game that you get an airship, which is essentially the same ship you've been using with wings arbitrarily attached. You now get the option to choose to sail or fly, but while flying gets rid of random encounters, it also drains your [[Mana Meter]] constantly.
** Even with the wings on the ship, travel across the world takes a long time. However, in the last segment of the game, travel becomes much easier with the [[Warp Whistle|Teleport Psynergy]]; conveniently, when using it to travel to a town, the ship ends up docked at the nearest beach outside said town.
* Somewhat subverted in a rather humorous scene in ''[[Xenogears (Video Game)|Xenogears]]'', where the party acquires a massive, high-tech flying machine, only for it to be shot down by an oblivious friend. The party gets a more permanent airship later in the game.
* ''[[Arc the Lad (Video Game)|Arc the Lad]]'' has an airship in every game.
** In the fourth game, you can call your airship for fire support during battles.
* The ''[[Wild Arms]]'' games (the first three, at least) usually have some form of airship or flying mechanical dragon that serves the function of a [[Global Airship]]. The second game also had a flying castle at one point.
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* Common in the ''[[Phantasy Star]]'' series.
** In ''[[Phantasy Star III]]'', your [[Transforming Mecha|cyborg party member Wren]] becomes this when you find the right parts. You also need this to {{spoiler|access [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]].}}
* ''[[Star Ocean the Second Story (Video Game)|Star Ocean the Second Story]]'' At the halfway point in the game the party will set to tame a wild Synard. After taming it, it will act as a flying transport that can quickly take you to any location on Nede (except [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon|one]], which is conveniently blocked off by a force field), and will avoid all random encounters.
 
== Shoot Em Ups ==
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/904322"
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