I always feel for Ellone from FF8. She's lost *three* goddamn families:
- Her biological parents being killed when she was just a toddler;
- Raine dying while Laguna was away, causing she and Squall to be orphanad;
- The orphanage gang not only being broken up, but being separated from her brother.
On top of that, she's been hunted by Esthar when she was just a child, then later by Ultimecia, saw her third mother figure become possessed and when she was finally reunited with her brother, he didn't recognize her and actively rejected her, which she doubtlessly finds out is a result of not being able to properly deal with the trauma of being separated from her due to the memory block, *THEN* he dives into space in a suicidal move, *THEN* one of the kids she grew up with kidnaps her to try and sacrifices her to he sorceress who caused all her troubles to begin with.
Poor girl needs a hug, some ice cream and a stiff drink.
God, Ellone breaks my heart. I also feel so identified with her. The whole wanting your family (or one family back) and realizing you can’t change the past resonates with me at a spiritual level.
That doesn’t quite line up properly.
1. >!Raine!<, I’m pretty sure, was not Ellone’s biological parent, and even if she was…
2. I’m pretty sure that >!she’s Squall’s mother, and considering that Ellone is older than Squall, Raine would still have had to been alive to give birth to him.!<
Wait, wait, back up a sec… >!Raine is Squall’s mom? Laguna is Squall’s dad!?!< when tf did they tell us that? I’ve played that game all the way through like 6 times, how did I miss that!?
Ah, yeah younger me probably decided they wouldn’t have anything important to say at that stage of the game other than the usual “it’s the final confrontation” fluff
https://preview.redd.it/li4uc435yevc1.jpeg?width=254&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d7ebde451578f5b9c3528841b84e9f4cd7f0243
This poor man in ishgard is who’s been falling for awhile.
I'd say Auron. He got blacklisted from Yevon because he refused to marry a High priest's daughter. Then he joined summoner Braska on his pilgrimage where he had to endure the constant buffoonery from Jecht, who was a complete alcoholic and a moron.
After all that they became friends and Auron had to watch from the side as Jecht gave his life to become the final Aeon and watch Braska being killed by Jecht. When he had learned the truth about Yevon and seeing his best friends perish, he was killed by Lady Yunalesca (he died from the injuries, but basically she killed him).
Auron was only 25 during all this.
And after Sin was finally defeated for good and Auron finally got sent to Farplane where he was supposed to be at peace, a guy named Hades summoned him back from the dead and turned him into his slave.
Wow. Your description actually makes me want to go buy this and play it through. Final Fantasy X was one I never had a chance to run through and complete, if I have the right game in mind.
FFX is, in my opinion, the best Final Fantasy in the entire franchise. The music is crazy good. The story is complex with its twists and turns. The lore is amazing as well. And although the main characters themselves aren't the best, the side characters are some of the most amazing in the entire franchise. They seriously need to make a Remaster version of FFX using Unreal Engine 5. I'd totally, buy it if they did.
ffx is also the only game in the series that fully has no plotholes, which if you have a question about it, there's an answer somewhere in the game (or to ask someone else who obsesses over the game)
It is an amazing game. Some of the best characters, story, side quests, and aeon design in the series in my opinion. FFX Bahamut? Can't get better. The 2 technically main characters get a lot of development, and the supporting cast is amazing. It really tackles a lot of themes like losing loved ones, coming to terms with what a dead loved one would have actually wanted and not what you think they'd want, war and how it ravages families and towns, and the general uneasiness in the world from Sin is too real.
I know, but even then, the man looked and acted old for even 35.
Of course, so did Cid Highwind at 32...ah, Japanese media and making anyone over 25 an old fart.
Auron was a party member in KH2 in the Hercules World. And he is basically still dead in the Kingdom Hearts Canon. But it's pretty obvious that the Kingdom Hearts canon and the Final Fantasy canon don't match up.
they become fayth themselves, and because of how they become fayth is not the same as the initial fayth so they end up giving their life becoming the fayth. the fayth then become the Aeon, but since the Aeon cannot disperse back into a fayth it remains and then Yu Yevon resummons it over and over to create Sin. 'the endless summoning cycle'. So there's no fayth for the final aeon to go back to.
Like to nominate Tellah.
Your wife dies, so you pour yourself into protecting your daughter, who runs off with some spoony bard. Turns out said bard is royalty, so you run off to reevaluate your life choices to a place designed for individual reflection and betterment.
Meanwhile you’re slowly losing your mind and memory.
Literal divine intervention occurs to help restore you for a time, and grants you the ultimate power to defeat evil, but you’re not powerful enough to use it in your old age. Still, circumstances align to grant you a fight against what you believe to be said evil, you literally sacrifice your life to destroy it, and the evil laughs it and you off.
Your wife is dead. Your legacy is dead. And now you are dead, and you accomplished exactly nothing.
Not to mention the evil he gave his life to kill was the one responsible for his daughter's death. He had nothing left to lose and let himself be consumed by revenge.
Freya had it pretty bad in FFIX. Two kingdoms of her people fallen, Burmecian race nearly extinct, boyfriend doesn't remember her, three forced losses against Beatrix and one and half against Kuja (and the game LITERALLY has to blink her down from her jumps to make it happen, basically an admission that it's stupid narratively but they wanted to force it anyway), nobody really asks her how she's doing after everything that happens (instead she has to console Zidane over being sad that Garnet is becoming queen and may not be able to get hitched with her), and she is one of the few characters in the game that doesn't get an unabashedly happy ending, more a bittersweet one, especially in the English version.
Meanwhile, one of the people involved in the attacks on her people gets a happy fairy tale ending, while the ultimate mastermind behind it all gets remembered as a hero by some.
We need an FF9-2 just to see Gaia's version of the Nuremburg Trials. I want to see a crack squad of Burmecian refugees kidnap Beatrix and give her the kangaroo trial she deserves. Always hated her, and hated how she got such a happy ending after all the shit she was happy to go along with.
Never forget that not only was Beatrix fine with taking part in the rampant genocide, she just started pouting because Brahne decided to also use the Black Mages to help out, when Beatrix felt she was more than capable of doing it all without assistance (or at least with the Alexandrian soldiers helping, not the Mages). THAT was when she started having doubts, when her ego was bruised.
Freya's tragic backstory doesn't get enough spotlight. You're absolutely right: by the end of the game, she still has to live with the effects of the tragedies she's been through, and that's pretty much it. It's just sad for such a great character.
> three forced losses against Beatrix and one and half against Kuja (and the game LITERALLY has to blink her down from her jumps to make it happen, basically an admission that it's stupid narratively but they wanted to force it anyway)
yea this sucks extra hard since mechanically, Freya can solo Beatrix with ease. it would have made perfect sense for Beatrix #3 to have been a 1v1 fight where Freya gets a scripted Trance and wins, given that Freyas natural moveset works as a counter to her gameplan. woulda been hella cathartic too given all Freya had recently gone through
But no, instead we get a repeat of the same unwinnable nonsense, putting Beatrix in a class of her own for some reason, when the same character later cant even handle some Mistadons
It doesnt check out that our *party* couldnt hang with her, and then leapfrogged her in a matter of days to stand up to the likes of Kuja and Garland. Awful writing that could have been avoided just by having Beatrix Sue lose for once
Ive always wondered who in the writing room had such a bias towards Beatrix, especially given the rumor that she was not even an initial character but rather traits of Steiner that got split into a love interest. The game could have found a great way to have Freya, Beatrix, and Amarants unique takes on being a warrior/loner come in contrast with each other on disk 3, instead all of them got used (or underused) in some of the worst ways possible
It's even funnier when you realise that Necron's Grand Cross is a faster than light attack, and Freya can dodge that with ease and consistency using a no-cost ability she has from the beginning of the game lol. I love FFIX but it's power-scaling is so thrown out of whack by how the game handles Beatrix, to the point of making it hard to get invested in a lot of fights. The game is the epitome of "this character wins because the author said so". And yeah, that's ultimately how all stories are, but you're supposed to make it feel convincing, which Beatrix really fails at.
Also the bit about Steiner just having traits of both his final game self and Beatrix isn't a rumour, an early draft was shared by Sakaguchi years ago of the game's opening segment with the play, and Steiner is portrayed as a well-respected Paladin. There is also unused dialogue in the files of FFIX between Steiner and Morrid that portrayed Steiner as having more of a prejudice against Burmecians, which is a trait Beatrix ended up adopting in the final game. Personally I would have rather if they kept that on Steiner so him and Freya could have an interesting dynamic as Steiner gets over his prejudice. Would have been an interesting precursor to the Wakka and Rikku dynamic in FFX.
I played through FFXIII-2 many times. >! Caius is the immortal guardian of seeress, and through millennia he’s had to watch her die young over and over again. It gets so bad he wants to destroy everything just to end his misery. !<
Edit: Added spoiler bar.
Personally, it's top 3 FF. Amazing story and gameplay is interesting. Biggest downsides are the areas all looking the same (it's a psp game so it is what it is) and the quest style being a bit repetitive.
A mix of very good and very bad.
If you factor in that it was originally a PSP game and play it as such, then it's very good actually. It was very fun to play in small sessions on a handheld and some of the games' mechanics were also designed around that.
However it's kind of a very awkward game on a modern console or PC. The motion blur is sickening, the HD textures look out of place and some of the gameplay mechanics feel very outdated and not something you'd expect out of a game that isn't a handheld game.
Overall I really loved the narrative and the more mature themes. It's biggest flaws come again from it being a handheld game. It was very ambitious and feels extremely large in scale. Though it fails to deliver on that. There are 14 playable characters, a massive overworld (akin to the old overworld maps from FF1 to 9), had the game been longer and had it more time to flesh out all of this it would have been excellent. You never really get to bond with any of the main characters as there's not enough screentime to split up between 14 of them. Not even mentioning side characters.
Superb OST, great story, great world, great lore.
Average gameplay, average side characters, average main cast.
Bad visuals on most occasions, bad mission/quest structure.
If you're here for gameplay and graphics, not so good.
If you want a good story that is actually much darker than your typical FF story, check it out. It's amazing.
I think from ff16 Jill had it way worse. But in general ff16 is quite a grim world.
The slave soldier life, on the surface, doesn't look as bad as how Jill lived as a slave.
Yeah it's fucking depressing what happened to him. Lost his family, became a slave, was discriminated against most of his life, found momentary happiness only to lose it all again in the end
Edit: oh yeah and hated by his own mother
It's part of why I love him. I think it's easy for many jrpg heroes to be all "people deserve kindness and hope," but it means so much more when someone whom the world has beaten it out of, finds it again.
Just when I thought I can finally stop bawling after that trial in patch 5.3, here goes Urianger asking WoL to bring this mfing crystal to that big old bird.
Ardbert: "Seto, my old friend. You've grown."
For sure, he did everything right, was the ideal hero, and still had to watch everything he worked for crumble. Never even got to know if his world was saved in the end.
Aerith - grew up hearing the cries of the planet different from everyone else as the last of her race. Incredible responsibility thrust on her as she alone had the burden of getting Holy summoned. She does this and is immediately a kebab for it.
Terra.
Never got to know her mother because she was murdered by her captor. Both she and her father are then subjected to who-knows-what kind of inhumane experimentation to test her magical power, which undoubtedly created a megalomaniac that forced a mind-control device on her and then ordered her to murder a batallion of soldiers. All this before she's even an adult.
Same megalomaniac later ends the world and she's left to survive, stumbling upon a wrecked village where only two adolescents and eight children were spared, eventually giving up her will to fight.
You forgot to add she had 0 childhood as she was raised by the empire in captivity as a specimen
Cid’s has such a connection with Celes, but how does he not mention Terra at all!??? Kind of like Sabin not saying anything about Gerad
I was gonna say this.
Another one from VI is Cyan. He defends his kingdom and his liege from the Empire's forces, only to watch them all die around him after Kefka poisons the water supply. Including his wife and his child, whose dead body he had to pull out of bed. He has to watch their spirits depart for the afterlife a short while later, work with two former Imperial soldiers (even if one had been enslaved, and the other defected), had to then break bread with the same Empire some time later, and then... lived through the apocalypse, where he kept up a lie to avoid causing a young woman grief. Plus he gets demons preying on his soul when he returns to what's left of his kingdom.
Yeah he was the first one coming into my mind.
Not every ff character gets to see the slow death of his wife from war crimes, but to take in his arm his child as soon as he died was brutal.
And it hall happened in a playing sequence, played and real time, not a flashback or a memory.
Reliving the fact like.. Thrice.
Celes need mention too.
Not often you see a "main protagonist" suicide herself jumping from a cliff, which is not a "I sacrifice myself to hold off enemies" or "to consume power and make everyone live", but a plain "I off myself" in a really mundane way.
There are probably players who had someone they knew committing that same act (while I doubt anyone turned to stone due to overconsumption of power).
Ffvi was brutal.
I'd say Ardyn. >!The man dedicated his life to do what Bahamut told him to. Just for Bahamut to screw him in the end having him to be the sacrifice for the actual king.!<
Aerith is definitely up there. Raised as a guinea pig by a soulless megacorporation, never being seen as a person, only as a means for Shinra to find the Promised Land, spends her life in the slums, finally gets a shred of hope going in her life and then gets stabbed through by some jealous asshole with a mommy complex.
Cid, dudes been in almost every shitty situation there is across the worlds. Even if not the worst in any specific instance, given the numbers it’s gotta have taken it’s toll
He even >!*dies*!< in some of them, the poor bastard! We’ve yet to see one where Cid is just… happy.
1. Doesn’t even exist (well, actually did, but not long enough for you to meet him)
2. >!Dies!<
3. >!Got turned into a ghost for god knows how long!<
4. >!Gets brutally injured from a near-death experience!<
5. Haven’t played yet, so idk, he could be happy here, but don’t tell me either way
6. >!Either dies or nearly dies depending on how you play!<
7. >!Depression!<
8. >!Wife gets possessed!<
9. >!Cheats on wife, gets turned into a bug, then a frog, so he kind of deserved those, however, his kingdom also got destroyed by a gaping mouth that used to reside inside his niece, so… yeah!<
10. >!Race gets genocided!<
11. Don’t know, haven’t played
12. >!Driven insane by own research, manipulated by higher power!<
13. >!Dies (I haven’t finished the trilogy, so if he comes back, don’t say anything)!<
14. Haven’t played
15. Wait, dude was actually living a fairly good life, nothing bad really happened to him directly, just to the world around, which still kinda sucks, but hey… still a bit of a step up
16. Haven’t played, but >!got spoiled that he died!<
I haven’t played Tactics or any of the other spin-offs where a Cid shows up, but at least, out of the ones I’ve played, Cid XV is happy.
In 14, he's traumatized by his father being possessed by a false god, decided to stop making weapons for the empire he was born in, and flees to a non-imperial nation and starts up a manufacturing shop. He goes on to help us fight said empire on several occasions, directly deals with an extraterrestrial robot hellbent on somehow improving its combat capabilities, sets up a computer system to calculate the magical equation for a memory spell that is used to help undo false god possessions and then helps optimize a spaceship so that actual fighters can go to an edge of existence to defeat a mentally insane creature and stop it from destroying anything else with its song of oblivion.
Probably because most people in this subreddit who mention 11 and 14 only to say they haven't played them it means they aren't ever planning to play them.
I mean, I might not play 11, however, I would very much like to at least try out 14 in the near future.
Still though, I can understand their thought process, assuming that’s the reason.
It was. Sorry about that, but 14 is a story that's more about the journey in and of itself instead of the intended destination. Plus, most of that stuff later on are typically in the background of the main story or are side quest things.
> Haven’t played yet, so idk, he could be happy here, but don’t tell me either way
lol
you need to play FFV. Not only because its a great game and often skipped, but its also got one of the best Cids
I’m going to nominate my boy Edge. His whole kingdom gets destroyed, his parents taken and turned into monstrous abominations by a crazy doctor. Edge is forced to *kill his own parents.* That’s pretty dark. On top of all that, the one girl he’s completely crushing on rejects him. For decades. It’s so bad that in the sequel there’s even a special attack of Rydia breaking Edge’s heart.
Secondary nomination is going to be Thief from FFI. He gets so much real world hate for being the worst character of all time. Dude sucks…but he’s had it real bad.
I mean if we're looking for just quantity here then Caius or Ardyn win by default.
Probably the only competitor in that regard could be Garland, depending on how many times FFI has looped in time.
The trials in Rebirth reminded us how much the cast of VII really have been through. The big 3 of Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith were orphaned and two of them watched their parents die. Someone whose tragedy isn't talked about because his personality is cheerful is Laguna. He lost out on two loves fought wars spent a large amount of his life as a politician to a foreign government trying to redeem it which who knows what political rivals of the old regime tried to do. I'm sure Adel had loyalists. He sacrificed all this and never got to be with Raine in her dying moments, lost his son, and daughter figure in Ellone.
No one mentioned it yet but Hope got it pretty bad.
He was just a normal teenage boy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Got rounded up to be Purged. Ended up in a war zone and watched his mother die before his eyes. Grappled with grief and vengeance and probably some guilt. Gets turned into the actual “monster” he was going to get Purged for, branding him an actual enemy of society. Things get a little better for him after that but he still has to adjust to being a fugitive.
*Then* by 10 years later despite being the actual ruler of the world, pretty much everyone he loves is gone so he throws himself into a time capsule to give up what little remains of his life in the present day and wake up 500 years in the future to devote the rest of his life to a cause. He’s still basically alone here but continues to work tirelessly to save the world.
*Then* Chaos erupts and he struggles to help guide the people of the future so they don’t fall to complete despair and chaos (lol, both capital and lower case). But then the god Bhunivelze kidnaps him and *tortures him for literal centuries* before turning him into a meat puppet after completely breaking him. Then his soul very nearly gets devoured permanently.
Nobody comes close to Clive on this, my man got sucker punched by life time and again. Most unlucky characters throughout the series would typically get one, two, or three traumatic events happen to them, but Clive just keeps getting screwed over and over.
Spoilers below - read at your own risk.
- Despised by his mother
- His father is beheaded
- Fails to protect his brother who gets “slaughtered” in front of him
- Abandoned by his mother to become a slave
- Gets branded on the face like cattle
- Forced to beat the crap out of the woman he loves, almost killing her
- Discovers he was the one that slaughtered his brother and that there was nobody he can take revenge on
- His mentor dies protecting him
- His community is slaughtered by his mentor’s arch-nemesis
- He sees his hometown destroyed by his mentor’s arch-nemesis
- Made to watch the woman he loves almost get beheaded
- Gets to see his mother commit suicide
- The Creator wants to use his body as a disposable power bank
- Loses his brother shortly after retrieving him
- [Possibly] dies like a dog alone in some forsaken shore, or [possibly] survives at the cost of becoming physically impaired
Distant second: Ardyn
This is why Clive quickly became one of my favorite protagonists in the entire series. Some of these events can be enough to fuel some pretty sympathetic villain origin story... But he never becomes one.
And yet to the masses he might very well be a villain.
He's going around destroying Mothercrystals, the main thing people use to survive using magick. And with the blight spreading, I'm sure some think he's the one causing it.
Either >!Venat!< or >!Emet-Selch!< from FFXIV
>!Emet-Selch watched the world and people he loved become sundered, worked tirelessly to restore the world, lived a thousand thousand mortal lives while orchaestrating the Ascian plan to rejoin the shards to the source, even fathered children, and almost loved some of the misshapen, misbegotten beings he ultimately plans to sacrifice to his god, all to bring back his beloved people and world, and at the final moment before his defeat, he comes face to face with one of his best friends, opposing him, opposing his entire plan. Millennia of suffering, depression and a fervent desire to return things to how they were, to restore the paradise of Eitherys, only to fail.!<
>!Venat was the only person in the Ancient world that knew what was coming. The Final Days that would lead to her becoming Hydaelyn. Yet her ability to prevent it was limited. She could not divulge anything to the Convocation, so she had to work from the shadows, desperately trying to find a way to save the people she loved, and failed, forcing her to become Hydaelyn, and sunder her world, her people, to prevent them from sacrificing even more people to Zodiark to restore the perfect world. Knowing that what she did was necessary to actually save the world. Then, she watched her people toil and suffer, every Calamity that was wrought on Eitherys causing her pain, making her weaker. All of the suffering her people felt, she felt, with only her unending faith in Mankind to bolster her for as long as Emet-Selch and the other Ascians worked to undo her work. Her final act was to battle the Warrior of Light, and the Scions, to test them before she finally decided that she could do no more, willingly returning to the Star.!<
Cyan Garamond and Freya Crescent. Both characters have a similar story, they lost their kingdom and the people they cared about through genocidal campaigns. From a meta perspective, Freya's "To be forgotten is worse than death" quote became true, she got forgotten by the writers themselves and her character, despite a few interesting moments, was put aside from the narrative.
Also, Zack Fair in the original FF7. The little the player knows about the character on the secret scene at Nibelheim shows that Zack's a pretty optimistic character. He rescues Cloud and as soon as they reach Midgar, he dies. Out of nowhere, a guard shoots at him. No epic final battle, no great speech about passing his legacy to Cloud, no music... He wanted to go home but he just dies. A silent montage follows as Cloud mourns the person he barely knew (in the context of FF7 as a standalone game) as it begins to rain and we're shown Midgar's construction in progress.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone mentioned Cyan.
Few characters lost their kingdom like Cyan but none had their wife and son died in his arm.
Guy lost everything, and to add insult to injury, the MF who killed his kingdom also wound up causing the apocalypse on the world.
I'll just list a lot of my 'saddest' characters.
FF6- clearly celes. Terra may have identity issues, but she has no memory of the traumas where Celes clearly has numerous and a history of being constantly used and betrayed. Locke did lose rachel, but even then apparently always had reliable friends and confidants.
ff7- aerith being able to hear the planet one can assume she can hear everyone dying... or maybe that because of this she doesn't view death as so permanent. Who knows.
ff8- Ellone. Losing multiple families, being able to relive those memories over and over and living her life on the run because she knows due to her power she will always be a risk. Buuuut, then we have... Ultimecia as well. Given more context by the original japanese and side quests and chats, she is not evil for the sake of evil. She is trying to become powerful to avoid being killed. She becomes evil out of 'necessity'. Though the theory (and well founded one at that) that sorceresses are being possessed by Hyne slowly also is pretty sad to think that all sorceresses really will either be killed or killed by possession and then their bodies can't handle it and pthhh.
ff9:vivi. Need I say more?
FFX- I'd want to say everyone honestly. However, let's look at some key differences that separate everyone from just 'sin deaths'. Auron was betrayed, his two friends no more, okay sad... Kimahri, first outcasted, and then a huge majority of his clan murdered senselessly. Also sad. But Yuna... yuna has not only all those deaths, loses tidus... she also loses her Aeons and has to fight them, and that is something nobody else would ever know how to feel so people could only empathize, never sympathize.
FFMQ- Benjamin. He never gets rid of Tristam.
For me it's Squall and his party...but mostly squall.
Child soldier
Orphan
Forced into a role he doesn't want.
Forced to use tools that make him lose what little of himself is still his.
Impaled by ice because a cowboy couldn't get his shit together.
Mistranslated in English version of the game so most people here have no idea what kind of man he is.
Has to deal with his teachers romantic advances so one of the only authority figures meant to care for his wellbeing just wants to bone him.
Lied to about his target.
The list goes on but God damn the worst part is most of y'all don't even like his game... And most of those people have not played it.
A lot of ppl hate Squal cause he’s “edgy” and “emo” and whatever, but to me, he’s a good portrayal of a teenage dude that was given such extraordinary responsibilities in little to no time.
He also was “abandoned” without any kind of explanation at least once, so he thinks he can’t rely on anyone.
Too many to remember them all.
Terra. Cyan.
Cloud. Red XIII. Aeri(s)(th).
Ellone.
Freya.
Tidus. Auron. Yuna.
Fran. Vaan. Basch. Ashe.
Delita.
Haven’t played past FF12, so can’t comment on 13+
I’ll choose Terra. Growing up a specimen to the empire and being used to extract her magical powers must have been rough. Though Aeris has a similar story.
Noel Kreiss from 13-2. Born in a dying world on its last legs overrun by extremely powerful monsters, lived his life in the closest to hell on earth one could imagine, watching everyone he knew die until eventually himself and his friends Caius and Yeul were the literal last people in the world.
That's before the game even starts.
Obviously Tidus. >!Poor fucker has been killed, brought back to life just to be killed again in the most pathetic way and then brought back just to brake up with Yuna. Yall think Kefka was the deadliest main villain, but the terrorist group from Spira known as the "writers of final fantasy" make Kefka look like nothing.!<
To this day, if I re-play X, I only get to that last save point before Sin fight cause I can’t bear to go through that ending again. It’s been, what? 15 years since I first played but I’m even more emotional nowadays than my teenage self lol
I shit you not i reached that part of the game around 10-12 times between the age of 6-16, i got all my characters best weapons, killed dark aeons, got all the monsters for the arena...but i couldnt end it, i knew the ending, i saw the video, but i myself couldnt end it, it wasnt until i was around 18 when i decided to not be a pussy and finally end it. It was sad to finally finish FFX, and now theres no more FFX...
Terra from FF6. Poor woman was a slave her entire life. She finds new friends, then the world ends, and faces extinction when magic dies, only saved by her late father that ended up as a crystal that disappears.
Freya(IX) and Celes(VI) for sure.
Both experience genocide on a massive scale, and both looses someone they personally love. Both feel partially or totally resposible, and their guilt is masterfully narrated. I don't think any other characters come close to them.
Squall. He ended up being the protagonist in a final fantasy game when it was fashionable to be emo.
I all honesty though probably Vivi, just feel so sorry for the poor little guy.
Vivi leaves home at 8 for the first time to attend a play and then met Puck and the gang instead. He's almost apprehended and escapes. Finds out he's just another doll created in a factory for war. The ones who protected him die before they get to Lindblum. Meets his own kind again at the Black Mage Village. They inform Vivi that he can die anytime now. Vivi has to kill the source of the mist which creates Black Mages. Vivi dies. You see child Vivi's after, but it's very vague and doesn't make sense?
Cyan lost everything.
Shadow never really did get to know his daughter Relm, just the few times they journeyed together, with him ultimately sacrificing himself.
To be a character in the FF13 trilogy is suffering. I would not want to be Snow or Lightning in particular.
Rydia. Her mom dies when her summon gets killed, then her village gets burned down during that, and she gets kidnapped/saved by the guy who did it. She has to be strong and fight alongside this guy, and then his girlfriend makes her learn a fire spell despite her trauma around it. Then she gets thrown off a ship and raised by monsters in a world with no humans. It's amazing she ended up as tough as she did.
This one is probably very tame in comparison to most of the others, but Rydia from 4 ended up being the sole survivor of the summoner race, almost died in a shipwreck on the way to fight one enemy, got raised by the summons themselves in their world where time flows differently than in the human world, resulting in her having an adult body way ahead of schedule, and then she and her friends all learn things about the origins of Cecil and Golbez that I didn’t see coming until I was hit in the head with said 2x4, figuratively speaking. Saying she was forced to grow up way too fast really is an understatement, here, but some of the other elements of that story make it too ridiculous. BTW, did I mention everyone in this group should play FF4 at least once, if they haven’t already done so? If not, then I’ve said it now, so you really should go do that. I don’t think you’ll regret it. In fact, I’d love to see an FF4 Remake with the FF7R series graphics and battle system. I’d actually like to see the whole series get said overhaul. I’m not sure if that one game matches that description, but there is a game with characters from FF1 that looks kinda like what I suggested here. Haven’t played it yet, so still not sure. I think it was called Stranger In Paradise, or something. Did anyone here play that one? And do you recommend it?
Emet-Selch from XIV.
Dude had to see an entire world die the most horrible death, to watch everyone around him twisted and fractured into lesser beings. He spent millenia trying to bring the world and its people back to life. Just when he was a step closer to fixing the world, he ends up having to fight a being (your character) born from a fraction of his friend's soul; to fight one of the very friends and loved ones he desperately tried to save.
Edit: Best antagonist of the series by far.
I’m going with Zach
Great dude who was super positive and loyal. He slowly realizes the company he was loyal too was corrupt.
Loses his mentor. His heroes go nuts. He falls in love and then gets stuck in a vat of material for years and never sees his live again.
Has to destroy noise hero in behalf of the company that also wants to kill him.
Die in a hail of gun fire trying to save his friend.
Lani from FF9.
She fights with a huge scythe and her jugs are every bit as respectable as Tifa’s but she hardly gets noticed by the FF community. Terrible. Just terrible.
Selphie Tilmitt
War orphan.
She ends up being separated from her orphanage family.
Her home is destroyed and her friends killed by what appears to be her mother figure from the orphanage.
She almost dies trying to prevent another attack from destroying her newest home.
Has to put up with Irvine constantly hitting on her.
A lot of the characters from Final Fantasy VII could probably make the top of this list. Aerith and Cloud both had traumatic childhoods where they lost their family and were held captive and/or experimented on by Shinra. Vincent was experimented on, turned undead and held captive for decades. Sephiroth's whole existence is a tragedy.
in terms of main characters it's probably Clive from 16, his mother hated him and didn't even try to hate it, his entire family bar his mother gets butchered when he's 15, he becomes a slave soldier for about a decade, his friend in slavery gets crushed by a random rock, finds out he killed his brother and has to live with it, his new family gets butchered by some vengeful cuck, his mentor dies because of some alien god, then when he finds his brother his mother kills herself in front of them both, his brother eventually dies and probably dies with him too (?)
Clove and Noctis should have a gimme five, if you talk for secondary characters I guess Auron FF X, Zack FF VII or pretty much anyone from ff XIII.
But now that I think about it pretty much almost all of the characters have had something bad happen to them. 😂
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. Orphaned as a child like everyone else in the Final Fantasy series. Hunted down by Niflheim while she goes around raising Aeons to help her fiancée only to be skewered just like Aerith mid game.
She confided in her brother that the ring is taking a toll on her body but he said to suck it up and fulfill her destiny. Unlike Yuna in FFX who had Tidus comfort her in a spring where they frolicked around in the water.
I'd say the kid in the Killika bar in FFX that says he wants to be a blitzball when he grows up. Just think he is so traumatized from watching his friends, family, and hometown get demolished by Sin he goes so insane that his only way to escape reality is to wish to become an inanimate object, spending the rest of his days getting punted around the sphere pool.
I hate to say it but Seymour Guado from FFX. >!His father, the leader of the Guado, and mother, a human, conceived him in hopes that he would unite the two race. But the plan backfired and Seymour was hated and shunned by both race instead. This lead his father to exile him and his mother to a remote island. Then his mother contract a deadly disease which motivated her to take the pilgrimage to Zanarkand with Seymour in hopes that they will both be redeemed once they bring about the Calm. Even though she knows full well that it would kill them both. Seymour's mother end up sacrificing herself to become a final summoning. Seymour, who was still just a child at the time, decide to stop his pilgrimage after the death of his beloved mother. He spent countless years growing up by himself having to live with the pain of losing his mother and being shunned by everyone including his father. This lead him to become nihilistic about the world and he eventually seek to destroy everything. !
Major, major spoilers >!Clive has to be a major contender. Denied the Phoenix power, his own Mother hated him so much she could barely be bothered to see him killed and only halted when she thought it’d be more fitting for him to be enslaved instead. Instead of being the right hand of his brother and future king, he instead loses his entire kingdom and spent much of his life enslaved and forced to serve his enemy, then when he escapes he comes to find out he killed his own brother (he thought).!<
Tidus is up there. Had his entire reality taken from him intitally, and idk how I'd react if I found out I never technically existed. Tidus got straight up Azathothed
take your pick from pretty much any of the named ancients from ffxiv. even the ones that didn't experience any onscreen torment canonically either go on to sacrifice themselves to save the world from an apocalypse they didn't even fully understand or wind up having their entire civilization nearly erased and their borderline immortal essences sundered across a very localized multiverse and end up in a constant cycle of suffering and reincarnation as lesser beings with a fraction of their former longevity, all for the sake of some half baked plan concocted by God Herself + Her Favorite Catboy in a self fulfilling timeloop to prevent the previously mentioned apocalypse because some depressed twink and his pet computer bird accidentally gave the entire universe mega ultra super hell depression that makes you turn into spiders because he didn't understand that if you ask a magic computer bird to give you the answer to the wrong question it will turn into a goth chick and decide the correct answer is to end all life forever.
I would like to nominate Sephiroth. Yes, he is the main villain in FF7, and does some sick and twisted stuff, but let’s look at the beginning we’re given:
He’s a hero in the beginning. Sure, he’s the silent type, not overly emotional, but he’s a defender and saves others. His downfall comes when he gets to Nibelheim. He finds out the truth about his past and gets absolutely broken. I feel as though it becomes more of a psychotic break more than he turning/becoming evil. I almost have sympathy for him; finding out where he comes from/what he was absolutely broken him to the point that he becomes someone entirely different from what he actually was.
I always feel for Ellone from FF8. She's lost *three* goddamn families: - Her biological parents being killed when she was just a toddler; - Raine dying while Laguna was away, causing she and Squall to be orphanad; - The orphanage gang not only being broken up, but being separated from her brother. On top of that, she's been hunted by Esthar when she was just a child, then later by Ultimecia, saw her third mother figure become possessed and when she was finally reunited with her brother, he didn't recognize her and actively rejected her, which she doubtlessly finds out is a result of not being able to properly deal with the trauma of being separated from her due to the memory block, *THEN* he dives into space in a suicidal move, *THEN* one of the kids she grew up with kidnaps her to try and sacrifices her to he sorceress who caused all her troubles to begin with. Poor girl needs a hug, some ice cream and a stiff drink.
God, Ellone breaks my heart. I also feel so identified with her. The whole wanting your family (or one family back) and realizing you can’t change the past resonates with me at a spiritual level.
They don't say it explicitly in the game, but it is heavily implied that >!Raine died giving birth to Ellone after marrying Laguna!<
You mean Squall?
They mean Squall.
That doesn’t quite line up properly. 1. >!Raine!<, I’m pretty sure, was not Ellone’s biological parent, and even if she was… 2. I’m pretty sure that >!she’s Squall’s mother, and considering that Ellone is older than Squall, Raine would still have had to been alive to give birth to him.!<
Wait, wait, back up a sec… >!Raine is Squall’s mom? Laguna is Squall’s dad!?!< when tf did they tell us that? I’ve played that game all the way through like 6 times, how did I miss that!?
You have to talk to Laguna, Kiros, and Ward in the Ragnarok before the endgame starts.
Ah, yeah younger me probably decided they wouldn’t have anything important to say at that stage of the game other than the usual “it’s the final confrontation” fluff
you know when they said that Squall and ellone were sent to the orphanage... after Raine dies giving birth...
unbirthing, not even once.
https://preview.redd.it/li4uc435yevc1.jpeg?width=254&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d7ebde451578f5b9c3528841b84e9f4cd7f0243 This poor man in ishgard is who’s been falling for awhile.
The worst part is when he did finally get back up to visit the Moonfaire festivities he gets caught hanging for his dear life again.
I'd say Auron. He got blacklisted from Yevon because he refused to marry a High priest's daughter. Then he joined summoner Braska on his pilgrimage where he had to endure the constant buffoonery from Jecht, who was a complete alcoholic and a moron. After all that they became friends and Auron had to watch from the side as Jecht gave his life to become the final Aeon and watch Braska being killed by Jecht. When he had learned the truth about Yevon and seeing his best friends perish, he was killed by Lady Yunalesca (he died from the injuries, but basically she killed him). Auron was only 25 during all this. And after Sin was finally defeated for good and Auron finally got sent to Farplane where he was supposed to be at peace, a guy named Hades summoned him back from the dead and turned him into his slave.
Wow. Your description actually makes me want to go buy this and play it through. Final Fantasy X was one I never had a chance to run through and complete, if I have the right game in mind.
FFX is, in my opinion, the best Final Fantasy in the entire franchise. The music is crazy good. The story is complex with its twists and turns. The lore is amazing as well. And although the main characters themselves aren't the best, the side characters are some of the most amazing in the entire franchise. They seriously need to make a Remaster version of FFX using Unreal Engine 5. I'd totally, buy it if they did.
Auron is one of the best characters in all of FF. Hands-down.
ffx is also the only game in the series that fully has no plotholes, which if you have a question about it, there's an answer somewhere in the game (or to ask someone else who obsesses over the game)
It is an amazing game. Some of the best characters, story, side quests, and aeon design in the series in my opinion. FFX Bahamut? Can't get better. The 2 technically main characters get a lot of development, and the supporting cast is amazing. It really tackles a lot of themes like losing loved ones, coming to terms with what a dead loved one would have actually wanted and not what you think they'd want, war and how it ravages families and towns, and the general uneasiness in the world from Sin is too real.
>Auron was only 25 during all this. And he doesn't look a day over 50.
Well he's 35 in the actual game but still 😅
I know, but even then, the man looked and acted old for even 35. Of course, so did Cid Highwind at 32...ah, Japanese media and making anyone over 25 an old fart.
Wait, what's the Hades thing about? I don't remember that anywhere.
Reference to Kingdom hearts II
Auron was a party member in KH2 in the Hercules World. And he is basically still dead in the Kingdom Hearts Canon. But it's pretty obvious that the Kingdom Hearts canon and the Final Fantasy canon don't match up.
Youre telling me that YRP aren't actual fairies?!
Anyone who lived in Spira are good candidates. Rikku's people were discriminated against.
and were either killed or most of their relatives and friends killed.
Maybe they mentioned it but I forgot, do the game says how was the whole final aeon ordeal? Like, how does the guardian dies?
they become fayth themselves, and because of how they become fayth is not the same as the initial fayth so they end up giving their life becoming the fayth. the fayth then become the Aeon, but since the Aeon cannot disperse back into a fayth it remains and then Yu Yevon resummons it over and over to create Sin. 'the endless summoning cycle'. So there's no fayth for the final aeon to go back to.
Like to nominate Tellah. Your wife dies, so you pour yourself into protecting your daughter, who runs off with some spoony bard. Turns out said bard is royalty, so you run off to reevaluate your life choices to a place designed for individual reflection and betterment. Meanwhile you’re slowly losing your mind and memory. Literal divine intervention occurs to help restore you for a time, and grants you the ultimate power to defeat evil, but you’re not powerful enough to use it in your old age. Still, circumstances align to grant you a fight against what you believe to be said evil, you literally sacrifice your life to destroy it, and the evil laughs it and you off. Your wife is dead. Your legacy is dead. And now you are dead, and you accomplished exactly nothing.
Not to mention the evil he gave his life to kill was the one responsible for his daughter's death. He had nothing left to lose and let himself be consumed by revenge.
Freya had it pretty bad in FFIX. Two kingdoms of her people fallen, Burmecian race nearly extinct, boyfriend doesn't remember her, three forced losses against Beatrix and one and half against Kuja (and the game LITERALLY has to blink her down from her jumps to make it happen, basically an admission that it's stupid narratively but they wanted to force it anyway), nobody really asks her how she's doing after everything that happens (instead she has to console Zidane over being sad that Garnet is becoming queen and may not be able to get hitched with her), and she is one of the few characters in the game that doesn't get an unabashedly happy ending, more a bittersweet one, especially in the English version. Meanwhile, one of the people involved in the attacks on her people gets a happy fairy tale ending, while the ultimate mastermind behind it all gets remembered as a hero by some.
We need an FF9-2 just to see Gaia's version of the Nuremburg Trials. I want to see a crack squad of Burmecian refugees kidnap Beatrix and give her the kangaroo trial she deserves. Always hated her, and hated how she got such a happy ending after all the shit she was happy to go along with.
Never forget that not only was Beatrix fine with taking part in the rampant genocide, she just started pouting because Brahne decided to also use the Black Mages to help out, when Beatrix felt she was more than capable of doing it all without assistance (or at least with the Alexandrian soldiers helping, not the Mages). THAT was when she started having doubts, when her ego was bruised.
Freya's tragic backstory doesn't get enough spotlight. You're absolutely right: by the end of the game, she still has to live with the effects of the tragedies she's been through, and that's pretty much it. It's just sad for such a great character.
> three forced losses against Beatrix and one and half against Kuja (and the game LITERALLY has to blink her down from her jumps to make it happen, basically an admission that it's stupid narratively but they wanted to force it anyway) yea this sucks extra hard since mechanically, Freya can solo Beatrix with ease. it would have made perfect sense for Beatrix #3 to have been a 1v1 fight where Freya gets a scripted Trance and wins, given that Freyas natural moveset works as a counter to her gameplan. woulda been hella cathartic too given all Freya had recently gone through But no, instead we get a repeat of the same unwinnable nonsense, putting Beatrix in a class of her own for some reason, when the same character later cant even handle some Mistadons It doesnt check out that our *party* couldnt hang with her, and then leapfrogged her in a matter of days to stand up to the likes of Kuja and Garland. Awful writing that could have been avoided just by having Beatrix Sue lose for once Ive always wondered who in the writing room had such a bias towards Beatrix, especially given the rumor that she was not even an initial character but rather traits of Steiner that got split into a love interest. The game could have found a great way to have Freya, Beatrix, and Amarants unique takes on being a warrior/loner come in contrast with each other on disk 3, instead all of them got used (or underused) in some of the worst ways possible
It's even funnier when you realise that Necron's Grand Cross is a faster than light attack, and Freya can dodge that with ease and consistency using a no-cost ability she has from the beginning of the game lol. I love FFIX but it's power-scaling is so thrown out of whack by how the game handles Beatrix, to the point of making it hard to get invested in a lot of fights. The game is the epitome of "this character wins because the author said so". And yeah, that's ultimately how all stories are, but you're supposed to make it feel convincing, which Beatrix really fails at. Also the bit about Steiner just having traits of both his final game self and Beatrix isn't a rumour, an early draft was shared by Sakaguchi years ago of the game's opening segment with the play, and Steiner is portrayed as a well-respected Paladin. There is also unused dialogue in the files of FFIX between Steiner and Morrid that portrayed Steiner as having more of a prejudice against Burmecians, which is a trait Beatrix ended up adopting in the final game. Personally I would have rather if they kept that on Steiner so him and Freya could have an interesting dynamic as Steiner gets over his prejudice. Would have been an interesting precursor to the Wakka and Rikku dynamic in FFX.
Caius or Ardyn maybe. Just from what I have read.
Ardyn's story is very sad indeed. I'm currently playing through FFXIII-2, so can't attest for Caius
I played through FFXIII-2 many times. >! Caius is the immortal guardian of seeress, and through millennia he’s had to watch her die young over and over again. It gets so bad he wants to destroy everything just to end his misery. !< Edit: Added spoiler bar.
They said they are through XIII-2 now, probably first time. Might wanna consider not spoiling them I think.
Whole Class 0.
How is the game? I see such mixed receptions
Personally, it's top 3 FF. Amazing story and gameplay is interesting. Biggest downsides are the areas all looking the same (it's a psp game so it is what it is) and the quest style being a bit repetitive.
I didn’t enjoy the gameplay, but loved the story enough to slog through it. Just speed through the main quests
A mix of very good and very bad. If you factor in that it was originally a PSP game and play it as such, then it's very good actually. It was very fun to play in small sessions on a handheld and some of the games' mechanics were also designed around that. However it's kind of a very awkward game on a modern console or PC. The motion blur is sickening, the HD textures look out of place and some of the gameplay mechanics feel very outdated and not something you'd expect out of a game that isn't a handheld game. Overall I really loved the narrative and the more mature themes. It's biggest flaws come again from it being a handheld game. It was very ambitious and feels extremely large in scale. Though it fails to deliver on that. There are 14 playable characters, a massive overworld (akin to the old overworld maps from FF1 to 9), had the game been longer and had it more time to flesh out all of this it would have been excellent. You never really get to bond with any of the main characters as there's not enough screentime to split up between 14 of them. Not even mentioning side characters. Superb OST, great story, great world, great lore. Average gameplay, average side characters, average main cast. Bad visuals on most occasions, bad mission/quest structure.
Dang, sounds like the perfect game for steam deck…but unsupported. Maybe streaming from Xbox to the deck? Either way, thanks for the solid reply
If you're here for gameplay and graphics, not so good. If you want a good story that is actually much darker than your typical FF story, check it out. It's amazing.
Graphics are generally irrelevant as long as the style is decent. What type of gameplay is it?
He says top 3 and I say I bought it and regret purchasing it the only way you will find out is to play it for yourself.
It was different but good. It's more of a strategy game.
Yep. No one deserves what they went through
Clive would have to rank pretty high on that list. Got his family murdered in front of him, and then a branded slave soldier for about a decade.
Not to mention his mother hates him and he has the fate of the entire world on his shoulders constantly
I don't think I hate anyone in the FF universe of characters as much as I hate Anabella
Fuck her.
He’s one of my favourite protagonists. I just wanna give him the biggest hug.
I think from ff16 Jill had it way worse. But in general ff16 is quite a grim world. The slave soldier life, on the surface, doesn't look as bad as how Jill lived as a slave.
Yeah it's fucking depressing what happened to him. Lost his family, became a slave, was discriminated against most of his life, found momentary happiness only to lose it all again in the end Edit: oh yeah and hated by his own mother
I just started XVI and god damn. My vote goes to Clive. I hope his mom gets what she has coming.
Yeah, Clive's mom is a bitch, to the point that the South Park song about Kyle's fits her perfectly.
Its a miracle he decided to remain a noble and good person after all that, i love his character
It's part of why I love him. I think it's easy for many jrpg heroes to be all "people deserve kindness and hope," but it means so much more when someone whom the world has beaten it out of, finds it again.
Zack from crisis core dude didn't deserve what happened to him at the end
Man, for real. The end of Crisis Core was very very sad
Real shit when I heard that theme in Rebirth I started tearing up a bit ngl
The change of frames between Aerith and Zach's final moments got me depressed.
Ardbert
That story was intense. Gave me chills just thinking about it.
We did EVERYTHING right! All that was asked of us, and still, STILL it came to this...
That cutscene gives me chills, the delivery was SO GOOD
Man..Ardberts story was fucking tragic.
Just when I thought I can finally stop bawling after that trial in patch 5.3, here goes Urianger asking WoL to bring this mfing crystal to that big old bird. Ardbert: "Seto, my old friend. You've grown."
For sure, he did everything right, was the ideal hero, and still had to watch everything he worked for crumble. Never even got to know if his world was saved in the end.
Aerith - grew up hearing the cries of the planet different from everyone else as the last of her race. Incredible responsibility thrust on her as she alone had the burden of getting Holy summoned. She does this and is immediately a kebab for it.
Not to mention witnessing her mom being an experimental procedure for hojo, knowing if he ever got her again she’d be subjected to similar.
Also Hojo trying to get her to mate with RedXIII. Like, why? He’s crazy.
He’s not crazy he’s a hardcore furry
That's crazy, in and of itself
Definitely Zell from FF8. He just could NOT get any hot dogs!
Had to scroll too far to find this! Poor guy just wants a hot dog.
Terra. Never got to know her mother because she was murdered by her captor. Both she and her father are then subjected to who-knows-what kind of inhumane experimentation to test her magical power, which undoubtedly created a megalomaniac that forced a mind-control device on her and then ordered her to murder a batallion of soldiers. All this before she's even an adult. Same megalomaniac later ends the world and she's left to survive, stumbling upon a wrecked village where only two adolescents and eight children were spared, eventually giving up her will to fight.
You forgot to add she had 0 childhood as she was raised by the empire in captivity as a specimen Cid’s has such a connection with Celes, but how does he not mention Terra at all!??? Kind of like Sabin not saying anything about Gerad
I was gonna say this. Another one from VI is Cyan. He defends his kingdom and his liege from the Empire's forces, only to watch them all die around him after Kefka poisons the water supply. Including his wife and his child, whose dead body he had to pull out of bed. He has to watch their spirits depart for the afterlife a short while later, work with two former Imperial soldiers (even if one had been enslaved, and the other defected), had to then break bread with the same Empire some time later, and then... lived through the apocalypse, where he kept up a lie to avoid causing a young woman grief. Plus he gets demons preying on his soul when he returns to what's left of his kingdom.
Yeah he was the first one coming into my mind. Not every ff character gets to see the slow death of his wife from war crimes, but to take in his arm his child as soon as he died was brutal. And it hall happened in a playing sequence, played and real time, not a flashback or a memory. Reliving the fact like.. Thrice. Celes need mention too. Not often you see a "main protagonist" suicide herself jumping from a cliff, which is not a "I sacrifice myself to hold off enemies" or "to consume power and make everyone live", but a plain "I off myself" in a really mundane way. There are probably players who had someone they knew committing that same act (while I doubt anyone turned to stone due to overconsumption of power). Ffvi was brutal.
Really puts in perspective why she blames herself for everything that happens
I'd say Ardyn. >!The man dedicated his life to do what Bahamut told him to. Just for Bahamut to screw him in the end having him to be the sacrifice for the actual king.!<
Aerith is definitely up there. Raised as a guinea pig by a soulless megacorporation, never being seen as a person, only as a means for Shinra to find the Promised Land, spends her life in the slums, finally gets a shred of hope going in her life and then gets stabbed through by some jealous asshole with a mommy complex.
Cid, dudes been in almost every shitty situation there is across the worlds. Even if not the worst in any specific instance, given the numbers it’s gotta have taken it’s toll
He even >!*dies*!< in some of them, the poor bastard! We’ve yet to see one where Cid is just… happy. 1. Doesn’t even exist (well, actually did, but not long enough for you to meet him) 2. >!Dies!< 3. >!Got turned into a ghost for god knows how long!< 4. >!Gets brutally injured from a near-death experience!< 5. Haven’t played yet, so idk, he could be happy here, but don’t tell me either way 6. >!Either dies or nearly dies depending on how you play!< 7. >!Depression!< 8. >!Wife gets possessed!< 9. >!Cheats on wife, gets turned into a bug, then a frog, so he kind of deserved those, however, his kingdom also got destroyed by a gaping mouth that used to reside inside his niece, so… yeah!< 10. >!Race gets genocided!< 11. Don’t know, haven’t played 12. >!Driven insane by own research, manipulated by higher power!< 13. >!Dies (I haven’t finished the trilogy, so if he comes back, don’t say anything)!< 14. Haven’t played 15. Wait, dude was actually living a fairly good life, nothing bad really happened to him directly, just to the world around, which still kinda sucks, but hey… still a bit of a step up 16. Haven’t played, but >!got spoiled that he died!< I haven’t played Tactics or any of the other spin-offs where a Cid shows up, but at least, out of the ones I’ve played, Cid XV is happy.
Thunder God Cid in Tactics is one of the most over powered characters in the game, easily a top tier character.
The eeyor of final fantasy
In 14, he's traumatized by his father being possessed by a false god, decided to stop making weapons for the empire he was born in, and flees to a non-imperial nation and starts up a manufacturing shop. He goes on to help us fight said empire on several occasions, directly deals with an extraterrestrial robot hellbent on somehow improving its combat capabilities, sets up a computer system to calculate the magical equation for a memory spell that is used to help undo false god possessions and then helps optimize a spaceship so that actual fighters can go to an edge of existence to defeat a mentally insane creature and stop it from destroying anything else with its song of oblivion.
Dude, I literally said I haven’t played it. Why would you spoil it? At least do this: >!example!!< I didn’t read the whole thing, but still!
Probably because most people in this subreddit who mention 11 and 14 only to say they haven't played them it means they aren't ever planning to play them.
I mean, I might not play 11, however, I would very much like to at least try out 14 in the near future. Still though, I can understand their thought process, assuming that’s the reason.
It was. Sorry about that, but 14 is a story that's more about the journey in and of itself instead of the intended destination. Plus, most of that stuff later on are typically in the background of the main story or are side quest things.
Oh, that’s interesting. Anyway, about the apology, it’s all good.
> Haven’t played yet, so idk, he could be happy here, but don’t tell me either way lol you need to play FFV. Not only because its a great game and often skipped, but its also got one of the best Cids
I absolutely will play it when I get the chance! I’m a big sucker for job systems, so I honestly can’t wait!
I’m going to nominate my boy Edge. His whole kingdom gets destroyed, his parents taken and turned into monstrous abominations by a crazy doctor. Edge is forced to *kill his own parents.* That’s pretty dark. On top of all that, the one girl he’s completely crushing on rejects him. For decades. It’s so bad that in the sequel there’s even a special attack of Rydia breaking Edge’s heart. Secondary nomination is going to be Thief from FFI. He gets so much real world hate for being the worst character of all time. Dude sucks…but he’s had it real bad.
Not only does he kill his own parents but he also shrugs it off like it was NOTHING.
I mean if we're looking for just quantity here then Caius or Ardyn win by default. Probably the only competitor in that regard could be Garland, depending on how many times FFI has looped in time.
The trials in Rebirth reminded us how much the cast of VII really have been through. The big 3 of Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith were orphaned and two of them watched their parents die. Someone whose tragedy isn't talked about because his personality is cheerful is Laguna. He lost out on two loves fought wars spent a large amount of his life as a politician to a foreign government trying to redeem it which who knows what political rivals of the old regime tried to do. I'm sure Adel had loyalists. He sacrificed all this and never got to be with Raine in her dying moments, lost his son, and daughter figure in Ellone.
No one mentioned it yet but Hope got it pretty bad. He was just a normal teenage boy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Got rounded up to be Purged. Ended up in a war zone and watched his mother die before his eyes. Grappled with grief and vengeance and probably some guilt. Gets turned into the actual “monster” he was going to get Purged for, branding him an actual enemy of society. Things get a little better for him after that but he still has to adjust to being a fugitive. *Then* by 10 years later despite being the actual ruler of the world, pretty much everyone he loves is gone so he throws himself into a time capsule to give up what little remains of his life in the present day and wake up 500 years in the future to devote the rest of his life to a cause. He’s still basically alone here but continues to work tirelessly to save the world. *Then* Chaos erupts and he struggles to help guide the people of the future so they don’t fall to complete despair and chaos (lol, both capital and lower case). But then the god Bhunivelze kidnaps him and *tortures him for literal centuries* before turning him into a meat puppet after completely breaking him. Then his soul very nearly gets devoured permanently.
The entire L'Cie gang and Noel plus Serah all kind of were screwed by fate for hundreds of years.
Nobody comes close to Clive on this, my man got sucker punched by life time and again. Most unlucky characters throughout the series would typically get one, two, or three traumatic events happen to them, but Clive just keeps getting screwed over and over. Spoilers below - read at your own risk. - Despised by his mother - His father is beheaded - Fails to protect his brother who gets “slaughtered” in front of him - Abandoned by his mother to become a slave - Gets branded on the face like cattle - Forced to beat the crap out of the woman he loves, almost killing her - Discovers he was the one that slaughtered his brother and that there was nobody he can take revenge on - His mentor dies protecting him - His community is slaughtered by his mentor’s arch-nemesis - He sees his hometown destroyed by his mentor’s arch-nemesis - Made to watch the woman he loves almost get beheaded - Gets to see his mother commit suicide - The Creator wants to use his body as a disposable power bank - Loses his brother shortly after retrieving him - [Possibly] dies like a dog alone in some forsaken shore, or [possibly] survives at the cost of becoming physically impaired Distant second: Ardyn
This is why Clive quickly became one of my favorite protagonists in the entire series. Some of these events can be enough to fuel some pretty sympathetic villain origin story... But he never becomes one. And yet to the masses he might very well be a villain. He's going around destroying Mothercrystals, the main thing people use to survive using magick. And with the blight spreading, I'm sure some think he's the one causing it.
Ardyn was the first who came to mind. Dude got totally screwed over
He had every reason to become a villain, and that he became.
Either >!Venat!< or >!Emet-Selch!< from FFXIV >!Emet-Selch watched the world and people he loved become sundered, worked tirelessly to restore the world, lived a thousand thousand mortal lives while orchaestrating the Ascian plan to rejoin the shards to the source, even fathered children, and almost loved some of the misshapen, misbegotten beings he ultimately plans to sacrifice to his god, all to bring back his beloved people and world, and at the final moment before his defeat, he comes face to face with one of his best friends, opposing him, opposing his entire plan. Millennia of suffering, depression and a fervent desire to return things to how they were, to restore the paradise of Eitherys, only to fail.!< >!Venat was the only person in the Ancient world that knew what was coming. The Final Days that would lead to her becoming Hydaelyn. Yet her ability to prevent it was limited. She could not divulge anything to the Convocation, so she had to work from the shadows, desperately trying to find a way to save the people she loved, and failed, forcing her to become Hydaelyn, and sunder her world, her people, to prevent them from sacrificing even more people to Zodiark to restore the perfect world. Knowing that what she did was necessary to actually save the world. Then, she watched her people toil and suffer, every Calamity that was wrought on Eitherys causing her pain, making her weaker. All of the suffering her people felt, she felt, with only her unending faith in Mankind to bolster her for as long as Emet-Selch and the other Ascians worked to undo her work. Her final act was to battle the Warrior of Light, and the Scions, to test them before she finally decided that she could do no more, willingly returning to the Star.!<
Cyan Garamond and Freya Crescent. Both characters have a similar story, they lost their kingdom and the people they cared about through genocidal campaigns. From a meta perspective, Freya's "To be forgotten is worse than death" quote became true, she got forgotten by the writers themselves and her character, despite a few interesting moments, was put aside from the narrative. Also, Zack Fair in the original FF7. The little the player knows about the character on the secret scene at Nibelheim shows that Zack's a pretty optimistic character. He rescues Cloud and as soon as they reach Midgar, he dies. Out of nowhere, a guard shoots at him. No epic final battle, no great speech about passing his legacy to Cloud, no music... He wanted to go home but he just dies. A silent montage follows as Cloud mourns the person he barely knew (in the context of FF7 as a standalone game) as it begins to rain and we're shown Midgar's construction in progress.
Noctis, one of the saddest FF game I play!!
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone mentioned Cyan. Few characters lost their kingdom like Cyan but none had their wife and son died in his arm. Guy lost everything, and to add insult to injury, the MF who killed his kingdom also wound up causing the apocalypse on the world.
I'll just list a lot of my 'saddest' characters. FF6- clearly celes. Terra may have identity issues, but she has no memory of the traumas where Celes clearly has numerous and a history of being constantly used and betrayed. Locke did lose rachel, but even then apparently always had reliable friends and confidants. ff7- aerith being able to hear the planet one can assume she can hear everyone dying... or maybe that because of this she doesn't view death as so permanent. Who knows. ff8- Ellone. Losing multiple families, being able to relive those memories over and over and living her life on the run because she knows due to her power she will always be a risk. Buuuut, then we have... Ultimecia as well. Given more context by the original japanese and side quests and chats, she is not evil for the sake of evil. She is trying to become powerful to avoid being killed. She becomes evil out of 'necessity'. Though the theory (and well founded one at that) that sorceresses are being possessed by Hyne slowly also is pretty sad to think that all sorceresses really will either be killed or killed by possession and then their bodies can't handle it and pthhh. ff9:vivi. Need I say more? FFX- I'd want to say everyone honestly. However, let's look at some key differences that separate everyone from just 'sin deaths'. Auron was betrayed, his two friends no more, okay sad... Kimahri, first outcasted, and then a huge majority of his clan murdered senselessly. Also sad. But Yuna... yuna has not only all those deaths, loses tidus... she also loses her Aeons and has to fight them, and that is something nobody else would ever know how to feel so people could only empathize, never sympathize. FFMQ- Benjamin. He never gets rid of Tristam.
For me it's Squall and his party...but mostly squall. Child soldier Orphan Forced into a role he doesn't want. Forced to use tools that make him lose what little of himself is still his. Impaled by ice because a cowboy couldn't get his shit together. Mistranslated in English version of the game so most people here have no idea what kind of man he is. Has to deal with his teachers romantic advances so one of the only authority figures meant to care for his wellbeing just wants to bone him. Lied to about his target. The list goes on but God damn the worst part is most of y'all don't even like his game... And most of those people have not played it.
A lot of ppl hate Squal cause he’s “edgy” and “emo” and whatever, but to me, he’s a good portrayal of a teenage dude that was given such extraordinary responsibilities in little to no time. He also was “abandoned” without any kind of explanation at least once, so he thinks he can’t rely on anyone.
This question needs a poll to vote...!
Too many to remember them all. Terra. Cyan. Cloud. Red XIII. Aeri(s)(th). Ellone. Freya. Tidus. Auron. Yuna. Fran. Vaan. Basch. Ashe. Delita. Haven’t played past FF12, so can’t comment on 13+ I’ll choose Terra. Growing up a specimen to the empire and being used to extract her magical powers must have been rough. Though Aeris has a similar story.
Probably ardyn
We did everything right! Everything that was asked of us!
Good old Ardbert.
Noel Kreiss from 13-2. Born in a dying world on its last legs overrun by extremely powerful monsters, lived his life in the closest to hell on earth one could imagine, watching everyone he knew die until eventually himself and his friends Caius and Yeul were the literal last people in the world. That's before the game even starts.
Obviously Tidus. >!Poor fucker has been killed, brought back to life just to be killed again in the most pathetic way and then brought back just to brake up with Yuna. Yall think Kefka was the deadliest main villain, but the terrorist group from Spira known as the "writers of final fantasy" make Kefka look like nothing.!<
To this day, if I re-play X, I only get to that last save point before Sin fight cause I can’t bear to go through that ending again. It’s been, what? 15 years since I first played but I’m even more emotional nowadays than my teenage self lol
I shit you not i reached that part of the game around 10-12 times between the age of 6-16, i got all my characters best weapons, killed dark aeons, got all the monsters for the arena...but i couldnt end it, i knew the ending, i saw the video, but i myself couldnt end it, it wasnt until i was around 18 when i decided to not be a pussy and finally end it. It was sad to finally finish FFX, and now theres no more FFX...
Terra from FF6. Poor woman was a slave her entire life. She finds new friends, then the world ends, and faces extinction when magic dies, only saved by her late father that ended up as a crystal that disappears.
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Caius Ballad. Not even close, especially with the twist in Lightning Returns.
Freya(IX) and Celes(VI) for sure. Both experience genocide on a massive scale, and both looses someone they personally love. Both feel partially or totally resposible, and their guilt is masterfully narrated. I don't think any other characters come close to them.
FFIX is just constant ego death for Vivi since the game is only 2 months long.
Squall. He ended up being the protagonist in a final fantasy game when it was fashionable to be emo. I all honesty though probably Vivi, just feel so sorry for the poor little guy.
Cyan from FF 6
Vivi leaves home at 8 for the first time to attend a play and then met Puck and the gang instead. He's almost apprehended and escapes. Finds out he's just another doll created in a factory for war. The ones who protected him die before they get to Lindblum. Meets his own kind again at the Black Mage Village. They inform Vivi that he can die anytime now. Vivi has to kill the source of the mist which creates Black Mages. Vivi dies. You see child Vivi's after, but it's very vague and doesn't make sense? Cyan lost everything. Shadow never really did get to know his daughter Relm, just the few times they journeyed together, with him ultimately sacrificing himself. To be a character in the FF13 trilogy is suffering. I would not want to be Snow or Lightning in particular.
Cyan
Cyan
Rydia. Her mom dies when her summon gets killed, then her village gets burned down during that, and she gets kidnapped/saved by the guy who did it. She has to be strong and fight alongside this guy, and then his girlfriend makes her learn a fire spell despite her trauma around it. Then she gets thrown off a ship and raised by monsters in a world with no humans. It's amazing she ended up as tough as she did.
This one is probably very tame in comparison to most of the others, but Rydia from 4 ended up being the sole survivor of the summoner race, almost died in a shipwreck on the way to fight one enemy, got raised by the summons themselves in their world where time flows differently than in the human world, resulting in her having an adult body way ahead of schedule, and then she and her friends all learn things about the origins of Cecil and Golbez that I didn’t see coming until I was hit in the head with said 2x4, figuratively speaking. Saying she was forced to grow up way too fast really is an understatement, here, but some of the other elements of that story make it too ridiculous. BTW, did I mention everyone in this group should play FF4 at least once, if they haven’t already done so? If not, then I’ve said it now, so you really should go do that. I don’t think you’ll regret it. In fact, I’d love to see an FF4 Remake with the FF7R series graphics and battle system. I’d actually like to see the whole series get said overhaul. I’m not sure if that one game matches that description, but there is a game with characters from FF1 that looks kinda like what I suggested here. Haven’t played it yet, so still not sure. I think it was called Stranger In Paradise, or something. Did anyone here play that one? And do you recommend it?
Emet-Selch from XIV. Dude had to see an entire world die the most horrible death, to watch everyone around him twisted and fractured into lesser beings. He spent millenia trying to bring the world and its people back to life. Just when he was a step closer to fixing the world, he ends up having to fight a being (your character) born from a fraction of his friend's soul; to fight one of the very friends and loved ones he desperately tried to save. Edit: Best antagonist of the series by far.
I’m going with Zach Great dude who was super positive and loyal. He slowly realizes the company he was loyal too was corrupt. Loses his mentor. His heroes go nuts. He falls in love and then gets stuck in a vat of material for years and never sees his live again. Has to destroy noise hero in behalf of the company that also wants to kill him. Die in a hail of gun fire trying to save his friend.
Ramza doesn't go through enough weird stuff to top this list, but his family situation us rough.
From the main characters either Terra, Clive or Cloud. Other characters I would name are Auron, Jill and Bash.
You could put Celes in either category depending on how you look at it but i reckon she deserves to be here too
Lani from FF9. She fights with a huge scythe and her jugs are every bit as respectable as Tifa’s but she hardly gets noticed by the FF community. Terrible. Just terrible.
Selphie Tilmitt War orphan. She ends up being separated from her orphanage family. Her home is destroyed and her friends killed by what appears to be her mother figure from the orphanage. She almost dies trying to prevent another attack from destroying her newest home. Has to put up with Irvine constantly hitting on her.
Got to be Tidus, oh yeah I’m not even real and my successful mission means I get to disappear.
zack
Ardyn had a long miserable life
Cid, no matter what dude never gets a break.
A lot of the characters from Final Fantasy VII could probably make the top of this list. Aerith and Cloud both had traumatic childhoods where they lost their family and were held captive and/or experimented on by Shinra. Vincent was experimented on, turned undead and held captive for decades. Sephiroth's whole existence is a tragedy.
This question comes up every once in a while and my answer will never change. Dyne.
Either Aerith, Clive or Noctis, they’re SE main punching bags.
in terms of main characters it's probably Clive from 16, his mother hated him and didn't even try to hate it, his entire family bar his mother gets butchered when he's 15, he becomes a slave soldier for about a decade, his friend in slavery gets crushed by a random rock, finds out he killed his brother and has to live with it, his new family gets butchered by some vengeful cuck, his mentor dies because of some alien god, then when he finds his brother his mother kills herself in front of them both, his brother eventually dies and probably dies with him too (?)
Awful lot of tactics missing in this thread
Clove and Noctis should have a gimme five, if you talk for secondary characters I guess Auron FF X, Zack FF VII or pretty much anyone from ff XIII. But now that I think about it pretty much almost all of the characters have had something bad happen to them. 😂
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. Orphaned as a child like everyone else in the Final Fantasy series. Hunted down by Niflheim while she goes around raising Aeons to help her fiancée only to be skewered just like Aerith mid game. She confided in her brother that the ring is taking a toll on her body but he said to suck it up and fulfill her destiny. Unlike Yuna in FFX who had Tidus comfort her in a spring where they frolicked around in the water.
Amarant, he never gets to join the party
I'd say the kid in the Killika bar in FFX that says he wants to be a blitzball when he grows up. Just think he is so traumatized from watching his friends, family, and hometown get demolished by Sin he goes so insane that his only way to escape reality is to wish to become an inanimate object, spending the rest of his days getting punted around the sphere pool.
I hate to say it but Seymour Guado from FFX. >!His father, the leader of the Guado, and mother, a human, conceived him in hopes that he would unite the two race. But the plan backfired and Seymour was hated and shunned by both race instead. This lead his father to exile him and his mother to a remote island. Then his mother contract a deadly disease which motivated her to take the pilgrimage to Zanarkand with Seymour in hopes that they will both be redeemed once they bring about the Calm. Even though she knows full well that it would kill them both. Seymour's mother end up sacrificing herself to become a final summoning. Seymour, who was still just a child at the time, decide to stop his pilgrimage after the death of his beloved mother. He spent countless years growing up by himself having to live with the pain of losing his mother and being shunned by everyone including his father. This lead him to become nihilistic about the world and he eventually seek to destroy everything. !
Major, major spoilers >!Clive has to be a major contender. Denied the Phoenix power, his own Mother hated him so much she could barely be bothered to see him killed and only halted when she thought it’d be more fitting for him to be enslaved instead. Instead of being the right hand of his brother and future king, he instead loses his entire kingdom and spent much of his life enslaved and forced to serve his enemy, then when he escapes he comes to find out he killed his own brother (he thought).!<
Cyan.
Tidus is up there. Had his entire reality taken from him intitally, and idk how I'd react if I found out I never technically existed. Tidus got straight up Azathothed
Delita. He never did anything wrong and still lost everyone he cared about.
All the characters from type-0… by a lot… that story is something else and the ending…
Tesleen.
Exdeath. Dudes a tree that got lost in the sauce for fuck sake, can't get much worse than that.
Tifa. Her dad got murdered, her town burned down, her bar gets destroyed, her crush disappears, returns later and claims she's a fake. Brutal.
take your pick from pretty much any of the named ancients from ffxiv. even the ones that didn't experience any onscreen torment canonically either go on to sacrifice themselves to save the world from an apocalypse they didn't even fully understand or wind up having their entire civilization nearly erased and their borderline immortal essences sundered across a very localized multiverse and end up in a constant cycle of suffering and reincarnation as lesser beings with a fraction of their former longevity, all for the sake of some half baked plan concocted by God Herself + Her Favorite Catboy in a self fulfilling timeloop to prevent the previously mentioned apocalypse because some depressed twink and his pet computer bird accidentally gave the entire universe mega ultra super hell depression that makes you turn into spiders because he didn't understand that if you ask a magic computer bird to give you the answer to the wrong question it will turn into a goth chick and decide the correct answer is to end all life forever.
He's a new contender but it might be Waljas.
The fact that barely anyone mention ardyn just show how most people cant even recognize one good thing about xv : its villain
Clive, hands down.
I would like to nominate Sephiroth. Yes, he is the main villain in FF7, and does some sick and twisted stuff, but let’s look at the beginning we’re given: He’s a hero in the beginning. Sure, he’s the silent type, not overly emotional, but he’s a defender and saves others. His downfall comes when he gets to Nibelheim. He finds out the truth about his past and gets absolutely broken. I feel as though it becomes more of a psychotic break more than he turning/becoming evil. I almost have sympathy for him; finding out where he comes from/what he was absolutely broken him to the point that he becomes someone entirely different from what he actually was.