History SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome / FinalFantasy

* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyIV'' opens with Cecil attacking the city of Mysidia to take the crystal under orders from the King of Baron, an act Cecil feels immense guilt for doing. A few hours into the game later, Cecil washes onto the shores of Mysidia and approaches the city to ask for help. The people of Mysidia all promptly [[WhatTheHellHero call him out for attacking them]] at the start of the game and make it clear he is not welcome in the city, and the only reason he is allowed in is because the city's Elder is willing to listen and give Cecil a chance for redemption. Shortly after, Cecil braves Mt Ordeals and goes from a Dark Knight to a Paladin to complete his redemption. His traveling companions Palom and Porom then reveal the real reason they joined for this trip; the village Elder wanted them to spy on Cecil to make sure he did actually try to redeem himself. Just because you feel immense guilt and want to redeem yourself doesn't mean your victims will agree or listen, and those who do have every right to be doubtful of you for doing so. Even after Cecil becomes a paladin, there's still a few people in Mysidia who admit they can't bring themselves to forgive what Cecil did, a conclusion that Cecil ultimately accepts.

** Wakka, who was a devout believer in Yevon, goes through a CrisisOfFaith after learning that Seymour killed his father and the group fights him. Unlike in most works of fiction where a character going through such a crisis typically resolves themselves to turning against their beliefs quickly, Wakka remains conflicted for pretty much the rest of the game. Having grown up his whole life being taught Yevon's teachings, he struggles with what to do because it was all he knew and believed in. Also, Wakka's hatred for the Al Bhed doesn't automatically go away either; Wakka has to re-evaluate his beliefs over the course of the game to fully let go of it, especially when he finds out Yuna was half-Al Bhed.

** Violently dealing with a political figure is ''not'' an easy task. In spite of Rinoa's admittedly rather smart plan to take President Deling hostage on the train, the simple presence of a body double made all that effort go to waste and made the Timber Owls look like chumps, while also putting Timber on high security. Seifer dragging Deling off at blade-tip on a live broadcast causes an international incident and (alleged) execution offscreen when Balamb Garden throws him under the bus to escape immediate reprisal. The assassination attempt on Edea a few hours later fails spectacularly for the sole reason that Irving chokes his shot at exactly the wrong moment when he tried to snipe her, giving her time to put up a barrier. As a result of the failed attempt and the fact the assassination party was made of [=SeeDs=] from all three Gardens, Edea declared war on the Gardens, with Galbadia Garden throwing the other two under the bus (Irving wasn't caught, so they could claim deniability) and siding with Edea while Balamb and Trabia Garden are bombarded with missiles (Balamb escapes due to circumstances, Trabia suffers a direct hit with massive loss of life).
** It turns out that training children into a special forces combat force are really bad for their mental health and emotional stability, especially when they lack more than the most cursory adult support and guidance. Squall, the worst-case thanks to his Ellone-related abandonment issues, is a nuclear stress meltdown waiting to happen, but ''none'' of the Garden kids are in great shape: Seifer is a bully whose combination of grand dreams and trouble with authority figures leaves him vulnerable to manipulation by the BigBad; Quistis was driven to mature too quickly and thus ended up saddled with responsibilities too heavy for her, not helped by her own crippling self-doubt; Selphie, despite her cute GenkiGirl demeanor, is almost always quick to suggest excessive violence as a problem-solving strategy; and Irvine presents himself as a shallow, self-absorbed flirt to cover for ''his'' abandonment issues, only to completely crack under pressure during a critical mission and nearly flub the whole thing. The only member of the main [=SeeD=] squad to have their head on even halfway straight is Zell, who got the benefit of being raised by and maintaining a close relationship with a loving parent to offset the whole "child soldier" business.

* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyIII'' has Gold swords are about as effective as they would be in real life, and they're also just as valuable if you want to sell them.

* [[ItWasHisSled Infamously]], when Aerith is murdered by Sephiroth in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', there is no theatrics to it at all. No HopelessBossFight, no HeadsIWinTailsYouLose, no chance for Aerith or Cloud to react; Sephiroth just ambushes her while she's alone with Cloud in the middle of the night and impales her through the heart with his Masamune. While other characters have demonstrated the ability to survive such grievous wounds along with other things, all of them are battle-hardened veterans or enhanced to be superhuman. In contrast, Aerith is a powerful mage but has little physical power, so that one hit instantly kills her.
* ''[[VideoGame/CrisisCore Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII]]'':
** Delivering a BreakingSpeech and calling your [[WeUsedToBeFriends former best friend]] "the perfect monster" is not going to get him to do what you want. When Genesis tries to invoke a BreakingSpeech to get Sephiroth's aid late in the game, Sephiroth states that no matter if he is right or wrong, he will never give him what he wants after everything Genesis did in the game.
** No matter how badass you are, fighting against an entire army by yourself does not end well]]. Despite his skill, [[spoiler:Zack dies when he gets fatigued fighting the Shinra Army, and it only takes a few shots after most of the army is beaten to kill him.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'', with its more detail-oriented world, has a few moments:
** Cloud's [[{{BFS}} Buster sword]] is big, so the first time he tries to draw it in an enclosed space (a doorframe), his sword is blocked, and he has to step back to do it.
** Deciding to climb the 59 floors of the Shinra building by stairs? Even with a SuperSoldier, an accomplished martial artist, and [[TheBigGuy a walking tank of a man]], the crew is reduced to barely being able to stand by the time they finish the ascent. To add to it, the characters all keep a different pace with each other with this trope in mind; Tifa, the most athletic and lightest, gets to the top first and lasts longer than the others, while Cloud, a SuperSoldier but wearing heavier equipment, falls behind but remains ahead of Barrett, a big and strong, but otherwise not trained fighter.
** Jessie is forced to sit out after being injured by the mysterious ghosts haunting the party. How do they take her out of the fight? They yank her off a flight of stairs about 5 steps long, but it still injures her leg badly enough that Barret can't afford to take her on a mission as dangerous as bombing a Mako reactor that's on high alert from their previous bombing. Similarly, while it's PlayedForLaughs at the moment, Wedge getting his ass chomped by a guard dog on the warehouse raid the night before - and visibly showing pain from it, makes Barret sit him out as well.
** As part of the writing being far more human to the cast and noticeably more detail-oriented, you get to see sides of the cast that weren't expanded upon properly to make them more like people instead of characters. Tifa is incredibly hung up over death and loss due to what happened in Nibelheim 5 years ago. Barret is noticeably trying to convince ''himself'' as much as the others that they're doing the right thing after witnessing the collateral damage of the first Reactor bombing, and Marlene being Barret's LivingEmotionalCrutch makes him suffer a heartbreaking HeroicBSOD when he doesn't know of her fate after the sector 7 plate drop instead of cursing angrily and shooting at the debris wall. Aerith seems to have a lot more anxieties and acts very different from how she did in ''VII'' because of knowing her heritage and because it's implied she's seen the original timeline, all the way up to her death. And Cloud, well, even without knowing ahead of time from playing the original, it's clear as early as the prologue there's something ''seriously'' wrong with his head.
** In the original game the Sector 7 Plate Drop was pretty much uniform and localized despite the immensity of the object that fell. In the remake the logistics of a disaster like this are given much more detail; the plate doesn't fall like a single even slice of pizza, it buckles in the middle of itself where the pillar was detonated, folding in on itself as it fell and leaving it slanted up towards Shinra HQ. The shockwaves from such a heavy object striking the earth all at once scatter debris all over the other sectors instead of stopping at the playground and the event cause earthquakes, tremors, and sinkholes for hours afterward. Even the people living on top of the plate don't get away as such a major upheaval causes many houses to collapse on themselves and the debris from the edges of the other plates falls and causes even more damage. Slightly more optimistically though, the plate collapsing how it did means the slums weren't completely entombed and sealed flat under the collapsed plate, so rescue efforts can occur and as a result, more people survive than were present in the original and even have hope that they can rebuild.
** The context of the reactor bombing is changed entirely to reflect that Shinra here is exactly as dangerous as a world-dominating mega-corp should be. They've survived wars with a society of Ninja, masters of stealth and subterfuge, so in spite of Avalanche considering themselves clever for their reactor bombing mission, the Shinra execs were aware of what they were doing from the start, and instead of just letting them destroy the reactors, they actively make the first explosion worse (To create a FalseFlagOperation justifying cracking down on Avalanche) and the second explosion on a remote detonator they easily hijack, evacuate their staff, and set off to justify their desperate measures of the plate drop and justify ditching the entire city.
** Another detail is given a surprisingly realistic angle within the Shinra company itself: Reeve Tuesti, head of urban development, is the only uncorrupt executive on the Shinra board and is the only one of them who wants to do a good job for the sake of the people of Midgar rather than financial gain or other self-serving purposes. Consequently, he isn't respected by his peers and his department is understaffed, underfunded and, when he attempts to get a rebuilding effort started after the fall of the Sector 7 Plate, all of his suggestions are shot down as a waste of time and resources. The only reason the other executives still have him and his department around at all is that they are [[VillainWithGoodPublicity a source of good PR]], making it seem outward like Shinra actually cares about the well-being of the people of Midgar.
** In the original game, AVALANCHE defeated Sephiroth, but one must note that Sephiroth was in his transformations and was simply throwing his immense power in the form of powerful attacks with no skill involved in his part and when he and Cloud fight it out in Advent Children, Sephiroth almost beats him in a fair fight. The remake has him as the FinalBoss in his human form and the fight turns out to be much harder than back then. Out of the AVALANCHE members present, Aerith has only had a few years of experience and that was limited to fighting the menaces on the slums while Barret may have more experience in the field but he's got no actual combat training. Cloud is only relying on the skills he is copying from Zack's memories and Tifa has had only a few years of training under Zangan before she is subsequently put into the role of AVALANCHE's financial manager, which clearly prevents her from gaining much direct experience, with the only experience she's had at that time was handling a few monsters in her guide days and she's probably only been fighting Shinra troops for a while. They can take down Shinra's troops with ease, sure, but elite mooks like the Turks and powerful mech and monsters are still capable of posing some serious challenge. When they fight Sephiroth, who can now bring into the field not just his immense power but also the legendary skills he's known for having as SOLDIER's crown jewel, he ends up being much more of a match for them and demonstrates that a fully seasoned war veteran with years of training and experience will beat a strong but untrained fighter with not much experience. This lets Sephiroth handle the party 3-on-1 without being truly defeated, and he ends up beating them in a two-on-one fight, and the difference in performance and expression makes it clear Sephiroth isn't really that affected by the fighting while AVALANCHE struggles to keep their bearings due to being less competent in battle and apart from being temporarily reeling after being beaten enough that his Meteor gets canceled, he is still perfectly able to continue fighting and only retreats when he decides he has had enough and wants to talk to Cloud one-on-one, during which he gets to show the difference between him and Cloud when Cloud refuses to join him, [[CurbStompBattle the fight between them barely lasting for a minute]], as the seasoned, disciplined swordmaster thoroughly kicks the ass of a headstrong but untrained swordsman to an almost humiliating extent.

'''Warning! Unmarked spoilers below.'''

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* [[ItWasHisSled Infamously]], when Aerith is murdered by Sephiroth in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', there are no theatrics to it at all. No HopelessBossFight, no HeadsIWinTailsYouLose, no chance for Aerith or Cloud to react; Sephiroth just ambushes her while she's alone with Cloud in the middle of the night and impales her through the heart with his Masamune. While other characters have demonstrated the ability to survive such griveous wounds along with other things, all of them are battle-hardened veterans or enhanced to be superhuman. In contrast, Aerith is a powerful mage but has little physical power, so that one hit instantly kills her.

** As part of the writing being far more human to the cast and noticeably more detail-oriented, you get to see sides of the cast that weren't expanded upon properly to make them more like people instead of characters. Tifa is incredibly hung up over death and loss [[spoiler: due to what happened in Nibelheim 5 years ago]]. Barret is noticeably trying to convince ''himself'' as much as the others that they're doing the right thing after witnessing the collateral damage of the first Reactor bombing, and Marlene being Barret's LivingEmotionalCrutch makes him suffer a heartbreaking HeroicBSOD when he doesn't know of her fate after the sector 7 plate drop instead of cursing angrily and shooting at the debris wall. Aerith seems to have a lot more anxieties and acts very different from how she did in ''VII'' because of knowing her heritage and because it's implied she's seen the original timeline, all the way up to her death. And Cloud, well, even without knowing ahead of time from playing the original, it's clear as early as the prologue there's something ''seriously'' wrong with his head.

** Violently dealing with a political figure is ''not'' an easy task. In spite of Rinoa's admittedly rather smart plan to take President Deling hostage on the train, the simple presence of a body double made all that effort go to waste and made the Timber Owls look like chumps, while also putting Timber on high security. Seifer dragging Deling off at blade-tip on a live broadcast causes an international incident and (alleged) execution offscreen when Balamb Garden throws him under the bus to escape immediate reprisal. The assassination attempt on Edea a few hours later fails spectacularly for the sole reason that Irving chokes his shot at exactly the wrong moment when he tried to snipe her, giving her time to put up a barrier. As a result of the failed attempt and the fact the assassination party was made of [=SeeDs=] from all three Gardens, Edea declaring war on the Gardens, with Galbadia Garden throwing the other two under the bus (Irving wasn't caught, so they could claim deniability) and siding with Edea while Balamb and Trabia Garden are bombarded with missiles (Balamb escapes due to circumstances, Trabia suffers a direct hit with massive loss of life).
** It turns out that training children into a special forces combat force is really bad for their mental health and emotional stability, especially when they lack more than the most cursory adult support and guidance. Squall, the worst case thanks to his Ellone-related abandonment issues, is a nuclear stress meltdown waiting to happen, but ''none'' of the Garden kids are in great shape: Seifer is a bully whose combination of grand dreams and trouble with authority figures leaves him vulnerable to manipulation by the BigBad; Quistis was driven to mature too quickly and thus ended up saddled with responsibilities too heavy for her, not helped by her own crippling self-doubt; Selphie, despite her cute GenkiGirl demeanor, is almost always quick to suggest excessive violence as a problem-solving strategy; and Irvine presents himself as a shallow, self-absorbed flirt to cover for ''his'' abandonment issues, only to completely crack under pressure during a critical mission and nearly flub the whole thing. The only member of the main [=SeeD=] squad to have their head on even halfway straight is Zell, who got the benefit of being raised by and maintaining a close relationship with a loving parent to offset the whole "child soldier" business.

** Politics have also shifted after Yuna revealed to the world that Yevonism was both hypocritical and led by ghosts upholding an AncientConspiracy. As a result, not even the most staunch followers of Yevon stayed loyal, instead replacing it with the "New Yevon" religion - which keeps to the positive morals of the old religion while preaching for conservatively giving machines to the world - and the Youth League - who think that since most of Yevon was lies, they don't deserve the time of day for redemption and want to tear down as many walls as possible to augment the world with machines. The Al Bhed, who have centuries of persecution from Yevon behind them for their use of Machina, naturally side with the League. [[spoiler:When the two factions go to war, the story angles towards the Youth League being the "right" faction, as while neither is technically in the right and both are at fault for tensions getting so high, siding with a church that has a risk of slipping back into their old corrupt ways is considered the worse option of the two. Showing New Yevon any favoritism at all locks you out of the game's GoldenEnding.]]
** The Guado and the Ronso are both feeling extreme tension towards one another at the start of the game due to Seymour's actions. Seymour massacred a ton of their race as well as their Maester when the party went climbing Mount Gagazet to reach Zanarkand in the first game, and as the official leader of the Guado as a whole, his psychopathy made everyone else look at the Guado with suspicion at best and hatred at worst, not helped that some Guado continue to revere Seymour, even if they admit that he was misguided and what he did was awful. [[spoiler:If the party doesn't talk the Ronso down, this leads to tensions boiling over to a race war that it's implied leads to the extinction of the Guado.]]

** Magic being in play doesn't make wounds any less serious. Resurrective magics are more like magical defibrillators instead of putting a dead soul back into a body and even healing spells have limits to what they can do. The Conjurer's guild delves heavily into this, and [[spoiler: Haurchefant, Moenbryda, Conrad and multiple others]] all die decisively because they suffered wounds too immediately-lethal or severe for healing magic to save them, and several characters spend chunks of the story PutOnABus because they suffer injuries that are too deep for the quick patch-job that magical healing can do, and need to spend time in proper hospitals under doctor care. Moreover, injuries and the like still leave after-effects on several occasions, such as with Radovan, the Gunbreaker job trainer, whose body seizes up in paralysis several times because he'd been on the receiving end of ElectricTorture at a Garlean prison for ''years'' before escaping. Likewise, Sanche from the ''Stormbood'' White Mage storyline has a heart disease that will eventually kill her, and all healing magic can do is delay it and not outright stop it. There's also [[spoiler: Arenvald]] where he [[TakingTheBullet threw himself in front of his ally]] to take an attack meant for them. This resulted in one of his legs getting broken and being confined to a wheelchair while stating that he may never walk again, showing that being an adventurer is a very dangerous gig.

** The [[PlayerCharacter Warrior of Light]] has reality strike them every now and then as well. Sometimes their allies will outright force them to take a rest, because god-slaying walking Armageddon or not, they're still only mortal and have mortal limits, those limits are just a bit higher than a normal person's. They're also not immune to poisons or drugs, which results in at least one scenario where you get laid out because of a spiked drink. [[spoiler: The final fight against Zenos in the end of ''Endwalker'' also shows that the Warrior of Light does have their limits when it comes to their physical capabilities. By the time they put Zenos down for good, they collapse to the ground due to pushing their body beyond its limits. They nearly die from their wounds and would have actually done so if they hadn't been saved by the Scions.]]

** In a world that's still in the middle-ages tech-wise, the country to advance technology is usually the one to have an edge. Garlemald's discovery of ceruleum and magitek put them on par with the other nations in spite of having no ability to use magic, and developing an active airship fleet, which ''nobody'' else could do, gave them an air force that could easily wipe out and subjugate resistant countries. The only reason the empire's conquest stalled is because their airship fleet - including the ''Agrias'' flagship - ran afoul of Midgardsomr, father of dragonkind and a being on the level with a god as well a massive swarm of angry dragons he summoned, who wiped said fleet out. Cid defecting to Eorzea with the knowledge of tech, combined with Garlemald's weakened military leverage, was a major reason Eorzea was the first and, before ''Stormblood'', the only country to beat the Garleans back.

** Ishgard spent a thousand years fighting dragons due to misinformation over what started the war. [[spoiler:While it was believed that the dragons attacked first, it turns out King Thordan I struck first since he wanted power and gouged out a dragon's eyes to obtain said power. All of Ishgard was raised on a lie and not everyone believes the truth when it's finally revealed. It takes a lot for the citizens to take everything in since they grew up believing the history they were told. Later side story developments show Ishgard and the dragons are attempting to make peace with each other, but it's going to take a lot of time and work since both sides still have fresh memories of the bloody war in their mind. This also extends to the church in two ways; despite Thordan's atrocities being exposed to the public, several members of the church are still willing to cling to the old ways and were willing to harm anyone that tried to disband them. Just because one's leader was proven to be false doesn't mean that all of their followers will give up their roles or beliefs. The magic DPS role quests in ''Endwalker'' also shows that the remaining members of the church are in extreme despair because everything they knew and believed in was a lie and the public can no longer trust them. It's no wonder that some members of the church refuse to accept help from Aymeric, who was partially responsible for exposing the church's dark secrets.]]

** After a particularly brutal WhamEpisode [[spoiler:the party's resident TeamMom and healer Ignis]] goes blind. Instead of being a HandicappedBadass, they promptly and immediately become TheMillstone as you're forced to [[EscortMission help them get through a tough dungeon]] with no assistance. And even when the character tries to fight, they just end up flailing wildly, more often than not hitting the player's party. And the character is fully aware of how unhelpful they've become, too. [[spoiler:It takes the ten-year TimeSkip and constant practice for Ignis to get any semblance of his talent back. Even then, he still uses a cane to walk.]]

** In Episode Ardyn, after the Final Boss Fight, [[spoiler:Somnus pleads to Ardyn that what he did to Ardyn was because he was told to by the Gods, claiming it was for the right of his people. Does Ardyn accept said reasons and see things Somnus's way? NOPE! Ardyn outright snaps at Somnus because, despite his brother's reasons, Ardyn still spent 2,000 years chained up in Angelgard, and even then, Somnus still killed his fiancé. Prophecy or not,]] Ardyn still has every right to be mad at his [[spoiler:brother]] for all of the terrible things he's done to him.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'': The game ends on a BittersweetEnding where [[spoiler:Ramza defeats Ultima, meaning the Church is more or less depowered, and the world is free from the Lucaiv's threat]], but Ramza goes down in history as a heretic and a traitor to his house. Ramza's actions occurred during a massive world war-like conflict, meaning the crowning of Delita as king overshadows much of the events that occurred. With nobody able to vouch for Ramza in an influential way, he [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade goes down in history as a villain]] instead of TheHero.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'', Cid is known as an enemy of a criminal organization that he used to be a member of. He [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere left the syndicate]] after seeing how evil they were and he wanted no part of it. This results in the syndicate eventually finding and shooting him in the middle of a street, [[spoiler: only for him to barely cheat death by swearing an oath to a Judge]]. Just because you want an out and don't want to be in a crime syndicate anymore doesn't mean that said group will [[ResignationsNotAccepted let you go without a hitch.]]

** No matter how badass you are, [[spoiler:fighting against an entire army by yourself does not end well]]. Despite his skill, [[spoiler:Zack dies when he gets fatigued fighting the Shinra Army, and it only takes a few shots after most of the army is beaten to kill him]].

** As part of the writing being far more human to the cast and noticeably more detail-oriented, you get to see sides of the cast that weren't expanded upon properly to make them more like people instead of characters. Tifa is incredibly hung up over death and loss [[spoiler: due to what happened in Nibelheim 5 years ago]]. Barret is noticeably trying to convince ''himself'' as much as the others that they're doing the right thing after witnessing the collateral damage of the first Reactor bombing, and Marlene being Barret's LivingEmotionalCrutch makes him suffer a heartbreaking HeroicBSOD when he doesn't know of her fate after the sector 7 plate drop instead of cursing angrily and shooting at the debris wall. Aerith seems to have a lot more anxieties and acts very different from how she did in ''VII'' because of knowing her heritage [[spoiler:and because it's implied she's seen the original timeline, all the way up to her death]]. And Cloud, well, even without knowing ahead of time from playing the original, it's clear as early as the prologue there's something ''seriously'' wrong with his head.

** The context of the reactor bombing are changed entirely to reflect that Shinra here are exactly as dangerous as a world-dominating mega-corp should be. They've survived wars with a society of Ninja, masters of stealth and subterfuge, so in spite of Avalanche considering themselves clever for their reactor bombing mission, the Shinra execs were aware of what they were doing from the start, and instead of just letting them destroy the reactors, they actively make the first explosion worse (To create a FalseFlagOperation justifying cracking down on Avalanche) and the second explosion on a remote detonator they easily hijack, evacuate their staff, and set off to justify their desperate measures of the plate drop and justify ditching the entire city.
** Another detail is given a surprisingly realistic angle within the Shinra company itself: Reeve Tuesti, head of urban development, is the only uncorrupt executive on the Shinra board and is the only one of them who wants to do a good job for the sake of the people of Midgar rather than financial gain or other self-serving purposes. Consequently, he isn't respected by his peers and his department is understaffed, underfunded and, when he attempts to get a rebuilding effort started after the fall of the Sector 7 Plate, all of his suggestions are shot down as a waste of time and resources. The only reason the other executives still have him and his department around at all is that they are [[VillainWithGoodPublicity a source of good PR]], making it seem outwardly like Shinra actually cares about the well-being of the people of Midgar.
** In the original game, AVALANCHE defeated Sephiroth, but one must note that Sephiroth was in his transformations and was simply throwing his immense power in the form of powerful attacks with no skill involved in his part and when he and Cloud fight it out in Advent Children, Sephiroth almost beats him in a fair fight. The remake has him as the FinalBoss in his human form and the fight turns out to be much harder than back then. Out of the AVALANCHE members present, Aerith has only had a few years of experience and that was limited to fighting the menaces on the slums while Barret may have more experience in the field but he's got no actual combat training. Cloud is only relying on the skills he is copying from Zack's memories and Tifa has had only a few years of training under Zangan before she is subsequently put into the role of AVALANCHE's financial manager, which clearly prevents her from gaining much direct experience, with the only experience she's had at that time was handling a few monsters in her guide days and she's probably only been fighting Shinra troops for a while. They can take down Shinra's troops with ease, sure, but elite mooks like the Turks and powerful mech and monsters are still capable of posing some serious challenge. When they fight Sephiroth, who can now bring into the field not just his immense power but also the legendary skills he's known for having as SOLDIER's crown jewel, he ends up being much more of a match for them and demonstrates that a fully seasoned war veteran with years of training and experience will beat a strong but untrained fighter with not much experience. This lets Sephiroth handle the party 3-on-1 without being truly defeated, and he ends up beating them in a two-on-one fight, and the difference in performance and expression makes it clear Sephiroth isn't really that affected by the fighting while AVALANCHE struggles to keep their bearings due to being less competent in battle and apart from being temporarily reeling after being beaten enough that his Meteor gets cancelled, he is still perfectly able to continue fighting and only retreats when he decides he has had enough and wants to talk to Cloud one-on-one, during which he gets to show the difference between him and Cloud when Cloud refuses to join him, [[CurbStompBattle the fight between them barely lasting for a minute]], as the seasoned, disciplined swordmaster thoroughly kicks the ass of a headstrong but untrained swordsman to an almost humiliating extent.

** During the [=SeeD=] exam early on, Seifer ignores orders and runs off to do what he wants, namely going into a radio tower held by the enemy. After the mission ends, Seifer is thoroughly punished and reprimanded by the people overseeing their exam for not only disobeying orders, but for putting the lives of his fellow students (who he was supposed to be acting as the leader of during the mission) in danger to satisfy his own pride. He is promptly passed over for graduation because of this, while the others who did follow their orders graduate. They are a school for mercenaries after all. This also causes Quistis to be demoted from her teaching position back down to a regular [=SeeD=] agent, because from the school's perspective, Seifer's failure was her fault as his instructor. Doesn't matter that Seifer did it on his own, Quistis is responsible for her students' successes and failures.
** While the player can't mess up the exam as badly as Seifer did, Squall, Zell and Selphie are still being monitored and ranked based on their performance. They're supposed to be professional mercenaries, so running from fights, ignoring the squad leader's orders, talking to non-mission-critical people and taking risky shortcuts all deduct points, and ducking into a hotel to escape the spider mech chasing you at the end in particular causes a ''massive'' point drop since you just put a ton of civilians in danger. Notably though, while Seifer fails the exam because he ran off to the radio tower against orders, Squall and Zell make the cut despite accompanying him because they were following his orders, so the burden of responsibility isn't on them.

** After a millennia of forced MedievalStasis, Spira's freedom from Yevon's oppressive Machina ban causes the world to change ''drastically'' in just the small-time skip between the two games. Formerly untamed wildernesses like the Calm Lands and religious sites like Zanarkand have turned into flat-out tourist attractions, augmenting technology into combat has forced off most wild beasts, leaving formerly endgame zones safe at best, and the fiends that do show up are very low-level. The thunder plains in particular, for what a pain to navigate they used to be, has turned the lightning storms into a non-issue with machina-augmented lightning rods laid out across the entire road.

** A major theme throughout the first half of the game is that Ashe is the Princess of Dalmasca... and that means next to squat, since her family is dead, she has no real political or military power, and no way to prove her royal heritage. The only respect she gets is from people who recognize her and feel loyalty towards her, but if she needs their help she is pretty much relying on them feeling charitable. Ghis also points out that Ashe hasn't been seen in two years and is presumed dead, so if Archadia ever wanted to use "Ashe's" influence, any young girl bearing a passing resemblance to her could be presented as the real thing and more easily molded into the Empire's pawn, so why should they even leave Ashe alive?

** In a world that's still in the middle-ages tech-wise, the country to advance technology is usually the one to have an edge. Garlemald's discovery of ceruleum and magitek put them on par with the other nations in spite of having no ability to use magic, and developing an active airship fleet, which ''nobody'' else could do, gave them an air force that could easily wipe out and subjugate resistant countries. The only reason the empire's conquest stalled is because their airship fleet - including the ''Agrias'' flagship - ran afoul of Midgardsomr, father of dragonkind and a being on level with a god as well as a massive swarm of angry dragons he summoned, who wiped said fleet out. Cid defecting to Eorzea with the knowledge of tech, combined with Garlemald's weakened military leverage, was a major reason Eorzea was the first and, before ''Stormblood'', only country to beat the Garleans back.
** An example is done for a joke near the end of the ''Shadowbringers'' main story; early on the party decides to not take credit for the night coming back when they defeat the lightwardens, so they can keep moving subtly, especially since they're basically Eulmore's most wanted for most of the story. Near the story's end before taking off for the final battle, they're taken aback when the Crystarium's residents refer to them as Warriors of Darkness and assume the Crystal Exarch spilled the beans, only for them to to say that no, they figured it out because wherever the party went, the night came back, so it ''really'' wasn't hard to put two and two together.
** The Echo grants some of those who wield its power, including the Warrior of Light, the ability to delve into another person's memories to make sense of something, such as whether a woman really stole a loaf of bread as she's accused of just before one of the first uses of the power. As established early on, this happens in real time rather than [[TalkingIsAFreeAction the rest of the world pausing itself while they view these flashbacks]], and [[PowerIncontinence they have no control over when it happens]]; as the story has gone on it's started pointing these out several times, especially in ''Stormblood'' where both the Warrior of Light and another Scion with the Echo suffer from these flashbacks at inconvenient times (the Warrior of Light while interrogating an unrestrained Garlean POW, the other Scion in the middle of a ''battle'') and nearly get killed for it. It also causes problems during the ''Shadowbringers'' role quests; all of them center around hunting Sin-Eaters who [[WasOnceAMan were once that world's Warriors of Light]], and the player character keeps getting visions of them from before they were Sin-Eaters, particularly causing problems in the ranged DPS quests since they happen right as the player character and the quest giver are about to spring a trap, eventually leading the quest giver to fire you from the hunt and storm off in a huff because he thinks you're doing it on purpose.

** The Dotharl tribe of Xaela Au Ra are bloodthirsty fighters who pick battles with larger tribes no matter how suicidal, believing that if one of their members dies in combat, or if someone from outside of a tribe dies saving a Dotharl, they'll be reborn as a new Dotharl as an effective form of BornAgainImmortality, to the point of being given the name of their supposed past life. After talking with Sadu for a bit, she somberly points out that the reality of their deadly culture means they don't replace their numbers and attrition is adding up, and they may even one day in the near future be wiped out for the simple reason that they simply don't have children fast enough. Even if their clansmen really can reincarnate indefinitely, it's a moot point when there's not enough people reproducing to provide flesh for those souls to reincarnate into.
** ''Endwalker'' has the Eorzean Alliance stage a rescue mission to save the people of Garlemald from their [[BrainwashedAndCrazy tempered bretheren]]. However, most of the Garlean citizens still see the Alliance as the enemy since they lost so many of their own to them and TheEmpire always branded the Alliance as savages. Just because one side decided to broker for peace after fighting in a war for years doesn't mean everyone on the other side are willing to forgive and forget. The Warrior of Light is constantly reminded about all the Garlean soldiers they killed in the past and other people would rather risk death in the cold wilderness than to accept supplies from their enemies.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyType0'' Militesi Supersoldiers empty a magazine from their firearms at chest height, and promptly graduate from the ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy. Contrast with the standard soldiers, who fire single aimed shots and ''will'' hit the cadet they're aiming at if said cadet doesn't move.

** What, you thought you'd just waltz into the most sacred place in the city after being declared a traitor, and walk back out of there without getting captured?

** The [[PlayerCharacter Warrior of Light]] has reality strike them every now and then as well. Sometimes their allies will outright force them to take a rest, because god-slaying walking armageddon or not, they're still only mortal and have mortal limits, those limits are just a bit higher than a normal person's. They're also not immune to poisons or drugs, which results in at least one scenario where you get laid out because of a spiked drink.

** Ishgard spent a thousand years fighting dragons due to misinformation over what started the war. [[spoiler:While it was believed that the dragons attacked first, it turns out King Thordan I struck first since he wanted power and gouged out a dragon's eyes to obtain said power. All of Ishgard was raised on a lie and not everyone believes the truth when it's finally revealed. It takes a lot for the citizens to take everything in since they grew up believing the history they were told. Later side story developments show Ishgard and the dragons are attempting to make peace with each other, but it's going to take a lot of time and work since both sides still have fresh memories of the bloody war in their mind.]]

** Violently dealing with a political figure is ''not'' an easy task. In spite of Rinoa's admittedly rather smart plan to take President Deling hostage on the train, the simple presence of a body double made all that effort go to waste and made the Timber Owls look like chumps, while also putting Timber on high security. Seifer dragging Deling off at blade-tip on a live broadcast causes an international incident and (alleged) execution offscreen when Balamb Garden throws him under the bus to escape immediate reprisal. The assassination attempt on Edea a few hours later fails spectacularly for the sole reason that Irving chokes his shot at exactly the wrong moment when he tried to snipe her and allows her time to put up a barrier. As a result of the failed attempt and the fact the assassination party was made of [=SeeDs=] from all three Gardens results in Edea declaring war on the Gardens, Galbadia Garden throws the other two under the bus (Irving wasn't caught, so they could claim deniability) and sides with Edea while Balamb and Trabia Garden are bombarded with missiles (Balamb escapes due to circumstances, Trabia suffers a direct hit with massive loss of life).

** The Dotharl tribe of Xaela Au Ra are bloodthirsty fighters who pick battles with larger tribes no matter how suicidal, believing that if one of their members dies in combat, or if someone from outside of a tribe dies saving a Dotharl, they'll be reborn as a new Dotharl as an effective form of ResurrectiveImmortality, to the point of being given the name of their supposed past life. After talking with Sadu for a bit, she somberly points out that the reality of their deadly culture means they don't replace their numbers and attrition is adding up, and they may even one day in the near future be wiped out for the simple reason that they simply don't have children fast enough. Even if their clansmen really can reincarnate indefinitely, it's a moot point when there's not enough people reproducing to provide flesh for those souls to reincarnate into.

** The Dotharl tribe of Xaela Au Ra are bloodthirsty fighters who pick battles with larger tribes no matter how suicidal, believing that if one of their members dies in combat, or if someone from outside of a tribe dies saving a Dotharl, they'll be reborn as their clansmen and give them an effective form or ResurrectiveImmortality, to the point of being given the name of a fallen tribe member. After talking with Sadu for a bit, she somberly points out that the reality of their deadly culture means they don't replace their numbers and attrition is adding up, and may even one day in the near future be wiped out for the simple reason that they simply don't reproduce fast enough. Even if their clansmen really can reincarnate indefinitely, it's a moot point when there's not enough people reproducing to provide flesh for those souls to reincarnate.

** During the [=SeeD=] exam early on, Seifer ignores orders and runs off to do what he wants, namely going into a radio tower held by the enemy. After the mission ends, Seifer is thoroughly punished and reprimanded by the people overseeing their exam for not only disobeying orders, but for putting the lives of his fellow students (who he was supposed to be acting as the leader of during the mission) in danger to satisfy his own pride. He promptly is passed over for graduation because of this, while the others who did follow their orders graduate. They are a school for mercenaries after all. This also causes Quistis to be demoted from her teaching position back down to a regular [=SeeD=] agent, because from the school's perspective, Seifer's failure was her fault as his instructor. Doesn't matter that Seifer did it on his own, Quistis is responsible for her students' successes and failures.
** While the player can't mess up the exam as badly as Seifer did, Squall, Zell and Selphie are still being monitored and ranked based on their performance. They're supposed to be professional mercenaries, so running from fights, ignoring the squad leader's orders, talking to non-mission-critical people, and taking risky shortcuts all deduct points, and ducking into a hotel to escape the spider mech chasing you at the end in particular causes a ''massive'' point drop since you just put a ton of civilians in danger. Notably, though, while Seifer fails the exam because he ran off to the radio tower against orders, Squall and Zell still make the cut even though they went with him, because they were following his orders, so the burden of responsibility isn't on them.

** It turns out that training children into a special forces combat force is really bad for their mental health and emotional stability, especially when they lack more than the most cursory adult support and guidance. Squall, the worst case thanks to his Ellone-related abandonment issues, is a nuclear stress meltdown waiting to happen, but ''none'' of the Garden kids is in great shape: Seifer is a bully whose combination of grand dreams and trouble with authority figures leaves him vulnerable to manipulation by the BigBad; Quistis was driven to mature too quickly and thus ended up saddled with responsibilities too heavy for her, not helped by her own crippling self-doubt; Selphie, despite her cute GenkiGirl demeanor, is almost always quick to suggest excessive violence as a problem-solving strategy; and Irvine presents himself as a shallow, self-absorbed flirt to cover for ''his'' abandonment issues only to completely crack under pressure during a critical mission and nearly flub the whole thing. The only member of the main [=SeeD=] squad to have their head on even halfway straight is Zell, who got the benefit of being raised by and maintaining a close relationship with a loving parent to offset the whole "child soldier" business.

** Another detail is given a surprisingly realistic angle within the Shinra company itself: Reeve Tuesti, head of urban development, is the only uncorrupt executive on the Shinra board and is the only one of them who wants to do a good job for the sake of the people of Midgar rather than financial gain or other self-serving purposes. Consequently, he isn't respected by his peers and his department is understaffed, underfunded and, when he attempts to get a rebuilding effort started after the fall of the Sector 7 Plate, all of his suggestions are shot down as a waste of time and resources. The only reasion the other executives still have him and his department around at all is that they are [[VillainWithGoodPublicity a source of good PR]], making it seem outwardly like Shinra actually cares about the well-being of the people of Midgar.

** Politics have also shifted after Yuna revealed to the world that Yevonism was both hypocritical and led by ghosts upholding an AncientConspiracy. As a result, not even the most staunch followers of Yevon stayed loyal, instead creating a "New Yevon" religion - which keeps to the positive morals of the old religion while preaching for conservatively giving machines to the world - and the Youth League - who think that since most of Yevon was lies, they don't deserve the time of day for redemption and want to tear down as many walls as possible to augment the world with machines. The Al Bhed, who have centuries of persecution from Yevon behind them for their use of Machina, naturally side with the League. [[spoiler:When the two factions go to war, the story angles towards the Youth League being the "right" faction, as while neither is technically in the right and both are at fault for tensions getting so high, siding with a church that has a risk of slipping back into their old corrupt ways is considered the worse option of the two. Showing New Yevon any favoritism at all locks you out of the game's GoldenEnding.]]

** In the original game, AVALANCHE defeated Sephiroth, but one must note that Sephiroth was in his transformations and was simply throwing his immense power in the form of powerful attacks with no skill involved in his part and when he and Cloud fight it out in Advent Children, Sephiroth almost beats him in a fair fight. The remake has him as the FinalBoss in his human form and the fight turns out to be much harder than back then. Out of the AVALANCHE members present, Aerith has only had a few years of experience and that was limited to fighting the menaces on the slums while Barret may have more experience in the field but he's got no actual combat training. Cloud is only relying on the skills he is copying from Zack's memories and Tifa has had only a few years of training under Zangan before she is subsequently put into the role of AVALANCHE's financial manager, which clearly prevents her from gaining much direct experience, with the only experience she's had at that time was handling a few monsters in her guide days and she's probably only been fighting Shinra troops for a while. They can take down Shinra's troops with ease, sure, but elite mooks like the Turks and powerful mech and monsters are still capable of posing some serious challenge. When they fight Sephiroth, who can now bring into the field not just his immense power but also the legendary skills he's known for having as SOLDIER's crown jewel, he ends up being much more of a match for them and demonstrates that a fully seasoned war veteran with years of training and experience will beat a strong but untrained fighter with not much experience. This lets Sephiroth handle the party 3-on-1 without being truly defeated, and he ends up beating them in a two-on-one fight, and the difference in performance and expression makes it clear Sephiroth isn't really that affected by the fighting while AVALANCHE struggles to keep their bearings due to being less competent in battle and apart from being temporarily reeling after being beaten enough that his Meteor gets cancelled, he is still perfectly able to continue fighting and only retreats when he decides he has had enough and wants to talk to Cloud one-on-one.

* [[ItWasHisSled Infamously]], when Aerith is murdered by Sephiroth in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', there are no theatrics to it at all. No HopelessBossFight, no HeadsIWinTailsYouLose, no chance for Aerith or Cloud to react; Sephiroth just ambushes her while she's alone with Cloud in the middle of the night and impales her through the heart with his Masamune, killing her almost instantly.

** Ashe's desire for revenge means she's willing to do whatever it takes to get at the Archadian Empire. This causes major issues because she puts revenge over her countries future or well-being, leading to instances of the loss of allies or even the deaths of people because she believes her revenge is justified and this rushes off to find power or fight back against the Empire. Vossler outright betrays her when he realizes this, believing that she would doom Dalmasca over revenge, something that Ashe doesn't truly awaken to till late into the game.

** Politics have also shifted, after it was revealed that Yevonism was both hypocritical and led by ghosts upholding an AncientConspiracy, Yuna told the entire story to the world. As a result, not even the most staunch followers of Yevon stayed loyal, instead creating a "New Yevon" religion who keeps to the positive morals of the old religion, while preaching for conservatively giving machines to the world, and the Youth League who thinks that since most of Yevon was lies, they don't deserve the time of day for redemption and want to tear down as many walls as possible to augment the world with machines; the Al Bhed, who have centuries of persecution from Yevon behind them for their use of Machina, naturally side with the League. [[spoiler:When the two factions go to war, the story angles towards the Youth League being the "right" faction, as while neither is technically in the right and both are at fault for tensions getting so high, siding with a church that has a risk of slipping back into their old corrupt ways is considered the worse option of the two. Showing New Yevon any favoritism at all locks you out of the game's GoldenEnding.]]