Line #44 DethroningMoment/FinalFantasy


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9	Sadly, the [[RunningGag head-deskingly popular]] ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series has its share of moments that leave the player going "Square(-Enix), [[DarthWiki/DethroningMomentOfSuck what was]] ''wrong'' with you?"
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11	Keep in mind:
12	* Sign your entries
13	* One moment for each game to a troper, if multiple entries of the same game are signed to the same troper the more recent one will be cut.
14	* Moments only, no "just everything he said," or "The entire game" entries.
15	* No contesting entries. This is subjective, the entry is their opinion.
16	* No natter. As above, anything contesting an entry will be cut, and anything that's just contributing more can be made its own entry.
17	* Explain ''why'' it's a DarthWiki/DethroningMomentOfSuck.
18	* Please make sure the moment is fictional and is neither an event that occured in real life nor something gameplay-related. We have a perfectly good ScrappyMechanic page for the latter.
19	* No ALLCAPS, no '''bold''', and no ''italics'' unless it's the title of a work. We are not yelling the [=DMoSs=] out loud.
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21	[[foldercontrol]]
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23	[[folder: Final Fantasy IV]]
24	* Tropers/{{Catmuto}}: The repeated {{Senseless Sacrifice}}s over the course of the game were pretty bad, but there are multiple ones and I cannot say one is worse than the other. And then I found the real [=DMoS=] in this game for me. It's the big, epic scene against the Giant of Babel, that shows that every single one of those sacrifices was reverted. They were all peachy-okay and no worse for the wear than before. It already made their silly sacrificial scenes come off worse, mocking the concept of sacrifices almost (which is weird, since Square overall seems to like the idea of at least one character sacrificing themselves for the great good in practically every Final Fantasy) and takes all the drama away. The only one who doesn't get 'resurrected' is [[spoiler: Tellah]], of course. A very bad design choice - either let those sacrifices stick or do not make me go through multiple sacrifices (even more than one for a character) to begin with.
25	* Tropers/{{LittleJon}}: For me, it's Cecil's incredibly stupid and OutOfCharacter StayInTheKitchen moment with Rosa and Rydia when you travel to the moon. When you decide to go to the Moon to defeat the ultimate evil, Cecil tells Rosa, your WhiteMage, and Rydia, your BlackMage with Summoner abilites that they can't go because they are women. This is despite the fact that Cecil has had no problems fighting with women in horrible situations before (Young!Rydia, Mature!Rydia, Porom, Rosa). It has no place in the game and makes Cecil look like a complete idiot and a StrawMisandrist. This might be permissible if Cecil had stated other reasons (he still feels guilty about Rydia and he doesn't want to send his true love [who might be pregnant] to another celestial body) but the game does not bring this up.
26	[[/folder]]
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28	[[folder: Final Fantasy VII and its Compilations]]
29	* Tropers/{{Catmuto}}: I overall didn't enjoy ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', but there was this one moment in the game that made me hate ever having played the game to begin with. It's actually somewhat early on, Disc 1, when the group makes it to North Corel and learn Barret's background. Shinra wanted to build a Mako Reactor there and persuaded almost the entire town to say yes, even Barret was eventually persuaded, after being an initial nay-sayer. In the end, Shinra builds the Mako Reactor and the reactor eventually goes boom, lots of dead and injured and problems. And yet everyone in North Corel is blaming Barret, like he is the sole reason the Mako Reactor exploded or was built in the first place. Do these people have selective memory? Aside from seemingly denying that they said yes, too, the last person who was against the building of the reactor and kept saying no? Dyne! Dyne was the last person, he was the one who gave the final yes needed to build the damn thing. North Corel is full of people who are horrible jerks, I do not feel any sympathy for them and I see no reason why they blame Barret so much. I may not like Barret a lot, but he did not deserve to be hated that much by the townspeople.
30	** Chimanruler15: What makes this even worse is that after listening to Barret's backstory, Yuffie outright states that she has no sympathy for Barret. Her reason for it? "He should never have trusted Shinra." Um, okay, and? I get that she has issues with the Shinra, too, but so what? A lot of people trusted Shinra and were screwed over by them. Are you not going to feel any sympathy for them, either? Perhaps Barret isn't the only person she doesn't feel sympathy for, but it just goes to show how much of a bitch she is. If she had a better reason for her lack of sympathy, it wouldn't be as bad.
31	** Tropers/KingLyger: I didn't particularly care for the way Barret's backstory was handled, either. But the real turning point for me was the moment that Cid and Barret stop a train from crashing into Corel later in the game, causing the citizens of the town to suddenly realize [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone that they were way too hard on Barret]]. It took Barret saving their sorry butts and expecting to get mocked for it again before the townspeople finally came to their senses, which makes the claims of SelfServingMemory on their part ring more true. I couldn't feel any sympathy for the people of Corel after being so harsh to Barret for something they all did collectively. True, they were probably letting all of their anger for Shinra out on Barret over their own collective failure, but Barret absolutely did not have that coming, and Corel didn't do anything to fight back against Shinra while they kept blaming him for it. And all the while, Barret was doing more to stop Shinra's plans than any of Corel's citizens ever did. It says something to me when the AbridgedSeries ''WebAnimation/FinalFantasyVIIMachinabridged'' did a better job with this subplot than the game itself did.
32	* Tropers/{{Crazyrabbits}}: The original ending of the game (that is, the cutscene after defeating Sephiroth), before it was expanded/retconned by ''Anime/FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren''. After Cloud somehow pulls himself and Tifa up onto a cliff ledge one-handed, we suddenly learn that the Highwind has a heretofore-unmentioned "escape" craft that can eject whenever the ship is badly damaged, Aeris is somehow still "alive" in the Lifestream (and seemingly stops Meteor herself), and it is implied that everyone is dead in TheStinger that occurs 200 years later, save for Red XIII (who's somehow sired a pair of cubs). It would have been a NoEnding at best, had the anime not cleared up most of the lingering questions from the ending.
33	* Tropers/{{cricri3007}}: While I could complain for quite a while about the Arbiters of Fate, my [=DMoS=] with ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'' actually came earlier. It's the vision of Sephiroth Cloud experiences at the beginning of Chapter 2. Look, I know that Sephiroth is an iconic villain, and that they couldn't remake the Midgard part (where he doen't appear at all in the original) without having him present in some form. But couldn't they have waited just a bit? I mean, for fuck's sake, we haven't even met Tifa, or even ''Aerith'' yet and we already have visions of this dude?
34	* Loekman3: Related Sephiroth's EarlyBirdCameo in ''Remake'' is Cloud's confrontation with Sephiroth in the Drum. Now Cloud does have multiple visions of Sephiroth before but this is the first time that he appears right there in person with the other Party members also witnessing this. But the Dethroning Moment of this is that it ultimately becomes a glorified BigLippedAlligatorMoment. Like why does nobody comment on it? This is freakin Sephiroth, the very same SOLDIER who supposedly died during the Nibelheim Incident. Maybe Barret and Red XIII doesn't know what's going on and Aerith is hiding the truth from them but what about Tifa whom she knew he killed his father back then and burned her hometown. Ok I guess they're probably occupied with trying to escape Hojo's lab but you'd think they'd comment or at least show some visible reaction to his presence. Ok maybe you could say that they don't know Sephiroth's there and it's just Cloud having a bout of anxiety but you'd think they would comment on ''that'' instead. Like have Barret egg Cloud on why is he attacking a thin air for no reason or have Tifa question Aerith on Cloud's mental state. This moment also has the downside of making Sephiroth's trail much less impactful compared to the original as the fact that he's already in the HQ really ruins much of the tension and suspense of the big reveal.
35	* IzzyUneasy: I've never been on board with yet another example of pandering to VII fans, but the most groan-worthy scene I've seen so far is Wedge getting his ass injuired and the resulting [[SarcasmMode hilarious]] hijinks. Who in their right mind would think that such dumbfucked asstarded shitty farce will be a good idea? No amount of disgust can cover my feelings for such retarded example of humor, in the most retarded sense. Now where the fuck is my Rolling Rock?
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38	[[folder:Final Fantasy VIII]]
39	* Tropers/KingZeal: ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' gave me a Dethroning Scene Of Suck. The entire damn Garden War between Balamb and Galbadia gardens prior to actually entering Galbadia garden. Rinoa's DistressBall derails almost everything happening concurrently in regards to plot and characterization. Examples? The Garden War scene where she's hanging from the edge and the party comes back to get Squall to rescue her. Keep in mind that, at this point, Squall has been deemed the commander of this war and the life of every Balamb student ([=SeeD=] or otherwise) is his responsibility. Squall refuses to go and save ONE student as opposed to the dozens, if not hundreds that need him now—then the party completely disregards what he says and tells him to do it anyway while they make up their own plan. I'm sorry, who was in charge here again? Worse, they use the phrase "Rinoa is one of us" for their justification (as opposed to, you know, the other people in the Garden whom many either grew up with and befriended long before Rinoa came along). Next, when Squall actually mounts his rescue, the means to do so literally drops into his lap through Contrived Coincidence. Third, after he rescues her, he and Rinoa run through an intense battlefield with warriors from both sides killing and being killed mercilessly while they head to defeat the BigBad behind the whole war. Then, they suddenly decide to stop and have a cutesy romantic conversation involving Squall's ring—while the people under Squall's command are fighting and dying a few yards away.
40	* Tropers/{{Manwiththeplan}}: The dragged-out sequence where it was revealed that all the party members (sans Rinoa and including Seifer) all grew up together in the same orphanage, which was run by the apparent BigBad Edea. This comes completely out of nowhere, as does the AssPull revelation that GF summons cause memory loss (Selphie's example of this happening is particularly forced). Irvine remembers everything though, which admittedly does add a much better motive to his hesitance to shoot Edea earlier besides "he's a coward", but the whole sequence is still very improbable, illogical, and in the grand scheme of things, adds little to the story other than a lame AssPull.
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43	[[folder:Final Fantasy XIII and its Compilations]]
44	* Chimanruler15: ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII''. Hope's bloodlust for Snow throughout the entire thing was somewhat annoying for me, and it was at its worst in the scene where he attempted to kill Snow. Apparently, Hope didn't bother to listen when Lightning, who isn't fond of Snow, either, pointed out to him in an earlier cut-scene that the Sanctum--not Snow--killed his mother. Vanille doesn't even back Snow up prior to this cut-scene even though she also witnessed the event firsthand, and Snow doesn't even try to defend himself by explaining to Hope that (a) Hope's mother willingly volunteered to be in Snow's resistance army and that (b) he was admittedly reluctant to let her join because she was a mother. Yes, Snow doesn't think through his actions, but come on, Hope. You saw that Snow didn't force your mother to fight, and you even saw her get blasted. Humans are not perfect, but I absolutely hate it when characters get blamed for things that are completely out of their control. Maybe if Hope had simply been extremely angry or even violent with Snow as Lightning was (I didn't really like that conflict, either, but at least Lightning apologized for it, and it was nowhere near as bad), I would have less of a problem with it, but no, the writers had to make him go and attempt to kill Snow. Really, Square?
45	** {{Tropers/ThatsNumberwang}}: The point where this whole game came crashing down for me was just how poorly handled the focuses are. Once someone becomes a L'Cie, they are given a mission to complete within a certain time limit or they will turn into a monster. Sounds straightforward so far, right? Except for the fact that you are never actually told what your mission objectives are making the whole thing a complete shot in the dark from start to finish. Oh, but don't worry, the Fal'Cie are good enough to give you a hint in the form of a short and hazy mental image with zero context to set you on your way. To put this into real life terms, imagine being handed a photograph of a random person or place without explanation by a guy with a gun who then tells you to complete the task before you lest he blows your brains out. And what makes this worse, what genuinely made me turn off my Platform/PlayStation and return later, is the revelation about two thirds of the way through that the Fal'Cie can talk. Any justification that the contextless focus dream is the only way that they can communicate with human beings is instantly shot in the foot when we learn that at any time they could have just told them exactly what it is that they wanted them to do. Yeah, you read that right: The Fal'Cie are intentionally setting up people that they've tasked with helping them to fail.
46	* Mousou: ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2''. It's a toss up, the canon ending gives us [[spoiler:another TheBadGuyWins scenario, the only characters who are alive at the end are [[TakenForGranite Lightning]], BigBad Caius, and maybe Yuel.]] As mentioned above nothing is more infuriating in a game than ending by [[ShootTheShaggyDog invalidating your efforts]], especially in a game that can take well over 40 hours to complete. Put in the effort to get the OneHundredPercentCompletion Secret Ending, which due to all the LastLousyPoint and GuideDangIt will take over 65 hours even with a guide, and you're treated to [[spoiler:a short scene of the BigBad [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech taunting]] [[BreakingTheFourthWall you]], and revealing that [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption no matter what]] he won and everybody died.]]
47	** {{Tropers/Crazyrabbits}}: The ''Lightning'' DLC. Remember that cliffhanger over whether or not Serah would survive the merging of the universes? [[spoiler:Nope, she's dead]], and the game rubs it in the player's face several times. How did Lightning get into the other universe? [[spoiler:She sat in a chair and waited]]. Basically, that whole cliffhanger at the end of the game was a waste of time, Serah's arc was a ShaggyDogStory, and the big reveal of Lightning was underwhelming and pointless.
48	** {{Tropers/Carroty}}: The game’s in-universe retconning of XIII’s ending as well as its message. In the first game humans were revealed to be special, and capable of choosing their own fate unlike the Fal’Cie, which is why the Fal'Cie used l'Cie instead of doing stuff themselves. Lightning and co. were able to overcome their destinies as l'Cie, and choose to save Cocoon rather than destroy it. The game also touched on the aspects of freedom versus safety. The people of Cocoon were like pets, entirely dependent on the Fal’Cie to provide their every need. Food, clothing, shelter, even their sun was provided by the Fal’Cie. To break free of the Fal’Cie would thrust humanity into the wilderness of the planet Pulse, and while XIII’s ending is optimistic there is uncertainty about how this society that has never had to worry about basic necessities would survive on its own. XIII-2 ruined all that. Instead it turns out that no, humans are not special or capable of overcoming their destinies. Lightning and co. did not succeed through their will at all, it took a goddess feeling pity on them to rewrite history for them to win at the end of XIII. Then we see what has become of humanity since leaving Cocoon and... beach houses. They built a bunch of beach houses. Even Serah lives in what looks like a luxurious tropical resort. They fish and grow gardens and everything seems too easy for what should have been humanity being forced to live on the surface of Pulse after generations of being pampered pets.
49	* Tropers/{{Catmuto}}: Now, I personally enjoyed ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII XIII]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII Lightning Returns]]''. But something that pissed me off so much in this game was the sudden emphasis on a reciprocated love between Noel and Yeul. Recalling back to the [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2 previous game]], the only time we actually saw the Yeul that Noel knew, it was [[spoiler: in his dream world]]. Call me too cynical, but that is not a time where I would take such a revelation seriously. It was a heavily biased area, for all I know, Noel could have been simply showing the player what he wanted it to be, rather than what it was. And yet, it feels so suddenly out of nowhere, when pretty much every Yeul in the game says that this specific Yeul was in love with Noel, not Caius. It felt shoe-horned in, like [=Square=] wanted to stop people from [[FanPreferredCouple shipping Serah and Noel together]] and had, honestly, no place in the game entirely.

Context DethroningMoment / FinalFantasy