Despite the franchise being mind-numbingly popular, Final Fantasy has its games end on a bittersweet note, whether "bitter" or "sweet" depending on the story.
- Final Fantasy ends with the undoing of the Stable Time Loop that necessitated the quest of the Light Warriors, and as a consequence, nobody, not even the heroes themselves, ever remember their deeds. Also, the main villain gets everything he ever wanted. He's alive, and apparently near to the Princess.
- Even worse than FFI, Final Fantasy II ends with Leon leaving the heroes, saying too much had happened, and that things couldn't go back to the way they were. Dawn of Souls furthers this by showing off all of the dead characters from the game watching over the still living characters. Not to mention most of the world population has been killed off due to two superweapons. Lest we forget: the world is not irreparably damaged, and the population isn't all that bad off (only one city is well and truly destroyed). Sure, the psychological scars won't heal easily, but they never do.
- The original Final Fantasy Tactics ends with Delita becoming king, but he kills Ovelia in self-defense after she attacks him and stabs him. He is left wondering if his friend, Ramza, came off better because he was free, while Delita is Lonely at the Top. Meanwhile, Ramza is still considered a heretic, and he and his sister are apparently dead. Olan attends Alma's funeral and thanks Ramza for all he did, and muses why he did all that despite knowing that he would always be considered a heretic by history. The extended cinema answers that by showing him riding in peace with his sister. Hundreds of years later, Olan's writings are discovered, and Ramza's name is finally cleared, and his deeds are finally known to the world.
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance ends with an ambiguous ending where the characters aren't sure if they've succeeded or not. Rather, they've succeeded, but the question is whether they did the right thing. The ending makes it seem like Ivalice and the real world are two separate universes, rather than having them replace each other. Also, post-game content makes it seem like either only Mewt went back to the real world, or duplicates of everyone except Mewt were left in Ivalice.
- Final Fantasy Tactics A2 ends with the hero, Luso, leaving Ivalice for good, with all his friends left behind. However, it's not explicitly stated that he can never return.
- Final Fantasy V has an interesting implementation of this & Multiple Endings. Whoever is left KO'ed at the end of the final battle will be too weak to escape the void, and the ending cutscene will have the survivors morn the losses. Subverted at the end, though, where Galuf brings back the ones who were killed.
- At the end of Final Fantasy VI, Kefka is defeated, but his death means the end of magic forever AND the deaths of every single surviving Esper (if there even are any surviving Espers by that point), and this is all after Kefka ruled the world for a year while destroying cities left and right with a magic laser beam. Not to mention that Shadow is left inside Kefka's tower as it collapses and is never seen again.
- Final Fantasy VII doesn't clarify anything in the ending, save that Red XIII survived to father children. The Compilation has clarified this, but only by making it even more bittersweet. The world is saved, but it's still a screwed-up place, Cloud is still mopey, Aerith is still dead, and Sephiroth is still lurking in the wings and probably always will be. Advent Children ends with Cloud and his True Companions going into Lifestream-purified water for redemption. They seem to end up okay, as well (Cloud being not mopey anymore, for example).
- Final Fantasy VIII's Stable Time Loop goes on perpetuating itself: tales of Ultimecia's actions and her brief reign of terror passed down from generation to generation lead to the persecution of sorceresses, which in turn provokes Ultimecia into attempting to change the past and, when that proves impossible, to compress time. Squall and company's defeat of Ultimecia during Time Compression throws both Squall and Ultimecia into the past, where Ultimecia passes on her power to Edea and Squall provides Edea with the inspiration for SeeD. The immediate danger has passed, but Ultimecia's rise in the future is all but guaranteed.
- Final Fantasy IX has this, in a way. Sure, Zidane survives the events at the Iifa Tree and ends up with Dagger, Steiner ends up with Beatrix, Freya gets back together with a still-amnesiac Fratley, and Eiko is Happily Adopted by Cid Fabul and Hilda. But, Vivi died some time before the epilogue, and his dying words play out over the ending.
- Final Fantasy X. The ending is heartbreaking: Sin is permanently defeated, thus saving Spira, but Auron is sent to the Farplane and Tidus ceases to exist with the departure of the Fayth. The player also has to sacrifice the Aeons they had painstakingly collected and leveled up. Yuna herself mentions in the sequel how she still suffers from that. However, a short post-credits scene suggests that Tidus may still be alive, and depending on how the sequel plays out, he can return, making the ending a bit less bitter.
- Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning and co. manage to defeat Orphan once and for all, except that means that Cocoon is set to fall, killing everyone. In a moment of heroism, Fang and Vanille stay behind and use Ragnarok to save Cocoon, creating the Crystal Pillar, at the cost of themselves. Lightning awakens, and Dajh and Serah appear to reunite with their loved ones.
- The ending of Final Fantasy XIII-2 goes all over the place with its ending. At first, it is a Happy Ending with the timeline fixed of all paradoxes, Hope managing to get the New Cocoon to float in the sky, Fang and Vanille's crystal rescued out of the Crystal Pillar before it collapses... and then Serah sees the changes of the timeline and dies in Noel's arms, making this bittersweet... and then things got worse. However, it is shown that Lightning will eventually wake up, and that the rest of the main cast lived to the sequel, and we'll see where it goes from there.
- The shutdown of the servers during the 1.0 version of Final Fantasy XIV is heartbreaking. The artificial moon, Dalamud, breaks apart, scattering its fragments across Eorzea and forever changes many landscapes (Coerthas is in a perpetual winter, for example). The mighty dragon god, Bahamut, breaks free from Dalamud's prison and utterly destroys much of Eorzea, with many people on both sides of good and evil being lost. By the time Louisoix sends the player characters into the future and stops Bahamut, most of the land is heavily damaged. Not all is lost, since the survivors begin to rebuild their homes and lives. Within the span of five years, things have mostly bounced back, and this is where 2.0 A Realm Reborn takes place.
- Final Fantasy XIV's various raids, save for Heavensward's "Shadows of Mhach" and Stormblood's "Return to Ivalice" are rife with these.
- In "Crystal Tower", the Warrior of Light and their comrades are able to stop the Cloud of Darkness and sever its connection to the star and save Nero, but Unei and Doga had to stay behind, sacrificing themselves. Furthermore, G'raha Tia decides to stay in the Crystal Tower to protect it from people seeking to use its power when they're not ready. Thankfully, he doesn't have to stay there too long.
- In "YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse", the White Androids are defeated, saving the First from their desire to destroy everything, but Anogg sacrifices herself to close the portal between the First and the world of Nie R Automata, but this also meant that 2B and 9S had to return to that world as well. Konogg is devastated to learn his sister is gone for good and runs off with the intent to find a way to bring her back. You ultimately discover a lead that he's been Eulmore and you go to find him, but he's not there — before you arrived, Konogg suffers a Heroic BSoD in the belief he couldn't bring his sister back before Anogg shows up, claims he actually did and they walk off hand-in-hand. In true Yoko Taro fashion, it's an Ambiguous Situation if he truly did it or something else was at play.
- In "Myths of the Realm", the Warrior of Light battles and defeats the Twelve in their Fusion Dance form, Eulogia, but their little Thanatos Gambit comes to fruition, spreading their aether across the land so they can heal it from the damage done to it from various Calamities and other incidents and they decide to return to the Lifestream and be reborn anew. However, Oschon the Wanderer decides he isn't done with humanity and returns as his human form Deryk, now with a mortal lifespan and strength, so he can experience the world without the burden of being a god.
- Final Fantasy XV: Noctis ascends to the True King and kills Ardyn, purging the Starscourge from Eos once and for all, while Niflheim has been defeated, but Noctis has to sacrifice himself to end Ardyn and the Starscourge, ending the Lucis Caelum line forever, and with the death of Luna, the two bloodlines that can use magic and contact divinity have ended. Many people have died over the course of 10 years, and the world may recover in the end, but there is still much work to do, although Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto being alive leaves the future hopeful, especially with how there are still people like Cor and Aranea who can lead and guide new generations of humanity to rebuild.
- Final Fantasy XVI: Clive ultimately kills the corrupt God of Gods Ultima, stopping his goals to terraform the world and turn all of humanity into Akashic forever, fully revives Joshua, and also manages to fulfill everything he hoped for and more: His goals of abolishing the Bearer slavery system is achieved along with ending the Blight, and all the surviving nations are now at peace due to his actions while leading the Hideway, with the post-credits scene showing that the world is now thriving. However, the social order around Valisthea has been destroyed in the process, which would mean hard times are ahead for the Hideway and the rest of the world, even if it's shown that the world recovered in the end at the post-credits scene, and to cure the Blight and truly bring about peace required Clive to completely destroy the Mothercrystals and remove magic itself entirely, which combined with the power he used to revive Joshua may or may not have killed him and prevented the brothers from reuniting and Clive and Jill from truly getting together.
