From "The crystals come back" to "The legacy of the crystals has shaped our history for long enough."
The Final Fantasy series isn't known for being the happiest, but these examples stand out.
- The first game in the series was an optimistic journey of destined heroes out to save the world. The second game in the series starts off with its heroes getting slaughtered by The Empire's Elite Mooks and losing one of their members, which is only an omen of the Anyone Can Die nature of the plot.
- Final Fantasy IV is a pretty dark and story-driven game, especially since it's sandwiched between the third and fifth games, both of which are very light-hearted. From the main character committing war crimes, the traumatic backstories to some of the characters, and the Disney Death trope being frequent (though only one character is actually Killed Off for Real), it's a signal for the dark things to come for the franchise. And yet, it's not as dark as the second game.
- Final Fantasy VI opens with a crashing organ riff and thunderbolts while the Opening Scroll informs us that magic has died. The Empire has been experimenting on a sentient race, and at one point we're shown them literally being used up and thrown away. The amnesiac main character, when knocked out, experiences a particularly horrifying recollection about being enslaved and forced to burn people alive. Previous lead villains in Final Fantasy games were shown using dark magic, killing individuals, torching towns and then trying to end existence - the lead villain of VI, Kefka, is depicted as a slaver, imperialist and war criminal before gaining godlike power, after which he miserably potshots towns for want of something to do.
- Final Fantasy VII is, in some ways, even darker than VI, combining the grittier tone of VI with Tetsuya Nomura's 'edgier' designs and a grungy dystopian Cyberpunk setting. The main cast go from being rebels, a Final Fantasy archetype used in II and VI, to being explicitly identified as terrorists whose hopes of changing the political situation come across as naive. One faction of villains are evil capitalists, and the other villain is a Gaslighting undead madman with the ability to possess people and a desire to drive the main character mad. The heroes are a complete Dysfunction Junction and the possibility is seriously floated that saving the world might involve killing all of humanity.
- Final Fantasy VII Remake is much darker than the original story in many respects. A few characters die on-screen rather than by implication, the aftermath of Shinra atrocities is shown more graphically, and characters are more vulgar in their speech than before. Not to mention that the game is a Deconstruction of remakes and retellings, and the chapter ends with Sephiroth's triumph in removing the guidance of the Arbiters of Fate and setting the story potentially on much darker paths.
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is darker than both the original game and the previous chapter of the remake. Best shown by Cloud and Tifa's recollection of the Nibelheim Incident: Tifa's wounding by Sephiroth is quite bloody this time, and his massacre of the townsfolk includes a potential decapitation of the Mayor via Gory Discretion Shot.
- Final Fantasy Tactics is unusually dark and cynical, even by Final Fantasy standards. The setting and tone of the story is much less fantastical and much more gritty than most games in the series, with much more blood and on-screen death, a lot of moral ambiguity due to the political nature of the plot, and the most chilling and frightening Eldritch Abominations in the series as antagonists.
- After the light-hearted Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy X brings back a lot of the darkness full-force. The world is being repeatedly devastated by an Eldritch Abomination whose origins and motive are beyond comprehension, and civilisation is unable to advance, only barely keep itself standing. The group responsible for keeping it at bay for short periods turns out to be a Corrupt Church of the first order, and doing so requires a would-be Summoner to sacrifice one of their friends, and then themselves. The plot deals with heavy themes like the inevitability of death, religious dogma and technological progress, and racial discrimination. And it all caps off with quite the Bittersweet Ending.
- Final Fantasy Type-0 is easily one of darkest games in the series, and definitely its darkest spin-off. The game takes place in a world plunged into war, with the opening animation sparing no expense in showing a violent, vaguely Nazi-esque army viciously slaughtering Child Soldiers. The hits don't stop there; shortly into the game, players are treated to a heart-rending scene of one child soldier and their chocobo dying painfully in a pool of their own blood, and it gets worse as the game continues. The dark subject matter, in conjunction with violence the likes of which the series had not seen before, made this game’s HD remaster the first M-Rated Final Fantasy in the series's long history.
- While Final Fantasy XII wasn't shy of darker or more political elements, the game remained a bit more lighthearted than the typical Final Fantasy, helped by its exploration-heavy gameplay and world-focused story. It's successor, Final Fantasy XIII, would throw much of this out the window in favor of a bleak, incredibly (and increasingly) complex storyline running the gamut from government conspiracy to chillingly realistic genocide campaigns on the part of the villains, heroes bluntly declared akin to world-threatening terrorists (whose own issues are an entire can of worms on their own), and a general feeling of hopelessness so strong that even the characters themselves bluntly muse if everything is for naught and and should just give into their shitty fates and kill everyone. Hey, it's either that or turn into immortal crystal zombies forever for failing to end the world.
- The base game of Final Fantasy XIV takes place after a devastating apocalypse, but depicts civilization being rebuilt and the people being hopeful for the future. Once the expansions move beyond the Eorzean mainland, however, the world is shown to be a dark and imperfect place. Heavensward takes place in Ishgard, a theocracy with Urban Segregation between the nobles living in posh neighborhoods and the downtrodden commoners, caught up in a Forever War against dragons which is eventually shown to have been caused by the Ishgardians' ancestors. Stormblood focuses on efforts to liberate the conquered nations of Ala Mhigo and Doma, both shown to suffer gravely under imperial rule to such a degree that the people have grown accustomed to the horrors of occupation and fear reprisals from any rebellion. Shadowbringers takes place in an alternate reality where the forces of Light have defeated the forces of Darkness, only for most of the world to be completely destroyed by Light. The two major settlements in Shadowbringers consist of a resistance base where people gather to fight back against the light, and a Crapsaccharine City whose citizenry have welcomed the coming apocalypse, some of whom are even fighting to ensure the world ends. Endwalker focuses on a plot by the Arc Villain to bring about The End of the World as We Know It (in a similar way that the Ascians' homeworld was destroyed) and takes place during Hydaelyn's Darkest Hour.
- Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy XV would be the darkest game in the series, especially when Tetsuya Nomura (known for Kingdom Hearts and The World Ends with You, both games on the idealistic end of the scale) was the director, as the game was to have Gray-and-Gray Morality with a hero and heroine at odds with each other, with deliberate Shakespearean tragedy elements included. Though when Tabata took over, these elements were dropped due to rating concerns and the hero and new heroine were given a more traditional relationship, but he did still manage to deliver a game that truly forced the protagonist to work for his happy ending as the world gets worse and worse. What's more, he doesn't even live to see that happy ending to boot. Given that Tabata's resume includes two games featuring the protagonists dying at the end (And the aforementioned Type-0), this last bit was not surprising at all.
- The Final Fantasy XV DLC campaign, "Episode Gladioulus", brings us a new rendition of Legacy Character Gilgamesh. In previous games, Gilgamesh is a dimension-hopping goofball searching in vain for the ultimate sword. Here, however, he's an immortal warrior who is feared across Eos as the "Blademaster", having slain every warrior hoping to challenge him.
- Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, the franchise’s second M-rated outing, takes place in the same world as Final Fantasy, but instead of a light-hearted and hopeful quest to stop evil it's a gritty and rage-fueled attempt to kill the embodiment of darkness, with the opening cutscene showing Garland mercilessly slaughtering soldiers, and Jack brutally destroying his enemies during the gameplay with various execution-style attacks.
- Final Fantasy XVI has shown it is not pulling ANY punches and from the demo ALONE showed it was prepared to go beyond XV in darkness, the being the first mainline installment to receive an M rating, and the first game in the series period to receive a PEGI 18 rating. Consider this is the same team behind XIV and add in that they are now working on a contained single player story. The said demo showed someone being decapitated in front of their child, a mother betraying her family and selling her unfavored son into military slavery after nearly everyone else is slaughtered, copious amounts of f-bombs dropped (albiet appropriately), a fair bit of charged sexual inuendo but the biggest crowning shocker goes to the avatar of Phoenix being savagely pounded to a bloody pulp with bone chilling crunching while the child inhabiting it cries out for his brother while said brother screams in agony and swears to "fucking kill" him for it. XVI has set the bar for darkness in the series.
