Final Fantasy / Tropes C to D

This page covers tropes in Final Fantasy.

Tropes A to B | Tropes C To D | Tropes E to H | Tropes I to R | Tropes S to T | Tropes U to Z

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C

• Cactus Person:
  • Cactuars are enemies, usually found in desert areas, resembling stylized humanoid saguaros, with limbs resembling saguaro branches with a single right-angled joint each and faces consisting of two round holes for eyes and an elongated one for a mouth. They grow continuously over their lives, and particularly old and large ones, known as Gigantuars, appear from time to time as bosses. They're covered in needles, and fire them by the thousand as their signature move. Final Fantasy XIII also has them transform into Flowering Cactuars and flee from battle if not killed within a turn.
  • Final Fantasy XII has Cactides and Cactoids, creatures resembling short cacti with stumpy legs and long, thin, ribbon-like arms; they're distinguished by the two stacked cactus lobes growing from a Cactoid's head, which Cactides lack. They're docile and won't attack unless struck first, and drop bundles of needles and cactus fruits on death. There's a stronger variant, the Flowering Cactoid, which despite its name is a Cactide with a flower on its head. This one is hostile, and unlike the regular ones can shoot volleys of needles as an attack.
• Came Back Wrong:
  • Defied in Final Fantasy X. Dead people can remain as "unsent", essentially revenants that age normally (but can't die from old age), eat, sleep, and in all other ways appear exactly as a living person. As far as is shown in the game, they don't appear to behave differently than they did in life. Good people are still good, and bad people are still bad but don't actually appear to go "worse". It is still considered desirable for souls to move on, as many of the unsent characters do just that once their business in the world of the living is done.
  • Various things in Final Fantasy XIV:
    • As revealed in the Heavensward expansion, Primals are not creatures that are created through numerous crystals and the prayers of others, their figures warped and their negative traits ramped up. This can happen even if someone knew the being created, as the dragon Tiamat tried to bring back Bahamut and what she got was a demonic creature who would cause trouble for Eorzea centuries later.
    • At the end of A Realm Reborn, Y'Shtola and Thancred escape the attacking Brass Braves and Crystal Braves through a Dangerous Forbidden Technique teleportation spell called "Flow", sending them spiraling into the aether. When they are pulled out, Y'Shtola is rendered blind and Thancred has lost his ability to use magic.
    • In Stormblood, it's revealed the Qaiyana Tribe of Ananta snake women had this problem. The Ala Mhigan soldier for the Garleans, Fordola, had kidnapped the daughter of their queen, hoping to draw out a person known as the Butcher. Their attempt to save her ended badly when Fordola accidentally killed her, leading to the grieving queen to summon the Primal version of their goddess Lakshmi to resurrect her. She did, but without her soul, leaving her a husk of her former self.
• Cannot Spit It Out:
  • Faris of Final Fantasy V can't bring herself to admit that Lenna is her sister until they're about to (make a failed attempt to) save the last crystal on their world.
  • Final Fantasy VII did it, but it did it right. Cloud is convinced he used to be a member of SOLDIER, and all evidence points towards this — he has the uniform, the sword, the skills and the glowing eyes. However, after leaving town to join SOLDIER, he failed to get in, and instead enrolled as a basic grunt. After a mission that took place in his hometown in which his idol Sephiroth, went insane and burned it all down, maimed the closest thing he had to a childhood friend, nearly killed his best friend, and stabbed him through the chest, he was patched up by Evilutionary Biologist Hojo as part of an experiment. However, the combination of the drugs and trauma completely destroyed his mind, and when they escaped and his friend Zack died defending him he utterly snapped, adopting an elaborate system of Fake Memories and osmosed identity from Zack, who actually was in SOLDIER. And so Cloud relates the events of that day as if he was in Zack's position. The aforementioned childhood friend Tifa, is spooked by the fact that Cloud can tell the story accurately despite him apparently not being there. Little does she know that Cloud was with them on that mission, but disguised as a Shinra grunt. The discrepancy causes Tifa so much confusion, doubt, and worry for what might happen if she confronts Cloud over this that she chooses to bottle up her concerns. The end result of this is when Sephiroth starts telling Cloud various half-truths in order to drive him insane, Tifa's lack of understanding of the situation finds her unable to refute any of Sephiroth's claims.
    • On another note, Tifa's inability to tell Cloud her feelings for him is a definite Cannot Spit It Out as well.
  • There's also Irvine's inability to mention his past association with the other main characters and even the villain in Final Fantasy VIII. He alludes to it for a while, but it takes a rather random event to make him open up with it.
  • In Final Fantasy XIII, due to being just a Tagalong Kid in a series of horrible events and emotional trauma, Hope cannot bring himself to confront Snow about his mother's death for over half of the game's story.
• Cap Raiser:
  • Final Fantasy IV: The 3D remake has an Augment system that enables you to give characters abilities they wouldn’t ordinarily have. One of them is the Limit Break augment, which can only be obtained in New Game Plus and enables which ever character equips it to break the game’s 9999 damage limit.
  • Final Fantasy X: Character damage is normally limited to 9999, but custom weapons can be given a property that increases this to 99999 (and legendary weapons have it by default). Similarly, custom armor can be crafted that raises the HP and MP thresholds from 9,999/999 HP/MP to 99,999/9,999.
  • Crisis Core: The normal caps for Damage, HP, MP, and AP are 9,999, 9,999, 999, and 999. Zack can find items that raise the caps of each one of these, allowing Zack to deal 99,999 damage and have 99,999 HP, 9,999 MP, and 9,999 AP. Especially for damage and HP, he's gonna need those caps lifted for the late-game missions.
  • Final Fantasy XIV:
    • In the Eureka exploratory zone, you can acquire up to five magicite through the main campaign to increase your elemental power. But by gathering certain Rare Random Drop items in Eureka Pyros and Eureka Hydatos, you can obtain a sixth and seventh magicite to become even more powerful.
    • In-story, this is the focus of Cocobusi's research in the Thaumaturge quests. Due to being born the Un-Sorcerer, Cocobusi hoped to use alchemy to develop a potion capable of increasing his aetheric potential and achieve his dream of becoming a mage. The potion fails at its intended purpose, but it's potent enough to revive Cocobuki after he offered his aether to Morno to draw the voidsent out of Cocobusi's body.
• Cast Full of Pretty Boys:
  • The Final Fantasy franchise has always catered to this trope on some level, though only by including one or two "token" Bishōnen rather than a whole harem.
    • The all-star fighting game Dissidia Final Fantasy includes the main hero and villain out of the first ten games in the franchise. This leads to 21 out of 24 male leads. The heroes only have one girl on their side (leaving out Shanttoto, who's a bonus character). By default, the game qualifies for this trope just for including Cecil and Kuja in the same cast. The female headcount goes down by one when you realize that Cloud of Darkness is actually genderless and only takes the form of a beautiful woman.
    • Final Fantasy XV takes this trope and runs with it, featuring an all-male party that fans have compared to a boy band.
• The Cameo: Two very Unexpected Characters from other Squaresoft games appear in Chocobo Racing: Aya Brea, from the Parasite Eve games, and Jack, from The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner.
• Central Theme: Each game has an overarching theme presented in the story:
  • II - War Is Hell.
  • III - Light Is Good and Dark Is Evil are fallacies; instead the world must have a balance of both.
  • IV: What does it mean to redeem yourself? How strong is guilt as a force in the world? How strong is guilt as a motivating factor?
  • V: Legacy. The old generation making room for the new one, most visibly by the deaths of the Precursor Heroes.
  • VI: Our sense of fulfillment in life is drawn from others, and that love itself—in all its forms—is the meaning of life. Meanwhile, selfishness such as the pursuit of power is self-destructive and leaves one feeling alone and nihilistic due to the awareness of everything's impermanence.
    • There's also taking responsibility for your past deeds and forgiving yourself, which is seen in Terra, Locke, Shadow, Setzer and Cyan.
  • VII: Learning to accept loss, be it the loss of friends and loved ones or of purpose and identity.
  • VIII: The importance of the Power of Love and the Power of Friendship. Distancing yourself to protect loved ones can hurt emotionally a lot more than being open with your thoughts and feelings.
  • IX: There is no fate but what we make. The circumstances of your birth or your beginnings does not dictate your purpose in life.
  • X: All traditions must be questioned, and victory never comes without sacrifice.
  • X-2: Embracing newfound freedoms in the face of torn-down traditions, and how to reconcile the past and the future.
  • XII: The nature of nationalism and power. What does it mean to be loyal to your country - to its ideals, its people, its rulers, or the physical nation itself? What is power - military might, physical strength, spiritual strength, or the value of your lineage? Is power the only way to fight power, and what ways can you use power virtuously?
  • XIII: Free will and the power of the human spirit. It's pointless to run from your problems, you must confront them because they will catch up with you again sooner or later. The flaws of totalitarianism, theocracy, and propaganda - people from two different worlds are conditioned to fear and hate each other, only to meet and realize they have more in common than previously believed.
  • XIII-2: How far will you go to defy fate?
  • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: Having emotions and being true to yourself are not weaknesses.
  • XV: The rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, and the incredible burden that entails. But ultimately, you must remember that You Are Not Alone.
  • XVI: The power of bonds. Every human connection, no matter how small, gives power to continue living and fighting for what it is right.

• Changing Gameplay Priorities: Almost every game in the series contains a system of magic or limit breaks that fundamentally alters how the game plays. Often, these systems are not present in the first part of the game and only get introduced later. Even in games where the systems are always present, they almost always undergo a change in importance over time.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • Barret has a fairly long one in "There ain't no gettin' offa this train we're on 'til we get to the end of the line" - a line he borrowed from Cloud and makes his own. Spoofed later on when multiple characters say the line in unison before Barret can. Cloud will use the line in Final Fantasy Tactics, if you prompt to kick him out of your party.
    • Cloud also uses "Not interested" and "Don't really care". In the original game this is mostly expressed through one of them being the "no" option when asked to choose Cloud's response to something, but it becomes prominent in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and Dissidia Final Fantasy. In Final Fantasy VII Remake, this is retranslated to him saying "nope" in a distinctive, goofy tone, since "not interested" doesn't express the cheekiness and humour of the Japanese kyoumi nai ne.
    • Aeris repeatedly says "I grew up in the slums. I'm used to danger."
    • In the Compilation, Sephiroth has: "Good to see you, [Cloud/Zack]", and variants of "I bring you despair."
  • Squall of Final Fantasy VIII is so uncommunicative that his catchphrases are "Whatever," and "..."
  • Final Fantasy IX: Zidane: "Do I need a reason to help people?"
  • Balthier of Final Fantasy XII declares himself "the leading man," and reminds the other party members of his status quite often. Not that the fans are arguing with him.
    • The villains like to toss around "the reigns of History back in the hands of Man."
• Childhood Friend Romance:
  • Final Fantasy IV presents a Love Triangle variant, with Cecil and Kain both having known Rosa from their younger days, and both had feelings for her. But she only had feelings for Cecil, which caused Kain to briefly betray Cecil out of jealousy. The three eventually reconciled, with Kain finally accepting his friends' relationship.
  • Final Fantasy VII: Cloud and Tifa have known each other since their days in Nibelheim, and she was the reason he eventually decided to join SOLDIER. Though Tifa didn't develop feelings for Cloud until after he'd left. During the events of the game they confess their feelings for each other and start a family in the compilation.
  • Irvine and Selphie in Final Fantasy VIII grew up together in an orphanage (along with Squall, Zell, Quistis and Seifer), but due to exposure to Guardian Force summons Selphie didn't remember him at first. Whether they ended up together or not is up to interpretation, but it is assumed that something is happening.
  • In Final Fantasy X, at first, it appeared that Wakka was an Unlucky Childhood Friend. He had known Lulu since they were kids, but she had fallen in love with his younger brother. When his little brother died, it appeared that Lulu wouldn't accept anyone else into her life. We see in the sequel, Final Fantasy X-2, that they are married and have a boy.
  • Vaan and Penelo in Final Fantasy XII, though you have to work really, really hard to see the scene where they kiss each other in the secret ending of Revenant Wings.
  • In Final Fantasy XV, Noctis and Lunafreya (called 'Luna' by Noctis) grew close as children when Luna kept him company while he recovered from a near-death experience. As young adults, they are betrothed to be wed in a political marriage, although Noctis is hesitant. By the end, it seems he's come to accept his feelings for her however.
• Child Mage:
  • Rydia in Final Fantasy IV is your white/black mage the first time she joins the party, though after being separated, she spontaneously ages several years before she rejoins later on; it's also specifically noted that children make good summoners because of their pure hearts. From the same game, Palom and Porom are about five (and twins), and serve as your major magic source for about the second fifth of the game. However, none of them lose their magical prowess (outside of the usual between-game level resetting) in the sequel, though none of them gain any physical prowess, either.
  • Krile is introduced this way in Final Fantasy V. When she's still an NPC, she's shown to fight with spells, and she has the second-highest raw magic stat. Spinoff games usually (though not always) give her a Squishy Wizard build. However, if you made Galuf your tank, she will become a tank herself once she inherits his abilities and joins the party.
  • Relm of Final Fantasy VI has the highest natural Magic stat in the game. At 10, she's the youngest playable human in that game.
  • Final Fantasy IX:
    • The party's Black Mage, Vivi, appears about eight or ten years old but is actually less than a year old. This turns out to be an Enforced Trope: Black Mages in the setting are actually a kind of golem with a very short lifespan. Vivi is a Super Prototype who might live longer than the rest, but still isn't likely to make it out of childhood.
    • Eiko, a White Mage who also wields powerful Summon Magic, is only six years old. Justified as she's the Last of Her Kind, so the party don't exactly have the option of choosing an older, more experienced summoner to accompany them.
  • Final Fantasy XI distills this trope into a race, the Tarutaru. Tiny, child-like, wickedly magic inclined.
  • Final Fantasy XIII: Hope, once he is given his l'Cie powers, is statistically oriented to become the party's Squishy Wizard. He is the only character in the game to learn every offensive spell.
  • Alphinaud and Alisaie in Final Fantasy XIV are about sixteen years old and are the youngest members of the Scions. Both of them are powerful Arcanists, but their fighting styles change by the Stormblood expansion; Alphinaud further refines his class, allowing him to summon a more powerful Carbuncle that boosts the party's attack power while Alisaie becomes a Red Mage where she mixes magic with sword fencing.
    • There's also Taynor the boy mage you rescue on the Shadowbringers expansion pack who wields some elemental magic and can open and close Unrealistic Black Holes.
  • Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The party members are all depicted as youngsters no older than fourteen or so, based on interaction with their family members. This includes the magically-inclined Yukes, who despite their age, are around the same size as adults from other tribes...
• A Child Shall Lead Them:
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, Balamb Garden trains students from the age of 5 to become mercenaries, with several students taking on positions of leadership by the time they reach their late teens. The results of this practice are VERY mixed. It eventually turns out that the reason for this practice is because Edea Kramer knows that Squall will, in his teens, defeat an incredibly dangerous Sorceress from the future, so they have to train these kids into leadership positions at a young age to keep the time loop stable.
  • Final Fantasy IX has Princess Garnet, who turned 16 at the start of the game and by the end, she is ruling her kingdom after the death of her mother. She seems to handle the job quite competently, as it's implied she was able to rebuild her destroyed Alexandria in the span of only a few years.
  • Final Fantasy XII has Larsa Solidor, who was picked to be the next emperor by his dying father because his older brother Vayne was Obviously Evil. Once both his brother and father realize that the Evil Chancellors would try to manipulate him, they decide to have Vayne murder dear old dad and frame the council in order to protect him. Which causes Larsa to not become the emperor until the very end of the game.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics had Princess Ovelia and Prince Orinas, each set up with a regent and sent to lead troops. Ovelia was not quite 18 at the time while Orinas was 2 years old. Though the game kept an active calendar, and with a little grinding, you could age the boy prince into his teens, twenties, or even sixties, thus destroying the story.
  • In Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, you play as a 10-year-old king who took the throne after his father's disappearance.
• Chick Magnet:
  • Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII is a notorious offender. Despite being a jerk, nearly every woman in the game either falls for him on sight, develops a crush on him or can soften towards him if Cloud treats them nicely, ranging from romantic heroines to likable female sidekicks to Fanservice Extra NPCs. Played for laughs in Mobius Final Fantasy where Echo is immediately (and obnoxiously) crazy about him and can't understand why anybody else wouldn't be, trying to get him to go out with her on a date, and later set Wol up with him.
    • Zack (Cloud's Best Friend and Big Brother Mentor) from Crisis Core is almost as much as Cloud. Case in point: Aerith and Cissnei in the same game. Way to go Zack.
  • Final Fantasy VIII has Squall makes his own female teammates fall for his good looks and bad boy charm even though he doesn't care. Although, Quistis and Selphie stop at the end along with Squall realize his love for Rinoa. Quistis realizes that her love for Squall is sisterly love, while Selphie falls for Irvine who loves her from back when they were kids.
  • Final Fantasy IX plays with this by casting a childlike wannabe ladies' man as the protagonist.
  • Final Fantasy XIII-2: Hope's become very handsome and tall over the years. Alyssa certainly seems to find him attractive. Many fangirls agree. Even though he doesn't seem to be interested in them (including his assistant Alyssa).
  • Final Fantasy XV:
    • Noctis. Luna is his fiancee, Iris has a crush on him, and Brotherhood often shows him surrounded by girls at school.
• Child Soldiers:
  • Since Celes Chere Final Fantasy VI has the rank of general at age of 18, it is safe to say that she falls to the "Just Plain Tragic" type.
  • In Final Fantasy VII, no one in the game seems to consider the idea of a fourteen-year-old Cloud Strife joining the Shinra Army unusual (Zack Fair also joined at a similarly young age) falls to the "Precociously Talented" type. And then there are people like Sephiroth, Shelke, and Cissnei who started their fighting careers as mere children, although not through any choice of their own. They falls to the "Just Plain Tragic" type.
  • Final Fantasy VIII is the mixture of "Precociously Talented" type and "Just Plain Tragic" type. The SeeD's functions as a highly regarded military academy type institution and many students enter voluntarily. Students are enrolled before puberty, but typically aren't taught in combat until their teens, and don't see actual combat outside of the training room until their graduation. Upon graduation, the SeeD sometimes also work side jobs in policing duties and receive a regular salary. The I game encyclopedia outright states that any Garden student who doesn't graduate by the age of twenty is discharged from the school.
    • Despite being rather quirky, all of the protagonists except one are members of an elite fighting force trained from the age of 5, and also have their childhood memories erased by the special equipment they use in combat. Early on, it's made quite clear that inexperience and youthfulness significantly screw up their jobs and lives. Seifer breaks the commander's orders and later betrays everybody out of pure ego; Quistis suddenly feels sorry for yelling at Rinoa and abandons her post; Irvine suddenly becomes doubtful of his sniper skill (he's actually more caught up over the idea of assassinating his adoptive mother); Selphie breaks down crying from the destruction of her old school; and Squall, while the most professional, is pretty much the Troubled, but Cute trope incarnated. There's also Zell, who is easily set off by being insulted and who often has trouble keeping his mouth shut, letting key info slip.
    • Also the underlying function of the SeeD is to be prepared to defend the world against an imprisoned evil sorcerer
    • However, see the below category to see the flip side of this.
  • In Final Fantasy IX, we have Eiko, a White Mage girl who can use Summon Magic falls to the "Precociously Talented" type. She happens to be six years old and is the Sole Survivor of her tribe, apart from a bunch of Moogles, who keep her company. She is also Wise Beyond Her Years and not only understands the complexity of the world-threatening conflict when Zidane and his friends meet her, but willingly joins them to Save the World. The rest of the cast, while not nearly as young as Eiko, are also mostly teenagers and overall Final Fantasy IX has the youngest cast on average of any main game in the series.
  • In Final Fantasy Type-0 falls to "Just Plain Tragic" type. The Power Crystal of the Fiefdom of Rubrum only grants the power of magic to the young and as the population ages, their skill with magic wanes. The protagonists are teenaged students of a combination Wizarding School and Military Academy that is drafted to fight in the war.
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy 012: Duodecim falls to "Just Plain Tragic" type. In the game, Vaan, possibly in reference to the orphaned friends he had in his own youth in the slums of Rabanastre, views the fact that the young Onion Knight is also part of the Conflict of the Gods as being a tragedy (despite the fact that the latter is very capable of holding his own, to the point that everyone else on the team ignores his age and sees him as a worthy peer), and so ends up inadvertently patronizing him for his youth. Onion Knight desperately wishes that Vaan would treat him as someone worthy of respect, until he realizes that it is Vaan's way of doing just that: Vaan never tries to stop him from fighting, after all.
• Child Supplants Parent: Final Fantasy X: Tidus, The Hero, hates his father, Jecht, with a passion. Not only has his entire blitzball career played out in the shadow of his famous father, as a child he was also constantly competing with him for the mother's attention. The fact that his father was basically an insensitive, alcoholic bastard might also have had something to do with it, though... and of course, Tidus ends up killing his father in the semi-final boss-fight—in the very best Oedipal tradition.
• The Chosen One:
  • The four protagonists (later retconed to a single protagonist) from Final Fantasy arrival had been prophesied long before the start of the story. It had been predicted that the Warrior of Light would save the world from a group of monsters known as the Four Fiends, and a never ending time-loop.
  • Subverted in Final Fantasy Mystic Quest when The Dark King tells you that the prophecy of a hero who would defeat him is false and that he made it up for his own amusement. Then double subverted when you kick his ass anyway.
  • Subverted with Final Fantasy VII's Sephiroth. He thinks he's one during his freakout moment but, as it turns out, this is all just delusions of grandeur on his part. He eventually decides to become a villainous example of The Unchosen One by fulfilling Jenova's role of destroying everything on the planet.
  • Final Fantasy X was a deconstruction. Yuna may be the only one who ultimately will save the world, but she's not the only one who is able to, and gets stiff competition — and criticism — from other summoners throughout her quest. And even if she succeeds, she's only saving the world in the short term. If she does the thing she was chosen for, Sin will just come back to life anyway. Needless to say, the world gets saved regardless; Yuna's role in saving it just turns out to be a lot less singular.
    • From the same game, Tidus. He was brought to Spira by Jecht who, upon becoming Sin, decided that Tidus should be the one to defeat him.
  • Final Fantasy XII: Princess Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca, the descendant of Dynast-King Raithwall, is chosen by the Occurria to set mankind's history on the "right" path. However, their idea of "right" involves mass genocide of the entire Archadian Empire, and even Ashe's hatred of said Empire falters at the prospect. Strangely, their usage of illusions indicates that Vaan was their Plan B for a time, but they gave up on him when he outgrew his hang-ups. It was this very growth that helped inspire Ashe to reject her "chosen destroyer" role outright.
  • Final Fantasy XIII has the l'Cie. They are chosen to complete a mission assigned by a fal'Cie, a mission which's nature is completely unknown to the l'Cie in question. They are distinguished by a mark on any part of their body, such as this one.◊ If a l'Cie fails to carry out its quest, s/he get turned into a Cie'th, Body Horror incarnate, as punishment; and if the l'Cie succeed his/her quest s/he will turn into crystal until the fal'Cie decides to give the l'Cie a new mission to carry out... It kind of sucks to be a Chosen One in Final Fantasy XIII's universe.
  • Final Fantasy XIV is a very interesting version of this trope. At the start of 1.0 and A Realm Reborn, Mothercrystal Hydaelyn chooses the player character to be her champion, bestowing them the mysterious power of the Echo. No one ever bothers questioning it until it's all flipped on its head during the Shadowbringers expansion, when it's revealed that you are actually the reincarnation of a shard of an Ascian, the Big Bads of the game and that Hydaelyn didn't need to choose you as the method she chose you with could be used to choose any other reincarnated Ascian shard!
    • That said, it's heavily hinted that the Warrior of Light is the reincarnation of a specific Ascian - namely an individual known only as The Fourteenth, who had walked away from the ruling council of Amaurot in opposition to the creation of Zodiark and is implied to be the person who led the efforts to birth Hydaelyn - which is why they were chosen to be Her main agent.
  • Final Fantasy XV:
    • The main story has Noctis and his ancestors whom decided he would be the Chosen King of Light, destined to banish the darkness at the cost of his own life and after the previous king, the Big Bad, failed.
    • Episode Ardyn reveals the aforementioned Big Bad and titular character Ardyn Izunia is a horrific inversion. He was actually chosen by the gods to become the world's equivalent to Satan, and is told in no uncertain terms that he can go along with it or be made to go along with it.
  • Final Fantasy XVI plays with the trope in various ways. Clive isn't chosen by the Phoenix to be its Dominant, thus being less important than his younger brother Joshua, but during the story it's revealed that he's been chosen by the Big Bad, Ultima, to be the vessel that would harness his power and remake the world completely, destroying every human life in the process.
• Chuunibyou:
  • While a more complicated example, Cloud Strife of Final Fantasy VII maintains a persona of being a cocky, detached hotshot former special forces operative that doesn't really fit with his actual personality or level of ability. While in the original VII (PSX) this comes off more as something Cloud does due to unresolved identity issues that started in childhood, Final Fantasy VII Remake focuses more on it being the consequence of his trauma, but has fun with it by having those around Cloud immediately clock his behavior as a childish affectation, comparing him to local children or outright calling him on 'bullshit'. In Remake, he even spreads the syndrome to people around him, with young people in Sector 7 rushing out to buy "big-ass swords" and imitating his rude mannerisms, and the children of Sector 5 making homemade Buster Swords.
  • A more overtone, however, is Seifer Almasy of Final Fantasy VIII. Unfortunately, he's more of a window of how dangerous this mindset can be with the wrong circumstances. Seifer's such an arrogant bully with delusions of grandeur, because of his obsession with the romantic dream of being a Sorceress' Knight, which, along with his One-Handed Zweihänder Gangsta Style of wielding his gunblade came from a movie he watched as a child. While mostly kept under control under Garden, even if his attitude wasn't, once he was given the chance to actually serve A Sorceress, regardless of whom, it spiraled out of control, leading him to develop a Tautological Templar mindset, believing himself to be the heroic knight who must vanquish "the evil mercenary" and Balamb Garden "attacking like swarms", never mind that Seifer and Edea went after them first. While many have argued that he might just be Brainwashed and Crazy, not only does he openly recognize this could be the case and doesn't ultimately care, so long as it lets him have a go at his rival, but given his character, there probably wasn't that much that needed brainwashing to begin with.
  • Downplayed in Final Fantasy XV, where Ignis's persona is based on trying to appear more 'adult' than he really is by acting exaggeratedly mature, wearing glasses he doesn't really need, and making a point of drinking a lot of black coffee despite secretly not liking coffee.
• Classical Chimera: The Chimera appears as a random enemy encounter in multiple games, with various depictions. Sometimes it is bipedal, sometimes it has wings and the amount of heads that is has and with animals they are, are different from series to series.
• Classical Elements Ensemble:
  • The series frequently has four elemental crystals—Fire, Water, Air and Earth—and often there's the Four Fiends to go with them: Scarmiglione (associated with the undead and Earth with Dishing Out Dirt attacks), Cagnazzo (a turtle-like creature associated with Water who uses Making a Splash attacks), Barbariccia (associated with Wind having a signature ability to create a wind barrier), and Rubicante (associated with Fire and uses Playing with Fire attacks). Both pop up in Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IV, and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Final Fantasy IX brought the Four Fiends back but not the crystals, and Final Fantasy III has the crystals but not the Fiends.
  • Near the beginning of Final Fantasy V, each of the four protagonists is associated with one of the four elemental crystals along with a personality trait associated with said element. Bartz gets wind and quest, Lenna gets water and kindness, Galuf gets earth and hope, and Faris gets fire and courage.
  • Like the four main characters of V, the four main characters of Final Fantasy VII's party all correspond far too closely to a cardinal element for it to be coincidental, although unlike V it is never relevant to the plot or highlighted:
    • Cloud — Wind. Wind-related name, uses a sword (associated with Air in tarot), wind-themed attacks, compelled to wander, introspective and strategic, acts detached, and looks down on others.
    • Aerith — Earth. Earth-related name ("I, Earth"), gardener, grew up in an underground slum, her magic is drawn from the Planet, practical, stubborn, nurturing, sensual. Cloud and Aeris's first meeting even involves him falling down from the sky and landing in her flowerbed.
    • Tifa — Water. Dolphin-themed hairstyle, uses water-themed attacks (both Waterkick and Dolphin Blow are in her Limit Breaks), bartender who pours drinks for the rest of the cast, giving and kind, fluid and accommodating, likes to act as group peacemaker. Her Journey To The Center Of Cloud's Mind, where she gets him to see things her way, is caused when they both fall into (Lifestream-filled) sea. She is also associated with a Hearts motif (her surname is Lockhart, her ultimate weapon is the Premium Heart), the card suit analogous to the tarotic Cups/Water.
    • Barret — Fire. Fire-themed tattoo, fire-themed attacks, associated with firearms, terrorist, Hot-Blooded, hot temper, impulsive, passionate, powerful.
  • The Crystal Chronicles subseries designed the four playable races this way. The clavats' down-to-earth nature, earth-toned hair and eye colors, and their reputation for farming represent Earth. Lilties, with their reputation as hotheads, propensity for blacksmithing, and their hairstyles that variously resemble flames, represent Fire. Yukes, with their wings and their reputation for being spacy, represent Air. Selkies, with their hair and eyes coming in various shades of blue and teal, having their only independent settlement being on an island, and being named after a type of mythological water being, represent Water.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • In Final Fantasy VI there's a rambling man in a cabin whose the father of one of your party members.
  • Laguna in Final Fantasy VIII. That dude said the darndest things.
    "We'll be killing two pigs with one stone!"
    • One of his better moments is, after throwing his True Companions off a cliff to the water below so they can escape from enemy soldiers, he looks over the edge:
      Laguna: You guys are crazy. You know how tall this cliff is?
    • Selphie from the same game is arguably worse.
  • Quina Quen in Final Fantasy IX. 7 of your team are out to Saving the World from the Big Bad. Your 8th member (Quina) is out to discover yummy yummies.
  • Brother from Final Fantasy X-2 is about as weird as they get. Not only does he say outlandish things, he's almost always dancing in place or flailing his limbs while talking.
  • Final Fantasy XIII gives us Vanille. Whether she's molesting sheep for their wool, cooing over Chocobos, or skipping around acting like a sugar-high idiot, she never seems to be much of anything beyond this trope. By midgame, it becomes apparent that while this may have been her personality 500 years previously, at present time it's mostly just an act to keep her Stepford Smiler facade unnoticeable to the rest of the party, especially Fang.
  • Nothing describes Cinque from Final Fantasy Type-0 better than this trope. Her brain seems to work on a completely different wavelength than the rest of Class Zero, or even the rest of the world. She's also strangely upbeat for a Child Soldier sent on a massive world war. She does take her job seriously, though, and has the strength to back it up.
  • The entire party in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates to varying degrees, although Yuri is a little more grounded after the Time Skip. Most of Rebena Te Ra's population are at least a little loopy, too—in the case of the magicite shopkeeper, undergoing Sanity Slippage as the church grows more oppressive.
• Combatant Cooldown System:
  • The Active Time Battle, used in games four through nine (and X-2 and Dimensions), succeeded the Turn-Based Combat of the first three games. The common feature of all ATB implementations is that each character has an "ATB gauge" that is emptied every time they act and fills up over time, allowing them to act again once it's full. The speed it fills up at depends on the character's stats (and the Battle Speed setting) and some powerful attacks have an additional delay before they are executed and the ATB gauge starts filling again. Whether the game pauses to let the player select commands or not depends on the Active/Wait switch (VII introduced an additional Recommended mode).
  • The Charge Time Battle from Tactics is similar to ATB, except that instead of the ATB gauge, it has the Charge Time meter that has to reach 100 before a character can act again. The CT meter is restored at a rate of the character's Speed stat per turn.
  • Conditional Turn-Based Battle from FFX is an implementation that leans very heavily towards Turn-Based Combat. The order in which the characters and enemies act is determined by the Act List, and a combatant's position on it is determined both by their speed and by the cooldown duration of the ability they used last. The game pauses every time when it's a Player Character's turn, like in the ATB Wait mode.
  • Active Dimension Battle from XII is similar to the ATB but eliminates the Fight Woosh and adds the tactical movement aspect to battles.
  • Command Synergy Battle from XIII and XIII-2 is ATB with a twist that the player can sequence multiple moves, which only consume parts of the ATB gauge (how much is consumed depends on how powerful the ability is), and does not have to wait until the ATB is filled completely—only until it has filled enough to pull off the desired action sequence. The game does not pause to let you choose commands and you can only control the party leader. Style-Change Active Time Battle from Lightning Returns is an evolution of CSB built around the single-player character idea: the player only ever controls Lightning but each one of her three available Schemas has its own ATB gauge.
  • The Active X Battle system in XV does not have a strict cooldown system other than a technique gauge that needs to be filled up before using techniques. The way party damage works, however (all damage can be recovered, until the character gets to 0HP, then they start losing maximum HP that needs to be healed in other ways), does encourage the player to back Noctis off whenever he takes too much damage so he can recover.
  • Eikonic Abilities in XVI work on a cooldown system that prevents Clive from spamming his abilities and requires the player to be more tactical in combat.
• The Comically Serious:
  • Cyan Garamonde from Final Fantasy VI. Much humor is drawn from his interactions with Gau the feral child, his reaction to the flirtatious remarks of a cabaret dancer, and his embarrassment when his companions discover his hobby of crafting beautiful silk flowers. There's also Celes and the "I'm a GENERAL, not some opera floozy" moment.
  • Cloud Strife in Final Fantasy VII. Despite being intended to be a stoic leader, nobody can take him seriously when cross-dressing to save Tifa, giving mouth to mouth to a little girl, and 'jumping with Mr. Dolphin'. Or telling the party "Let's mosey."
  • Squall Leonhart of Final Fantasy VIII, because There Are No Therapists on his planet to tell him that getting over your missing sister by joining a PMC at five years old isn't a very good idea.
  • Similarly, his Rule 63 counterpart, Paine from Final Fantasy X-2:
    Rikku: Doctor P is in the house!
    Paine: Stop that.
  • Lightning from Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is a stoic, professional We Help the Helpless savior working under a god. Her personality crashes hard with the main game mechanic which is, basically, dressing up. This includes her wearing some skimpy outfits that can be recolored and some awkward-looking hats. A review from Gamespot takes a jab at a crazy possibility.
    VanOrd: "If you'd rather giggle than ogle, you can always equip Lightning with an adornment, like a bushy goatee or a feline tail, and then change her clothing colors to a garish puce-and-pea-green combo. Lightning doesn't smile, so you can't laugh with her — but at least you can laugh at her."
    • That said, the game does go for some giggles in a couple of sequences, one involving her and moogles and another in which she has to specifically dress up for the purposes of the plot and do a play.
  • While he does crack the occasional joke, Ignis from Final Fantasy XV is generally a pretty stoic and serious-minded character, who treats things like a Chocobo stealing his glasses as Extremely Serious Business.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: The series has done this from the beginning.
  • Chaos was The Man Behind the Man who entered a mutual agreement with the Fiends.
  • The Emperor made the fact he led his forces a fact and betrayed the Devil to go One-Winged Angel.
  • Cloud of Darkness is a natural force that come to pass and made its appearance at the very end.
    • Xande also merits mention: Unlike Garland and the Emperor, who were initially normal men who eventually craved power, Xande was an immortal whose loss of immortality was the driving force for his actions. Additionally, unlike the aforementioned men who grew stronger upon tapping into dark powers, Xande merely dies after being defeated and is replaced by the Cloud of Darkness.
  • Zemus orchestrated the entire game from afar with mind control, and came back through sheer rage.
  • Exdeath is a centuries-old clump of demons stuffed into a tree that is now trying to destroy the world with The Void.
  • Kefka broke a lot of ground for Final Fantasy baddies by not only being completely cuckoo-for-Chocobo-Puffs, but also starting off fairly weak. Midway through the game, you actually fail to stop him from playing his trump card and he gains godly power through manipulation.
  • Sephiroth used to be the hero to all. You also spend a lot of time doing things for him.
  • Ultimecia is a sorceress from the future who uses the present sorceresses as proxies. Her use of Seifer also foils Squall's relationship with Rinoa.
  • Kuja is a theatrical, misanthropic artificially made young man who goes mad when he finds out his true identity.
  • Final Fantasy X has a lot of villains, but the biggest foil is Jecht, Jerk Jock supreme who followed a path similar to his son's own and now regrets what he does. Seymour was driven insane by a combination of parental abandonment and an addiction to magical powers.
  • Vayne, like Kefka, isn't some great evil supernatural force, but a normal man. But unlike Kefka, he isn't completely insane. Instead, he is a brilliant politician and military tactician who decides to win the long war between two powerful empires by seizing control of the world's most important natural resource. He is calm, collected, and unlike most Final Fantasy villains, he comes the closest to winning in the end and in some ways, does get what he wants. Also unlike many Final Fantasy Villains, he isn't shown very often in game, but his decisions are immediately felt worldwide.
  • Final Fantasy XIII by contrast has Barthandelus, who is effectively one of the manipulating gods that Vayne would have opposed, and who seeks the destruction of those he is charged with protecting. And while his plan does eventually work, it doesn't occur the way he wanted and takes far longer to come to pass (around another 1000 years).
  • Caius Ballad from Final Fantasy XIII-2 rounds back around to being a man, albeit an enormously powerful one. In comparison to Barthandelus, who was a Well-Intentioned Extremist based on the world, Caius only cares about one person, Yuel, and is willing to destroy time to preserve her. And while, like Barthandelus, he gets what he wants...it's not in the manner that he hoped for.
  • The divinity phase is switched once again for the finale of the XIII trilogy, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII with Bhunivelze, who is presented as the Big Good initially and genuinely wishes to save everyone. Until it's revealed that while he does intend to do so, he also intends to filter humanity into soulless puppets, while Caius wanted to preserve Yuel.
  • Final Fantasy XIV, being an MMORPG, features a succession of antagonists over the course of its run.
    • In the original "Legacy" game, the Big Bad was Legatus Nael van Darnus^note actually his sister Eula wearing his armor, the real Nael having been long dead of the Garlean Empire. Believing that the threat of Primal summonings in Eorzea was too great, and being corrupted by the presence hidden inside the moon of Dalamud, the Legatus enacted "Project Meteor" to bring the moon crashing down on the Eorzean nations.
    • In "A Realm Reborn", the reins were taken by Legatus Gaius van Baelsar who subscribed much more to a sort of Pragmatic Villainy. Believing in conquest over destruction, Gaius sought to establish dominance and combat the Primal threat by piloting the Ultima Weapon. However, he ended up being an unwitting pawn of the Ascian Lahabrea, who caused the Ultima Weapon to blow up Gaius's own base before Gaius was defeated by the Warrior of Light.
    • The "Heavensward" expansion has a Big Bad Duumvirate due to the Forever War between the Ishgardians and the dragons. The bulk of the story arc leads to a confrontation with Ishgard's ruler, Archbishop Thordan VII, who actually hijacks Lahabrea and devours the Ascian's energy in order to turn himself and his most loyal knights into Primals. The following updates, though, focus on the dragon Niddhog as the primary threat to peace. Having long ago lost himself to an all-consuming rage and lust for revenge against Ishgard, Niddhog is more of a force of pure malice than anything else.
    • In "Stormblood", the antagonist is Zenos yae Galvus, crown prince of the Garlean Empire. Unlike the previous foes, Zenos is a pure Blood Knight who doesn't actually care about anything other than finding an opponent to fight who will actually pose a challenge. He eventually decides that the Warrior of Light is both his greatest enemy and only "friend".
    • "Shadowbringers" has Emet-Selch, a.k.a. Solus zos Galvus^note founder of the Garlean Empire, a.k.a. Hades. One of the most powerful and manipulative of Ascians, Emet-Selch is the architect of incalculable suffering throughout the ages, yet presents himself as an Affably Evil friendly enemy for most of the story arc. When you get toward the end of the expansion, however, you find out that he views the world as "broken" by the Big Good, and every calamity he and his brethren have brought about has been for the purposes of rejoining the shard worlds with the source so that the utopian home he remembers from ages past can be rebuilt.
  • Final Fantasy XV features Ardyn. In contrast to the previous villains, who either didn't have personal relationships with the heroes or did, Ardyn wants to kill Noctis from the get-go; in comparison to Sephiroth and Cloud, who had developed enmity in their backstory; Noctis barely even knew who Ardyn was initially. Rather than be embraced in a way by the gods like the fal'Cie and Bhunivelze would do with the heroes of the XIII trilogy, Ardyn was spurned and shunned by them, and while they ultimately intended to save existence to a degree, Ardyn makes no such claims; he only wants Noctis to survive so that he can kill him at his strongest, the world be damned. Finally, unlike most humanoid villains, he doesn't have an One-Winged Angel form and is fought specifically as a Duel Boss. And on top of all that, he has his own personal Guardian Force Ifrit, which he summons against a party that cannot control the appearance of their own Guardian Forces. Finally, for the very first time in the franchise's nearly half-century of history, the story's main villain gets exactly what he wanted in exactly the way he wanted it - a fight with the fully-empowered Noctis, the devastation of the world, and end of the Lucian bloodline as Noctis dies with no heirs.
  • The main antagonist of Final Fantasy XVI, Ultima, serves mostly as this to his predecessor, Ardyn. Ardyn was a human who once used his ability to absorb the Starscourge for good but was demonized for it and eventually became the enemy of the world at the behest of his world's Bahamut. Ultima is an alien being and the creator of the Eikons who created humanity in order to stave off the decline of his own people thanks to the Blight, only to then plot against humanity so that they destroy each other and he goes in and terraforms whatever remains. Many of his motivations, as well as his contempt for humanity, are shared with the XV incarnation of Bahamut, who became the true main villain of the story in the Dawn of the Future novelization.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: The series likes to vary its tone a lot:
  • Final Fantasy's heroes were Heroic Mime characters with no names and fixed Jobs, so Final Fantasy II stars the main character with a Canon Name (Firion), flexible skills and a whole game mechanic based around talking. Then Final Fantasy III is back to using something in the middle - the characters have dialogue but it isn't assigned to one character in particular, and while you can change their Jobs you are restricted to using specific Job classes instead of the more flexible approach taken by Firion.
  • Cecil of Final Fantasy IV is an emotional man atoning for the sins of his past, a highly decorated soldier, and has dramatic and intense relationships with his party members. Bartz of Final Fantasy V is a laid back Idiot Hero with no particular qualifications beyond birthright, who has a bickering, 'normal' relationship with his party members.
  • VI and VII:
    • Terra of Final Fantasy VI is an insecure former enslaved soldier, with amnesia from mind control, who has to come to terms with her repressed, monstrous inner strength to succeed. Cloud of Final Fantasy VII is a swaggering former elite SOLDIER with monstrous physical strength, who remembers too much due to mind control and has to come to terms with his repressed inner weakness and mental problems to succeed. (Cloud's personality draws somewhat from VI's deuteragonist Celes, another cocky and aloof magic soldier who was designed to contrast Terra in much the same way.)
    • Romantically, Terra has no real love interest, and her discovery of love ends up being platonic love. She's shown as being kind-hearted and, while she will hurt people for the sake of her cause, she is not naturally confrontational and tries hard to get on with everybody. Cloud is an All Girls Want Bad Boys Chick Magnet (and Guy Magnet at times) who is hated by a few male NPCs for his obnoxious girlfriend-stealing. He's caught up in a story-important Love Triangle with two party members, can date four of them, can hit on every Fanservice Extra NPC the player runs into and acts like a jerk about it the whole time.
  • Compilation of Final Fantasy VII:
    • Zack Fair from Crisis Core is more hotheaded, attitude-driven, laid back, and friendlier than the colder, thoughtful, insane Cloud Strife from the previous game. Various motifs are set up to contrast the two - Zack Fair and Cloud Strife, how the compassionate Zack uses the blunt edge of his blade while the intimidating Cloud always uses the sharp edge, and the Animal Motif that compares Zack to a puppy and Cloud (in Advent Children) to a wolf.
    • The main characters of the original VII are Cloud, Aeris, Tifa, and Barret, with Cid getting a lot of important things to do towards the end. Dirge of Cerberus's protagonists are Vincent and Yuffie, who had been Optional Party Members in the original, and Reeve, the alter ego of party member Cait Sith; Cloud, Barret, and Tifa appear only in a brief cameo and get a couple of lines each.
  • Squall of Final Fantasy VIII was intentionally written to be more 'human' and 'normal' than the FF heroes so far. Where Terra and Cloud's troubles are about self-identity, Squall's troubles are about his relationships with his friends and family, with his teenage identity problems more in the background. Previous FF heroes (even the most everyman ones) existed strictly in a fantasy world, but Squall goes to high school, rents cars and reads his classmates' blog posts.
  • Zidane of Final Fantasy IX was a lot more friendly and sociable than Squall. Zidane is also much more altruistic than the professional mercenary, his motto literally being "You don't need a reason to help people." Romantically Zidane is a flirt who slowly develops real feelings for Garnet when Squall had no history before Rinoa and spends a lot of time sorting his feelings out when he realizes he has them.
  • Tidus from Final Fantasy X is a Fish out of Water in comparison to the experienced Zidane.
  • Vaan in Final Fantasy XII while a ray of sunshine compared to Cloud and Squall has a chip on his shoulder compared to Zidane and Tidus. And while Tidus and Zidane developed full-fledged romances with the High Summoner's daughter and a princess, Vaan has a very low-key relationship with his childhood friend.
  • Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII is back to being moody and serious, with elements of her character and look designed to be a Distaff Counterpart to Cloud and Squall.
  • Noctis of Final Fantasy XV has a Meaningful Name (Noctis Lucis Caelum) which is supposed to indicate his contrast to previous Tetsuya Nomura-designed heroes - 'Lucis' (clear) to contrast with Cloud, and 'Noctis Caelum' (night heavens) to contrast with Sora (daytime sky). Note also that Lightning's name contains the word "Light" and she is themed around Light Is Not Good, while Noctis is themed around Dark Is Not Evil (with the usual Nojima idea that Darkness is an element of rest and peace; Noctis is laid-back and a little lazy, while Lightning is extremely highly strung and judgemental.) Both Lightning and Noct have promotional renders displaying them in the same pose, with Lightning bathed in shafts of white light and Noctis lurking in shadows. While Lightning had no official love interest Noctis begins betrothed to Lunafreya.
  • After Noctis, we return to Cloud again with Final Fantasy VII Remake. Noctis's most notable characteristic is the value he places on friendship, holding them close to himself even when separated from them, while Cloud's most notable characteristic is his detached, independent spirit, who retains his own personal freedom and agency even as he learns to truly value the group. Noctis reluctantly accepts his duty even if it goes against what matters to him, where Cloud chases after his own personal goals to the extent of being pretty irresponsible at times. Noctis is engaged, while Cloud an overpowering Chick Magnet. Some have commented that Noctis has a gothy appearance but is upbeat, modest, and supportive, while Cloud has an adorable face and blond hair but is a cynical, intimidating Jerkass with an Inferiority Superiority Complex even bigger than his sword.
  • Clive of Final Fantasy XVI is an Experienced Protagonist in the first act of his game, battle-hardened and cynical not unlike Cloud, however, he's also a Death Seeker hell-bent on revenge on the person who caused his younger brother's death. While he's mostly serious, he opens up to people he trusts and forges unbreakable bonds while Cloud remains mostly aloof. Their physical appearances are also quite a contrast, with Cloud being blond-haired, androgynously-looking and rather slender and Clive being dark-haired, extremely rugged-looking and muscular.
• Cooldown Manipulation:
  • Many titles, beginning with Final Fantasy IV, use an Active Time Battle system in which characters cool down at different rates. Several Status Effects speed, slow, or stop the rate of cooldown: namely, Haste, Slow, and Stop.
  • Final Fantasy X has the attacks Delay Attack and Delay Buster, which increase the amount of time until the targeted enemy can take its next action, and Quick Hit, which has a much faster cooldown than a standard attack.
• Corrupt Church: If a Final Fantasy series has a religion in it with any sort of power or influence, chances are that it's going to be corrupted by the time the game's plot starts. It's also got a high likelihood of being a Scam Religion.
  • Final Fantasy X has the Church of Yevon. It teaches that Sin was divine punishment for using machina, that machina weapons are evil, that Sin will go away with enough prayer and repentance, and that the Final Summoning can free the world from Sin. While it's true from one point of view that machina brought about Sin (Bevelle won the war because of their superior weaponry, and Yu Yevon created Sin as his revenge), they are not inherently evil and Sin is not divine; the church uses this lie to keep the populace under control (no advanced weaponry = harder to overthrow the church). Sin will not go away with any amount of prayer or repentance, and the Final Summoning is actually how Sin is reborn; this lie is used to give the people false hope and keep them ignorant of the true state of things. It's made very clear that the Maesters are fully aware of the continued lies they spread. The church also has no compunctions using machina themselves—Bevelle's temple uses machina transporters, their soldiers wield machina rifles, and they use machina war machines even more advanced than the Al Bhed's.
  • The main plot of Final Fantasy Tactics revolves around this starting from the end of the second chapter when you discover that the zodiac braves revered by the church are actually demons, and Saint Ajora was the worst of the lot bent on world destruction. The main character gets branded as a heretic in order to prevent this truth from coming to light, and the author of the in-universe book, the Durai papers, upon which the story of the game is drawn from is burnt at the stake to prevent the truth from being revealed.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: The city state of Ishgard has the Archbishop of the local religion acting as both head of state and head of the religion. The Archbishop's job is to guide the people in their Forever War against dragons, and to help the people have faith. Except the Archbishop and his story are a Self-Made Myth. It was Ishgard that started the Dragonsong War, not the dragons, when the Ishgardians betrayed a dragon named Ratatoskr and stole her eyes for their power. A thousand years later, Ratatoskr's brother Nidhogg is keeping the Ishgardians trapped in a Cycle of Revenge for his sister's death. Nidhogg doesn't just kill them outright because he wants the Ishgardians to feel fear for as long as possible. Everything seems to be going fine, until the Warrior of Light shows up, killing both the Archbishop and Nidhogg in combat and forcing the truth to come out.
• Cosmic Plaything:
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake: This time around, Cloud increasingly shows frustration with how he doesn't seem to have any control in his life, such as his monologue on the train. It makes him an easy target for Sephiroth's manipulations since this Sephiroth makes sure to rub it in every single time Cloud fails. Despite hating Sephiroth for killing his mom, he briefly considers joining his enemy when Sephiroth offers to let Cloud make his own fate.
    Sephiroth: [after Sector 7 is destroyed] You have failed again, I see.
  • Final Fantasy XV: Ardyn is methodically driven insane by the gods, intentionally, in order to stop a plague through mass genocide.
• Costume Porn: Fancy outfits have been common in the series, even if it was just the artwork in earlier games.
• Cowardly Lion:
  • Gordon in Final Fantasy II.
  • Prince Edward Chris von Muir in Final Fantasy IV.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, any time actual work is proposed, a minor character named Zone immediately crouches by the wall and complains about stomach pains. Later, he goes off and buys emergency train tickets for himself, his leader, and the three main characters, not counting on there being one addition to the party. After a moment, he passes his own ticket to her, then immediately finds a corner to hug his stomach in.
• Coy, Girlish Flirt Pose:
  • Aerith does this several times in Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core, and Kingdom Hearts, usually with Cloud and usually for flirting purposes. The remake even adds new scenes where she does this. Looking at old recordings of her birth mother Ifalna indicates that she used to do the pose as well.
    • Tifa Lockhart is frequently shown in this pose during the early chapters of Final Fantasy VII Remake.
  • This is one of Rinoa's stock motions in Final Fantasy VIII. She mostly uses it when Squall is being standoffish, which is often.
  • Rikku in Final Fantasy X-2.
• Cute Bruiser:
  • Krile from Final Fantasy V can fit this trope, especially if you give her physically-oriented jobs. Which, given that she inherits her stats from Galuf, might be the jobs she has leveled up to start with. Her outfits seem designed to be as adorable as possible—for example, her bubblegum-pink Knight armor.
  • While Relm Arrowny may not be a great physical fighter, many believe she is the most powerful pure mage in Final Fantasy VI. This in stark contrast to her grandfather, the Blue Mage, and half-Esper Terra means that game balance might be Fridge Logic retardant.
  • As a counterpart to the supposedly elegant, graceful and druidic Viera, Final Fantasy Tactics A2 introduced the Gria, a race of dragon girls who focused on speed and raw power, wielding swords and greatswords as well as bows and hammers.
  • The Moogle Knight class is a male example - sword-wielding brawlers of a cute fuzzy race whose other classes tend towards the Fragile Speedster and Squishy Wizard archetypes.
  • Tifa in Final Fantasy VII can beat down various monsters and other villains with her punches and kicks, including Sephiroth.
  • In Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, Prishe is the Token Mini-Moe, a young Bare-Fisted Monk with Frills of Justice and purple hair. Her punch combos, particularly One-Inch Punch and Howling Fist, are incredibly powerful, those two in particular can crush guards and deflecting attacks when charged up, and her ability to link two attacks together gives her impressive power. For example, her Dragon Kick to One Inch Punch link has a base power of 25-35 if both attacks are charged up, making it one of the most powerful combos in the game.
    • Tifa is also a playable character in this game, so once again, she counts as well.
    • In her source game, Prishe is just as much of a badass, as she's able to destroy the barriers that make a Physical God invincible with her Nullifying Dropkick.
  • Tiny and sweet Penelo is naturally more proficient with magic, but feel free to give her a two-handed greatsword and watch her plough through enemies.
  • Cinque is the resident Cloudcuckoolander, naive and innocent to a fault. In battle, she swings around a mace as big as she is and is easily capable of killing most enemies in only a few hits.
• Cute Is Evil: Tonberries and Cactuars. Oy very.
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • Terra from Final Fantasy VI seems to undergo a total personality shift from her normally timid self whenever she's within hugging distance of a Moogle. This, naturally, was brought up in the Dissidia Final Fantasy games, as seen here.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • On Mt. Corel, there's a nest of adorable baby birds. Cloud remains clinical, Yuffie's more interested in the treasure under the nest, and Red XIII assumes they're lunch - but Aeris and Tifa fall to pieces and Barret's rendered basically speechless.
    • After witnessing Scary Black Man Barret dressed in a ridiculous sailor uniform while in disguise on the ship, the player can either have Cloud tell him off or tell him that he looks adorable. Choosing to tell him he looks adorable results in you later finding him in the inn dancing around in front of the bathroom mirror for himself and talking about how he'll be wearing it when he goes to see his little daughter.
    • Mideel features an adorable baby white Chocobo that a woman is keeping as a pet. The player can talk to it, upon which the player character will suggest feeding it Greens. Depending on whether Cloud, Tifa or Cid is in charge of the party at the time, you can then be treated to a gruff chain-smoking astronaut or a magically enhanced, too-cool-for-school BFS-swinger giggling at it, calling it cutesy pet names like 'shorty' and 'peewee' and tickling it.
  • In Final Fantasy XV, Prompto melts down around cute Chocobos. Seeing one give Noct a hug reduces him to "oh em gee".
• Cry into Chest:
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake: This happens between Cloud and Tifa in Chapter 14 if your affinity rating with the latter is high enough. Tifa, who had until this point maintained a relatively strong and forward-thinking attitude following the destruction of Sector 7, finally breaks down and cries into Cloud's chest (note that the above incident marks the second time that their homes and livelihoods have been taken from them). Cloud—himself being a Stoic Woobie with trouble connecting emotionally—finally opens up and hugs her in response; enough that Tifa soon has to interrupt him for holding her so tightly to the point of nearly hurting her.
  • Seen in this◊ promotional image for Final Fantasy X, depicting the scene in Macalania Woods where Yuna is forced to accept her duty as a summoner, and that she cannot live the idealized normal life in Zanarkand that Tidus describes.
  • Final Fantasy XIII: Vanille breaks down a second time after Fang tricks her into revealing she lied about her amnesia. After That One Boss and an emotionally draining scene, Fang (instead of punching Vanille as we're lead to believe) simply bumps her forehead playfully and draws her into a hug of reassurance as the scene ends.

D

• Damaged Soul:
  • NPC Enaremand in Final Fantasy XI have you searching for a necromancer to make a mannequin with the likeness of his deceased wife Alsha more 'lifelike' by summoning the soul of the said wife into the doll. It ends with you having to deal with a crazed puppet that both attempts to hurt and heal you, before trying to end its own existence by casting Fire II on itself over and over. It's up to the player to survive AND deal the finishing blow to truly end the tragedy.
  • Latov in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates is wounded in spirit by both the manner of his death, having been murdered in his own home to protect his children, and all the other tragedies he'd suffered by the Crystal Temple. Then he is possessed by the Lich, turning him into a being of rage and anguish. His children Yuri and Chelinka, along with his old friends Alhanalem and Meeth, first have to drive the Lich out and then dive into his past to heal him so that he can move on.
• Damsel in Distress: Being a very popular long-standing franchise, it has many examples: Rosa, Aerith, Rinoa, Garnet etc. The very first game begins with a "Save the Princess from rogue knight" plot, before switching to saving the crystals.
  • Subverted in Final Fantasy X with Yuna. Who, while kidnapped three times, managed to escape on her own the first time and actually made a plan to defeat one of the Big Bad's the third time (which the heroes, while pulling off an impressive Big Damn Heroes, messed up) she still escaped on her own. And the second time, she was actually being "kidnapped" by Rikku, so there wasn't any real danger (other than being forced to end her pilgrimage and being held captive in Home), though the other characters think there is at the time.
• Damsel out of Distress:
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • Tifa Lockhart is thought to be in distress early in the game but is instead undercover and investigating. Later in the game, she's shackled to a chair in a gas chamber and escapes on her own.
    • Aerith Gainsborough is separated from Cloud at one point in the game and pursued by SHINRA soldiers. The player has the option to fight them with only her.
    • Played for Laughs when Cloud goes on a date with one of the female party members and has to take part in a play, with Cloud as The Hero and Aerith/Tifa/Yuffie as the Damsel in Distress. If the player messes up too many lines, the date will angrily slap Cloud so hard he passes out and then kick her dragon captor off the stage herself. The narrator hastily wraps up the story while the other actors just awkwardly stand there.
  • Final Fantasy X:
    • Yuna, the sweet, shy, innocent summoner is kidnapped a couple of times but pulls this trope off. Escaping on her own just as her rescuers arrive and then attempting to send Seymour at the forced marriage; when that fails she jumps off a roof and escapes on an aeon.
    • During the Blitzball tournament in Luca, Yuna is abducted by the Al Bhed, who intend to use her as a hostage and force the Besaid Aurochs to throw the game against them in the elimination round. Tidus, Lulu, and Kimahri mount a rescue mission, fighting their way through waves of guard machina to the ship where Yuna is being held captive. Upon defeating the Oblitzerator, they rush to open the door to belowdecks ... only for the door to open and an unconscious guard to slump out onto the ground as Yuna walks out.
      Lulu: [tenderly] Did you hurt them?
      Yuna: A little.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Seriously, this series should probably get its own page, judging by the number of examples there are ranging from heroes, villains, supporting cast, and even random NPCs, we could be here ALL DAY.
• Darker and Edgier: See here.
• A Darker Me:
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • Cloud, new to a big city and shed of all his prior identity, spends the first few hours of the game acting like a rude, aloof, cooler-than-cool, violent asshole - something that's even an act within the context of his delusions. Later we find out that he thinks of his real personality as weak and boring, even though what we see of it is quite friendly and sweet (if awkward and self-flagellating).
    • Red XIII. When we first meet him, he's being used as a research specimen by Hojo. He makes a point of acting like an impossibly old, alien being with some cool Deadpan Snarker moments - using complicated language and refusing to give his real name to the party, suggesting they call him by what Hojo designated him. Then you return to his hometown where it turns out that, despite being 48, his long-lived species means he's actually about 15 in human years. Oh, and he still lives with his beloved grandfather. After completing his quest, he drops the act, and his speech patterns and attitude become a lot more childish - in the Japanese, he even changes to a childish pronoun.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: Throughout the first "arc" of the Dark Knight class quests, your teacher Fray is constantly snapping at people who come to your for help, and urge you to leave them to deal with their own problems. Yet for some reason, people seem to react as though it were you and not Fray talking to them. Then at the end of the arc comes The Reveal: Fray is you. Specifically, s/he's the part of you that is absolute sick and tired of constantly being the hero, helping people who won't help themselves and getting nothing but a "thank you" (if even that) for it, while being restrained by laws and leaders. When you refuse to let that side of you take over and walk away from it all, it manifests itself as a doppelganger and tries to beat you down into compliance. Once you emerge triumphantly, "Fray" gives up trying to take over forcefully, but promises to take over if you ever want it to.
• A Day in the Limelight: Many characters, although Alexander seems to get the most throughout the series. To date:
  • An FMV appearance in the PSX remake of Final Fantasy VI, attacking Kefka;
  • An FMV appearance in Final Fantasy IX, in which he gallantly defends Alexandria Castle (and Princess Garnet) from Bahamut's attack;
  • An appearance as a Humongous Mecha in Final Fantasy XIII, being Hope's summon;
  • An appearance as a Verboten Eidolon in Final Fantasy Type-0; and finally
  • Being the Big Bad and final boss of Bahamut Lagoon, although he's entirely different from his other incarnations and takes the form of a serpentine 4-headed dragon.
    • And all this time, he hasn't said a single word.
  • Interestingly enough, the Giant of Bab-il◊ from Final Fantasy IV looks very similar to him as well. Not only does this give a possible origin on Alexander but this Giant also has a limelight moment by starting the destruction of the Blue Planet, among other things.
  • As a raid boss in Final Fantasy XIV, complete with a catchy theme song.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Final Fantasy VIII has Laguna Loire's Those Two Guys best friends, Kiros and Ward. Given that Laguna is a front-to-end Idiot Hero, their moments are very common.
  • Final Fantasy X:
    • Lulu is so deadpan, they created Paine for Final Fantasy X-2 because if they'd gone with their plan A of using Lulu, most of the banter would be shut down brutally early.
    • Auron, so much.
      Auron: (seeing Evrae, the guardian wyrm of Bevelle) The red carpet has teeth.
      Auron: Once Lady Yuna fixes her hair, we leave.
      Auron: That Kinoc, a Maester?
  • Final Fantasy XII: Balthier has this in spades.
    Ashe: trying to warn the part about the dangers inside the Tomb of Raithwall Only his descendants are suffered within. If we enter without proof of such lineage-
    Balthier: There's no guarantee we'll make it out alive. Vicious beasts. Fiendish traps. Something like that?
    Ashe: (nodding) Mhhm. But you must consider the prize. The Dawn Shard lies within. And Raithwalls treasure.
    Balthier: And there was I thinking this was going to be hard.
  • Wol in Mobius Final Fantasy spends most of his time reacting to his fantastical world of magical creatures with the relentless, resigned sarcasm of a teenage boy at a boring theme park. He even effortlessly outsnarks Cloud in his cameo, mocking his attitude problems.
  • Noctis in Final Fantasy XV is known for his sarcastic sense of humor. Such as this exchange here:
    Prompto: Hey Ignis, how's it feel being away from the wheel?
    Ignis: Positively frightening.
    Noctis: What are you saying...?
    Ignis: That I'm no stranger to His Highness's driving habits.
    Noctis: 'Preciate the confidence.
• Dead Person Conversation:
  • A major plot point of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is Cloud having conversations with Aerith. Then again, Final Fantasy VII and its related spin-offs tend to run on the Trope of Only Mostly Dead, to the point where there is a Japanese novella written entirely from the point of view of the dead characters in the The Lifestream.
    • Even though he was heard in several scenes in the original cut of Advent Children, Zack now has a new major scene where, during the fight with Sephiroth, he is encouraging Cloud in a conversation as a Spirit Advisor in Advent Children Complete.
  • In a similar manner, Final Fantasy X raises this trope from Dead Person Conversations to Dead Person Plans.
  • After being killed by Kuja in Final Fantasy IX,Garland starts talking to Zidane and the others, providing some much-needed information about Memoria before his soul passes on.
• Dead Person Impersonation:
  • Setzer of Final Fantasy VI takes on the personality and reputation of his mentor, Daryl, after she dies. There's also Cyan, who writes letters claiming to be a woman's long-distance boyfriend after her real boyfriend dies.
  • Final Fantasy VII has Cloud's backstory revolve around this. Since he was rendered mentally unstable by experimentation and trauma, and had little self-esteem before that point, he takes on the life story of his best friend, Zack. In the original, it was portrayed as Cloud finally snapping for good - in the remade scene in Crisis Core, it was portrayed as a conscious, but the decision to live in Zack's honor. Either way, Cloud ends up genuinely believing that he was in SOLDIER, and the illusion comes apart in the most painful way possible later on.
    • They also have Jenova do this trope. Example:
    • Once the creature emerged from the impact site and approached the Cetra settlement, it read their minds and adopted the forms of dead relatives to get close to them.
    • Hojo duped Sephiroth into believing this thing is his real mother. Thanks to the Jenova cells in her body, Lucrecia was unable to die, though; instead, she fled, eventually winding up in the Crystal Cave where she turned herself to crystal (as penance and, perhaps, to stop herself from mutating).
  • Final Fantasy XIV has this as a reveal near the end of the 3.5 storylines when you learn that Yda is actually Lyse, her sister, who watched her die when escaping the Ala Mhigan invasion, and took up her name and mantle as a member of the Circle of Knowing.
• Death from Above:
  • Dragoons/Dragon Knights with their "Jump" command.
  • Comet and Meteor, dealing usually semi-random amounts of damage.
  • Sometimes, Holy is shown as beams of light falling from the sky.
  • Sometimes lightning-based magic comes from the sky rather than the caster.
  • Final bosses are fond of using cosmic attacks that drop meteors on you, send meteors into the sun, chuck a planet at you, etc.
• Deconstructor Fleet: Started (sparingly) with general fantasy tropes as early as Final Fantasy, and later moved on to more specific RPG tropes that had sprung up in the years following.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Look back at all the Final Fantasy protagonists. There's a pretty good chance that one or both their parents are either dead, have disappeared or die by the end of the story.
• Defiant to the End:
  • Final Fantasy V: Galuf takes on Exdeath solo after the rest of the party falls, and doesn't let a pesky thing like running out of Hit Points stop him until Exdeath retreats, even if it costs him his life.
  • Final Fantasy XII: Balthier's reaction to a sword to his throat?
    Balthier: Well, at least your sword is to the point.
    • Balthier can also be heard snarking calmly when he's knocked out in combat:
      Balthier: Is that your best?
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life:
  • In Final Fantasy X-2, the character Clasko says "I've got to find my place in this world". If you do a sidequest for him, he eventually finds his knack for chocobo ranching. There is some exploration of this theme in the case of the Youth League, New Yevon, and the Ronso as well.
    • In fact, it's a theme for the main characters too. Yuna having completed her supposed suicide mission is left with a lifetime of summoner training and no ability to use it. Paine is looking for a purpose, any purpose to distract her from what happened on the Crimson Squad, and Rikku (unbelievably, but accurately the most well adjusted of the three) just wants to have fun.
    • All of Spira seems to have fallen into this after Sin's downfall. It's still an improvement since the only "purpose" they had when Sin was around was simple survival.
  • Vaan from Final Fantasy XII is like this in the middle of the game. After shifting Out of Focus following the first Act of the game's story, he admits to Ashe that even with his hatred of The Empire he had no purpose in life, making up stories like "I want to be a Sky Pirate" simply to stave off the feeling of being hollow and alone. He sticks with the party because he's hoping he will find his purpose in life with Ashe.
• Diabolus ex Machina:
  • Not quite the ending, but the climax of World 1 in Final Fantasy V is rather like this. Against all odds, you finally managed to get to the last elemental crystal in time, unlike all the other ones that ended up breaking. The bad guy's possessed puppet gets beaten back, there's a lovely reunion with one of the characters and his granddaughter, where he gets his memory of her back, and a reunion of two of the characters and their long-lost father... and then Bartz realizes that throughout the long reunion, they'd forgotten to turn off the Crystal-draining machinery and the crystal shatters.
  • Ultros of Final Fantasy VI is a Diabolus Ex Machina personified. Four times in the World of Balance, he comes out of nowhere to cause trouble for the heroes, including trying to drop a weight on Celes's head at the opera.
    • Kefka's rending of the world is a huge example of a famous Diabolus Ex Machina that was actually very well received.
  • Disc 2 of Final Fantasy VII is a Diabolus Ex Machina strewn throughout an entire disc. Aside from Aeris dying at the end of disc 1, the party chases Sephiroth to the Northern Crater, where they prepare to battle him once and for all, until Sephiroth decides to break poor Cloud's mind and force him to learn that he's a failed experiment. This ends in Cloud handing over the Black Materia, and all hell breaking loose. So now, not only is Meteor looming, about to kill the world in one week, but the Planet has released its failsafe, a group of massive biomechanical creatures called the WEAPONs that are capable of wreaking serious destruction. The next time we see Cloud He's alive, but totally catatonic.
    • It was revealed 20 years after the game came out that there was originally a really extreme one. Nojima had the idea that the entire party should be killed off except for the two characters the player brought with them, and planned to use the part where the party parachute into Midgar to kill off everyone. Mercifully, Tetsuya Nomura talked them out of it, saying it was important to keep Aeris's death special by not just killing off characters at random.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • Final Fantasy X:
    • No one seemed to see Yuna and her Guardians coming, least of all Lady Yunalesca, who has never been challenged before and was certainly not expecting to get the shit kicked out of her horrifying medusa-head form, thereby destroying the traditional (but not, as she claimed, "only") way to defeat Sin.
    • Nobody predicted that Sin itself, or rather Jecht, was capable of setting into motion events that would lead to its destruction.
  • In Final Fantasy XIII, Barthandelus' plan to turn the l'Cie into the instruments of Cocoon's destruction hinges on them breaking when he slams them into the Despair Event Horizon, inducing them to follow their Focus and using the power of Ragnarok to kill Orphan. Fang comes close in the end, but not close enough: Barthandelus' failure to recognize humans as more than mere tools is the undoing of his schemes, as the l'Cie ultimately save Cocoon by subverting their Focus.
    • Also, nobody thought that killing Bhunivelze, the top god in the food chain, who uses the Fal'Cie's god as a weapon. was possible. Guess what happens when you combine the efforts of one Omnicidal Maniac with the strength and will of twelve heroes. Yep.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • In Final Fantasy VI, Sabin dives off a raft to fight Ultros, only to be swept away from the rest of the party by the strong current.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, Rinoa, despite her good intentions, doesn't fully grasp the seriousness of the situations she's involved in, or the consequences her actions will have for others. She's fond of coming up with big plans but doesn't consider what will happen if they fail or if they succeed—they hijack the train car but she clearly doesn't have any idea what to do with "Deling" once they do. Part of her Character Development is outgrowing this.
    • Later, Squall gets into a spacesuit and leaves the Escape Pod to rescue Rinoa, who's floating out in space. Even though he succeeds, they're both stuck out in the middle of space, low on oxygen, and with no way to get back to the Planet. Fortunately, Deus ex Machina saves the day.
• Disciplines of Magic: While each entry in the franchise tends to have its own take on how magic works and how it's categorized, it has established a few broad categories of magic that it uses fairly consistently:
  • White Magic is magic that tends to directly benefit your own party: it includes spells that heal or revive teammates, spells that bolster attack and/or defense stats, spells that treat status conditions, and so on. However, White Magic does include a very small number of offensive spells, historically specialized at destroying undead creatures.
  • Black Magic, in the Final Fantasy universe, is generally purely offensive magic meant to destroy enemies. While there are some spells that benefit party members, they still tend to be crouched in harming the enemy, such as draining an enemy's HP and giving it to the caster.
  • Summoning is the ability to summon magical creatures into battle for a large, impressive-looking spell. Summons can have offensive, defensive, or healing properties. Summons tend to have much higher MP costs than other types of magic, which may or may not reflect how much more powerful they are than standard spells.
  • Blue Magic is a broad term for "magical abilities learned from monsters or other enemies." The spells in this category tend to be exclusive to Blue Mages, and they can be either offensive, defensive, or healing spells.
  • There are other, lesser types of magic, like Time Magic (which affects time and the pace of battle, naturally) and Green Magic (mostly concerned with status buffs and ailments). However, these tend to be limited to individual games or subseries and don't appear consistently throughout the franchise.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Quake, whenever it makes an appearance. Also, the Titan summon.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Final Fantasy VI has an early scene of Kefka burning down Figaro Castle. Why? Because Edgar was unhelpful and mocking when Kefka arrived to ask him to hand over Terra, who had run away from him earlier. And this isn't counting the fact that Figaro and the Empire had a peace treaty going on.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • In the first disk, the rebel group AVALANCHE infiltrates and destroys two Mako Reactors. AVALANCHE consists of Cloud, Barrett, Tifa, Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie. Six people. What does the Shinra Corporation do? Crash a sector of the city onto them while framing them for it. They even fail to kill half of the group. Indeed, at least two of the three were killed by Shin-Ra soldiers before the plate came down (as they tried to prevent Shin-Ra from sabotaging the plate support).
      
      Worst of all, the reason Barret took over the reins of AVALANCHE in the first place was that his hometown was burned down by Shinra... because one of their reactors there exploded and there was ONE person in the town who had been against the reactor being built, and he wasn't even home at the time. So if you trace it back far enough and take the death and destruction totals into account, the Shinra corporation killed several villages' worth of people because one man once said that Mako reactors were a bad idea. And in a sick twist of fate, it's possible that they murdered an entire town and destroyed their own reactor intentionally to piss said guy off because he's implied to be a Cetra descendant and singling out any of his family for Mako experiments would be a net profit.
    • Sephiroth himself. "I was created from an Eldritch Abomination because of a Shinra experiment, and my mother was their surgical masterpiece? Whelp, time to personally butcher the families of everyone who claimed they cared about me, and then raze down the towns they live in." Massacring villages seems to be a theme in this game. Veers off into Motive Decay because the real Sephiroth was stuck in a five-year hell of defying the lifestream, which required him to concentrate on a few core aspects to preserve a fraction of his personality. Turns out that meant his hatred for Cloud accidentally killing him mutated into a thirst for planetary obliteration and mass-soul devouring, and his original belief in his superiority as a Cetra was radicalized into a god complex when he found out Jenova is his mother. That's not strictly true — he was injected with Jenova's cells in the womb — but he doesn't find out the real truth.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics A2 has a mission involving this. The Lang Bros. (back when they were with the Arbiters of Death) were enjoying drinks at a bar when something causes the drink to spill. One of the brothers ganked the guy responsibly, and when others came to restrain them, they subsequently got slashed. Then the Arbiters of Death themselves got involved and were shanked for their efforts. All of this is gone over in detail to Clan Gully. There's Serious Business and then there's this.
    Luso: You knifed nearly thirty guys over a spilled drink?! You're a threat to society!
  • Many of the villains in Dissidia Final Fantasy. But, Kefka is the worst. There also Chaos and Shinryu. Examples:
    • When Kuja freed Terra from Kefka's mental control and later attempted to assist some of Cosmos's warriors in defeating Chaos, Kefka decided to wait until Kuja was killed during the cycle so he could tamper with his memories upon being revived in the next.
    • Killing the Cloud of Darkness after it told Laguna how to close the door to the rift.
    • Using Sephiroth's desire to get back his memories as a means to punish Cloud for simply not wanting to take part in the 12th cycle.
    • Once Chaos learns the war of the gods was orchestrated by his father, who now wants him dead, he decides to destroy the world itself.
    • Shinryu aids Chaos in the final battle with the Warriors of Cosmos as revenge for Cid backing out of their deal. First by lending Chaos his power, and later by trapping Cid in a nightmare realm he created.
• Distress Ball:
  • Lenna Charlotte Tycoon of Final Fantasy V is notable for inflicting this on 'herself'' more than once. Yes, she gets kidnapped and possessed by external enemies, but she has become infamous in fandom for stubbornly ramming herself face-first into poison in order to save dragons.
  • Adelle briefly leaves the clan in Final Fantasy Tactics A2. Guess what happens? The Big Bad, who expressed interest in her abilities as a Gifted before, brainwashes her, of course.
  • Rinoa Heartilly of Final Fantasy VIII. She foolishly goes after the Sorceress intending to bind her powers with a Power Nullifier (a plan that could have worked if Edea weren't being possessed by another Sorceress from the future who knows the item) but ends up in a trance and attacked by Iguions. Naturally she must be saved. This is balanced out somewhat by moments of competency such as leading an attack on the prison to rescue the others, gaining Sorceress powers to become a Game-Breaker and saving Squall from the Time Crash during the ending.
• Distressed Dude:
  • Squall at the start of the second disc of Final Fantasy VIII.
  • Prompto from Final Fantasy XV has two moments. The first time was when he gets grabbed by the Naga in Fociaugh Hollow, although he was able to save himself shortly after. The second time was when he gets kidnapped by Ardyn after Chapter 11. Rescuing him however involves going through arguably the most frustrating part of the game.
• The Driver: Cid. Always.
  • Except in XII, but even then, it's his son Ffamran/Balthier.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In almost all classes, the Summoner class wears a headband with a huge horn on it. In some pictures, the horn is even slightly curved.
  • Final Fantasy VI: Terra's second flashback, where she remembers Emperor Gestahl speaking to a crowd of soldiers clad in all brown about being the "chosen ones" meant to rule the world, while everyone sticks up their right hand in salute... For extra measure, the three generals behind him (Kefka, Leo and Celes) are all blonde.
  • Final Fantasy VII: The names of Tifa's Limit Breaks are highly suggestive. "Beat Rush", "Meteordrive", "Dolphin Blow" and "Final Heaven". The abridged series by Team Four Star played this for laughs.
    • There's also Sephiroth doing Mind Rape to Cloud to the point where he could no longer function. He needed "rape counseling" from Tifa in a Journey to the Center of the Mind before he was able to do anything at all. The way Cloud experiences resemble a rape victim and needed therapy to recover.
    • There's even a scene in Gongaga where Cloud's lying on a bed, clearly severely traumatized, while the others try to convince him that what Sephiroth forced him to do wasn't his fault and doesn't mean Cloud wanted it. Let's add into this the way Sephiroth tells Cloud 'I am always by your side', and the bizarre sexual symbolism of Cloud being forced to find Sephiroth's Materia coffin in the center of a pink, pulsating, ring-shaped structure, and penetrating it to give him the Black Materia.
    • Several plot points from Crisis Core directly parallel events in Final Fantasy VII.
    • In Remake has Madam M's "massages." We see enough to know she is massaging Cloud's hands, but the atmosphere, the way she talks, Cloud's reactions to what she's doing, and the camera angles which conceal exactly where her hands are, all scream "this is a stand-in for another kind of massage that we can't depict." After the massage is over, Aerith serves as the temporary playable character because Cloud is exhausted from the massage.
  • Final Fantasy X:
    • For nearly a thousand years, the Al Bhed were persecuted and demonized for using technology, forbidden under Yevon's teachings, and have far less rights than other humans and even a handful of different races. Around the middle of the game, Yevon under Seymour's command attacks the Al Bhed using the kidnappings of summoners as an excuse (which they are guilty of, but for more moral reasons) and destroys their Home; it is heavily implied that the Al Bhed are being subjected to genocide.
    • The Ronso take great pride in their horns. "Hornless" is one of the biggest insults they have.
    • The infamous massage minigame Final Fantasy X-2. Leblanc has just left a meeting with Meyvyn Nooj. A disguised Yuna must fumble her way through a back massage while Leblanc waxes poetic about how manly Nooj is. The colors indicate how close we are to one of Leblanc's knots a la Minesweeper, and once you hit it, Leblanc moans in ecstasy and does her trademark hand gesture, and the grid resets.
  • Final Fantasy XIII:
    • The game starts with people who have been rounded up and put on a train. They have been told that they will be resettled, but they will really be executed.
    • Is Vanille having The Immodest Orgasm on her Eidolon? Judge for yourself. Or not... they even cuddle at the end. And on a lesser note, considering the noises she makes throughout the game, it can sound like Vanille might constantly be having one.
    • Fang and Vanille's gasps together during their saving of Cocoon.
    • In Final Fantasy XIII-2, when walking around talking to NPCs in Academia 4XX AF, one little girl will say "Ah! You're a scary adult! Scary adults shouldn't talk to kids they don't know!"
  • Final Fantasy XIV:
    • The quest "Not Easy Being Green" features two lovers, a Miqo'te and a Hyur, who were kicked out of their village for being "different", and go on a bit of a Character Filibuster on how cruel it is to treat people badly for "being different". While the dialogue strongly implies that their differing race was the issue, the fact that they're both men brings to mind the obvious parallel in anti-LGBT discrimination.
    • Emet-Selch gives a speech to the player in which he says "Moral relativism and all that. Case in point - I do not consider you to be truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you" to explain the Blue-and-Orange Morality between you and the Ascians. This can easily fit into genocide denial, given that he was behind multiple genocides and even helped create The Empire that wants to commit genocides.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics:
    • The entire plot is, essentially, the Pharisee theory regarding Jesus lying at the center of the Dark Secret guarded by the Corrupt Church.
    • The War of the Lions can also be seen as a parallel to the War of the Roses.
  • The game: Dissidia Final Fantasy. Dramatis personae: Sephiroth, older Bishounen Manipulative Bastard famous for the gargantuan amount of subtext between himself and his opposite number Cloud from his original game—oh, and for dressing like a leather-loving bondage dom.

Firion, teen rebellious spirit and friend of Cloud; another white-haired Bishōnen whose gruff exterior belies an earnest and innocent nature. Warrior Of Light, Team Dad of the heroes, shares a lot of traits with the Aloof Big Brother and The Stoic. The scene: Warrior Of Light comes across the tail end of an encounter between Firion and Sephiroth, with the former obviously injured, winded, and in a bad way. Warrior Of Light covers Firion's escape, while Sephiroth mocks him about having done something unforgivable. Later, we discover...that Sephiroth had taken Firion's wild rose.

• "IT'S FILLING ME UP!!!"
• "That was titillating!"
• After Vaan managed to make off with Terra, Kefka states "After all, she always comes running straight back into my arms anyway. What do I care!"
• Similarly, when Kefka proceeds to use Electric Torture on Terra for her refusing to obey his commands to destroy things, Kefka remarks "Sorry, babe. I only hurt you because you make me!"
• That's totally what she said!

• Doomed Hometown: See it here.
• Double-Edged Buff:
  • The Berserk status often raises the party member's attack power, but in exchange, it makes them uncontrollable, and sometimes lowers their defense as well. It could be beneficial for physical fighters, who have high attack stats and don't use many abilities, but a hindrance for mages, who have low attack power and rely on magic to do most of the damage.
  • When a character is inflicted with the Zombie status, in addition to being damaged by healing items and spells, they often receive the same resistances and abilities as zombies. In some games, they are immune to Dark-elemental attacks and Instant Death. In others, they can become immune to certain status ailments such as poison and blindness.
  • The Reflect status can reflect any magic cast on the target back at the opponent. Unfortunately, that also includes healing and buffing spells, which means if a player attempts to cast Cure on an ally with Reflect, it will instead heal the enemy. The only way around this is to wait for it to wear off or use a healing item. Some enemies weaponize this by reflecting Black Magic off themselves to damage the party.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect:
  • In Final Fantasy II, (or at least the PSP version), this trope is in full effect when leveling characters. Due to the...unique nature of the game's Stat Grinding system, the odds of getting a stat boost after any one battle is directly proportional to the length of the battle. The idea, one suspects, is to prevent players from grinding low-level monsters indefinitely, but the end result is being punished for fighting battles as efficiently as possible, whereas if you artificially prolong the fight (a common strategy is to put enemies to sleep to prevent them from running away, then abusing fellow party members), the odds of getting a stat boost increase almost to the point of guarantee. This can be maddening to a certain kind of gamer... which is to say a sapient one.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • There is a mini-game where you have to prevent soldiers from reaching a fort. Failing to do this causes a fight against the boss with the regular characters. Normally, you get the proper reward only if you complete the mini-game, and you lose it if you have to fight the boss, win or lose. However, the one time this mini-game is plot-mandated, the normal reward is given if you complete the mini-game or beat the boss. And as it turns out, you can get a rare and powerful piece of armor by defeating the boss at this point (and never before this point), and the boss is pretty easy. A savvy character will lose the mini-game on purpose the final time, since there's no benefit in winning.
    • Junon has two instances.
    • First, the parade. The gist of this is that you want to try to march out and fall in line while troops march past. The better you do, the higher the ratings. The higher the ratings, the better the reward. However, the "best" reward is simply 5,000 gil. The next best is 6 ethers. Ethers can be sold for 750 gil each, meaning if one sold all 6 of them, they would get 4500 gil, 500 gil shy of best reward. The catch is that ethers cost 1500 gil to buy and most players are going to end up needing to buy that many at some point anyway.
    • The "posing" minigame during Rufus' sendoff is also noteworthy. The second-best prize (60-90 points) is an HP Plus Materia (boosts max HP by 10% per level), while the "top" prize is a weapon for Cloud that you'll be able to buy in the very next town. HP Plus Materia, meanwhile, is not only generally more useful, but also doesn't appear in shops for a fair while after this, and is much more expensive.
    • There's also the entire endgame, where the first boss battle determines how the next two play out: Depending on how quickly the player beats the first boss, what levels the player's characters have and how many Optional Party Members the player has found, the second battle will have the player split into one to three teams, with the main team continuing into the final boss battle solo. Both the final and penultimate bosses also gain HP boosts for every character in the game with maximum levels, and if the player uses Knights of the Round on the first boss.
  • Final Fantasy VIII's first task is to defeat Ifrit within a selected-by-you time limit. The catch is that the test is described as a "test of judgment", so completing it too soon means you could not accurately estimate your abilities and subsequently gave yourself too much time. In other words, scoring well on this test requires finishing with less time remaining — a perfect score is reached if you finish with ten seconds or less remaining on the clock.
    • In the Japanese version, you have to kill Ifrit and escape the dungeon before you run out of time, making the whole experience more of a test of time management rather than rationality (plus it serves as a Chekhov's Gun for something you'll be doing later in the story).
    • Even if you give yourself the lowest amount of time possible, your score will still drop if you kill Ifrit too soon. The best score requires you to finish with seven seconds or less on the clock, which means most people will end up letting Ifrit beat on them for a while (you can still get a game over if he's talking when the timer runs out, though).
    • However, you can cheat the system in the English version and avoid this trouble by taking note of how much time you have remaining when you defeat Ifrit. Then, when the naming screen comes up, stay on that screen and keep an eye on your watch until time's up, then continue gameplay as normal. There, now you have the best possible score, a giant hellbeast at your beck and call, and a smug sense of superiority.
  • Final Fantasy IX: In "The Festival of the Hunt" minigame, the goal is to earn the most points of all the competitors by killing monsters in the streets. If you (playing as Zidane) win, you get 5000 gil. If Vivi wins, you get a useless Tetra Master card. Letting Freya win, however, nets you a decent elemental-absorbing accessory that teaches your characters a few useful skills. To let her win, just put the controller down for 12 minutes or kill yourself in the first battle you come across.
    • That said, the toughest monster in the Festival of the Hunt, the Zaghnol, has two items worth stealing and gives about enough points to single-handedly win the competition. By avoiding lesser battles, entering a certain area with 4:30 left on the timer, and making Zidane take a fall against the Zaghnol (or teaming up with Freya, which splits the points between them), the player can get all of the items.
  • Final Fantasy X's entire experience system revolved around this. If you use the right character and end a battle in one turn, you'd get 1/7 the maximum amount of AP, as only characters who act in battle get any AP at all, and it's not split or leaked in any way. Conversely, if you waste six turns (using a different character each time) and use the seventh to end the battle, then every character gets full experience.
  • Final Fantasy X-2:
    • The best culprit to pin during the Mi'ihen Mystery is Rikku if you're aiming for 100% completion. One of the criteria for catching this person requires a certain cutscene that can only be seen if you almost catch the Chocobo during Chapter 2. If you catch it or let it get away without resistance, it becomes far more difficult (if not impossible) to accuse that person.
    • Later, during the massage minigame, you obtain a prize of a Gold Hairpin if you succeed on the first attempt. If you fail at least once, though, you obtain Heady Perfume, which is arguably a more useful accessory.
    • The first time you play the "Gunner's Gauntlet" minigame/mission, completion of the timed course and a score of 500 are necessary to pass the mission. It can be replayed to achieve a higher score and additional prizes. On a New Game Plus, however, when you get to this mission again, the required score is now your high score from your previous playthrough[s].
    • Your characters earn 1 AP per battle, and an extra AP for every successful non-Attack action during the battle. You can quickly end battles for EXP and Gil by selecting the Attack command, or you can draw them out to master dresssphere abilities faster by using supplementary skills or items.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV:
    • This is part of the Balance Between Good and Evil. The Warrior of Light is a servant of Hydaelyn and fights to prevent terrible calamities. A storyline in the Heavensward expansion, however, reveals that being too good at this results in Light aether growing out of control into a flood of light which annihilates all life in its path. The Warriors of Darkness are heroes from a world where this is in the process of happening, and the theme comes up again in Shadowbringers when the Warrior must become a Warrior of Darkness themselves. By the same token, the Ascians, servants of the dark god Zodiark, are trying to bring about the calamities which the Warrior is trying to prevent in order to free Zodiark. There is already an example of a world which fell completely into darkness as a result of them being too successful, creating a realm called "The Void" which their god has no use for.
    • When farming certain trials unsynched, so you can play them at the level cap, it's often faster to pause attacking the boss in order to do mechanics or avoid skipping phases. The former is because if a mechanic is skipped on some bosses, it causes them to enrage. The latter is because the boss has a transition phase where said transition phase makes them untargetable and is longer than the fight itself if phases aren't skipped.
  • Final Fantasy Legend II: You will want to have a Total Party Kill at least once before reaching Odin if you want to see a few extra scenes, as well as have a slightly easier boss fight.
• Downer Ending:
  • The finale of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core sees the protagonist, Zack, gunned down by the whole Shinra army, just outside of Midgar, where he was going to see his girlfriend after being apart for five years, while his friends in the Turks searched vainly for him in order to save his life. If you've ever played (or even heard of) the original, you know it's a foregone conclusion (this game being a prequel and all), but it's still heartbreaking.
    • Especially when you consider that what Cloud and Zack suffered together sets the stage for Cloud's emotional dysfunction in the original game and provides Sephiroth with the ammo he needs to Mind Rape Cloud.
  • While Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus itself has a happy ending, its online multiplayer mode certainly does not. The nameless Deepground soldier PC defeats the tyrannical Restricter, but with his last breath, he lashes out at her, fatally wounding her. As she dies, the Tsviets appear and tell her that the entire time they were tricking her into killing the Restricter so they could commence their own plans for world conquest. The game ends with the camera showing the Tsviets laughing at their triumph from the PC's point of view as the screen slowly fades to black as she slowly bleeds out. And her dead little sister, whose death is what spurred her to fight the Restricter to begin with? She never existed. The Tsviets implanted the nameless soldier with Fake Memories so they could more easily control her.
  • Final Fantasy XIII-2: Serah dies, Lightning becomes crystallized, Noel realizes that he just gave Caius exactly what he wanted, and he and Hope are trapped at the ground zero of a massive Time Crash.
  • The first iteration of Final Fantasy XIV had this happen in ultimate form.
    • First the Big Bad decides to throw the lesser moon, Dalamud, onto the planet. It is during that procedure that Bahamut breaks out of the moon that it was imprisoned in, and proceeded to devastate the world. And while The Path manages to get him re-sealed, a quarter of the world is already destroyed and another still on fire. Every single player is a Warrior of Light,and all that they could do during that final quest was stand close to the battlefield, watching the moon go down as a woman's voice softly echoed in the silence and a timer counted down their last seconds. The most powerful people the world has ever seen could do nothing but stand there and watch.
    • A Realm Reborn Doesn't fare much better as the final story patch before Heavensward has the player and their companions being framed for high treason after a member of the Ul'dah Syndicate attempts to have the Sultana assassinated. The other City State leaders are unable to do anything to aid without making the situation even worse and the one who does ends up losing one of his arms and getting thrown in prison for his troubles. In this process each and every member of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn end up vanishing as they attempt to flee the city-state until it's just the player, Alphinaud, and Tataru who are all forced to flee to Coerthas (though the player can still freely return to the other areas once the cutscene is over).
    • Heavensward doesn't let up in its post-game MSQ: Fighting between the Empire and rebels in Ala Mhigo intensify as a result of Ilberd launching a False Flag Operation to facilitate a summoning. He succeeds at the cost of his own life in summoning Shinryu, forcing Papalymo to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to try and contain it. Papalymo only succeeds in buying the heroes enough time to find and activate Omega in the hopes of defeating Shinryu, but both disappear after their fight while the heroes are forced to deal with the growing unrest in Ala Mhigo.
    • Stormblood: Over the course of the late endgame MSQ, several members of the Scions fall into mysterious comas as fighting between the Empire and Ala Mhigo once again intensifies. During a pivitol battle, the Warrior of Light is contacted by a mysterious figure from another world, one in danger of being completely destroyed, and the destruction of which would lead to a Calamity of apocalyptic proportions on Hydaelyn. In order to prevent The End of the World as We Know It, the Warrior will need to travel to this new world, leaving the outcome of the current war with the Empire in question...
  • Final Fantasy Tactics: On one hand, the Lucavi demons are destroyed, and mankind saved. On the other hand, everyone who fought them died doing it, and no one ever knew how close they were to a demonic end of the world because they were too busy fighting a civil war. The heroes MIGHT have been remembered had the one decent person who survived the entire ordeal and wrote an eyewitness account of such not been burned at the stake for charges of heresy because the revealing of what the heroes have done would reveal the falsehood the Church has been spreading for generations. And, if you're in the camp that sympathizes with Delita, he loses everyone dear to him, because the hero who slayed the demons had been his best friend, the princess he married and became King and Queen with decided that Delita had manipulated everyone and herself as well, and stabbed Delita, who, in turn, lethally stabbed her back. The man who had manipulated everyone else and became King lost his sister, his best friend, and his wife in rapid succession, and was forever alone, unloved, and misunderstood at the top of the kingdom even if he survived. On the bright note, though, decades after the events of the game, it is revealed that the narrator of the story, having already established himself as a credible historian of his time, is, in fact, the descendant of the eyewitness who was burned at the stake, and that he was successful in revealing the truth to the world. Also, Ramza and his party having died is just a fan interpretation. If anything, the ending (particularly the PSP version's) implies they did survive, if obliquely. Ollan isn't sure whether what he sees is really Ramza and Alma, but then, if they were ghosts, why would they be riding Chocobos? And the PSP version's credits show the two of them stopping off for water by a stream, very much implying they're still alive.
  • This is subverted in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (much to the joy of the player, albeit in a slightly confused fashion), where the protagonists, after having endured numerous wounds at the hands of Glades, look to be set up for a miserable life...But accidentally achieve Glade's goal of becoming a god, and use it to rewrite reality so that they and their friends can live Happily Ever After.
  • Final Fantasy Adventure, unusually for a Game Boy Game (And a 1990s game at that!) has this. Most people assumed that the hero would get the girl as usual, but as it turns out he doesn't... since she has to become the Mana tree, after Julius had drained all of it. The Girl becomes the mana tree, and the Boy is the last guardian of the Mana tree. Since both are the last of their kind, all they did was just buy the world some more time. This accompanies with some of the saddest music possible on the game boy.
• Dude Magnet:
  • Tifa from Final Fantasy VII is this. A lot of guys talking about how attractive she is and their plans to get her to notice them. Johnny believes Tifa's in love with him, while Rude will avoid attacking her. Even when she was younger, she was usually surrounded by boys. Even Cloud, The Hero of the story, leaves to become SOLDIER just to impress her and shows a much kind and caring side towards her in the present.
  • Quistis from Final Fantasy VIII is known for her beauty and intelligence. To point have her own fan club known as "Trepe Groupies" or simply "Treppies". But she doesn't pay that much attention to them. Unfortunately for Quistis, Squall doesn't fall for her.
  • Princess Garnet or rather by her nickname "Dagger" from Final Fantasy IX. A lot of people comment on how beautiful she is. Even Zidane, Chivalrous Pervert All-Loving Hero of the story, flirts with her before realizing that he's fallen for her.
  • In Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Lightning gets a lot of compliments from guys she meets about her looks throughout her quest. One even goes so far to ask her out on a date, which the player has an option to agree or not.
  • In Final Fantasy Type-0 Rem has a lot of admirers in the Academy for both her looks and her kind personality.
• Dude, Not Funny!:
  • Final Fantasy X has a moment near the end:
    Jecht: You've really grown.
    Tidus: Yeah. But you're still bigger.
    Jecht: Well, I am Sin, you know.
    Tidus: That's not funny.
  • In Chapter 10 of Final Fantasy XV, after the group finds a key to the generator in Fodina Caestino, Ignis asks where the generator is, at which point Prompto says "Didn't you read the sign, Iggy?" Since Ignis recently went blind, Noctis says "Not. Funny."
  • This happens occasionally in Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia when one of the series villains decides to make themselves available to the party in battle. This occasionally leads characters to make flippant remarks on their Card-Carrying Villain status, to be met with coldness from the people who actually experienced the worldwide devastation wrought by people like the Emperor.
• Dumb Muscle:
  • Final Fantasy II: Guy, a massive brute who is barely capable of speech. The Japanese-only novelization of the game's plot reveals him to be a former Wild Child — which is why he can talk to animals.
  • Sabin from Final Fantasy VI. He seems a pretty clever fellow up until the point when he's taken to the opera.
    "Uh. Why's everyone singing?"
    • Sabin is actually played as a tech-savvy, fairly intelligent character otherwise. He's got the book smarts, but he's culturally oblivious. Which makes sense given that he spent the last decade before the start of the game in the mountains learning martial arts from a hermit master.
    • Umaro is probably a better example, using Hulk Speak on the rare occasions when he speaks at all. His main solution when he sees something he doesn't like is to repeatedly bash away at it until he destroys it. This can be the enemies he beats with his giant club, or the walls in Kefka's Tower that he smashes down to clear a path for his friends. Which, in its own way, is almost clever.
• Dysfunction Junction:
  • Final Fantasy IV's main character, Cecil, spends most of the first half of the game angsting over the heinous crimes he committed at the behest of his king (who is also his surrogate father), and wielding a weapon which is known to drive its users insane. His childhood friend Kain is an orphan who hated his strict father and who is brainwashed into betraying his friends. Tellah and Edward both struggle with grief at the death of Anna, their daughter and fiancée, respectively, Rydia and Edge both saw their parents murdered in front of them, and not even FuSoYa, who resolved to guard his sleeping race completely alone for hundreds of years, gets off lightly.
  • Final Fantasy VI also has universal tragic past syndrome. All of the characters are a) being hunted by the Empire (even before the story begins), b) are imprisoned by the Empire, c) are harassed or misused by the Empire, d) have lost a loved one to the Empire, or e) some combination of the above.
    • No, not all your party members were wronged by The Empire. Gau's mother died in childbirth and his father was so grief-stricken that he went insane and abandoned Gau on the Veldt, whereas Relm's father is (very) heavily implied to be Shadow, who walked out on her because of his career as an assassin; even Shadow has had plenty of problems of his own, even before selling his skills to The Empire and nearly getting killed for his trouble. Setzer is reasonably unhappy with The Empire, yet is considerably more unhappy with the time his Love Interest died in an airship crash. Since a large theme of the game is hope, and keeping that hope strong even in the face of hardship, most characters get better, but it helps that most of them have a lot of getting better to do.
    • Consider the team's angst levels doubled after Kefka damn near destroys the world and separates the party, thus kicking off the World of Ruin phase of the game.
    • Celes is the one the player first controls in the World of Ruin, and she's stuck on a tiny island with nobody around but her surrogate grandfather, Cid, who reveals that there used to be others on the island...until they all flung themselves from the northern cliffs in despair. If you don't feed the fastest fish to Cid constantly, he will die, and Celes will also try to end her life at the northern cliffs. it's possible that the esper Quetzalli is the only thing that keeps her from dying then and there; her only hope comes from the minute possibility that Locke is still alive as well.
    • Strago is so distraught with the reasonable possibility that his adopted granddaughter is dead that he's next seen as a member of the cult worshiping the guy that did it. Relm has to slap him out of it, since the intervention of a loved one is said to be the only thing strong enough to do so.
    • Even Mog, the cutesy moogle mascot of the game (and the whole series, some might argue), gets a Funky Winkerbean-caliber level of tragedy tacked onto him when the party finds him after the end of the world. Turns out he's been in Narshe's moogle cave apparently for the whole year since the end of the world, alone, staring at the wall; if you recruited him on your first chance, he'll be amazed that you're even alive after all this time, and will re-enter the party on the assumption that he has nothing better to do. Searching the wall he was staring at yields an item that only Mog can equip that completely stops all random encounters, but Fridge Horror sets in when you realize that this "Molulu's Charm" is likely all Mog has left of not just his girlfriend, but of his entire people. And when the Big Bad asks the party what it is they're fighting for, Mog's response is simply, "New friends, kupo!"
    • If one brings Cyan to Doma Castle in the World of Ruin, a demon named Wrexsoul traps Cyan in an eternal nightmare, in order to feed off the despair Cyan still feels due to failing to save his family and his king from Kefka's poison. His grief is so great that not only is he the one that Wrexsoul attacks, but when he gets better, his confidence grows so much that he suddenly masters all of his Bushido skills.
    • The only party member who doesn't get better is Shadow. Shadow ultimately decides that he can't let go of his past and stays behind to die in Kefka's crumbling tower.
  • Final Fantasy VII takes this far.
    • Cloud is a hopelessly deluded, mind-controlled Tomato in the Mirror with a borderline split personality recovering from a Heroic BSoD.
    • Tifa is too uncertain about whether or not she or Cloud was wrong about him being there when their entire hometown was slaughtered to confront Cloud about the subject.
    • Barret is locked into hate and anger toward Shinra for destroying his hometown and family, which he disguises as a higher political moral when really he just wants revenge.
    • Aerith is an orphaned Last Of Her Kind chasing after the memories of her long-lost first love in the man who is unconsciously emulating him, as well as struggling with her heritage and duty and her own personal desires.
    • Cid is so obsessed with his crushed dream that he berates the woman he thinks is responsible on a daily basis.
    • Vincent is sick with guilt over being unable to stop the woman he loved from marrying the wrong man, leading to Sephiroth being born.
    • Yuffie is highly rebellious against her father, believing him to be an impotent weakling who sold out their hometown's proud culture.
    • Red XIII believes his father to have been a coward who abandoned his mother during a battle long ago that resulted in her death.
    • Cait Sith is a robotic cat with programming, but his controller, non-corrupt executive Reeve, is actually a decent, well-adjusted guy (except for the fact he apparently believes Cait Sith is somehow useful). As far as the bad guys are concerned.
    • Sephiroth discovers he's a genetic experiment, suffers a complete mental breakdown, and becomes convinced he's God.
    • Rufus is a ruthless, Machiavellian bastard who sides with the winners and then screws them over.
    • And lastly, Hojo is an Evil Scientist who commits atrocities with little or no reason.
    • If you believe the Compilation, some of the heroes (or even the villains) get better later through The Power of Friendship. Aww.
  • Final Fantasy X being set in a world where absolutely everyone has in some way been affected by a 1000-year-old Eldritch Abomination roaming the earth and randomly snuffing out thousands (and perhaps millions) of lives, it's safe to say that the entirety of Spira is a Dysfunction Junction.
    • Among the main characters, Yuna lost both her parents at the age of seven and spends most of the game on a suicide mission, Tidus' abusive father disappeared ten years before the events of the game and it's implied his mother was thereafter Driven to Suicide, Wakka's entire family was wiped out by Sin, and Lulu is an orphan whose lover Chappu was killed by Sin and who is haunted by her failure to protect Lady Ginnem on the latter's pilgrimage. Rikku is a member of the despised Al Bhed race, Kimahri grew up shunned by his tribe and was eventually driven to a ten-year exile by fellow Ronso, and we haven't even mention Auron yet...
    • Resident Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds Seymour Guado takes the biscuit, however. Half-human, half-Guado, he was considered an abomination and banished as a child by his own father to Baaj, where he lived out his lonely childhood. Plus, depending on how you play the game, his own mother helps to kill him.
  • In Final Fantasy XII, all the player characters have tragic pasts of some sort. Vaan's parents died of the plague when he was younger, and his only remaining family, his older brother Reks, was killed before the game started supposedly by his trusted commander Basch. Penelo's parents and eight brothers all died in the war. Fran was shunned by her village and her older sister for believing that there was a path for her outside the village, and slowly lost her ability to commune with the Wood, which to a Viera is like losing one of their senses. Balthier watched as his father was driven insane by the nethicite and neglected his family, until he couldn't take it anymore and ran away to become a sky pirate. Ashe's husband and father died at the age of 17, leaving her as the heir to a kingdom that was invaded soon after. Basch's original home country was invaded which lead to the death of his mother, and he failed to protect the lord of his adopted country and was then framed for killing the king and locked in solitary confinement for two years.
  • Every single party member in Final Fantasy XIII are struggling with some sort of psychological issues and hates each other for it.
    • Lightning is a distant woman who, after her parents' deaths, was forced to become the sole guardian of her younger sister, Serah. She became a soldier to become a better protector for her sister, but believing that emotions would make her weak and vulnerable, she shuts herself emotionally. This pushes Serah away from her — and when Serah was turned into L'cie, she became consumed with guilt and frustration.
    • Snow may appear to be overconfident and easygoing. Later, it was revealed that he's struggling with a lot insecurities and lack of self-worth, especially when he failed to protect Serah from being captured by the government and allowed Hope's mother to die during his mission to rescue Serah.
    • Vanille, who constantly behaves in an upbeat and positive manner, is actually hiding the fact that she's a former L'cie from 500 years before the present timeline, and had fulfilled her Focus by almost destroying Gran Pulse alongside Fang. She fakes amnesia to protect her friend from this painful fact, but is clearly burdened with guilt from said past.
    • Hope has a lot of angst due to his father being constantly busy at work and rarely has time for his family. Then, during the beginning of the game's story, he and his mother was sent to the Purge while they were supposed to be enjoying a vacation, which eventually led to his mother's death. The grief drove him to seek vengeance towards Snow, who was responsible for his mother's death.
    • Sazh was already dealing with a lot of sorrow long before the events of the game, presumably due to his wife's death. His son Dajh was his only source of joy, until the boy was branded as a L'cie and was subsequently captured by the government to bait him and his friends.
    • Fang, like Vanille, is a former L'cie who had become Ragnarok and destroyed most of Gran Pulse. She lost her memories after her awakening, but this has left her lost and confused as she tried to deal with the new situation. When she found out that Vanille actually knew what happened, and lied to her about it, she was understandably upset by this perceived betrayal (though it didn't last).
    • Outside the party there's Cid Raines. Supposedly the party's most valuable ally, he was revealed to be a puppet forced by the fal'Cie to guide the party to eventually destroy Cocoon. Later, he tried to defy his focus by killing the party, and prevent them from destroying the world. He was eventually defeated, and turned to crystal, only for Barthandaelus to revive him, reinstate him as Primarch and use him as a fal'Cie spokesperson. He finally requested his subordinates to kill him, so that he'd be free from their control.