There have been many games in the Final Fantasy franchise and even more characters, and some of them have met a very different reception from the one the developers intended.
- Some fans of Final Fantasy IV prefer Cecil as a Dark Knight and wish he stayed that way instead of becoming a Paladin. Statistically, Dark Knight Cecil is generally
inferior to Paladin Cecil. Second, Cecil can be seen as no more badass as a Dark Knight — it's when he becomes a Paladin that he begins to gain confidence and retaliate against the enemy. Third, Evil Is Cool and Draco in Leather Pants doesn't even apply here since Cecil was never evil in the first place, just misguided by one of Golbez's Four Archfiends. Finally, him staying as a Dark Knight is missing the point of the game; Cecil is The Atoner. The whole point is for him to change from what he was in his past and become a better person. This is not helped by Dissidia Final Fantasy where Cecil wields both classes cheerfully, without much regard to the fact that in Final Fantasy IV, Cecil hated being a Dark Knight with it being portrayed as a self-destructive path that led to misery and pain. Granted, it's heavily implied that the real King of Baron (the one who was assassinated and impersonated by one of the Archfiends) was the one who encouraged Cecil to take up the dark sword and that Cecil was very much an example of Dark Is Not Evil before Baron started having militaristic designs on the rest of the world under Cagnazzo's rule. The crowd who associates the Dark Knight with edgy rebellion and the Paladin with boring conformity are missing the obvious point that it's the Dark Knight that's a tool of an oppressive system and the Paladin the one who bucks it to bring about progressive change. Additionally, The After Years shows Cecil accepting his dark half as opposed to rejecting his dark powers outright, while the incarnation of Cecil depicted in Dissidia doesn't have all of his memories intact due the nature of the conflict in those games (which isn't rectified until the 2015 installment, which takes place after the events of the 12th and 13th cycles as well as IV proper). - Final Fantasy VII:
- Sephiroth is a megalomaniacal monster who spends most of the game on a murderous killing spree (including famously and brutally slaying a beloved main character), pausing only to mock and psychologically manipulate Cloud. Because he does it with such style and is such a badass Pretty Boy, fans have turned him into a Draco in Leather Pants. In the original game, Sephiroth was fairly a decent person (if aloof and a bit cold) during the Nibelheim flashback, which was set before he goes insane. This portrayal was retained in prequels, which just adds fuel to the misaimed fandom.
- While not a popular reaction when the game first came out, it's common in recent years for people reviewing the game to say they like Cloud's ex-SOLDIER persona better than the real personality he adopts after he sorts out his delusions and decides to Be Himself. The original game tries to keep both persona charming through relatable flaws and Cloud's sense of humour (Deadpan Snarker or Self-Deprecation respectively), but a lot of Cloud's appeal is that he's darker than your average Ideal Hero JRPG protagonist; his prickly ex-SOLDIER personality is still a fairly unusual approach in the genre, while his earnest and dorky real personality is quite similar to previous and succeeding FF protagonists like Bartz, Locke and Tidus. Sequels, spin-offs, and cameos which made the post-delusion Cloud incredibly depressed help to emphasize the sense of fun that the theatrically cool jerk had by comparison. So much for the entire moral of his character arc! (It should be noted that even in-universe, Cid finds the "new" Cloud wimpy and prefers the older version.)
- Some didn't care at all about Aerith's death, which is missing that one of the game's themes is about sudden loss to someone you were meant to become personally attached to.
- Certain fans have latched onto AVALANCHE as being similar to a certain notorious real-life group as AVALANCHE is opposed to Shinra, the government of Midgar. The fact though is that AVALANCHE is portrayed as no better than Shinra as their actions led to several people being killed. Cloud only helped AVALANCHE because he was a mercenary at the time and was simply getting paid by them. And Barret's supposed goal of saving the planet was only an excuse for his real reason of opposing Shinra which was revenge for the death of his wife. Other party members like Cait Sith, Yuffie, and Cid call out Barret and AVALANCHE for their actions and hypocrisy.
- Fans who complain about the Squall and Rinoa romance of Final Fantasy VIII, saying that he should have got with Quistis when she offered the opportunity simply because she's Ms. Fanservice. Quistis's advances towards Squall were based entirely on her hopes of obtaining emotional support from a guy who's even more messed up than she is. As Squall points out, she's his teacher, and it would be grossly unprofessional and unethical of her to romantically pursue him. It's later implied that their relationship would be akin to Brother–Sister Incest. Technically, they aren't, so this hasn't stopped some fans from pairing them.
- Final Fantasy X:
- Those who dislike the game's voice acting will always point to a particular scene where Tidus is laughing obnoxiously, to the point where it's become emblematic of the game's problems in general. However, in the scene itself, it's clearly supposed to be in-character bad acting, with the other characters finding it embarrassing and complaining about it ("maybe you shouldn't laugh any more"). The moment became so infamous that James Arnold Taylor, Tidus's English voice actor, eventually had to make a YouTube video about to explain it in context.
- Jecht is beloved by the fandom and seen as a manly character, to the point where many fans of him often criticize Tidus for being "whiny". There are some who also argue that while Jecht was flawed, the fact Tidus turned out okay means he wasn't that bad of a father. The game very clearly paints Jecht as a shitty father, and he later realizes how much of a mistake he was, as he wanted to invoke Tough Love but his flaws made him instead an abusive person. Several of his Spheres left behind show that over his journey with Braska, he sobers up and wants to make amends but the fact he can't return home to do so makes him feel even worse about it, and in the finale when he gets to see Tidus again, he accepts Tidus's anger towards him and owns up to his mistakes. The fact Tidus turned out as well as he did doesn't prove Jecht was a good father either; instead it was in spite of Jecht that Tidus grew up as a good person, as Jecht was gone for a good amount of his life. Despite this, many of Jecht's fans often ignore that and focus on how "cool" he is, which isn't helped by games like Dissidia Final Fantasy making him out to be a badass and don't really show him having the same development as he did back in X. (Again, the fact that several of the characters in Dissidia are missing at least some of their memories and thus subjected to some degree of Flanderization partially accounts for this. The arcade reboot/NT depicts Jecht as he appears at the end of X and he has a much healthier relationship with his son whenever they do interact.)
- Those who dislike the game's voice acting will always point to a particular scene where Tidus is laughing obnoxiously, to the point where it's become emblematic of the game's problems in general. However, in the scene itself, it's clearly supposed to be in-character bad acting, with the other characters finding it embarrassing and complaining about it ("maybe you shouldn't laugh any more"). The moment became so infamous that James Arnold Taylor, Tidus's English voice actor, eventually had to make a YouTube video about to explain it in context.
- Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII and her large fanbase just show how gamers tend to have really bad role models. Gamers tend to love Lightning for her tough, take-no-prisoners attitude and her tendency to punch people who piss her off. They seem to have missed the part where treating everyone around her as incompetent and/or worthless and berating even her sister for "lying" about turning into a l'Cie (something that no sane person would ever lie about) is not good for her or anyone else. Punching people doesn't fix anything and doesn't even make her feel that much better, which is why she gets Character Development to be a better friend. (And no, that doesn't mean she's not tough anymore.)
- Final Fantasy XIV has plenty of this:
- The Garlean Empire are hellbent on conquering all of Eorzea and are one of the antagonists the player faces. The empire had conquered several territories by the time 2.0 begins and are on a campaign to "save" Eorzea by slaughtering all beastmen so that they can't summon primals and have said primals suck out the planet's life force to sustain themselves. There are many fans that are Rooting for the Empire simply because they feel said empire is doing the right thing by getting rid of beastmen tribes and preventing internal conflict within the city states by having them join the Garleans. That being said, what most people seem to conveniently ignore is the Garlean Empire is known for killing anyone that refuses to join them in the war, turning people into slaves (and eventually force them to join their military ranks) if they do surrender, and are trying to use advanced technology to conquer the world, which is something the Allagan Empire tried in the past and failed at accomplishing. On top of this, the main story reveals that not all beastmen are mindless primal praying savages and they're even willing to help the spoken races at times. And on top of that, Stormblood gives a nice revelation towards the origin of the Empire... The Ascians.
- The Ascians have their own fans. They were always depicted as the Greater-Scope Villain, and Shadowbringers explains that they weren't just a group of Generic Doomsday Villains so much as the actual Precursors - who are trying to bring back their civilisation by rejoining the shattered shards of the world to each other. Unfortunately, this causes some people to actually view them as being in the right, even though this caused (And will continue to cause) the deaths of billions of people. Having a rather attractive character whose English voice actor has just enough Ham and Cheese explain these points really does help people look past the multiple instances where the characters point out Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse or the Memetic speech of "I do not consider you to be truly alive, ergo I would not be guilty of murder if I kill you".
- There's a Broken Base over whether or not healers should either stick to their role of healing or if they should heal and dish out damage while in battle. People who are for the latter love to point out the one scene in the Conjurer quest line where a young girl refuses to use other forms of conjuration (namely attack spells like Stone and Areo) because she feels she's better off just healing rather than using other spells. While the Conjurer quests does encourage the player to learn how to use their offensive spells to aid others in battle, the context is lost on many people; the girl in the quests is told that she has to learn to accept the elementals' blessing in order to further her abilities as a conjurer because if she keeps trying to heal without said blessings, she would kill herself using her own life force to heal others (for gameplay purposes, actual healers in the game cannot suffer this).
- Many fans of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance agree to view Marche as an Anti-Villain. The main cast of kids are transported to a fantasy world where their desires and wishes come true (Ritz's hair is naturally red; Donned, Marche's brother, can walk again; and Mewt gets rule over the country as a royal prince who's now revived mother gives him anything he wants). Marche himself does have some fun in the fantasy world, but he knows that living in such a world only makes people run away from their problems rather than dealing with it and he doesn't need anything from the fantasy world to begin with. As Marche tries to find a way to get home, his friends turn against him; Mewt throws a temper tantrum over Marche's progress and demands more laws be made to stop him, even though this would make the citizens more upset, and he eventually puts a bounty om Marche's head. Ritz doesn't support Marche 100% and she eventually fights him simply because she doesn't want to go back home and deal with her natural white hair. Donned doesn't want to go back since it would mean not being able to walk again, which would give him a reasonable excuse, but he also hires clans to stop and possibly kill his own brother. It isn't until Marche finally gets through to them that they all realized what they had done and try to appreciate the things they did have back home that they glossed over. While the main idea behind the plot is somewhat questionable and the execution of the story being a bit too Anvilicious for most, that is most likely the reason why Final Fantasy Tactics A2 has a hero who is perfectly happy to have adventures and whose return home actually requires him to.
There's also the beginning cutscene, which shows random townsfolk transforming into monsters when the world changes into Ivalice. Marche and his friends may have gotten what they always wanted, but not everyone else was so lucky. - Final Fantasy XV's Ardyn is beloved by most Western fans for being a total Magnificent Bastard with Trollish tendencies who also has a backstory that makes him more than a monster and he is widely seen as much cooler and overall a better character than the protagonists. Some take this to the point of recasting him as a Hero Antagonist who is justified in wanting revenge for Somnus attempting to kill him, inadvertently killing his love Aera, and usurping the throne to become the founder of Lucis. Although what Somnus did is cruel (and kicking his ass in Episode Ardyn is very satisfying), it hardly justifies Ardyn turning the entire planet into a Death World to avenge himself on Somnus's distant descendant who has no idea about what his ancestor did, Ardyn was unfit to be king due to his corruption, even if Somnus's opposition to him was partially motivated by jealousy, and Somnus does seem regretful at the end of Episode Ardyn.
