Legacy/A Realm Reborn - Heavensward - Stormblood - Shadowbringers
- Zenos shortly in the main story shows firsthand why he is so feared when he does a surprise assault on Rhalgr's Reach. His forces brutally slaughter many of the innocent people there, nearly burning the place to the ground, with Zenos himself easily defeating the Scions there, even nearly killing Y'shtola. And then comes the first Hopeless Boss Fight in the game where he defeats the Warrior of Light so thoroughly that one of his katanas breaks. With that event any sparks of rebellion the Scions were hoping to fan in Ala Mhigo is quickly snuffed, forcing the Scions to look elsewhere.
- The final boss of Doma Castle: Hypertuned Grynewaht. A Garlean captain being hideously transformed into a gasping, screaming, enraged beast is unpleasant enough. The fact that it happens to be Grynewaht — a character who'd been treated as nothing but a harmless joke villain and a source of comedic relief in a large number of otherwise-tense Garlean cutscenes — only makes the whole thing far, far more horrifying. Special mention goes to the voice acting during the fight; Grynewaht's usual fairly deep voice and prideful demeanour are completely gone, instead replaced with infuriated shrieking, and his constant grandstanding is swapped for insane madness mantras that seem to imply that he's just barely capable of knowing he's soon to die. As per all tragic boss fights, the Warrior of Light can only close their eyes in pity after defeating him.Grynewaht: DIE DIE DIE!! WE GO TOGETHER!!!
- On another note with Zenos, the backstory about when he crushed the Doman Liberation Front. As part of the MSQ, the Warrior of Light gets to meet the remains of the Doman Liberation Front in their hideout-and there aren't many left. As part of the quest, you talk to Lyse, who is talking to a man who is telling her about Zenos, and how he did it. He goes into a story-told in sepia-toned screenshots-where he discusses how his strategy worked out and was like nothing they had ever seen-which involved most of his Legion not even taking the field, and still suddenly turning the tides when they thought they had him retreating. This part isn't so bad, more of an impressive account of his tactics. But it resulted in Zenos eventually cornering a number of the Liberation Front(and quite a few of them). He was alone and unarmed. He then discussed the results, which is the terrifying part. While there were very few gory details given, knowing Zenos' immense size, inhuman strength and brutality, you don't need a particularly wild imagination to picture what happened when the giant Legatus got his hands on those poor guys, and making them watch as he destroyed each one that he caught, in his attempt to at least get one of them mad enough they would be a challenge to him. On the imagination note? One of the pictures shown were of the dead, broken bodies strewn everywhere around his hulking form as he grabbed one of their katanas from the ground for the first time, taking notice of the weapon. They were placed in such a way where all of their heads were hidden, along with most of their upper bodies, as if to maybe spare the viewer the sight. Whether that was done on purpose or not? Up to the viewer to decide, but either way, have fun getting that potential image out of your mind.Doman Liberation Front Member: And then he stood before us, his cornered prey. Alone and unarmed. He beckoned us to come forward and fight for our lives. One by one, my comrades charged. Fearless and unflinching, he would dance amidst their blades for a time, and then draw close, as if to embrace…One…after…another. He made us watch. Do you understand? He made us watch. I do not think there was any joy in it. Nor justice, nor morality, nor meaning. To him, the weight of one life is no different from that of a thousand.
- In a similar light we see that the Empire is not just satisfied with magitek experimentation but have started experimenting on their very people like Mad Scientists to disturbing effect. Of note are the Roader enemies which look like skinned hulks with their limbs attached to wheels, heavily implying that the empire has been creating Body Horrors of their own people, or worse, the enslaved subjects of Ala Mhigo. And that is to say nothing of the Resonants, which gives those imbued with it with the power of the Echo, allowing such things as precognition or even fusing with and controlling primals.
- We all got to see Exdeath in Deltascape V4.0, and he occasionally summons his true tree form's head in when he uses The Decisive Battle, and not to mention how he's engulfed by the Void at the end of the battle...just like in Final Fantasy V. But doesn't it feel like something's missing...? Something imp- OH DEAR GOD SAVAGE, NEO EXDEATH IN FULL HD 3D GLORY WHY!!! Well, at least he's not a seemingly endless mass of demons and monsters as his sprite back in the SNES days implied as they gave him a tail patterned after his tree form, but still.
- The Koja monsters (and its similarly named brethren) roaming around in Yanxia are the same monsters from Final Fantasy VI (the buddha head/face enemy). Being in 3D for this game, they look slightly creepy until they open their mouths to attack with 1000 Needles; inside you can see their many blood soaked teeth and they're even growing on top of their tongues. Because they share the same animations as the Flans, the Kojas melt when they die. Seeing a face just melting into a puddle upon death is outright terrifying and rather disgusting to boot.
- The Sirensong Sea, the first dungeon of Stormblood, is as nightmare-inducing as Tam-Tara Hard. First, it comes absolutely out of nowhere. You're just sailing to Othard, nothing big... then mist surrounds you. Weird mist. Then the ship is assailed with Voidsent-like jellyfishes and you got to fight them off until you collide with an island. You proceed to make your way through the place, fending ghosts, undeads, wildlife and even a few demons as you cross a ship graveyard akin to the one at Umbra Islands. Some of the undeads' design are terrifying, such as the second boss, which is a kind of skeletal Living Shadow that makes blue flames. Finally, you reach the source of the mist and the abominations: a haunted lighthouse still filled with the corpses and souls of the sailors that got wrecked by the place. And, finally, the final boss itself: Lorelei, an either demonic or siren-like being that has been luring sailors here for ages. Sweet dreams...
- The main story quests in 4.1 gives us the nightmare scenario of a Primal manifesting right in the middle of many innocent people. The leader of the dreaming Ananta summons Lakshmi during a meeting of people who were deciding to form a government for Ala Mhigo along with some Scions standing guard, intending to brand all of them. Most of the ensuing battle is spent frantically running all over the arena preventing people from falling under Lakshmi's influence rather than attacking Lakshmi herself, and even with a fellow Echo-user you are eventually just overwhelmed; only Fordola's intervention prevents a disaster. It's a sobering example of just how easily someone could smuggle crystals into a hapless town or city and brainwash everyone in it in a matter of minutes, reminding the player that while Primals aren't much of a threat to them, they're a catastrophic threat to everyone else.
- 4.1 also gives a pretty chilling insight of how the Echo can make one be Blessed with Suck. While visiting Fordola in jail, the Warrior of Light has a flashback showing her Start of Darkness as a child when her father was killed by angry Ala Mhigan citizens since her parents were supporters of the empire. As soon as the Warrior of Light comes back to reality, Fordola has her own Echo flashback involving the Warrior of Light themselves as she sees their past pain and constant battles all the way back to A Realm Reborn. While the flashback is just quick screenshots of the past, it scares Fordola enough to have her wonder how the heck the Warrior of Light can still press on knowing that people betrayed them and how they'll always have to keep fighting. Later on, you find out that Fordola constantly sees the memories of the Ala Mhigan citizens and the jail guards, which shows her their pain and suffering that she caused during her time with the Skulls. The worst part is she can't control it or make it stop, thus she is subjected to guilt almost non stop and is forced to relieve what she done to people over and over. It's no small wonder that she wanted to be executed.
- In 4.1 we see the cost of the Garlean's experimentation and alterations of the body. The Alliance is examining the research facility in Ala Mhigo. They've removed the corpses from the equipment and placed black tarp over the bodies. If you get to a high enough vantage point, you can see there's easily over three hundred different bodies of all races in this one room alone. This is far from the only such facility in the Empire.
- Afterwards, Raubahn brings up a sobering possibility: if Aulus sent his findings back to Garlemald, and they're able to reproduce his work, you might be going up against other Resonants - maybe even an entire legion of them.
- You're always told about how mad King Theodoric was during his reign as king of Ala Mhigo, but the Drowned City of Skalla shows just how much of a monster he was towards his own people. Some of the monsters you kill near the end of the dungeon were actually people that served the mad king. When you kill them, they have their final words before dying as themselves such as cursing Theodoric, seeing the light, or just plain wondering why the king did what he did to them. The final boss is even worse since, according to its Triple Triad card, it was actually Theodoric's cousin who had tried to calm him down and was accused of treason by him. The man's punishment was being transformed into a monster. The people suffering such punishment had to endure it for years. They were probably still self aware the whole time.
- Asahi's true colors during his confrontation with the Warrior of Light. His affable demeanor completely shatters and is replaced by sheer, barely restrained rage
◊ as he ferally snarls that the Warrior and all of Ala Mihgo will pay in blood for Zenos' death. The way he stares down the Warrior of Light looks almost exactly like how Zenos did before the final battle, only with barely constrained anger instead of twisted joy.- It gets worse: Zenos is still alive.
- In the 4.3 MSQ, Asahi restores Yotsuyu's memories by reintroducing her to their abusive parents, letting her murder them. He takes the opportunity to convince her to abandon all hope of a better life and summon a primal to satisfy her rage. When the Warrior of Light defeats her, Asahi shoots her prone body twice before running up and kicking her several times, cursing her for becoming Viceroy of Doma instead of him and taunting the Warrior of Light's inability to protect her without breaking his diplomatic immunity and sabotaging the peace process. The maniacal look on his face as he does it says it all: Yotsuyu's own ruthlessness was nothing compared to the people behind the scenes who encouraged, manipulated, and exploited it.
- It also gets worse: Zenos's body is possessed by the Ascian Elidibus, who masterminded the plot to summon the Primal with the Emperor himself. The Greater-Scope Villain has finally gotten off his throne and is making his move, and has an incredibly powerful host body to boot. At least Zenos himself is dead, right? Wrong: his spirit used the Echo to possess a random Eorzean troop, and he still intends to pursue the Warrior of Light. He can't be killed, and every death he suffers just means someone else gets taken over. So now there's two Zenos' running around: one augmented with dark magic, and another that can't die.
- The revelation that Zenos came back from the dead via his artificial Echo puts Fordola's wish for death in a new light. Either she's aware of what the Echo can do and is plotting to escape that way, or she isn't aware and doesn't realize that she might not be able to die.
- The revelations that Varis is a Well-Intentioned Extremist seems to throw the Eorzean Alliance for a loop at first, until he reveals his true colors: as much as he hates being a pawn of the Ascians, who created the Garlean Empire as their new equivalent to the Allagan Empire for similar calamity-causing intentions, Varis is entirely willing to work with this towards his own goals of basically wiping out most of the world altogether to force what's left of man to bond together as one true master race. Via Black Rose or as multiple back-to-back calamities, he'll burn it all down without discrimination despite knowing his very kingdom's purpose is all built on a lie. The Alliance rightfully drops all the pretenses of at least attempting to negotiate the moment they realize the sheer, nightmarish horror of his plans, and immediately call off the meeting to plan for war to save the world.
- 4.4, while not showing anything violent, does have a few particularly very scary moments. During the meeting with the Alliance, Thancred, Y'sthola, Alisae, and the Warrior of Light all suffer from an excruciating headache while hearing a voice telling them to change the course of history, talks about two worlds, and a calamity. They all regain their senses, but Thancred collapses onto the floor and is unconscious. After some investigation, Kan-E-Senna theorizes that what everyone experienced was them being "called", as in someone is calling their souls. In Thancred's case, it seems like his soul was successfully spirited away and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Uriagner also confirms that he too suffered from the same experience as the rest of the Scions. When he meets with the Scions in the Rising Stone, everyone experiences the same thing again and this time, Y'sthola and Uriagner both collapse like Thancred did. Alisae is completely beside herself and sounds like she's about to break down in tears seeing that her friends are dropping like flies. The scariest part is the same thing could happen to the Warrior of Light at any time.
- It gets worse in The Stinger: Alphinaud and Shadowhunter come across a rebel camp only to find that the inhabitants have been slaughtered, with no sign of combat or injury at all. Shadowhunter immediately recognizes how this happened: Black Rose, a highly lethal chemical weapon that the Empire was developing in secret in Ala Mhigo, before Gaius van Baelsar ordered the project scrapped and all traces of the weapon destroyed due to the sheer devastation it causes. Not only did the Garleans recover some data on the project that escaped destruction, but Black Rose has now been perfected - and as the Empire has shown, they have absolutely no qualms about using it.
- Alisaie and the Warrior of Light have another episode of pain, but somehow both are still there - the first known time that there has been such an episode without anyone collapsing - and they proceed with their mission to secure Doma's help against the oncoming Garlean invasion. Hien takes them to see the shield generators as they are tested for the first time, and it works, only for a Garlean ship appear as an evidently well-timed coincidence to test the barrier. It is unable to break through (with Hien commenting that he had hoped for an explosion, but it was still proof enough of its functionality), but then sets down, revealing Shadowhunter as the pilot... carrying an unconscious Alphinaud. Turns out the episode of pain DID have a victim - just one not present with the Warrior of Light.
- Then, in patch 4.56, it gets even worse. Just as the Warrior of Light and Alisae have finished a successful foray, the voice strikes again in a prolonged, agonizing moment as both Alisae and the Warrior of Light struggle to hang on through terror and pain. As Alisae realizes she can't hold on, she's ripped away from her body even as she and the Warrior are reaching out to each other in desperation. Follow that up with Lyse, Yugiri, and Hien all being cut down by the Ascian-possessed corpse of Zenos and their fates left hanging, as the mysterious voice causes the Warrior of Light to be nearly beheaded by Ascian!Zenos, only to wake up in confusion and then have to deal with a terrified and crying Tataru, followed by a Wham Scene of the Garlean Emperor giving the order to use the Black Rose, then a cut to black and the end credits...brrrr. The whole patch is a neverending run of creepy, pants-wetting terror, with very little hope remaining.
- Varis has to be in the mother of all messed up situations. Despite him coldly refusing to mourn his own son, he's appropriately horrified when Elidibus reveals he's using Zenos as his new host. And Varis can do nothing, as it turns out Garlemald, and by extension, Varis' beliefs, were built on lies. His people and Empire were never meant to save anyone; they're all pawns of the Ascians. And who should remind him of this? HIS OWN GRANDFATHER, the man who founded Garlemald, who is also an Ascian and has no qualms reminding Varis that he's nothing but a puppet. Despite his ruthlessness, Varis is in a terrifying position; he has to helplessly watch his son's corpse be paraded around, watch Elidibus summon primals using Imperial soldiers as proxys, and know that his entire life is a lie and that any attempts at fighting back are futile.
- Solus himself gets to show off his own effectiveness as a nightmare fuel inducer, the man is such a chessmaster that he was able to orchestrate the rise of the Garlean Empire, a world power, on a lie with no-one outside of Varis the wiser, is able to break established rules of Ascians by resurrecting himself in a new body thanks to Varis's unwitting assistance, and even without the clone bodies, Solus does mention he can possess any body and mold it into his image. His goal to resurrect Zodiark with the rejoining leads him to cause endless amounts of death in the story, such as ensuring that his first temporary death would lead to a succession crisis that resulted in a massive amount of dead Garleans in the resulting civil war, which Solus notes with a sense of subdued deranged glee. Suffice to say Solus is walking paranoia fuel and shaping up to be an effective Big Bad.
- The cutscene that rounds out Stormblood has Varis and Elidibus discussing the events at the frontline. Elidibus notes that Solus isn't there, but while Varis just brushes it off as him doing his own thing, Elidibus muses that he's taking advantage of current events as he departs. After he does, a scientist approaches Varis and tells them they're ready to begin producing more Black Rose at his command. Varis just remains silent as he stares at the Garlean symbol above his throne, and the camera fades to black on his face... Before it fades right back in on him giving us a Slasher Smile for the ages. It seems that Varis has decided to become the monster the Alliance thinks he is.
