Follow TV Tropes

This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

Following

Tear Jerker / Final Fantasy V

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/final_fantasy_v_advance_usa_balance_hack_14.png
The Light Warriors mourn one of their own.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.


  • After the Barrier Tower, Xezat assures the group he'll meet them back at the submarine, urging them to escape without him. Galuf refuses to leave him behind, to the point that Bartz has to knock him out so they can escape before the tower blows. What really makes it is afterwards, where back at the sub, Galuf stands outside, insisting they made a promise and just asking to be allowed a minute to wait for Xezat. Galuf before even said Xezat knew this would happen, having stayed behind so the Warriors of Light would live to face Exdeath, yet he is still deep enough in denial to wait for him. He had just lost one of his old friends.

  • Galuf's solo fight against Exdeath, which ends in his demise.
    • Especially since Galuf is reduced to ZERO HP in the battle, and continues fighting with whatever strength he has left.
      • To say nothing of the dialog after the fight, where in a rare subversion of Gameplay and Story Segregation, the party attempts to save Galuf with spells and items, and fail. No better way to tell the player in the Anthology version that this character is truly dead.
      "Cure! Cura! Phoenix Down! Elixir! Raise! Why isn't it working?"
      • Not to mention Krile begging her grandfather not to die and leave her alone, because he's her only living family, and initially has no intention of taking his place because she just wants him back. And then a few minutes later when she unflinchingly takes his place in the party at his behest, less because she wants to, but because she has to.
    • Even a GBA-exclusive glitch that causes Krile to remain emotionally broken on the floor after her grandpa dies rather than getting up after being talked to like on SFC or Anthology makes this scene more heartbreaking.
    • During the fourth encounter with Gilgamesh he asks where Galuf is, and is upset once he realizes what happened. The normally loud and boisterous warrior even has a moment of silence for his fallen enemy.
  • It's also implied that Galuf's body vanishes entirely. When this happens, the player is forced into Controllable Helplessness. Usually games do this for sequences where the characters are imprisoned, but this time it's a reflection of their shock and grief over what's just happened. The only thing it's possible to do is talk to Krile and get her to sit up instead of remain sobbing on the ground. If Bartz tries talking to her again, though, she will only respond with Visible Silence.
  • Syldra makes the most haunting and beautiful noise ever heard, in an SNES game! Not to mention that she gets THREE death scenes!
  • Gilgamesh as he sacrifices himself to save the main characters from Necrophobe.
  • There is an optional scene where Bartz visits his hometown, and when he plays music box at his own house... it brings back a very touching scene of his family when his mom is about to pass away.
  • Right before the party heads out for the final confrontation, Exdeath sucks every friend, significant NPC, and character hometown into the Void. In a way it's worse than what any other Final Fantasy villain managed to do, because it's just so personal. Exdeath isn't killing a single hero or NPC who was in his way, he did it just to be cruel.
  • For those that consider the ending a tearjerker, beat Neo Exdeath with at least one character KOed and bump it by an appropriate factor for each additional character.
    • If either only Bartz or only Faris/Sarisa survive, it's perhaps the saddest. Bartz started alone and at the end lost everyone all over again. In Faris' case, she's implied to have given up pirating in order to rule Tycoon in Lenna's place.
  • Krile, telling Mid to take good care of his grandfather.
  • King Tycoon sacrificing himself right after reuniting with his daughters, one of whom he hasn't seen since she was a young girl.
  • If the party elects to spend the night in Lix, Bartz will get up in the middle of the night and add his father's name to Stella's gravemarker. When Faris comes to check on him, the way he speaks of his parents' deaths is with the matter-of-fact wistfulness of a loss he's grown accustomed to, rather than raw grief. And Faris, in a rare moment where she lets her guard down, wonders what it would have been like to have a father.

Top