Final Fantasy / Tropes A to B

This page covers tropes in Final Fantasy.

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

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A

• Absurdly High Level Cap: A general rule-of-thumb is that every game can be completed at around the 50's to 70's while the cap is at 99. Optional Bosses, on the other hand, require you to get to this cap. Exceptions to this are Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy XIII, which don't use the traditional leveling system. Final Fantasy X, despite not using a common leveling system, is a straight example since it has the Sphere Grid, which is ridiculously large.
• The Ace:
  • In the Final Fantasy VII-verse:
    • Before his Start of Darkness, Sephiroth was known as the absolute best of the elite group SOLDIER and admired as a hero. He was actually so good that, according to Cloud, the stories people told about him were understating how strong he was — rather than the other way around as usual.
    • Zack Fair, especially in Crisis Core. He's everything Cloud wants to be — upbeat, popular with everyone, cheerful and fun-loving, Jumped at the Call and never came down, actually a member of SOLDIER, etc. He did nearly everything Cloud's famous for and did it first, up to and including riding on the top of trains, fighting rogue SOLDIERs and arguably did a better job of all of it. He's the first to meet Aerith by falling into her flower bed, as Cloud does years later. Almost everyone Zack encounters likes him, or at least they don't hate him even though he works for Shinra — this includes Cissnei, Tseng, Sephiroth, Yuffie, Tifa, etc. The only time Zack really fails at a critical moment is in trying to stop Sephiroth during the Nibelheim Incident — unfortunately, Zack's efforts are Doomed by Canon. Though he eventually loses to Sephiroth, Zack manages to put up a darn good fight. Zack is the sort of guy who's just Too Good for This Sinful Earth. His death is a Foregone Conclusion, but he naturally dies in an epically heroic way, still every inch a Hero and every ounce an Ace.
    • Even death doesn't stop Zack, because he appears to Cloud just as Sephiroth is charging for the kill and manages to give Cloud a time-stopped heroic pep talk from beyond the grave, inspiring Cloud to find the strength not only to fight on, but to win decisively in a single attack.
    • Zack's position as The Ace is lampshaded in episode 8 of Before Crisis, when Zack first shows up and works with the player character Turk. The title of that episode is "A Light That Penetrates Through the Darkness" or "A Light Even Darkness Can't Penetrate". Guess who they're referring to.
    • Though Crisis Core also shows that Zack had some serious issues due to all of the misery the game puts him through. To Cloud and others, Zack was an awesome heroic figure — but Zack himself had Heroic Self-Deprecation in spades and died still wondering if he had managed to become a true hero.
    • Zack is also an Ace because despite not being a member of the Jenova project directly, he defeats Genesis and Angeal, the two members of Project G, while they're powered up into giant monsters by their genetic absorption abilities. And even Sephiroth, fully insane and with no regard for anyone's life, was unable to kill him the only time they fought head-to-head, though he did defeat Zack, and probably would have killed him had Cloud not run him through and thrown him into the reactor core. If there's any regular SOLDIER more powerful than Zack, we don't get to see them.
  • Squall from Final Fantasy VIII. He is handsome, brave, dedicated, considerably skilled and powerful, as well as an excellent commander and strategist in the making. He doesn't see himself as such however, and has to overcome his insecurities to fully become the trope.
  • Tidus the "Blitz Ace" in Final Fantasy X. Yuna also fits this role quite well in Final Fantasy X-2 as well, as demonstrated through her Chronic Hero Syndrome. Tidus is only really The Ace in Blitzball; he's an Idiot Hero for a lot of the game.
• Acid Attack: The recurring ability Acid, an enemy-exclusive attack that douses the target in corrosive liquid and can inflict status ailments. In some games, Blue Mages can learn it by withstanding the attack.
• Action Survivor:
  • Final Fantasy VII — Cloud Strife used to be this, Crisis Core and Before Crisis shows him as a plain old infantryman, only distinguishable by his motion sickness and his ability to make it through missions when all the other Mooks get killed off. When his hometown gets it, however, he cracks down and becomes a Badass Normal, doing what none of the Turks and SOLDIERs that safeguarded him until now were able to do: kill Sephiroth. After which Hojo jumped at the opportunity to make him an Empowered Badass Normal.
  • Final Fantasy X: Tidus prior to coming to Spira never wielded a sword in his life, but he picks up on it very quickly and is able to cultivate a highly effective fighting style based on the high speed he has from his career of as a professional Blitzball player. It's inferred that he might have received training from his father beforehand since it was a 'gift from Jecht.'
• Adorably Precocious Child:
  • Shinra from Final Fantasy X-2. He's a kid genius and often the least emotional of the Gullwings. A bit unusual in that he is wearing a suit that covers him completely, including his face.
  • Hope of Final Fantasy XIII becomes this with character development. Although played for cute all along, he's a Bratty Half-Pint at game open, but he's become very mature for his age by the time the game ends.
• A Dog Named "Perro": There is a recurring wolf-like enemy across the franchise that, in English, is called the Silver Lobo. "Lobo" translates to wolf in Spanish and Portuguese.
• A Father to His Men:
  • General Leo of Final Fantasy VI is a classic video game example. In fact, his Establishing Character Moment has him reminding one of his troops that he (said trooper) is a human being before he is a soldier. Made all the more apparent for the fact that he's immediately contrasted against Omnicidal Monster Clown Kefka, who takes over Leo's post when he's called away.
  • Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII is this before knowing his origins. Part of the great tragedy of his descent into darkness is that he really cared for those under his command (like giving Zack permission to return to Midgar when there's an increase in monster sightings in the slums or telling Cloud he can visit his mom when they reach Nibelheim).
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, Gaius van Baelsar. He acts as a Parental Substitute/Team Dad for two of his generals, promotes based on achievements and merit rather than social status, and is visibly upset when he learns the heroes killed one of them.
    • Also, said general, Rhitahtyn sas Arvina. He is initially flanked by two Imperial mooks when you confront him, but he sends them away when he realizes they would just get killed if they tried to help him.
• Agent Peacock: The series has had many Big Bad characters post-FFVI who show shades of this.
  • According to a letter mailed to Zack, Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII uses up an entire bottle of both shampoo and conditioner whenever he has to wash his hair. For all the crap Sephiroth does throughout the franchise, he does keeps his hair pretty spiffy.
  • Kuja the Evil Sorcerer from Final Fantasy IX not only looks the part, but also receives flak from Queen Brahne about how girly he looks. It doesn't help that his name literally means peacock.
  • And before all of them, there was Kefka, a flamboyant Monster Clown who lives for destruction. He later ascends to godhood by absorbing the power of the Warring Triad.
• A God Am I: The series likes this trope, its the default mode for villains that aren't Eldritch Abominations. From the top:
  • The Emperor in Final Fantasy II dies and has his soul split in two - the good side takes over Heaven, the evil side takes over Hell and goes for Earth next. He's even worse in Dissidia Final Fantasy, where he's scheming for everyone, gods, heroes and villains alike, to die so he can rule existence alone.
  • Kefka from Final Fantasy VI became this after absorbing the power of the Goddess Statues and becoming the source of all Magic. It's implied that he intended to become a god from the very start, and was presumably motivated by nothing more than his insanity (when bragging about how much power he has gotten from extracting magic from the Espers in the Magitek Research Facility, one of the first things Kefka says is that he is a god).
  • Final Fantasy VII's Sephiroth, who wished to destroy the Planet absorb its energies to become a god, although Sephiroth succeeds in becoming a god, he was still defeated by Cloud and his friends. Sephiroth also had Eldritch Abomination lineage that would have done the same exact thing, so it might just be justification for something else.
  • Final Fantasy VIII has Ultimecia. Though her motivations are a bit vague, her ultimate goal is to absorb all time and space to create her vision of a perfect world.
  • Final Fantasy XII features a particular bit of dialogue atop the Pharos at Ridorana...
    "You made your nethicite for this? You mimic the Occuria stones for what? To become a god yourself?"
    "On whose shoulders better to stand than those of the would-be gods?"
  • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII has a heroic example of this trope. Lightning acknowledges that Bhunivelze has groomed her to become the new Etro, accepting that she's now a Goddess. She promptly uses her new-found godhood to defeat the God of Light and save humanity.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has the Elder Primal Odin put a strange spin on it as the tide of battle (consisting of one almighty knight vs. an uncountable amount of players) begins to turn against him.
    Odin: "Here I stand—a god amongst men. Yet here I remain—a mere man amongst gods."
  • Also in XIV, the primal of wind Garuda is incontestably a Physical God. However, she fancies herself "the only god", and intends to slaughter every living thing except the Ixal tribe that worship her to make it so, then become a supreme being by consuming as much Aether as she possibly can.
  • Yet another from XIV: In Heavensward, Thordan VII turns himself into a primal version of King Thordan I so he can rule as god-king, empowered by a millennium of fervent prayer and the Aether contained in the eye of Nidhogg.
  • The tendency for Final Fantasy villains to fit this trope is lampshaded in Dissidia Final Fantasy, when Kefka hypocritically declares Sephiroth to be "just another sadist with a god complex, like that's something special!"
  • In Final Fantasy XVI, it could be argued that Ultima may well have a right to see himself this way, given he created all of humanity. However, his reasons for doing so were far from benevolent, his endgame and what he intends to do with them equally so.
  • Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates's Galdes wants to turn himself into a god with the power of the moon.
• Alas, Poor Villain: The series has this from time to time:
  • Kefka, of all people, gets this in Dissidia Final Fantasy.
    Kefka: Why create when it will only be destroyed? Why cling to life, knowing that you have to die? None of it will have meant anything once you do.
    Terra: We live to protect what we hold dear. As long as you have that, you can find the meaning on your own.
    Kefka: Meaning, schmeaning. The whole world's going bye-bye! You included! Life... Dreams... Hope... Where do they come from, and where do they go? None of that junk is enough to fulfill your hearts! Destruction... Destruction is what makes life worth living! Destroy! Destroy! Destroy! LET'S DESTROY EVERYTHING! [explosion, followed by a sobbing laugh]
    Terra: It was your broken heart. You were trying to fill it with destruction...
  • While Sephiroth doesn't recieve any outright sympathy, quite a few characters hint that his cold exterior is a result of a deep despair.
    • Kadaj's death from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. He was easily the most sympathetic of the villains. He fades away in Cloud's arms while calling out to his mother as the Gray Rain of Depression falls around them.
    • Nero,s death from Dirge of Cerberus, courtesy of Weiss controlled by Hojo. The camera displays Vincent looking at his corpse and it's clear that it doesn't make him happy.
  • The end of Final Fantasy IX had Kuja dying at the base of the Iifa Tree. Being a fluke with a crushingly short life-span made him cruel and nihilistic, but only when he was defeated by the heroes and had nothing left to live for did he realize too late what it means to really live. This also gets a callback in Dissidia.
    • In the same game, Brahne's death is a surprisingly solemn moment. In spite of all the atrocities she did, Garnet still loses her mother when she dies. Although it's a little played with. While Garnet is (understandably) saddened by her death, the other party members (like Vivi) on the other hand feel sad for Garnet, not really for Brahne.
  • Final Fantasy XII: despite their eventual descent into madness, Cid and Vayne have some redeeming qualities, and Venat garners some sympathy:
    • Vayne is one of the most affable and - dare one say it - likeable antagonists in the series due to the inherent humanity behind his actions, and though he does Kick the Dog on occasion, he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist par excellence with good emphasis on the "Well-Intentioned" part of that description. His genuine love and compassion for his cute little brother Larsa helps immensely.
    • In the case of Cid, it hits especially hard when the player realizes that Cid only started neglecting his family because Venat contacted him. Balthier is especially saddened by his death, asking him if there was no other way.
    • Venat exemplifies all the best aspects of the Satan Is Good trope - the compassionate Defector from Decadence to contrast with the Jerkass Gods, the genuine liking for mortals and a desire for them to attain self-independence (much like Prometheus), and the capacity for kindness when s/he sacrifices his/her immortality simply so that Vayne doesn't have to die alone; as such, they depart the world together and in some semblance of peace.
    • While only an optional boss, Fury will start crying upon his defeat.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics: Wiegraf Folles and his sister Milleuda, who both started off well-intentioned and were arguably more heroic than the heroes during Chapter One. Wiegraf eventually went too far, what with joining the Corrupt Church and selling his soul to the Lucavi, but still...Milleuda, in contrast, was sympathetic until the end - being forced to kill her to progress in the game is painful.
    • Isilud Tengille, who wasn't even evil - when he realised he was on the wrong side, he tried to stop his father-turned-demon, only to be unceremoniously killed, followed by asking Ramza's sister Alma to send Ramza his apologies for having opposed him.
    • Both Confessor Zalmour Lucianada and High Confessor Marcel Funerbis had incomplete information, and seemed to genuinely believe they were doing the right thing. Zalmour goes out with a commendable dignity as he prays to God - not the Lucavi demons - to punish the wicked for their sins, and Funerbis swallows his pride as he begs Ramza "the Heretic" to stop the demons (after having been run through by the Big Bad and his minions despite pleading for his life).
  • The final rank mission of San d'Oria in Final Fantasy XI ends with this trope. With Prince Trion aiding your party in the fight, the head of the Orcish tribes, Warlord Rojgnoj, falls at your feet. In the FFXI universe, the orcs are beastmen who patrol various regions of the game, attacking adventurers at will - their reasoning for this? The very sword that Trion wields, one with enough power to separate a peninsula from the mainland and driving the inhabitants of a former powerful city underground. Rojgnoj tells all of this to us in broken English (or Japanese or French, depending on where you're playing from) and tells us this was the cause for the orcs waging war against the Kingdom of San d'Oria 20 years ago. It caused him and his people pain, and they simply wanted to destroy it. He dies shortly afterward.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has several sympathetic villains and has given them touching send-offs:
    • Zenos yae Galvus is a vicious Blood Knight who terrorizes his subjects in the hopes that someone will rise to give him a decent fight, yet his death is a sombre moment. When you defeat him, he admits that this is the first time he's ever felt joy in his life, and bids you—his first "friend"—a fond farewell before slitting his own throat. It’s then subverted when he comes Back from the Dead.
    • Emet-Selch, the Arc Villain of Shadowbringers, is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who is trying to bring back everyone who died when the original world was split into the Source and its thirteen Shards. When you defeat him and land the killing blow, his Last Request is for you to remember that his people once lived: once you agree to do so, he fades away with a smile as melancholic music plays.
    • Emet-Selch’s colleague Elidibus likewise gets a touching sendoff in Patch 5.3. After you defeat him, he reverts to his true form as a small, childlike figure, and he finally remembers what he’s been fighting for all these long eons:
      "Yes… I would become Him. I would save everyone. This I believed. Yet still they cried out, in rage and despair… Divided—over the fate of the star. A rare occurrence, always fleeting. But not this time. Not this time… Reconciliation. Elidibus. I was needed. I withdrew myself from Zodiark. For them… My people. My brothers. (sheds a Single Tear) …My friends. Stay strong. Keep the faith. At duty’s end, we will meet again. We will. (struggling not to cry) We will. The rains have ceased, and we have been graced by another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it." (Disappears into Light)
• All Love Is Unrequited:
  • Final Fantasy IV: Edge is very much interested in Rydia, but Rydia isn't interested in Edge. Also, Kain toward Rosa, but she only has eyes for Cecil. The J2E translation, among its many liberties with the script, takes thing a step further by making it so that Barbariccia of the Four Archfiends in turn has feelings for Kain due to them being "fellow creatures of the sky," an interpretation that is still quite popular in fan circles (and gives Rosa's captivity within the Tower of Zot slight Murder the Hypotenuse vibes from Barbariccia's end).
  • In Final Fantasy VII, teenage Cloud is in love with Tifa, but Tifa barely knows he exists, which prompts him to join SOLDIER (and kicks off the story of Final Fantasy VII in the first place). When they grow up, Tifa loves Cloud, but if he knows she does, he doesn't show it, at least not until the end of the game when he reciprocates. Johnny has the hots for Tifa too, and ends up running 7th Heaven in her absence because of it. Cloud is interested in Aerith, who later in the game seems to become interested in him (at first she thinks his resemblance to Zack is what attracts her to Cloud, but later she reveals she likes the real Cloud and wants to get to know him as himself). Tseng loves Aerith, but while it was an open secret, he never acted on his feelings. Rude has the hots for Tifa, but every time they encounter one another she either kicks his ass or mouths off to him. Elena loves Tseng, but she's too much of a fangirl to do anything about it. Vincent loved Lucrecia to the point of madness, but she was too busy starfucking Hojo to notice him. Hojo in turn didn't care one wet napkin about Lucrecia. And Shera loved Cid so much she (accidentally) sabotaged his dream rather than let him go through with it and die (they eventually get married after Cid learns her side of the story and he names an airship after her, however).
  • Quistis of Final Fantasy VIII makes it quite clear she has more than a passing fancy for our hero Squall... who rebuffs her advances by telling her to go talk to a wall. As the plot unfolds, it turns out the Junction-induced amnesia ailing most of the party made them forget that all of them save for Rinoa grew up at the same orphanage, with Quistis's affection for Squall not being romantic in nature, but more of a Cool Big Sis type of deal. After this revelation, Quistis stops pursuing Squall entirely.
  • Brother, a member of the Al Bhed in Final Fantasy X, has eyes for Yuna. He even learned the Common Tongue of Spira in order to better communicate with her. Of course, by the time we learn of this in X-2, Yuna's already spoken for and on a quest to reunite with Tidus. A hidden cutscene in the same game has Brother come to terms with the fact that she doesn't reciprocate. Keep in mind that, as Rikku's older brother, this makes Brother Yuna's cousin. Rikku herself is not particularly amused by Brother's crush for this very reason (along with how much of a nuisance he can be because of it).
  • Iris Amicitia is the younger sister of Gladiolus, The Big Guy of Noctis's crew in Final Fantasy XV. She's also been smitten with Noct since they first met as children, which Gladio approves of and not-so-subtly tries to clue his liege in on. Sadly for Iris, Noctis is already part of a Childhood Friend Romance-turned-Perfectly Arranged Marriage with Lunafreya. Worse still, Iris is quite aware of the fact that she and Noct aren't meant to be and thus never truly makes her feelings known. If that wasn't enough, Noctis enacts a Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the game to rid Eos of the Starscourge and ends up Together in Death with Luna—all while Iris is off-screen and completely unaware. Poor girl...
• All-Loving Hero:
  • Though a Flat Character in his original game, the Warrior of Light has shades of this in Dissidia Final Fantasy.
  • Terra Branford from Final Fantasy VI is a clear example of this late in the game. In the World of Ruin, she ends up caring for orphans whose parents were murdered by Kefka and eventually Terra finds her purpose. To fight to protect those who need it as well as ensure a better future. Love drives her. Carries over to her Dissidia Final Fantasy incarnation as well, where she expresses Sympathy For Kefka after realizing that he was trying to fill the void in his "broken heart" with destruction.
    • Celes Chere also fits this trope in the World of Ruin portion of the game.
  • Aeris Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII, who is also The Messiah and Sacrificial Lamb.
  • Zidane Tribal from Final Fantasy IX is an example, despite the fact that he is a lecherous thief. His line in the game's character montage is "You don't need a reason to help people". In fact, multiple characters throughout the game complain about how kind Zidane is to everybody that he meets, even towards people who reject or attack him. This carries over into Dissidia Final Fantasy.
  • Final Fantasy X has Yuna. Every summoner has to have this to some degree to go on their pilgrimage in the first place, but Yuna takes it to a whole new level; never speaking harshly to anyone, while still exhibiting a quiet, subtle strength that keeps her going even after the church of Yevon brands her and her party traitors, once the truth comes out about the nature of the Maesters. Her speech to Yunalesca breaks it down perfectly.
  • Serah Farron develops into this over the course of Final Fantasy XIII-2. At the start of the game, her main drive is to find Lightning and prove that she's alive. By mid-Episode 3, Serah has decided that saving the world should be their goal first and foremost and it becomes her main motivation (but finding Lightning is still very important to her). By the end of Episode 5, she's prepared to save the world despite the knowledge that doing so might doom her to die.
  • Firion is this in Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, which emphasizes his idealism rather than his Hot-Blooded aspects. When the group's potential loyalties come in doubt, Firion declares that he trusts all of the (thirty-odd) people Mog has recruited and believes he could talk any of them back to the right path. He openly expresses his admiration for his allies without embarrassment, leading Wakka to call him "pure."
• All of the Other Reindeer:
  • In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud had a lonely and alienated childhood in Nibelheim. He was apparently shunned and ostracized by many of the children, especially Tifa's close friends, as well as being viewed as a troublemaker by the adults. This makes it easy for Tifa's father to blame Cloud for causing Tifa's near-fatal accident when she was eight years old when it actually wasn't his fault — running off into the Nibel Mountains was entirely Tifa's idea, not Cloud's. The years of social isolation led to deep emotional insecurities which drive Cloud to leave Nibelheim in an attempt to become a famous hero and thereby prove to everyone that he's not a loser. Unfortunately, those same insecurities prevent Cloud from getting into SOLDIER and also contribute to his mental breakdown during Hojo's experiments.
  • Final Fantasy XIV applies to trope to an entire nation. The nation of Garlemald are composed of people who are physically and intellectually superior to the other races. However, the Garleans have a genetic makeup that prevents them from using magic. According to the supplementary material in the lore book, all the other nations either ignored, bullied, or mocked the Garleans for their inferiority with magic. Once the Garleans discover ceruleum, they harvest it to make huge advancements in technology and weapons that are miles above what the rest of Eorzea uses. With the power of magitek, the Garleans form their empire and aim for the complete subjugation of Eorzea.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: Marche, Mewt, and Ritz receive this treatment from their classmates in St. Ivalice for different reasons: Marche because he's the new kid, Mewt because he's painfully shy and quiet and carries his teddy bear everywhere, and Ritz because of her white hair, quick temper, and outspoken attitude. As a result, the three end up befriending each other pretty quickly. Marche's brother Doned also considers himself to be subject to this, since all the other kids can walk and he requires a wheelchair, feeling left behind because of this. It's revealed that it's just his self-defeatist attitude about his illness that's causing him to shut himself off from others.
• Almost Dead Guy:
  • In Final Fantasy II, a rebel returns, on the brink of death, to bring the news that Leon has become Emperor.
  • In Final Fantasy III, a fatally-wounded villager from Tokkle arrives to tell the Light Warriors that Hyne is going to burn his home to the ground and reveals his weakness to them before dying.
  • In Final Fantasy VI, a dying Returner soldier bangs into their hideout warning of an incoming imperial attack.
  • In Final Fantasy IX a wounded Burmecian soldier dies telling the party about the attack on Burmecia. One wonders how he managed to make it from his country, on the other side of a mountain range, all the way up to the top floor of another country's castle, and none of the guards thought to help him or relay his message for him.
    • Perhaps justified as he seemed reluctant to tell anyone besides the king. Since it was humans that attacked his town and Alexandria once had a close connection Lindblum, he may have been worried about spies...
• Aloof Big Sister: Or "Aloof Big Brother/Sister".
  • Golbez of Final Fantasy IV is very aloof, mostly due to being Brainwashed and Crazy for most of the game. He's a more conventional example in Dissidia Final Fantasy, in which he's pretty much The Mole and so can't do much more than be a Stealth Mentor without breaking cover.
  • Sephiroth, at least in the Final Fantasy VII prequel Crisis Core, is arrogant and aloof, but still capable of being friendly and considerate, which explains why both Zack and Cloud looked up to Sephiroth and considered him a hero and role model. Unfortunately, this makes Sephiroth's Face–Heel Turn all the more traumatic for both Zack and Cloud during the infamous Nibelheim Incident.
  • Though she's the main character, Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII acts like this towards her younger sister after being Promoted to Parent. She becomes a tough soldier to protect Serah, but along the way dropped things like friendliness and affection. This leads to some major Parting-Words Regret when Serah says she's been indelibly cursed as a l'Cie.
  • Dycedarg Beoulve of Final Fantasy Tactics initially appears to be an extreme case of this toward his younger half-brother Ramza, while the middle brother, Zalbag, plays the more mild example of the trope. This gets subverted hard. Ultimately, Dycedarg shows himself to truly be a merciless and uncaring man who likely cares nothing for his family beyond what his name and lineage grant him. Zalbag plays the trope more straight, with it in part playing into his Fatal Flaw.
• Amazon Chaser:
  • Final Fantasy IX alluded to this when Zidane is helping the princess escape. This is after he chased her around the castle, watched her jump off a tower and then swing to safety using a street decoration.
    "Wow, you're really athletic. I think I'm falling for you."
  • Subdued example in Final Fantasy VII Remake, during the end of the game Cloud after fighting Rufus is dangling from a girder and is about to fall, when Tifa runs in and pulling off a badass slide catches Cloud Just in Time holding up his entire body weight with one arm. Cloud's usually stoic expression upon seeing Tifa save him goes from a wide-eyed "Holy shit!" to a warm smile.
  • Implied with Gladio from Final Fantasy XV. He comments on the physical fitness of the women of Lestallum with a very approving tone (at least in the English dub). Also, if players exploit a glitch that allows them to keep Aranea in their party, they might get a photo with some commentary implying Gladio is attracted to her (and his bros of course giving him a hard time over it).
• Amnesiac Lover:
  • Rachel is this to Locke in Final Fantasy VI. While exploring a cave, she falls and loses her memory after some nasty head trauma. Her family basically forces Locke to leave and say that him being around and trying to get her to remember him just causes her more pain. He becomes a Failure Knight after he later learns that Rachel was killed when The Empire invaded the village she lived in, and she remembered him right before she died. The whole flashback where this is revealed in the World of Ruin is just plain tragic.
  • Sir Fratley, amnesiac lover of Freya in Final Fantasy IX. A particularly bittersweet example in that the game shows this to still be the case in the epilogue. However, he is beginning to return Freya's affections and she plans on trying to start over anew anyway.
• An Adventurer Is You: A number of recurring "jobs" with similar outfits, even in different settings
• An Aesop: about peace, a Green Aesop, The Power of Friendship, or all three at once.
• And That's Terrible: The series loves doing this:
  • In Final Fantasy VI, you're constantly reminded how horrid Kefka's acts are, and how insane he is, nearly every time his name comes up. If anything, they UNDERPLAY how messed up Kefka's head is.
  • Final Fantasy VII beats you over the head with how amoral and heartless the Shinra are. And then with how insane and horrible Sephiroth is. When he burns down Nibelheim and slaughters its inhabitants, Cloud spells it out for the player: "Terrible… Sephiroth... This is too terrible..."
• Animal Motifs:
  • Final Fantasy V has dragons serving as healers and protectors. Three of the main characters have a dragon companion, all of whom play a vital role in the plot at some point or another. Lenna has Hiryuu, her family's wind drake, which heals her from poison, and sacrifices itself to free her from a demon before its spirit transforms itself into the Phoenix summon. Faris has the sea-dragon Syldra, who also rescues the party twice before dying. Krile also has a wind drake who is used in various rescues and finally breaks into the Void after the final battle to bring everyone back to Castle Bal. A wind drake is also part of the game's logo.
  • In Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Cloud has a very strong wolf symbolism going on. Not only is there a wolf head in his shoulder pad but his motorbike is named Fenrir and he's being followed by a shaggy old wolf that mourns in the places he most strongly associates with personal failure. You have three guesses which kind of wolf this is painting him as. The wolf works well for Cloud as more than just 'lone wolf' symbolism. When fighting Bahamut Sin, Cloud gets up to Bahamut through the assistance of his friends, working together as a 'pack' to take down their prey. And Cloud's position of leadership arguably shows him as an 'alpha wolf'.
    • Tifa is like a mama wolf in protecting the children in her care, otherwise, she has a literal dolphin theme in her Dolphin kick.
  • Squall Leonhart of Final Fantasy VIII has - as indicated by the name - a lion motif, one so omnipresent that he and Rinoa actually have an in-game conversation about it. The lion symbolism is at odds with his apparent personality, and serves as a signal that there's more to him than meets the eye. Although he's spent years cultivating an angsty loner persona, once he starts to confront his issues it becomes increasingly clear that he's actually a natural leader who cares deeply about his friends. Appropriately, one of the songs that play during the final boss fight is titled "Maybe I'm a Lion." This is carried over into Dissidia, where the villains continually refer to him as a lion.
  • Zidane from Final Fantasy IX and monkeys, given that he has a monkey tail, a mischievous personality and was implied to be an actual monkey-person for most of the game leading up to the big reveal.
  • Gabranth in Final Fantasy XII may as well be named "the Stray Dog".
• Animal Theme Naming: Several characters throughout the series have names that reference lions in some way. Examples include Leon, General Leo, Squall Leonhart, Lion, and Cor Leonis (which literally means "Lion Heart").
• Anime Hair: The series is famous (though some would say infamous) for this.
  • Final Fantasy II
    • Under Firion's bandana lies a hidden mass of hair jagging out in random directions.
    • Emperor Mateus is proof that the series embraced this trope long before it became memetic. He sports what can best be described as an eighties-style horned hairstyle.
  • In Final Fantasy III, both Luneth's half-ponytail, half-jagged bands, and The Onion Knight's hair, which (as far as we can see) opens like a flower around his face.
  • In sprite form, Paladin Cecil from Final Fantasy IV has almost Vegeta-style pale-purple spikes that jut out above him. It's almost the exact opposite in official art, though.
  • General Leo from Final Fantasy VI has a bright orange mohawk. On a black dude.
  • Final Fantasy VII
    • In the original game, Cloud Strife has golden spikes that seem to shoot off in every direction. It is lampshaded often, and has earned him the nickname of 'Spiky' from his allies. His hairstyle is less extreme in future installments of the Compilation.
      Shantotto: Your hair is a distraction!
    • Zack Fair also has improbably spiky dark hair in his recent appearances in Crisis Core and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, but like Cloud, his hairstyle is slightly toned down compared to the original game.
    • Aerith could also qualify. In the original game, her front bangs seem to defy gravity. The look is just made a bit softer in Advent Children.
    • Sephiroth is the designated pretty boy, with silver hair extending down past his waist and two long forelocks framing his face.
    • Reno of the Turks has fiery red spikes, which sets him apart from his completely bald partner-in-crime, Rude.
  • Final Fantasy VIII villainess Ultimecia sports fairly impressive Devilish Hair Horns that bears some resemblance to Mateus'.
  • Final Fantasy IX villain Kuja has hair that appears to coalesce into feathers.
  • Final Fantasy X
    • The villain Seymour has bright blue hair molded into shapes that could only possibly be achieved with a truckload of cement. Even better, we see him as a child in a flashback, and his hair (and really, his entire design) is exactly the same, just smaller. It's kind of adorable.
    • Wakka's gravity-defying peak shows him to be no slouch in the absurd haircut department either. Even underwater.
  • Marche in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has a big strand of hair that curls straight up at the front of his head while having some strands of hair on the back of his head that flow out like a ponytail with a mind of its own.
• Anthology: Almost every installment is an original story set in a different world with similar elements to it (such as chocobos, airships, etc.). Crystals are usually involved somehow.
• Anti-Hero:
  • Cecil as a dark knight in Final Fantasy IV is this during the intro, where he kills innocent magicians for a crystal, believing it's the right thing to do for his king. After Mist Cave, as the bomb ring destroys Rydia's hometown, however, he skirts the edge of villainy.
    • Kain. While Cecil believed what the king told him to at first, after he destroyed Mist he turned around and never looked back. Kain, on the other hand, is possessed by the Disc One Final Boss (Who is possessed by the Big Bad...) several times during the game, and although usually calm and dedicated, shows that he is truly in love with Cecil's girlfriend, Rosa; stealing her several times during the game (while possessed), and showing that he, deep down, would be willing to KILL Cecil just to be with her. He has proved to be able to control his inner demons, though, and is truly a good guy.
    • Debatable. When Rosa is kidnapped, once, it's by Golbez, who does so as much to put Kain in his place as to humiliate Cecil. While Kain does insist on fighting Cecil while brainwashed, his lines emphasize a desire for recognition and superiority, not violence for its own sake. Additionally, since there's no real hint as to any of these feelings when he's not being brainwashed and based on Golbez's brainwashing as seen in the DS version, though it was written in the original script, it can be inferred that he was susceptible to brainwashing especially because he had no intention on acting on those feelings and had been trying to repress them.
  • Final Fantasy VI has Shadow, as it's obviously described in his introduction. And who knows if he'd really slit his momma's throat for a nickel like Edgar comments.
  • Cloud of Final Fantasy VII also counts, for about the same period of time. He starts out on the right side, but only because they sign his paychecks. However, it's still on Disc 1 when he starts to say that he doesn't want to think of any of the party might be The Mole because he trusts everyone.
  • Squall, of Final Fantasy VIII, who likewise gives the impression of it just being a job for most of the story, at least until Always Save the Girl kicks in. His catchphrase is "...whatever."
  • Final Fantasy IX has Amarant, who undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and joins your party purely to observe Zidane, not that he worries about bad guys taking over the world so much.
  • Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII. She's rather "dog eat dog" in her combat philosophy and is constantly making comments like "Target's a target", "Couldn't shoot, got himself shot instead", and "Nothing personal"; is fully willing to kill "brainwashed" soldiers and actually scolds one of her companions for trying to reason with them as they had no chance of getting any of them to listen; and will whip your ass into shape, extremely harshly if she has to. However, she'll fight off entire armies, demi-gods, gods, whatever she has to if you mean the slightest iota of anything to her (Especially if regards her little sister, Serah) and she'll generally try to do the right thing.
  • Delita from Final Fantasy Tactics unites the world under his own iron fist by deceiving and killing greedy to evil nobles while outmaneuvering the Corrupt Church attempting to control him. He's quite debatable whatever he's this or Anti-Villain, but at least Ramza never has to fight him.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Cosmos and Chaos from Dissidia Final Fantasy are Good / Cosmos and Evil / Chaos Personified as Gods, even if Chaos is more akin to being fatalistic and bored. Their appearance also reflects this, Cosmos is a blonde woman white that sorta glows, while Chaos is a big ass demon surrounded by fire. Sadly neither of them tend to do much for most of the game aside give orders to the heroes or villains. Though Chaos serves as the final boss for the heroes, Cosmos does not do the same for the Villains, but it's stated at the end that the forces will continue to exist even if they do not.
  • Another example would be Zeromus, from FFIV. He's the incarnation of hate given form after the man behind the curtain dies.
  • Also, Necron, the Giant Space Flea from Nowhere from FFIX, is revealed in the Ultimania to be the personification of death.
• Anyone Can Die: So far, no Final Fantasy game has gotten to the end without the death of at least one major character. Usually this is done via Heroic Sacrifice, but not always. Hit full force in VII; Aerith's death was seen as shocking at the time because it came out of nowhere. According to the creators, she was chosen as the one to die because she didn't fit the mold of the "hard-boiled last-man-standing warrior" that had been the sacrificial lamb in earlier games. A few games even kill off the main protagonist, though usually not until the end of the story. II is especially notable as the player is treated to the deaths of a whole third of the playable cast. It and IV basically used it as justification to make room in the party, although, in the latter. most characters turn out to be alive in the end.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: The series has loved this since VII, with guns often being weaker than melee weapons like swords and spears. At least the older games were mostly set in a more medieval setting with some sci-fi, but there have been a couple of full-on sci-fi games since then, yet you won't find more than one main character with an actual firearm... right alongside a sword user and someone who'll happily punch robots to death.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Final Fantasy VII
    • Initially subverted, since Sephiroth had little regard for Cloud, except as a pawn by which to obtain the Black Materia he needed to summon Meteor. It wasn't until the very end when Cloud defeated him, that Sephiroth took him seriously as an enemy.
    • By Advent Children (and Dissidia, below), it's played straight, with the official novellas stating that Sephiroth kept himself from being assimilated by the planet's Lifestream by focusing on his hatred of Cloud. Sure enough, once he resurrected, his first order of business was to try to settle the score between them. But Cloud defeated him again, after a hard fought battle.
    • Among the other members of the FFVII cast, several might consider Professor Hojo their archenemy, but Vincent Valentine has the best claim to it. Hojo stole the woman he loved, impregnated her, experimented on their child to create Sephiroth, and then shot Vincent himself to experiment on him too and turn him into the vampire we see by the time the game starts. This all sent Vincent careening over the Despair Event Horizon to the extent that he decided to sleep in a coffin and avoid the world for multiple decades. Even after finally killing Hojo in the original game, Hojo came back to be the central antagonist of Vincent’s spin-off game, Dirge of Cerberus, as well. While Red XIII, Cloud, and Aerith all had their lives ruined by Hojo to various degrees as well, he put Vincent through the most.
    • More minor rivalries include Scarlett to Barret after she personally destroyed his peaceful hometown and killed his best friend Dyne. Dyne actually survived at first, albeit he became an Ax-Crazy Death Seeker in the process, which leads him to attacking Barret, threatening to kill Marlene, and then committing suicide out of despair anyway, making Scarlett ultimately still responsible for it all. Cid has Palmer, because he ruined Cid’s dream to go to space by cancelling Rocket Town’s space program and then continued to antagonize him during the events of the game. And while overshadowed by Cloud’s rivalry with him, Tifa could also claim Sephiroth as her archenemy because he killed her father and destroyed her hometown, and that’s not even getting into everything he did to her Implied Love Interest Cloud.
    • The prequel Crisis Core, starring Cloud’s old friend Zack Fair, introduces Genesis Rhapsodus as a prototype Sephiroth with a clone army. He consistently antagonizes Zack throughout the game and takes the Arch-Enemy role as Zack’s answer to Cloud’s Sephiroth.
  • The ten heroes and their respective villains, Chaos and Cosmos, and Shantotto and Gabranth in Dissidia Final Fantasy.
    • More in depth we have...
    • From Final Fantasy The Warrior of Light to challenge Garland the human incarnation of the Big Bad Chaos.
    • From Final Fantasy II is Firion fighting for freedom from oppression against The Emperor who seeks to bring everything under his heel.
    • Final Fantasy III brings us the The Onion Knight a cowardly child to face The Cloud of Darkness, an embodiment of fear itself.
    • Final Fantasy IV has Cecil who must overcome his cynical brother Golbez and show him The Power of Friendship.
    • From Final Fantasy V is Bartz a none to bright wanderer who confronts the monstrous Exdeath who wants to erase everything.
    • Final Fantasy VI gives us Terra whose fear of her immense magical power attracts Kefka who seeks to control her.
    • Final Fantasy VII gives us Cloud and Sephiroth, as mentioned above.
    • Final Fantasy VIII brings Squall who is forever fated to confront the time witch Ultimecia.
    • From Final Fantasy IX is Zidane who's motto is to help anyone who needs it and his brother Kuja who is unable to see the value of anything but himself.
    • Final Fantasy X who has Tidus who wants to settle the score with this father Jecht once and for all.
    • The prequel Dissidia 012 reveals the Emperor is actually more an Arch Enemy to the Final Fantasy X cast as an Expy of Seymour — he manipulates Tidus and Jecht into fighting for the sake of his schemes and isn't pleased when Yuna tries to get the two to work out their differences peacefully. In a less direct example, Exdeath is the enemy of the Final Fantasy IV cast, being Kain's designated rival and his death in that cycle being caused by Golbez disrupting his control over the Manikins so Kain can get past them and challenge Exdeath. Also puts a new spin on the scene of Exdeath accusing Golbez of treachery and Cecil protecting him.
• Armor-Piercing Attack:
  • In all the Final Fantasy games, Flare and Ultima tend to be armor-piercing attacks, as well as Bahamut's Signature Move Mega Flare.
  • Final Fantasy X does this with armored enemies, who require a specific weapon type to get past it. Fortunately, they begin to show up just as you get the biggest badass around, whose weapons all come with the armor-piercing ability, into your party. The "Armor Break" skill will remove the "armored" enhancement from its target, allowing you to damage it normally with non-piercing weapons.
  • In the DS version of Final Fantasy IV, an Augment you can receive after defeating Bahamut is this for the magic-reflecting spell Reflect.
  • Final Fantasy XII had guns and measures, both of which only calculated the weapon's strength for damage. So while they were good against enemies that had high defenses, it didn't matter how strong a character was when using them. However, it doesn't help that some of the tougher enemies only take 1/16 of the damage from the two weapons.
  • Final Fantasy VI tends to allow its strongest attacks (Bum Rush, Drill/Chainsaw, Ultima) to ignore defense, and they usually always hit too. Unfortunately, this effectively neuters the design philosophy behind some enemies, usually of the "evasive and tough, but with extremely low health" variety. The most extreme example would be the Cactrot, which follows that model exactly: it has a perfect defense rating (all physicals do 1 damage) and is extremely hard to hit with physicals and magic alike. Catch? It has 3 HP, so anything that always hits and ignores defense, no matter how weak, will kill it.
  • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, Cloud's Super Mode (called Ex-Burst) grants him the "Guard Crush" ability, making all his attacks unblockable. Given that he hits like a semi-truck, it's a good idea to stay the hell out of his reach while he's in this state.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, Armor-Piercing bullets are one of the types of ammunition used for The Gunslinger Irvine's Shot Limit Break. With enough rounds of this ammo and Irvine having high Strength, this will result in him dealing massive damage.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • In Final Fantasy X, when Yuna explains that Sin is mankind's punishment for using machina (machines), Tidus asks "was that such a bad thing, really?" Yuna's response can be summed up as "now that you mention it, maybe not." It's the start of some much-needed character development for Yuna.
    • Tidus has this inverted onto him early on in the game. After finding out that Sin always comes back, Tidus asks what the point of a summoner's pilgrimage is if Sin just comes back every time. Yuna turns this around on Tidus by saying that what peace they get is worth it. However, that's before learning that Sin comes back because of the pilgrimage. Once Yuna finds that out, she decides to find another way.
  • Final Fantasy X-2 has this about burning the Besaid Village Temple:
    Beclem: Going to help him [Wakka]? I'm not going to wait much longer.
    Yuna: You want to see it burn that badly?
    Beclem: (gasps at her question, but tries to regain his composure) It's... for the safety of the village.
  • Final Fantasy XIII
    • The amazing scene in Chapter 7, when Hope finally musters up the guts to confront Snow about his mother's death (which he unwillingly contributed to) consists mainly of a barrage of armor-piercing questions that bring the resident Idiot Hero onto his knees in despair. Said questions include "What happens when your actions end up ruining someone's life?" and "How do you pay for what you've done?"
    • A milder example occurs between Fang and Lightning earlier. Fang admits that all the events up to then, including Serah becoming a l'Cie, were because she and Vanille woke up. Lightning is furious and punches Fang, only for her to ask "What did that do for you? Did punching me make you feel better?" and Lightning realizes that hitting someone in anger was not an answer or changed anything.
    • In Chapter 8, when Sazh is confronted with the fact that Vanille was at fault for causing his son to be turned into a Cocoon l'Cie. During this dramatic scene, Vanille apologizes in tears for causing this and begs Sazh to kill her to make up for his son's apparent death. Sazh counters with his own words.
      Sazh: You think you die, and that's that? You think you die and everything'll be sugar and rainbows?!
  • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning tells Lumina her plans to betray and kill Bhunivelze at the end of the world, a plan that Lumina loves. As she's praising it, Lumina mentions how Lightning would also be betraying Hope and asks her if she even considered the situation. Something Lightning can't answer.
    Lumina: Are you really prepared to kill Hope?
    Lightning: (scoffs) You think I'm not?
    Lumina: You answered a question with a question. That's an evasion.
  • In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Mateus, the last of the Totema guarding the crystals that Marche needs to destroy in order to go home, briefly assumes Mewt's form and asks Marche if his life will get any better if he goes back home. It's especially poignant because it sounds very much like something the real Mewt would say.
    Mewt: What's so great about going back? Why go home at all?
    Marche: Mewt…
    Mewt: Will your dad come back, Marche?
• The Artifact: The Gysahl Greens items, which are generally used to tame Chocobos, are named as such because Final Fantasy III had a Chocobo farm at a village called Gysahl. The item has reappeared multiple times since under the same name, but with no indication the town it’s named after exists as well.
• Artifact of Hope:
  • Ever since Final Fantasy, crystals have been used as The Chooser of the One that marks heroes as Warriors of Light to save the realm from peril. In several games, the goal is to restore the light of the crystals to heal the land. The crystals held by these "Crystal Bearers" are often required for this process.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has Azem's crystal, a memento produced by Emet-Selch in memory of his dear, departed friend. The holder of this artifact is able to summon up to seven likeminded individuals to their aid across nearly any distance, even across the Interdimensional Rift between worlds. Emet-Selch has his facsimile of Hythlodaeus give it to the Warrior prior to their battle with Elidibus, proving pivotal in the Warrior's victory over the last Unsundered. The crystal's powers would be used several more times in Endwalker, summoning champions to the Warrior's aid against both Zodiark and the Endsinger, as well as restoring the Scions back to life following their Heroic Sacrifice to make a path for the Warrior to reach Meteion at Ultima Thule.
• Artifact Title:
  • Final Fantasy was going to be series' creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's final game for Square if it didn't sell well, who proclaimed that his "final game" for Square would be a "fantasy RPG". The fact that it is now more than 30 years and 50+ sequels/spin-offs later provides a slight hint as to whether or not the word "final" still applies (although Sakaguchi is no longer involved in the series after Final Fantasy X and did pull this off semi-successfully with a different game.)
  • The International subtitle was originally meant to be literal. For a time, versions released outside Japan were remade for the export (like 7 having the Ruby and Emerald Weapons exclusive to post-Japan releases), with said versions being re-released in Japan with the International subtitle. Nowadays, it's their name for an Updated Re-release.
• Ascended Fanboy:
  • Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII: He starts out as a fan of the legendary Sephiroth who goes out to join the same organization that made the Super Soldiers of whom Sephiroth is a part, spends a lot of time delusionally thinking he made it to Super-Soldier rank, and somehow ends up leading the only group that can save the world from a now even more powerful Sephiroth.
  • According to the Ultimania guide, as a child Seifer Almasy from Final Fantasy VIII saw a movie about a knight protecting a sorceress, which inspired both his "romantic dream" of becoming a sorceress's knight and his decision to train with the gunblade. The hero of the movie was played by Laguna Loire, the father of Seifer's rival Squall Leonhart.
  • Prince Noctis of Final Fantasy XV is a fan of the Assassin's Creed series, which in Eos is based off of a figure of myth from Lestallum. In the Assassin's Festival DLC event, when the Niflheim Empire attacks Lestallum looking for him during the festivities, he ends up defeating the Niffs with a Lucian twist on Assassin warfare.
• Attack Backfire: Final Fantasy II introduced the idea of monsters absorbing damage from certain elements and recovering health; particularly nasty is that draining spells work in reverse against enemies that absorb them, harming the caster as well as healing the target. More directly, the Reflect spell also causes incoming spells to bounce back.
  • Final Fantasy IV and onward also used the counter mechanic, introduced early on in many games with a boss that is completely immune to your attacks in one form and punishing you for attacking until another change. Other bosses may invoke it by countering magic or physical attacks specifically, but they generally still take the damage in the first place.
• Audience Surrogate:
  • Final Fantasy X One of Tidus's major roles in the plot is so people who've lived within the society of Spira all their lives have to explain it to somebody.
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy (2015) have Noctis being the newest character game-wise to appear in Dissidia, he serves as something of a viewpoint for newcomers who have never played the previous games, as his questions and confusion are meant to simulate how newcomers would feel about the story.
• Author Appeal: Artist Appeal:
  • Yoshitaka Amano has a fondness for traditional Japanese watercolors. He also loves willowy males with frizzy white hair, pale skin (But that's a trend in Japanese art anyways), purple eyeliner, and blue-purple lipstick. He also loves to put spiked armour, catsuits, and capes whenever he can get away with it. His monsters also look like Eldritch Abominations that you would expect to see in art depicting the Fair Folk; the monster designs are often the ones that make it into the games unchanged. (Early installments simply scanned his art straight into the game, at least as well as the NES and SNES would allow.)
  • Tetsuya Nomura draws most of his characters more 'traditionally' male, but most likely they'll all be teenagers or young adults. Unless he intentionally makes them look middle-age; like Sazh, Cid Highwind, and Barret. Nomura also has a thing for belts, zippers, and highly detailed clothing to fit the more "Urban Fantasy" setting of the post-VII games (which is why some fans believe his artwork fits The World Ends with You much more than Final Fantasy itself). His monsters also look like Eldritch Abominations, but not the kind detailed in old fae-inspired art, like a blend of organic and synthetic features, coming off as ugly cute. Oh yeah, he also loves black coats with hoods - the longer the coat the better.
  • Akihiko Yoshida has a thing for bondage gear, tight pants on men (the tighter the better), Caucasian males to fit the more European feel of the games he works on (Specifically, Ivalice Alliance), tight pants on men, and more brown-blond hair on humans. Oh yeah, and tight pants.
    • He also loves drawing characters with small noses or none at all. Additionally, he loves drawing large thighs on all his characters. Coupled with wide hips for females, bordering on Hartman Hips.
  • All of them have a thing for feathers, too.
• Automatic New Game: Final Fantasy IV to VI for the Super Nintendo do this if there are no save files present, jumping you straight into the opening cutscene.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Kefka from Final Fantasy VI. This is a man who reduced the planet to a burned-out shell because he could, and then randomly took out the remaining pockets of civilization with a Wave-Motion Gun whenever he got bored. That's during his encounter with the Warring Triad. Beforehand, he was, while relatively normal, a man prone to breaking into fits of hysterical laughter when doing atrocious crimes, had brainwashed Terra and ordered her to torch fifty of his own soldiers alive, attempted to burn Figaro, poisoned Doma (and in that particular case, he also mused maniacally about his joy about listening to "music" revolving around hundreds of people screaming in unison), brutalized various Espers in the Magitek research facility while maniacally declaring himself to be a god, massacring various Espers at Thamasa as well as burning Thamasa to the ground.
    • His backstory reveals that he was the first Magitek Knight, but the process was imperfect, and that he became insane after the process, which is heavily implied to involve brain surgery, meaning that the Empire broke his brain.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, there's Garuda, the Primal of Wind, who is completely fucking nuts. Of the previous two Primals faced in the story, Ifrit wanted everyone to bow before him, while Titan merely wished to protect his "children". Garuda, on the other hand, wants to kill everyone on the planet except for her own worshipers, the Ixal, and absorb all of the world's aether to become the one almighty goddess. To drive the point home, she is constantly cackling insanely.

B

• Back from the Dead:
  • Final Fantasy IV seems to kill and resurrect its characters more often (and more improbably) than the novel Candide. In particular, one character jumps out of an airship with a nuke strapped to his chest and detonating it in mid-air in order to seal up a giant hole in the ground, replacing it with a mountain range. You'd think he'd be killed by 1) the fall, 2) being crushed by thousands of tons of rock, or 3) being right at the center of a nuclear explosion, but later on your party visits the underground realm of the dwarves, and guess who they find lying in a hospital bed (the explanation being something along the lines of "the dwarves nursed me back to health!")? Tellah's the only party member to actually STAY DEAD, simple as that.
  • Two of your animal companions in Final Fantasy V die. Syldra dies quite early on and Hiryu does a Heroic Sacrifice just before the round-up-the-bonus-weapons sequence. Both of them can later be found as summons. Also, if you fail to revive any party member who died in the final battle, Galuf will revive them in the epilogue.
  • When sentient beings die in Final Fantasy X, their souls must be Sent to the Farplane (by a Summoner or a Yevon priest with similar spiritual abilities) lest they become Fiends. However, those with sufficient strength of will can resist either fate, and roam the world as Unsent: "people" that are, for all intents and purposes, dead, but retain a physical shape and can interact with others as though they were alive. Such is the case with Seymour, after being killed at Macalania Temple, Auron, who was killed by Yunalesca ten years prior, the Yevon High Clergy, and Belgemine. Ostensibly, Yunalesca is also an Unsent.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics:
    • Algus/Argath came Back from the Dead in the PSP remake but he did not change his personality, and thus only came back so Ramza can kick his ass again, now straight to hell. Considering how much hated Algus is, him coming Back from the Dead to get his ass kicked again can be considered Pandering to the Base.
    • At the end of Chapter 3, Marach takes a bullet for his sister Rapha. The character dies and stays dead for a while afterwards, until the Zodiac Stone/Auracite channels power from... somewhere and resurrects him, proving that the auracite itself isn't evil, it's just the Lucavi using it for evil purposes.
• Badass in Distress:
  • In Final Fantasy VI Celes can be one of your team's most elite warriors if you put enough investment into her. But in order to get her to join your party, Locke first needs to bust her out of an Imperial prison. Later in the game, there is also an incident where you have to stop a bad guy from dropping a large weight on her head while she's performing at an opera.
  • In Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII Vincent spends much of the game grappling with his literal inner demon, Chaos, because the protomateria, the thing used to control Chaos, gets ripped out of him by Rosso. Several cutscenes depict him falling to his knees and clutching his chest in pain as he fights for control of his body. Twice he winds up being rescued as well, once when he accidentally turns into Chaos and collapses from the exertion and has to be rescued by Shalua, and another time when Rosso rips the protomateria out of his chest and he has to be rescued by Yuffie.
• Badass Normal:
  • Kain Highwind of Final Fantasy IV was a Badass Normal for much of his existence. He's a Memetic Badass at that despite having no magical powers and just being really, really good at abusing Jump Physics. The sequel The After Years upgraded him into a Holy Dragoon, so his status as a normal has been removed. However, that was more than a decade after his original game and his badassery was famous well before The After Years came out.
    • The game also gives us Cid, who's just an old engineer with a hammer that jumps out of an airship riding a bomb, falls into the underworld, and survives. Less than a week later he's tuning up your new ship.
    • Yang also has nothing but training.
  • Final Fantasy VI's General Leo is a highly accomplished swordsman, has the sweet "shock" ability, and he holds the same high position in the Empire that Kefka and Celes once did. And guess what, not only does he not have magical powers, but he refused the magitek infusion that would have given them to him!
    • Final Fantasy VI abolishes this trope with Leo, however. Leo is killed off, and after this everyone that's not a minor NPC can learn magic except sasquatches (and sasquatches are hardly normal!)
  • Final Fantasy VII: In a party with a genetically enhanced Super-Soldier (Cloud), a big black Mr. T-lookalike eco-terrorist with a chaingun strapped to his arm (Barrett), a woman with magic practically coursing through her blood (Aerith), a red wolf-like creature (Red XIII), a cat puppet riding a giant robotic stuffed toy (Cait Sith), a man who can transform into different monsters (Vincent) and a cocky Ninja girl (Yuffie), Tifa and Cid chose to be different, chose to be badass normal... chose to be a barmaid with martial arts training and a gruff airship pilot with a home-made spear and some dynamite!
  • Although he spends half of Final Fantasy IX portrayed as the Butt-Monkey, Steiner is the only character in the game (if not the entire planet) who isn't either a Super Prototype creature, a Half-Human Hybrid that can call destruction from the heavens, a Beast Man with natural gifts, or some chi master who can jump 100 feet in the air and throw fireballs at people. He just hits people really hard with swords and is the only party member who can hit for max damage unaugmented.
    • This is also doubly true for his Trance abilities. Every party member that goes into Trance gains new abilities or have their current abilities enhanced for extra power or additional properties. What does Steiner have for his Trance skills? Not a damn thing. Instead, he just has tripled attack power.
    • Vivi, however, can turn him into an Empowered Badass Normal by enchanting his sword to summon magic attacks to hit enemies. When they are in the party together, Steiner can use his own MP to use Vivi's black magic against one target.
  • Final Fantasy X has exactly two badass normal protagonists, when you think about it. Tidus is a Fayth-based pro-sports player who can manipulate time itself, Lulu is a black mage capable of bending reality to her whim, Yuna summons demigods to do her bidding, Kimarhi Ronso is a giant cat-man who can steal enemies' moves, and Auron is an undead legendary badass who is so angry at Yevon for turning his best friend into Sin he won't rest until they're destroyed. Who's left? Rikku, who's just a girl who's good at stealing and building things, and Wakka, who hits things with what is basically a soccer ball.
  • Given the huge prevalence of Magitek in Final Fantasy XII, it's hard to tell who's fighting without some sort of magic/technology backing them up. Most of the Arcadian Judges, though, fight using only their swords and various physical attacks, while Mad Scientist Cid battles with assorted BFGs and all of them are bosses and are much more dangerous than the abyssal demons and behemoths you've seen on the way up to them. Vayne then shows them up in the final battle — after spending the game battling through armored soldiers wielding BFSes, Vayne takes the party on in his day-to-day wear and fights using nothing but his bare hands. Well, the cinematic attacks show him sending energy bursts at the party, but if the name of one such attack ("Force of Will") is an indicator, Vayne is such a Badass Normal he can bend the laws of physics through sheer willpower. Then as is par for the series, he goes One-Winged Angel and uses nothing but magic.
  • Early on, your characters are this in Final Fantasy XIII except for Vanille, but later on, you end up fighting enemies who are Badass Normals. Psicom is made up of people whose only real advantage to keeping up with the l'cie party members is their very good equipment. They make up for their lack of superhuman feats or magic by using things like machine guns, bazookas, and good old fashioned teamwork.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, Thancred is Brought Down to Normal due to his time in the lifestream after A Realm Reborn going into Heavensward: he completely loses the ability to manipulate aether and use magic. Nonetheless, he proves himself an apt fighter even without magic, availing himself as a capable rogue and scout throughout Heavensward and Stormblood, and proving himself to be an expert Gunbreaker in Shadowbringers.
  • In the sequel to Dissidia Final Fantasy, Dissidia 012, Laguna Loire of Final Fantasy VIII definitely qualifies. Unlike every other character in the game who all at least minor magical skills, Laguna uses no magic or any other supernatural powers at all. Instead, he's a Multi-Ranged Master with a Hyperspace Arsenal of shotguns, machine guns, rocket launchers, and a BFG based on an airship. Even his Limit Break is nothing more than a Combination Attack of all his weapons at once.
• Badass Teacher:
  • The instructors of Garden in Final Fantasy VIII qualify for this. Case in point: Quistis Trepe. How did she once assist her students on the field? By taking down the giant spider robot that's pursuing them with a gatling gun.
  • Serah Farron of Final Fantasy's "Lightning Saga" took a job as a teacher in the three years between the first game and Final Fantasy XIII-2. She earned the nickname of "Meanie Miss Farron" for how she reacts to students not doing their homework. She's also an ex-l'Cie, which means that she knows how to use magic,^*although she's only able to put that knowledge to use due to some temporal distortions and she's currently living on Gran Pulse, which means she's a crack shot with a bow.
• Barred from the Afterlife:
  • This is part of the reason Kuja, the villain of Final Fantasy IX has nothing to lose and everything to gain from being evil. His boss, Garland, will provide him with as much power, wealth, and luxury as he could ever want, but only if Kuja follows his instructions. Otherwise, he'll just take Kuja's soul back and make a new version of him. The problem is, even if Kuja succeeds, Garland will do the exact same thing. So Kuja has absolutely nothing to lose by screwing over everyone but himself. Garland knows this.
  • Souls in Final Fantasy X must receive a sending ritual from a summoner in order to reach the Farplane. Souls that don't get this ritual become Unsent (sentient undead) if they're lucky, otherwise, their jealousy towards living beings warps them into Fiends. This leads to some Fridge Horror: At the end of the game, there are no more summoners, since the Big Bad was powering them. The sequel reveals Fiends are still appearing, but no one is sure why. Someone's going to connect the dots and have a Heroic BSoD at some point... That said, circumstances both on Spira and in the Farplane have radically changed between games, implying that the Fiends are more "ambient" energy than anything else.
  • In the Ivalice Alliance, the shared universe of Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XII, and Vagrant Story, a large number of monsters are said to be human beings who died in a horrific manner and could not move on. This carries the Fridge Horror that anyone who dies in Ivalice has an extremely high chance of being kicked back into the living world as some manner of monster. In Vagrant Story in particular anyone who becomes tainted by 'The Dark' is fated to die an incomplete death. For most people, this means being reborn as a walking corpse, but some people, such as Sydney, and possibly Duke Bardorba, have studied and manipulated The Dark to such an extent that they've become functionally immortal.
  • Ardyn Izunia from Final Fantasy XV is a very unique existence in that he's absolutely impossible to kill. His physical form is actually a viscous mass of darkness and daemons simply retaining the shape of a man, and grievously damaging it, or even completely destroying it, merely renders it unstable for a moment before it reforms. To make matters even less fun, his soul is stuck in the spirit realm due to the Power Crystal, which practically makes him unable to die. The requirements in actually, permanently killing Ardyn are extremely particular, and very much suck for all parties involved.
• Beat the Curse Out of Him: The series has multiple Status Effects, primarily sleep and confusion, which are cleared when the suffering combatant is struck with physical attacks. Naturally, the most efficient way to cure these elements is to beat them out of your own party members.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn:
  • Final Fantasy VII
    • Aeris - Beauty. She's the most outwardly feminine, and functions as The Heart.
    • Tifa - Brawn. Female martial artist, very quick and strong.
    • Yuffie - Brains. Agile, sneaky and eventually revealed as quite manipulative.
  • Final Fantasy X-2
    • Yuna - Beauty, a very nice ex-summoner
    • Rikku - Brains, a Gadgeteer Teen Genius
    • Paine - Brawn, a sword-wielding Action Girl
• Because Destiny Says So:
  • Minwu of Final Fantasy II is a firm believer of this, which is why he tells the party not to grieve his Heroic Sacrifice to unseal Ultima. When the same seal in the afterlife doesn't kill him, he attributes this to destiny as well.
  • This trope turns out to be behind a lot of plot developments in Final Fantasy VIII. In particular, Cid handing command of Garden and SeeD to Squall, a newly-graduated SeeD with limited field experience and no actual successful missions under his belt - Cid doesn't exactly come out and say that it's because Squall is destined to defeat the sorceress, but he treats it as enough of a foregone conclusion that Squall, shocked and confused by the sudden unwanted promotion, protests, "Don't talk about this like it's been decided since my birth!" In fact, Cid is acting on foreknowledge of a Stable Time Loop in which Squall is indeed the one who not only defeats the sorceress but, having accepted his role in the whole thing, provides Cid and Edea with the foreknowledge upon which they founded SeeD to begin with.
  • Parodied in Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, when the old man on the cloud declares that Benjamin is definitely the hero in The Prophecy. After Benjamin manages to win a boss fight, the old man is relieved he found the right one.
    Benjamin: But you said you were sure I was the one!
    Old Man: It was really more of a guess...
    • It ends up being a Double Subversion, as endgame events reveal that the Final Boss, the Dark King, made up The Prophecy as a joke. The old man on the cloud, a.k.a. the Light Crystal, decided to make it come true anyway.
• Becoming the Mask:
  • Cait Sith in Final Fantasy VII, who joins the party as a spy and then grows to care about them and joins them for real.
    • Only superficially fits as an example. Reeve was already sympathetic to most of the party's issues, but sincerely did not trust Avalanche. He didn't so much change personality-wise, but realize that Avalanche was operating on the same wavelength he was.
    • Cloud wanted to be a badass Super-Soldier hero like the members of SOLDIER, but was relegated to being a faceless Shinra goon instead, and during the events of the game makes believe that he was a member of SOLDIER all along. Though to be fair, he's lying even to himself due to intense mental trauma after being experimented on and watching his war buddy Zack die right in front of him. When the truth eventually comes out, though, he's already become a massive thorn in Shinra's side, and eventually goes on to become the hero he always wanted to be, albeit fighting against the organization he wanted to join and one of the ex-SOLDIER members he looked up to.
  • Lucia in Final Fantasy XIV was The Mole sent in by The Empire to infiltrate Ishgard's leadership to see if they possessed a key that would allow access to Azys Lla, an ancient Allagan research compound. They become Aymeric's second-in-command to keep a close eye on him, but after discovering how Aymeric had similar hardships to them, they grew attached to him and the nation as a whole. Even after they reveal the truth of them being a spy to him, he doesn't hold any grudges against them, which convinces them to ditch their nation and become loyal to Ishgard instead.
• Beneath the Mask:
  • In Final Fantasy VII, lead character Cloud Strife spends some 2/3rds of the game under a mask; a persona-based seemingly on his deceased best friend, Zack Fair and former commanding officer Sephiroth. Only after a Journey to the Center of the Mind does Cloud finally become "Cloud" again, admitting that his subconscious constructed a persona to protect his fragile ego after his breakdown.
  • A classic case is Squall from Final Fantasy VIII. On the outside: cold, cynical, mean, rude, and very much a Determinator. On the inside, he is collapsing: constantly questioning himself and why he continues to do what he does, and cripplingly insecure about how other people perceive him. He uses his anti-social exterior to hold others at arm's length rather than risk the pain of rejection or loss because such feelings devastate him.
  • Zolku-Azolku, an NPC in Final Fantasy XI, discusses the concept:
    We all wear masks because deep down inside we are nothing but beasts. The question I ask you is, to which do you submit—the mask, or the beast?
  • Emet-Selch in Final Fantasy XIV is an Ascian that, unlike his fellow brethren, seems to enjoy being a massive Troll towards mortals and his antics wouldn't be too out of place if he were in a dramatic play. During the Shadowbringers story where you get to learn more about him, it's revealed that beneath his trollish nature lies a man that is very bitter, angry, and depressed towards mortals since they represent only a fraction of what used to be his people. Emet-Selch yearns for the old days where his people were powerful, intellectual, and had a utopian society. To him, the present-day people may as well be a mockery of what they once were and he is willing to do anything to bring the glory of his people back no matter the cost.
• Berserk Button:
  • Final Fantasy VI: Locke goes nuts whenever someone calls him a thief. He prefers to be known as a "treasure hunter."
  • Final Fantasy VII: Cid's pretty protective of his toys, such as the Tiny Bronco and the Highwind. He's also extremely upset about Shinra's decision to cancel its space program.
  • Final Fantasy X:
    • Machina and Al Bhed are initially Berserk Buttons for Wakka — using machina or being of Al Bhed heritage was a good way to get yourself on his bad side. He does mellow out about it later on in the game though. Also, DON'T talk about Chappu in front of Lulu.
    • Rikku apparently can't stand people who just blindly follow Yevon's teachings without thinking for themselves, as shown when she chews Wakka out for it shortly after her (proper) introduction. Also, hurting Yuna is a good way to get her mad.
    • Even Yuna has one, though it depends somewhat on interpretation — don't say the summoner's pilgrimage is useless or that there's no point to it. Even though she didn't get that angry when it was mentioned, that could just be because it was Tidus who said it — the implication is that if it had been anyone else, Yuna's reaction would have been a bit more severe. Also, NEVER insult her guardians.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Your White Mages usually don't contribute much to the fighting, instead of focusing on healing and support. But then they get Holy/Pearl...
• BFS: The series has an amplitude of swords that in real life would be very difficult, if not outright impossible, to wield at all, let alone with any semblance of efficacy.
  • Man at Arms has made several of the series' blades, with Cloud's Buster Sword holding the title of 'most impractical'; it isn't swung, more dropped on the target, and it's made of aluminium for the most part instead of steel, so it's lighter than it should be too. (Which fits the idea of going for Massive Damage regardless, if you think about it...)
• Big Bad: Has its own sub-page here.
• Big Bad Friend:
  • Vossler from Final Fantasy XII fights alongside you for a chunk of the game, but sells you out to the Archadian Empire afterward on the belief that it would be better to surrender to stop the bloodshed instead of continuing a seemingly fruitless rebellion. He's immediately given the Straw Traitor treatment, fights you as a boss later on, and then dies dramatically on an exploding warship.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: Thancred, one of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and the player's first ally if they started off in Ul'dah, was secretly possessed by the game's big bad, Lahabrea, an immortal aethereal being who possesses mortal hosts to bring about the resurrection of his dark god. It's implied that Thancred was under Lahabrea's control since long before the player met him.
  • Each of the Sworn Six of Paladia from Final Fantasy Brave Exvius is directly linked to the party in some way, but none more so than Veritas of the Dark, who is heavily hinted to be Sir Raegan, Rain's father and Lasswell's adoptive father.
• Big Good: Has its own sub-page here.
• Big Sister Instinct: Or "Big Brother/Sister Instinct".
  • Golbez in Final Fantasy IV deeply loves his younger brother Cecil and would give his life to protect him, even though the story puts them in conflict. Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and Dissidia Final Fantasy expand greatly on his character and combine this trope with The Atoner: in the former, he will take a lethal attack intended for Cecil and he will die if Rosa and Ceodore are not in the party to save him; in the latter he is in truth an ally of Cosmos and the heroes and much of their eventual victory can be attributed to him, but he feels he is unsuited to serving her directly due to his past as a villain.
  • Bartz in Final Fantasy V shows this towards Krile, when she joins the party after her grandfather's death. He doesn't treat her as weaker or in need of protection, but he does keep an eye on her to make sure she's okay emotionally. Faris is also very protective of Lenna, even before acknowledging their relation.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: At least after Marche said he will take care of his brother Doned at the real world after they beat his group up at some cave.
  • Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning — soldier, all around badass, and (most importantly) big sister. Her protective relationship with Hope also serves as the plot device that sets up her defrosting process.
    • Snow is also extremely protective of Hope. Post Chapter 7, the only reason Snow will not be the one protecting/comforting Hope is if Lightning got there first.
    • If you don't see them as romantic, Fang's overwhelming desire to save Vanille from turning into a Cie'th can be interpreted this way; bonus points for Vanille being visibly much younger and weaker in addition to being the cheeriest, cutest, and most tragic character of the cast.
    "I'll tear down the sky if it'll save her."
  • Final Fantasy XIII-2 has a very dark take on this. The main antagonist of the game is an immortal guardian, imbued with the Heart of Chaos. He is sworn to protect the Farseers' Seeress, Yeul — who is reincarnated in every generation after the previous one dies (which happens at a very young age due to the damaging nature of having visions). After several centuries of seeing her die and be reborn, Caius snaps, and hatches a plan to destroy the timeline — all so Yeul can live without worry or pain.
  • Clive in Final Fantasy XVI is very protective of his younger brother Joshua, even serving as his personal bodyguard. The events of the Night of Flams where Joshua apparently dies leave him completely broken and furious as Clive swears vengeance on the Eikon who's slaughtered his beloved brother.
    "Murderer... I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you!"
• Big Red Devil: The recurring summons Diabolos and Ifrit tend to be this.
• Big Sleep:
  • Crisis Core: Final Fantasy: Zack Fair. What precedes it is.... less than peaceful.
  • Final Fantasy XIII-2: Serah's death narrowly averts Dies Wide Open and becomes this; after her final vision (where her eyes are wide open), she breathes a final breath and closes her eyes before slumping over in Noel's embrace.
• Black Mage: The Trope Namer.
• Blind People Wear Sunglasses: In the classic games, the "Blindness" status effect is depicted with sunglasses over the affected character.
• Boss Bonanza: The Final Fantasy series' favorite leadup to its final boss battles. Perhaps the only semi-aversion is Final Fantasy II because all of the bosses in the Final Dungeon, save for the Emperor himself, were sealed in chests and therefore optional to fight.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Tonberries are the most universal to the series, although individual games have their own specific ones. Be wary of any random encounter where you face just one enemy, particularly when the earlier games could have as many as nine enemies at once.
• Boyish Short Hair:
  • Final Fantasy VII: Yuffie the Tomboy Princess has quite short hair perhaps in contrast to Aerith and especially Tifa who has massively long hair. Elena from the Turks has short hair as well reflecting that she's One of the Boys.
  • Final Fantasy IX: In one scene, when Garnet (aka Dagger) cuts off much of her hair into a bob hairstyle it signifies her having Took a Level in Badass and also becoming a bit more boyish. She grows it back out to its original length in the ending after she reunites with Zidane.
  • Final Fantasy XII: Ashe is less feminine than other princesses in the series and has shorter hair.
• Braggart Boss: A ridiculously over-the-top boss named "Gilgamesh".
• Break the Cutie:
  • Final Fantasy VI: Terra starts out the game broken. Celes tries to commit suicide after finding herself alone (Cid is dead or dying then) on a deserted island.
  • The Final Fantasy VII Compilation seems to be one long telling of how they broke the character Cloud, glued him back wrong, broke him again, then fixed him for real. Sort of. Specifically, this included being blamed for an accident that injured his childhood crush Tifa, which results in him being forbidden from seeing her, failing at the only dream he ever had (joining SOLDIER), watching his mother die (oh, and knowing she was killed by his idol, aka Sephiroth), watching his other idol — Zack — get shanked by Seph, getting shanked himself, being experimented on for four years straight, and all of this culminates with watching his beloved Zack get gunned down after being dragged across the country by him for a year because the experimentation had left him nearly comatose. Then it gets worse. Unable to cope with all that has happened in the past, he recreates his memories so Zack never existed (well, he thinks he's Zack, but same thing). And then Final Fantasy VII happens (in which we see him actually break and go comatose again). After the game Cloud settles down with Tifa, only to contract the incurable disease Geo-Stigma, which leads you down a slow and painful death. Towards the end of Advent Children his troubles are finally solved, however.
    • Don't forget about Zack too. Sure he was already a SOLDIER that fought and killed, but he was still an adorable one that would help other lower ranked SOLDIERS and unimportant Shinra staff. In fact getting recommended for first class rank was enough to make him act sort-of-childish. Then the mission to Wutai happens where Angeal disappears, then he has to see that same person, who he idolized, kill his own mother, then he has to see Angeal's hometown get blown up. Then comes the part where He has to kill him making the tough SOLDIER, who was promoted to first rank at that point cry. It's sort of heart-breaking to see the normally cheery person turn into a strict role model in the scene that follows.
  • Final Fantasy VIII subverts this by having Selphie look at the graves of all her recently deceased friends at Trabia Gardens, and instead of teary mourning instead she talks to them saying how proud they would have been of her.
  • In Final Fantasy IX, poor Princess Garnet suffers so many traumas in a short space in time like watching her mother die, becoming the queen and never being able to see her love Zidane again, only to have her kingdom nearly destroyed by Bahamut that she goes completely mute for a good section of the game.
    • Vivi. Finds out he's a prototype model of mindless magical soldiers, watches his own kind get killed or sacrificed like cannon fodder, and then learns that all the black mages have a very short lifespan and his time could come any moment.
    • It's also heavily implied that his "Grandfather" was planning on eating him.
    • Zidane, too, surprisingly. His androgynous looks aside, he's The Cutie because he is relentlessly cheerful and upbeat throughout the entire game. The few times that his optimistic demeanor vanishes are usually when it's replaced with righteous anger, like upon seeing enemies slaughtering helpless civilians. Just like Vivi, though, he learns that he's actually nothing more than a weapon. A highly complex and specialized weapon, but ultimately meant to bring war and destruction to the planet that is his home. This causes him to completely lose hope and march slowly towards his death during the famous You Are Not Alone scene.
    • The above is subverted, actually. When he discovered the truth, Zidane declared he would do what he was meant to do; by killing Garland. Garland then decides to rip Zidane's soul out of his body, causing his Heroic BSoD.
  • Final Fantasy XIII
    • Vanille was a genuine cutie pre-game before she became a l'Cie. The trauma she experienced thereafter (guilt over forcing Fang to become Ragnarok alone, becoming a crystal statue and then waking up on Cocoon) ended that. Everything she's done since the start of the 13 days (i.e. guilt over Serah and Dajh, the Purge, Hope's mother — which wouldn't have happened if she hadn't lied to Fang) has only added to the stress of maintaining the mask, making her a rather extreme example of this. She gets better.
    • Hope Estheim. Over just the beginning of the game, he gets bundled up with the other people of Bodhum, where he was on vacation with his mother, and is to be sent to Pulse, a world that is basically hell to the people on Cocoon. The train gets derailed, the civilians are riled up to fight back and his mother leaves as well, only for her to die as Hope watches in horror. Now the poor guy is left alone, in a situation that he can't handle and ends up a Pulse l'Cie. Meaning he needs to fulfill a vague focus and either become a nice, crystal statue or turn into a sentient Eldritch Abomination. And then he's also forced to run away from the government, who now deem him a threat to the world and will kill on sight. And that's not even getting into his conflicted feelings of having to work alongside the guy he blames for his mother's death to begin with.
• Bridal Carry:
  • In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud leaves Aeris in the Lifestream for a sort-of Burial at Sea.
  • Less tragically done in the Nibelhiem Flash Back (both versions), when Cloud carries the wounded Tifa in this fashion to safety after getting the jump on Sephiroth.
  • At one point in Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, Vincent saves Yuffie from Nero's attack and takes her to a safe place by carrying her in this way.
• Broken Ace:
  • Cloud in Final Fantasy VII is the Ur-example of the Final Fantasy series; Cloud's aptitude with super-soldier gene-therapy and combat prowess is unmatched by any other character in the series, to the point that he leads a team to destroy an Eldritch Abomination who successfully exterminated an entire Precursor species with mastery over life and death, and WINS. But Cloud's mental state is... not there. He's antisocial, traumatized by watching his childhood hero murdering almost everyone he cared about, and he even has multiple-personality disorder from all the genetic experiments Hojo did on him. Disc 3 happens because Cloud easily fails a will save that let a comatose, frozen psychopath compel him to give away the "wake up genocidal titans" artifact of doom.
    • Cloud also leads a few other Broken Ace specialists; Barrett is still haunted by the deaths of his mining town, Cid ruined a billion-dollar space program and takes it out on his spouse, and then there's Vincent...
    • ...who is inarguably the best gunfighter on Gaia, but was betrayed by the love of his life for another man who did not love her, got murdered, was resurrected into the avatar of the Herald of Omega as well as several other monsters through the use of tainted Lifestream and ancient Artifact of Doom-esque Materia, and then proceeded to lock himself in a coffin for fifty years out of guilt, fear, and self-loathing. Even by FFVII standards, Vincent Valentine is a mess.
    • Crisis Core. Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal. Their issues drive the first two to villainy and the third to perform Suicide by Cop.
  • Squall in Final Fantasy VIII. He goes out of his way to come off as a stoic, professional badass who doesn't need other people, and succeeds admirably—he stands out as an exceptional soldier even among SeeDs. Much of the student population at Balamb Garden admires him for his extraordinary skills, and "gorgeous" goes without saying for a Final Fantasy protagonist. But the entire thing is just an act of pretending to be a jerk to hide his massive emotional insecurities. Underneath, he's a Child Soldier with No Social Skills who avoids getting close to people because he's afraid of the pain of losing someone he cares about.
  • Auron from Final Fantasy X is revered as a legendary guardian who aided High Summoner Braska in defeating Sin. He's an unflappable badass who easily chops up dragons with a huge sword. He's the wise and snarky older mentor to the rest of the cast. All of that masks a bitter and broken man who wanted to change the world and failed. He failed to stop Braska and Jecht from sacrificing themselves to stop Sin. And when he discovered they had sacrificed themselves for false hope, he even failed to avenge them. There's also the little fact that he's Unsent. It doesn't much more "broken" than being already dead.
  • A case can be made for Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII. She's a tough-as-nails soldier in the Sanctum's Guardian Corps who wields the Blazefire Saber (itself a trophy of her acknowledged skill and strength) and was all set to be promoted to officer. But her military prowess and attitude are products of her trying to force herself to grow into a good guardian for her sister Serah after they were orphaned; "Lightning" isn't even her real name, but a call-sign she turned into a new identity. Indeed, this forced maturity does nothing to help when the events of the Purge roll around, and when we first meet her, she's already harboring guilt over not even believing Serah when her sister needed her.
  Lightning: I thought that by changing my name, I could change who I was. I was just a kid.
• Broken Aesop:
  • Final Fantasy XII pulls one of these at the end of the Gil Snapper hunt, when Elder Brunoa chides the quest-giver that you should never kill an animal solely to sell parts of it. The single best source of income in Final Fantasy XII, of course, involves running around killing massive numbers of animals in order to sell parts of them, including the ones that start out non-hostile because that's the only way to get access to all the lore.
  • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII has the moral that, "Humanity doesn't need a God." Except to help the souls of the dead reincarnate. And to hold back the chaos that's engulfing the world. And to create a new world after a human (an immortal human, but still definitely human and not a god) succeeds in screwing up the old one to the point where it can't be fixed. Sure, the God of the game is a Jerkass, but he's still all that's standing between humanity and extinction. Basically, if you were trying to write a plot that proved how much humans did need the Gods, you couldn't do too much better than this game.
  • Final Fantasy XIV falls into the same problem as XII in one quest from a member of the Conjurer's Guild. She asks for your help in gathering ingredients for a ritual the guild is going to perform soon, which involve killing various animals out in the forest and gathering parts from them. When you return with the ingredients, she compliments you for only taking exactly as much as you needed and that reckless slaughter of random beasts in the forest will spell doom. While from a purely monetary standpoint, it does make sense to not just murder everything you see: the drops you get from beasts tend to be more useful as crafting ingredients than as a source of income, which is likely to be outweighed by the damage done to your gear from fighting, and not everything you can kill in the game will attack you on sight (especially once you're more than ten levels above something else's level, at which point even actively-hostile mobs will ignore you, and attacking any one enemy will usually aggro one or two others even if they never worked together before). But on the other hand, you do also have various hunting logs for all of the possible beginning classes, which grant experience bonuses by way of killing specific beasts just for the sake of killing them... Interestingly, your Grand Company also gives you its own hunting log, which you are required to complete up to a certain point to get promoted past specific ranks and be able to buy better stuff from the quartermaster, but it's not as bad about "wanton, needless slaughter" as a class's hunting log is because, the Grand Companies being more interested in the safety and security of Eorzea's people as a whole, most of what it sends you to hunt are, in fact, not only actively hostile in-game but also major threats to the people in-story - the first level of each Company's log, for example, invariably includes sending you after specific types of Amalj'aa, who regularly attempt to kidnap people, and by the point you're allowed to join a Grand Company have already summoned their primal Ifrit and tried to feed several of their captives, you included, to it.
    • On the other hand, the same "only take what you need" moral is brought up for the Botanist class, which is a Disciple of the Land, i.e. a class that gathers materials for Disciples of the Hand to craft with. Since gathering is all the gatherers can do, the moral is much more readily broken by the fact that, regardless of what NPCs tell you about only taking exactly what you need, nothing is stopping you from spending several hours gathering these crafting materials until your inventory is crowded out with it - and then actually craft things with it all to make back a bunch of money for your time investment.
• Broken Bird:
  • Lulu from Final Fantasy X, who starts off as a Deadpan Snarker, although she later becomes a Defrosting Ice Queen.
  • Lightning from the Final Fantasy XIII series is a tough-talking soldier who has been burdened by the death of her parents and the subsequent responsibility to be the head of her household and take care of her younger sister Serah. The painstaking journey she's forced to go through to defy the gods and save the world only serves to increase her sufferings.
    • In addition, Hope becomes one of these by the end of XIII-2. After working so hard to save not only his friends but the entire world, and then watch it go down in flames around him it's no wonder he went from optimistic to completely shutting down.
  • Arguably, Cloud of Final Fantasy VII is one of these in the spin-offs of his main game. While he was never really cheerful, the character of the main game could be goofy, playful, and encouraging to his friends. In the spin-offs he's infamously become an angsty, stoic Anti-Hero due to witnessing the massacre of his entire home town at the hands of his former hero, then suffering through four-five years of inhumane experimentation, followed by witnessing the death of the person who saved him. The trauma from this was so bad that at the beginning of his game Cloud adopted a false personality and fake memories just so he could function properly. Then during the game itself he underwent Mind Rape thanks to Sephiroth, witnessed the death of Aerith, and learned the truth about his horrible past in an excruciating manner. Honestly, no wonder he angsts!
• Broken Base: Final Fantasy also have this. You can see them below:
  • Final Fantasy XV
  • Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
• Broken Bridge:
  • In Final Fantasy, the main characters are trapped on one continent until they defeat Garland and save the princess. Their reward: the king finally fixes that Broken Bridge to the north. Later, you have to bring an explosive to dwarves so they can build a canal.
    • Parodied in 8-Bit Theater, where the the Light Warriors decide that "King Steve's Kickass Bridge" is an incredibly sucky reward for saving a princess.
  • Final Fantasy III is just a string of Broken Bridges.
    • First, there is a massive rock in the way. The only person who can destroy it has been turned into a ghost along with everyone else in Sasune and Kazus.
    • Next, you need to Get on the Boat, but there's a sea monster in the way.
    • Then there's a whirlpool in the way of your boat...
    • Followed by two fangs that have been stolen...
    • And then you get put in prison...
    • After that, you need to lower the water level for the next Crystal.
    • Then your ship gets chained up...
    • ...and to fix it, you need the Floating Shoes.
    • Then you end up in the middle of a Civil War when your airship gets shot down.
    • Then you have to wake up Unne.
    • And then you need to use the Invincible to get the last Fang.
    • And then you can finally get to Dorga's House and get the keys for the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
  • In Final Fantasy IV, Mt. Hobs is blocked by a pillar of ice and Mt. Ordeals is blocked by a pillar of fire. The right spell-casting party members destroy these obstacles at the appropriate times.
  • In Final Fantasy V, a door in ExDeath's castle leads to upstairs. Early in World 2 you're captured, subsequently break out, and will find the door is locked. A few minutes later, you find ExDeath has erected a huge energy barrier field around the castle, and you cannot get anywhere near it. Some time later, you go through the process of disabling the barrier by climbing a huge tower, defeating an inter-dimensional wormhole, and a friend sacrifices himself. Should the party, in grief, decide to go see ExDeath right away and let him have a piece of their mind, they'll find their progress impeded by the same locked door. Later on when the party member really goes to challenge ExDeath, the door has been unlocked for no reason whatsoever.
  • In Final Fantasy VI you cannot enter the imperial palace because a massive robot bars your way. If you're foolish enough to fight it, you'll find you can do no damage, and your death is assured unless you run away.
  • Final Fantasy VII did the "commission-an-NPC-to-do-a-job-for-you" gambit — attempting to ignore Cosmo Canyon caused your vehicle to break. While you can run around on the Overworld Not to Scale without it, you can't cross the river you need to cross to head towards the next town, Nibelheim, without it, forcing you to enter Cosmo Canyon, where a man in a builder's hat will fix your buggy free of charge and only get it finished when you've finished the Backstory-important quest in the town.
    
    In a strange case, if the buggy breaks down and you don't talk to the guy, it will magically be fixed. If you enter Cosmo Canyon willingly, the buggy never breaks down, but the same guy will offer to fix it for you!
    • Additional FFVII broken bridges include the typical "you can ride the ferry from A to B, but not until after beating the boss and the plot sequence in this town (Junon boat)"; this is then reversed with the tactic of having the ship out of commission and unable to return, forcing the player to explore the western continent rather than immediately high-tailing it back to safer areas. Once sufficient plot is completed, the ship is again available. This process is repeated with other vehicles and methods of travel in the game.
    • A variation of this pops up after leaving Midgar. What you're supposed to do is head straight for Kalm so the party can regroup and Cloud can tell the story of the Nibelheim Incident or rather his version, of the incident. Try to skip this and you'll find your path blacked by a Midgar Zolom. Where this trope comes into play is the method to get past the beast (riding a Chocobo) won't become available until after Cloud tells his story. And even if you somehow manage to sneak past the Zolom, your Party members will tell you to turn back in the next area.
  • Final Fantasy X uses this contrivance also, whether it is plot-limited ferry rides, transportation between areas that cannot be backtracked, or simply having characters standing in locations and preventing further progress (such as in various areas on the Mi'ihen Highroad and Mushroom Rock Road, at least until specific plot points have been concluded.
  • Final Fantasy XII, which allows the player to explore a much larger and interconnected world than most previous Final Fantasies, employs this trope nearly everywhere to keep players from getting too far away from the plot. The route is blocked by tree, a "roiling mist" is too thick to pass, an Imperial edict prevents you from entering the further deserts, a ferry has mysteriously stopped working, boulders blocking, and so on. Largely averts Solve the Soup Cans, however, in that the opening up of the areas figures in neatly (if oh-so-conveniently) with the story. However, in some instances extremely dangerous areas, such as the Garamsythe Waterways (the stronger area with Malboro Overkings) or the Zertinan Caverns, are accessible at points when the player might not be sufficiently leveled to survive them.
    • Hilariously, in The Zodiac Age, there are several licenses on each class's grid cut off from the rest of it, requiring either a Quickening or an Esper to bridge the gap. The latter is a little problematic because an esper can only be assigned to one person at a time, and if two people need a certain esper to access one of these "floating" licenses, well...
  • Final Fantasy XIII features Taejin's Tower, a literal Broken Bridge connecting Gran Pulse to the highland areas of Oerba and beyond. It is some sort of space elevator/Tower of Babel thing, only the elevator cars are out of alignment and the power is cut, and there's a Beef Gate Physical God roaming around inside for players to deal with. There are also several earlier instances of this (the game is notorious for the linearity of the first half of its plot), including more literal broken bridges in the first area ("The Hanging Edge"), only these bridges are flying bridges that the party boards, rides while fighting bosses, and then jumps off of when reaching their destination.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Cloud got hit by this in Final Fantasy VII. As a teenager, he dreamed of joining the elite SOLDIER unit like his idol, the great warrior Sephiroth. When Cloud finally gets to go on a mission with Sephiroth, finding out that Sephiroth wasn't as noble as Cloud thought he was is the least of our hero's disappointments.
  • Frimelda Lotice in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 had this happen to her. She was revered as a powerful Blademaster, and fought alongside her friend Luc Sudarc in many battles. She, however, didn't know that Luc was hugely jealous of her, as he just wanted to surpass her but couldn't no matter how much he trained. So, he poisoned her, sentencing her to wander Ivalice as a pink zombie...until Luso and the gang rescue her. They return her to human form with the help of a special potion, and to return the favor, she joins Luso's clan. And she's cute, to boot.
    • She starts off as a Paladin with Dual Wield already mastered AND she has two swords equipped from the get-go, along with great stats.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl:
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • To an extent, Girl Next Door Tifa Lockheart is this towards brooding main protagonist Cloud Strife. The biggest example is Tifa's Journey to the Center of the Mind in Cloud's psyche, whereafter he goes through a massive Trauma Conga Line, she's the one who gently helps him pick up the pieces of his shattered psyche and helps him recover.
    • Subverted by Cloud and Aerith Gainsborough, who looked very much like the trope; but since Aerith was sassier, more cheerful, and more outspoken than the average Gentle Girl, they fell more into Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl. They do play it straighter in Advent Children, however.
  • Final Fantasy VIII plays this trope much more straight with Squall and Rinoa, particularly later on in the game as Rinoa sheds some of her more Manic Pixie Dream Girl tendencies. It's ultimately Rinoa's love for Squall that quite literally redeems him from being lost forever in the timestream.
  • Final Fantasy XVI has the relationship between Clive and Jill eventually blossom into a full-on romance as she becomes Clive's rock and supports him during the most difficult times.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center:
  • Sabin René Figaro from Final Fantasy VI is built like a blonde brick house and pulls wrestling moves on trains, but outside combat he shows deep care and affection for other members of the party like Edgar (his brother), Cyan, Terra and Gau.
  • Barret Wallace from Final Fantasy VII looks and acts like a brutish thug for a lot of the game but this abruptly stops when in the vicinity of his adoptive daughter Marleen and he becomes a Gentle Giant. Barret also cares deeply for his True Companions Cloud and Tifa, though he wouldn't admit willingly.
    • Cloud the powerful Super-Soldier himself acts snarky, disinterested and aloof but when it comes down to the line he deeply cares for his loved ones, the prominent example being Tifa who can bring a rarely seen smile to Cloud's face in the Last Order: Final Fantasy VII OVA.
  • Kimahri Ronso from Final Fantasy X plays this role; the tallest party member, who is usually cold and aloof - to the point that the main character thought he was mute until he spoke up for the first time. His behavior concerning Yuna shows his softer center, which he keeps very well hidden the rest of the time.
    • Similarly Auron acts like an aloof and silent samurai but when it comes to Tidus, Yuna and even Rikku he is essentially Team Dad. Auron does this so well for Tidus that the latter respects him more than his own father Jecht.
  • Snow Villiers from Final Fantasy XIII . He's big, muscly and punches monsters twice his size square in the face! He also has a Badass Adorable girlfriend ^note who is only three years younger than him, it's just that he's more than a foot taller than her that he dotes on and can take punches from the bad guys just as well as he can give them.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer:
  • Cloud in Final Fantasy VII is a weird and unpleasant person with a cool-guy-yet-jerk persona, suspiciously spotty memories, and a tendency to have head-grabbing freakout episodes at strange times. He's so good at being a leader that everyone trusts him anyway, and push him to carry on even when he flat out tells them that if he does he'll end up going crazy. Even after he's revealed to have been a delusional liar who never really had any of his real credentials, the party is eager to have him back as a leader and overlook it when he starts threatening to dognap Shinra dogs or having claustrophobic panic attacks in submarines.
  • The brilliant engineer Dr. Cid from Final Fantasy XII fits this trope well—the Draklor Laboratory and the Archadian Empire as a whole manage to ignore his conversations with a not-so imaginary friend due to his skill at manufacturing airships and weapons with nethicite. Balthier, however, was not quite so tolerant.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, Godbert Manderville is a highly eccentric old man who dresses in a tuxedo with short-shorts (if even that). He is also the best goldsmith in all of Eorzea, using his considerable skills to amass a fortune that earned him a seat in Ul'dah's Syndicate and allowed him to open a highly successful entertainment establishment. Likewise, players can make their characters a bunny ears adventurer by wearing ridiculous outfits and picking all the silly/nonsensical dialogue replies to make their character look weird as hell, yet still highly respected for being very good at fighting the empire and slaying primals like it was a normal Tuesday. Supplementary material added in the Shadowbringers expansion reveals that the player character's past self also had a huge sense of justice and desire to help those in need while also having strange quirks, such as saving an island from being destroyed by a volcano instead of watching it as instructed just because they found the island's grapes delicious and didn't want to lose them.
• But Thou Must!:
  • Examples where giving the "wrong" answer makes it impossible to proceed until you give the "right" answer (including giving Non-Standard Game Overs):
    • In order to acquire the Guardian Force Bahamut in Final Fantasy VIII, Squall must answer a series of dialogue prompts. The first has only one answer available; the second has two, one which allows Squall to proceed and one which ends the dialogue, requiring the player to start it over again in order to continue the sidequest. The third prompt is where things really get tricky: when Bahamut asks Squall why he wishes to fight, the two visible options both result in a fight with a pair of dragons and a repetition of the question afterwards, and it takes picking a third, invisible dialogue option to proceed to the boss fight and complete the sidequest. However, the question itself is a kind of Lampshade Hanging on the concept. The question is, pretty much:" "Why do you fight?" To protect/none of your business/It's our nature. We must.
    • Lampshaded in an easter egg at the beginning of Final Fantasy IX At the Tantalus mission briefing the Leader asks Zidane who they're kidnapping to see if he knows what's going on. The two responses are Garnet and Queen Brahne. If you choose Brahne 64 times another Tantalus member inexplicably bursts out of a closet and demands you stop being so stubborn.
    • Final Fantasy X has one fairly blatant example: In one scene, Tidus and Yuna have a chat with one of the Fayth to discuss their battle plan to defeat Sin. If the player answers that they don't have a plan yet, the Fayth will tell you to go away and come back when you have a plan, and the scene fades to black...and then fades right back to the start of the conversation to let you try again.
    • Another, particularly egregious Final Fantasy example appears in the ending of Final Fantasy XIII-2, where much is made of the following decision: whether Noel should go through with killing Caius or spare his life. The game even provides a button-press option to choose between the two. But this is frustratingly betrayed by the plot in an example of this trope, because even if you choose to "spare" Caius, he commits suicide anyway and the exact same events unfold; this is doubly frustrating because according to the plot, Caius has a death wish and only Noel can kill him, but suddenly he can commit suicide using Noel's sword without Noel's volition - a sword that was never at any point in the plot described as having special Caius-killing power - raising the obvious question: why didn't Caius just off himself years ago if he didn't need Noel to kill him? Argh!
  • Examples where giving the "wrong" answer has little or no effect: All of them.
    • In Final Fantasy VII, you can have Cloud refuse to bodyguard Aerith in the Sector 5 church, but it doesn't matter, he'll end up doing it anyway. It does affect Relationship Values though.
    • In Final Fantasy VI, Terra is asked to help the Returners defeat the Empire. If she says yes, she is given a Gauntlet, a nice Relic that lets you increase your attack power. If she says no, the Returners will attempt to convince her, but she can continue to refuse up to three times. After the third time, the Empire attacks the Returner hideout anyway (though you miss out on the scene where the Returners discuss their plan to get Terra to talk to the Frozen Esper in Narshe), and she is given a Genji Glove Relic, which normally can't be found until much, much later in the story^note The first one is found in the Cave to the Esper World, towards the end of the first half of the game, making it far more valuable to refuse to assist. From there, however, the game continues exactly as it did if you said yes, as Terra is swept up in the attack and forced to flee with the Returners, who are heading to Narshe anyway.
    • In the Timber section of Final Fantasy VIII, incorrectly giving the password to the resistance only has a tiny impact on the game: you don't get a SeeD promotion, but the resistance contact knows you're the mercenaries that were hired and brings you to the hideout anyway. Likewise, when coordinating Garden's defense at the beginning of the Battle Between the Gardens, your decisions don't change the way the battle goes, just your SeeD rating: if you give the correct orders and don't give any useless orders, you get promoted. If you forget an important order or give an extraneous order, one of your adult mentors will just interrupt you to give the correct orders anyway (and you don't get a promotion).
    • There's also the interrogation scene from Final Fantasy VIII at the D-District Prison, during which Squall has a choice between lying in order to stay alive and taunting the angry guy controlling the lever to electrocute you. Despite the Violation of Common Sense implicit in the latter, it is the "correct" choice and results shortly thereafter in a reward^note The taunting is intended to get the interrogator to make a mistake and kill you so that you don't break under torture and give away secrets, but since the point of the interrogation is to extract information Squall doesn't have so that the torturer can confirm information they already know, the lie doesn't do anything significant.
  • Examples where there is no "wrong" answer available to choose:
    • One of the funniest of these in Final Fantasy IX involves Steiner. When he's with Garnet and they're trying to cross back to Lindbum, Steiner encounters a guy who's been slacking off on his work, which is the reason why South Gate has been messed up.
      Steiner: (thinking) You were the reason we couldn't come in through this gate! (Choice: Kill! / Don't kill.)
      Kill!: (Garnet kicks Steiner from inside the bag she's stuffed in) I almost lost control of myself!
      Don't kill: I must tolerate him for the sake of the princess!
    • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, during the "Distant Glory: Heroes" segment, the third map opens with Shantotto offering the player a job. You can see two opposing choices, (which basically amount to "yes" and "no, shorty") but you literally can't move the cursor to the "No" option, so it may as well not be there. Upon giving up and choosing the yes option, Shantotto delivers the lampshading quote seen at the top of the page.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • In the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, the main character Cloud fits this to a T. Wanted to join SOLDIER? Nope, stuck in the Shin-Ra regulars. Captured and tortured by Hojo for years after his hometown is destroyed by his former idol and his mother burns to death in front of him. Upon escaping, witnesses his best friend Zack getting set upon and killed by the aforementioned Shin-Ra regulars. All of them. His mind then shatters and he constructs a persona based on Zack and other SOLDIER members to cope. Is convinced to dress up like a woman to infiltrate the home of a pimp to save his childhood crush, and is the one picked to entertain the pimp for the night. Oh, not to mention the fact that the potential love interest gets skewered like a mini hot dog on a toothpick in front of our hapless hero by the former idol, the original One-Winged-Angel himself. Once he recovers from that, he tries to stop Sephiroth, but insteads gets totally Mind-Raped by Sephiroth into handing over the Black Materia, the key to the destruction of the world, then gets chucked into the Lifestream. Once he recovers from that, he does okay... until Advent Children, where it's revealed that he's contracted the lethal disease Geostigma, is suffering from a combination of depression and PTSD, and one of the children he's taking care of with the aforementioned childhood crush has the disease as well, causing him to question his ability to get anything right and leave to, well, in all probability to die alone somewhere. At this point he just can't fathom anything going his way. You can see it in the relieved look he has in the movie's happy ending that he's really, really amazed that everything turned out okay. In short, the poor bastard is a walking Diabolus ex Machina magnet. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong for Cloud.
  • Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light has Yunita... poor Yunita. Brandt and Jusqua first find her about to be killed by monsters as the Sole Survivor of Aire's retainer. Then Aire thoroughly berates her for not rescuing her quickly enough. When the party splits, Brandt ditches Yunita in Guera out of his own inferiority complex, and the next time the player finds her is when Jusqua goes to Urbeth—she's one of the vagabonds in the town square, having been conned out of the very clothes on her back and feeling like a worthless failure. And then Jusqua runs off during the night! After that, fortunately, she gets herself out of her funk and things improve for her.
  • Final Fantasy XIII-2 has Mog being poked, hold, and thrown around.