Sunday, January 5, 2020

What makes a Final Fantasy Hero: Part 3.3: "Deaths"

Here's 3.3 of where I make fun of certain cliches that happens to the main characters of Final Fantasy. I be discussing characters who "died" in the game's ending or final battle. Be warned, there will be spoilers. If there is a certain FF game you don't want to be spoiled, skip the entry.

I already did games FF1 to FF13 in the past. I was never into the MMO FF games so be skipping 11 and 14. Since I posted the original articles, I played some of the newer FF games and I be adding the newer games in this entry.
If you want to see, here's the link to my previous articles of the "What makes a Final Fantasy Hero".


From Final Fantasy Type-0 is Class Zero
The world is at war and Rubrum's last line of defense a magical school training child soldiers. Class Zero is a class that was secret to the school itself till they went public at the start of the game.

Ace is normally has the spotlight of the game but really, he gets as much screentime as his classmates. The two new recruits, Machina and Rem get more screentime and character development compared to the others.

So how they die?

1st, I'm going to talk about Machina and Rem and then the rest of Class Zero

A one point 3/4 in the game, Machina was not happy at the team for being partly responsible for the death of his brother and Rem's incurable illness is getting more noticeable, he storms off on his own. He meets the Empire's crystal champion(I'Cie), wanting to get more stronger, he takes the powers from the Empire's champion. However, this somewhat gave him a split personality as he wonders off incognito as the Emperor's hitman and not remember afterwards.

When the main gang were off to the game's final dungeon, Rem's sickness went bad and she collapsed and not wake up. Not long after, Rubrum's crystal made Rem into it's guardian where she has superpowers. Soon she and the Empire's champion clashed and as she gets stabbed, they both realized who they were fighting. As she was dying in his arms, they turn into crystal statues.

As for the remainder of Class Zero, well there's a true ending and bad ending.

When they defeated the empire and went back home, extra-dimensional beings(Rursan Reavers) were released all over the world and slaughtering everything in site. Our heroes realized they have to go the final dungeon. Partway in the final dungeon, they were offer a choice by their country's crystal, become I'Cie or remain mortal to fight the main villain. If they become I'Cie, they go out to the world map and fight all the Rursan Reavers but they were overwhelmed by their numbers and died. That's the bad ending. According to post-game info, the bad ending has happened over 600 million times in the past. Class Zero's "Mother", Arecia hits the planet's reset button and a new cycle begins. She and Gala have been doing this on experimenting on ways to find and burst open the gate to the afterlife.


In the true ending, they went to the final boss who is this game's Cid and fought him. They fought him and won but they were badly wounded from their battle. They were teleported to their classroom and talk about this is the end and if they live, they came up with plans of what they do with their lives since the war is over. Machina and Rem found them all dead as they were sitting together and holding hands.

Did Machina and Rem survived? Two members of Class Zero from a previous timeline talked to Arecia and this convinced her to do things differently. She used her powers to make Machina and Rem wake up from their crystal sleep and they found the bodies of Class Zero. They told tales of their journey and the couple got married.


Did Class Zero survived? No, maybe Yes?

There is an alternate what-if ending if there was no war and the world of FF Type-0 was a cheesy romance high school comedy with a equally cheesy J-pop song translated into English.

Some say this is alternate world. Others say when Arecia left the world, she took the crystals with her and this caused the world to reset again but there is no war going in this timeline.

There is another bonus ending. It doesn't say much but it shows the formally dead Ace waking up in feudal Japanese armor and covered in flames, like a phoenix.
What does this mean? Is it a idea of a sequel, spinoff, alternate universe. Is this the very same Ace? To this day, there's hasn't been much said.




World of Final Fantasy has the twins, Lann and Reynn.
They with no memory of their past life, they were sent into the world of Grimoire to collect mirages(basically the FF version of Pokemon) and save the world.


So did they die? Well there's a bad ending and a true ending.

In the bad ending, Lann goes against the main villain and used his powers to seal up the villain and himself in a bunch of glowing cubes. Reynn is upset her brother is gone and goes home and sulks.

In the true ending, they were far more prepared and knew how to control their powers better. They sealed up the villain in a glowing cube and threw him, all the invading robot army, and themselves into an extra-dimensional gate, disappearing from the world of Grimoire.

Did they survived? In the bad ending, Reynn was upset and soon she met the evolved form of her main mirage. It sacrificed it's 9 lives to set the clock back just before they raided the villain's fortress. They came up with a plan to do thing differently and be more prepared, which leads to the true ending.

In the true ending, the twins were absorbed by the extra-dimensional gate. They weren't dead, they just having more adventures in other worlds. Maybe a hint of a sequel?

As they left, they leave copies of themselves in Grimoire, mostly to do with all the post-game content.




 Final Fantasy 15 has Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum who tried to restore his recently fallen kingdom.


Did he died?

Towards the end of the game, he was told by god-like beings that he is the chosen king who ultimately put an end the the game's villain and save the world, at the cost of his life.

He gets absorbed by the crystal and then comes back to the real world 10 years later. The world has never saw it's sun in the past decade and demons roam the land. The only way to save the world is to kill the source of the plague of demons, physically and spiritually. The main villain Ardyn who sits on the throne of the kingdom.

After killing his physical body. Noctis sits on the throne and uses his powers to summons the spirits of all the rulers of the kingdom. Each member stuck a fatal blow on the newly appointed king and the last blow with a sad look on his face was done by his father.

Noctis then meets Ardyn in the afterlife and summons the spirits of his bloodline to lay waste to the villain. Thus ending Ardyn's immortally and restoring the world to light.

Did he survive? No, but yes in other timelines.

He dies for real and marries Luna in the afterlife and becomes king.


There is DLC that tells stories of Noctis' friends when they were separate from Noctis. One is about Ignis who is team's cook and driver when Noctis was unconscious during an attack on a city and you play Ignis during the chaos.

During 2/3s in the DLC chapter, Ignis gets a vision of game's ending of Noctis dying. You meet Ardyn and you were given a choice, follow him and fight him. He fights him and grabs Noctis' royal ring and used it's powers to force Ardyn to retreat. Since he isn't of royal blood, it comes with a price, it makes him blind for the remainder of the game. Knowing Noctis' fate one day, he knows the prince wouldn't back down and would keep going, even it cost him his life.

If you choose to follow Ardyn, you get to an alternate ending. Ignis follows him to the empire's lair and learns of his real identity and goals. Not wanting the villain to win or Noctis dying. He uses the royal ring and offer his own life if it means changing fate.

Ignis killed Ardyn's physically body but was now dying. Noctis and gang found him and the prince uses the crystal's powers to heal up Ignis. We now have an ending where Noctis isn't dead and Ignis isn't blind. Due to Ardyn being alive in the astral world, Ignis has made plans when he returns.


There were more plans for a 4-part DLC but the project was abandon and the game's director stepped down. Only the 1st part was made and released when the project was abandoned.
Part 1 was based on the villain and how started as a good man with was trying to do great things, only to betrayed by his brother and turned into a demon. He woke up centuries later, wanted to have revenge on his brother's bloodline. He soon learn from god-like being of the prophesy of Noctis slaying him and saving the world. He was unhappy that he is this plaything of the gods.

You were given a choice, either accept your fate or denied it. Accepting it will leads to the canonical end of the game where he's at least somewhat happy his immortally ends and the Lucis bloodline ends with Noctis in the future.

If you denied it, it leads to this alternate timeline. It stays the same up till near the end of the game.

While parts 2-4 weren't released, a book that was based on the entire 4-part series was released as Dawn of the Future.

During the time when Noctis wakes up from his 10 year nap and sees the world trapped in an eternal night. The god-like being Bahamut resurrects Lunafreya and task her with goals.
She learns that Bahamut change plans with Noctis ending Ardyn, the source of the plague that's turning people into demons. He plans to unleash Teraflare to wipe out all life on the planet to end the plague. Luna goes to Ardyn and tells him everything. He doesn't want to help at first but he changes his mind. Mostly because he hates being Bahamut's plaything.

At the end, she, Ardyn, all the summons(minus Bahamut), and Noctis and his friends team up to fight against Bahamut.

Everyone is happy in this ending. Noctis and Luna get married as his dad and her brother's spirits watch. Even Ardyn gets a happy ending in the afterlife where his love interest from centuries ago greets him while in the physical world, Noctis acknowledges him as the true founder of the kingdom.

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