People die in every mainlineFinal Fantasy.It’s just a thing that happens. Knowing how quickly it happens, however, is the kind of knowledge that is utterly useless and generally uninteresting. Note that I saidgenerally. For a solemn few, myself included, meaningless statistics about favourite media franchises are an oddly exhilarating source of intrigue.
Are you my friend? Do you, too, thrive on minutiae? Do you want the internet to have an unrivaled repository of data illustrating the precise point upon whicha named character perishes for the very first time within Final Fantasy,from the first to the sixteenth? Swell. Let’s do it.
I’m not going to count monsters for this unless they actually speak, displaying surefire sentience. Sorry, Whelk/Ymir. Your moans don’t count.
Final Fantasy 11 and 14 are also excluded. Not because they’re MMOs, but becauseby nature of being MMOs,named character deaths can occur at differing points depending on when various quests are accepted. It doesn’t help that each of the two games has selectable starting cities with their own storylines!
14Final Fantasy 10
Time Of Death: ~9 Hours Into The Game
For a game about death, processing death, and what may await us in the great beyond, Final Fantasy 10 is surprisingly kind to its cast for the first several hours. Now, one might be briefly inclined to say that the dreadfully-named Zanar, a sports announcer in Zanarkand, is the first named character to die. Zanarkand is seemingly destroyed roughly ten minutes in, and certainly, Zanar would have perished in the explosion.
One must remember, however, that the real Zanar has been dead for a thousand years. This iteration of Zanarkand is the Dream of the Fayth. Its denizens aren’t truly alive. In which case, we must fast-forward some nine-odd hours to Operation Mi’ihen. The ill-fated assault on Sin provided a similarly grim destiny foreither Luzzu or Gatta
Who lived, and who died, is dictated by a choice the player makes shortly before Sin’s ferocious counterattack. I usually go for Gatta, because it’s a darker spin on the story. What about y’all?
13Final Fantasy 8
Time Of Death: ~8 Hours Into The Game
Final Fantasy 8 claims its first of relatively few named victims toward the conclusion of its first (of four) discs. The sorceress Edea murdered power-hungry Galbadian President Vinzer Deling in cold blood with a purplish spell that leaves no question he was dead as a door nail.
With his corpse brushed aside, Edea - or rather, Ultimecia - went on to celebrate herself with intense revelry. That is, until Squall Leonhart crashed a classy-looking automobile into a gate, which somewhat spoiled the CG-fueled festivities.
12Final Fantasy 5
Time Of Death: ~3 Hours Into The Game
Faris Scherwiz' beloved sea dragon friend,Syldra, almost died about an hour into Final Fantasy 5 when a whirlpool erupted over Faris' ship. The good news is, she lived. The bad news is, she died not much later than that, saving Faris and her newfound friends from the destruction wrought by the Tower of Walse.
With the last of her strength, she ferried the quartet of heroes to the shoreline. Thankfully, her spirit was still not-alive-and-kicking at the Pirates' Hideout much later on, allowing the Warriors of Light to tap into her power as a summon spell, and proving that Syldra possesses an unending desire to defend Faris.
11Final Fantasy 7
Time Of Death: ~2.5 Hours Into The Game
Cloud Strife and Aerith Gainsborough head to the seedy mansion of the seedier Don Corneo in a bid to rescue Tifa Lockhart from his creepy clutches. The whole sequence is timeless in that distinctly Final Fantasy 7 way, and it’s all the better in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. But we’re here for the OG version.
If the cross-dressing Cloud is not chosen to be Corneo’s “bride”, he’ll have to fight his way out of an awkward situation whenScotch, one of Corneo’s henchmen, and an assortment of unnamed underlings find out their quasi-date has been hiding quite the secret. Scotch kicks the bucket in the ensuing kerfuffle.
Should Cloud be chosen, the first named death would be Aps, Corneo’s pet, about 20 minutes later.
10Final Fantasy 4
Time Of Death: ~2 Hours Into The Game
Although it’s the first time Final Fantasy really pushes for a complex story, Final Fantasy 4 is something of a breakneck experience. The full plot can be experienced within 15-20 hours with relative ease.
Thus,Anna, daughter to Tellah and paramour to Prince Edward Chris von Muir, faded away a mere two hours into the proceedings. Itfeelslike longer, but by this point, a lot had already transpired. Anna’s spirit assisted Edward in overcoming his grief a little further on, but she had very much expired by then.
If Rydia’s mother had a canon name, she’d be the first person I’d list here, and that’d be about 20 minutes in; alas, while I can only assume she possessed one, no official source has ever mentioned it.
9Final Fantasy 15
Time Of Death: ~80 Minutes Into The Game
This one’sweird, right? So much of Final Fantasy 15’s story is so oddly told. By now, I reckon that most of you know what’s up with all of that, so let’s cut to the chase.Arguably, the first on-screen death of a named character in FF15 is 80-ish minutes or so into the game.
We don’t see the exact moment that King Regis Lucis Caelum sacrifices himself to General Glauca’s blade, because that’s all part of Kingsglaive, the prequel movie that really ought to have been FF15’s actual prologue. Instead, we see him a few seconds prior via flashback footage from the movie itself, as Cid Sophiar tells the party of the king’s demise.
There’s no indirect implication here; Regis' murder is conveyed. Does this mean that a bunch of named characters died prior to FF15’s opening sequence? It sure does, because Kingsglaive effectivelyisthe opening sequence. But so it goes; I’m not going to label this “~Negative Minutes Into The Game”, because that’s cheating.
Should you decide not to count Regis - as I mentioned, we don’t see the blade go through him in the game, just the film - then uh, I guess the first named death in the game would be Loqi Tummelt. Offhand, I’d clock this at around four hours in.
8Final Fantasy 13
Time Of Death: ~35 Minutes Into The Game
“Moms are tough.” These weren’t actually the final words ofNora Estheim, but they’ve been immortalized by way of meme to the point that it rather feels as though they were. Another minute or two later, and Hope’s mother fell to her death after Snow Villiers lost his grip.
There is something darkly funny about the fact that Nora fell from a ledge in a place called Hanging Edge. I’m sorry, Nora. It had to be said.
7Final Fantasy 3
Time Of Death: ~30 Minutes Into The Game
The Djinnisn’t much of a name. I’ll readily admit it. But he speaks his evil words and does his evil deeds and very clearly identifies himself asThe Djinn.He placed the poor citizens of Kazus and its neighboring castle under a curse which turned them into ghosts, but with his defeat, the foul thing was undone. And yep, sure enough, that happens around half an hour into Final Fantasy 3.
Here’s a fun fact, since there’s not much else to say about this one. In the 2D version of FF3, the party is a full four team members from the get-go. But, in the 3D remake, it takes a bit of time to assemble everybody; The Djinn’s the first boss with the full party assembled. (It may take you closer to 45-60 minutes to get to him in the 3D version, for the record.)
6Final Fantasy 2
Time Of Death: ~25 Minutes Into The Game
For a guy who dies just 25-odd minutes into his game,Scottis a pretty helpful fellow. After sustaining mortal wounds from the Palamecian Empire’s ruthless attack on Fynn Castle, he not only forked over the Map Ring, which used to be the only way to view Final Fantasy 2’s world map; he also clued Firion, Maria, and Guy in on the wicked schemes of an alleged ally, Borghen.
Not to diminish these dual achievements, but in Final Fantasy 2’s Pixel Remaster version, the Map Ring is positively useless. You can access the world map at any time, including those precious 25 minutes prior to obtaining it. Oh well - how was Scott to know his game would be getting ports 30+ years into the future?
You get to play as Scott and three other deceased allies in a nifty postgame story in numerous versions of FF2. Too bad Pixel Remaster isn’t one of them. I really wish Square Enix hadn’t deprived these otherwise-terrific modern ports of the bonus content added in previous post-release versions…
5Final Fantasy 16
Time Of Death: 17 Minutes Into The Game
One of precious few deaths that I can rather precisely time,Biastof the Sanbreque squad known as the Wyverns dies to a falling boulder just 17 minutes into Final Fantasy 16’s opening sequence. Chronologically speaking, his death isn’t the first; an extensive prologue starts not long afterward, jumping back 13 years. But it’s certainly the first named death we, as players, behold.
Is Titan the killer? Or is it a combination of Titan and Shiva? That’s harder to say.
