Best and Worst Plot Twists

WanderingAesthetic

WanderingAesthetic

Blue Mage
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What do you think the best and worst plot twists in the series are?

My favorite is in VII with
the reveal of Zack's existence. Though this is hardly a spoiler now, I was going "What? What? WHAT?" the first time I played the game and saw Zack in Cloud's Nibelheim memories. I knew there was something up with Cloud and his past, but I wasn't expecting that. I called Zack "the anti-Cloud" before I found out more about him.

The worst, IMO, is the reveal in VIII that
all your party except Rinoa grew up together. It just seemed like an extremely contrived coincidence, and though there was a little bit of foreshadowing about their missing memories, I totally missed it the first time through. It really hurt my enjoyment of the game for a while.

So what do you guys think?
 
Hm...my favorite was probably
when Aerith died
in FFVII. The first time I saw it, my jaw dropped. It seemed like it just came out of nowhere, I was shocked that they actually did that. I wouldn't be surprised if its the last time it'll ever happen in a Final Fantasy. The fandom for each character before the game even comes out is insane.
Killing off a character
would probably spark outrage.

My least favorite, while probably equally shocking for me as the FFVII one, would be the Orphanage scene
where you find out all of them except Rinoa grew up together.
I must agree with WanderingAesthetic on that one. Though when I first played the game as a much younger person, it was something else. Having gotten older since then though, it probably was poorly done. The last time I saw the scene was actually the first time I played it, hard to say how I'd feel with playing through the whole game again.

From what I can remember though, I think they could have tried harder with it, at least a little bit. Even though its a fictional game,
the chances of all of the orphans growing up and coming back together under the exact same occupation to save the world (minus Seifer) is next to impossible.

Other honorable (positive) mentions would be about Zack, like you said.
Tidus disappearing, Yuna being a sacrifice, and Auron already being dead all surprised me
in FFX. Now I'm not sure if those were all really good/sudden plot points or if I'm just really gullible. :gonk:
 
Really didn't like [-] (spoilers from the older games below )

:Final Fantasy IV:
[-] Everybody who died or sacrificed themselves so Cecil could journey on was all in vain.When Yang Cid and the twins made their sacrifices it made you respect their courage and bravery. It made you know that they are on a dangerous adventure. But then finding out that they all survived their almost near almost survivable risks it just made the sacrifices they all did before kind of pointless. It was almost saying and the point of watching Cid fall down from the airship.. was.. ?? ( to look cool ?)

:Final Fantasy V:
[-] Galuf coming from a another planet was okay to find out. But finding out that he rides on meteors like a rocketship. ?? What was SE smoking back then ?? o_O

: Final Fantasy VI:
[-] Ultors working in the coliseum was kind of odd though it kind of suited his goofy personality so won't be harsh on him there, but yeah it was whoa material.. o_O
[-] Not sure if really was keen on finding out about young teens becoming pregent it's normal stuff now, but yeah something just seems really off about it all...

:Final Fantasy VII
[-] Cait Sith coming back twice at the temple of the ancients it was just like the FFIV reason above. It made you respect and forgive Cait Sith for his tratiorism but him coming back was kind of saying again, the point of the sacrifices....... was..... ???

:Final Fantasy VIII
[-] Everybody dislikes the memory lost timetwist but wasn't too keen on the Balamb- Highschool- that- can- fly- plotwist..

(spoilers about the newer games below )

: Final Fantasy IX
[-] Can't remember might get back on this one

: Final Fantasy X
[-] Don't think there was anything too bad though watching Seymour grab Yuna and kiss her was pretty disturbing to watch.. (dead face )

: Final Fantasy XIII
[-] still playing it through..

Really liked [+] (spoilers about the older games below)
: Final Fantasy IV
[+] Cecil's transformation into Paladin Knight
: Final Fantasy V
[+] Finding out the truth about Bartzs Father was cool..
: Final Fantasy VI
[+] : Kefka finally gaining control of the world and causing world domination
: Final Fantasy VII
[+] : Cloud giving Sephiroth the Black Materia didn't think in a million years that it was going to happen and still have nightmares about it from this day..
: Final Fantasy VIII
[+] : Rinoa turning into a Sorceress that was a really great plotwist because in gave a change in Squall and it made him realize that you can't take certain people/others for granted..

Really liked [+] ( Spoilers about the newer games below )
: Final Fantasy IX
[+]
Zidane finding out that he was the brother to Kuja and the next in line to become the angel of death
: Final Fantasy X
[+]
Finding out the truth about the final summoning
 
WanderingAesthetic said:
What do you think the best and worst plot twists in the series are?

My favorite is in VII with
the reveal of Zack's existence. Though this is hardly a spoiler now, I was going "What? What? WHAT?" the first time I played the game and saw Zack in Cloud's Nibelheim memories. I knew there was something up with Cloud and his past, but I wasn't expecting that. I called Zack "the anti-Cloud" before I found out more about him.

The worst, IMO, is the reveal in VIII that
all your party except Rinoa grew up together. It just seemed like an extremely contrived coincidence, and though there was a little bit of foreshadowing about their missing memories, I totally missed it the first time through. It really hurt my enjoyment of the game for a while.

So what do you guys think?
Click to expand...

Mine was that exact same thing. I was like "wow!!" when I found out that
Cloud was acting like someone else due to mako poisoning and mental instability
. It caught me off guard and the game seemed so different. It got me thinking a lot about Zack until Square blessed us with Crisis Core :awesome:

My least favorite plot twist was in Dirge, when you find out
that Hojo was controlling Weiss
. I loved Weiss and his proclamation about the un-pure ones was epic. Then I find out that my least favorite character in the series was controlling him. I was so relieved when Nero got rid of him for good :thehell:
 
I will still never get over the fact that
Golbez was Cecil's brother
in IV. That was COMPLETELY out of nowhere. Which made it great--there were some good reveals in X about
Auron and Seymour being dead
, but there were clues leading up to it so it was slightly less of a shock. It may just be that IV's dialogue was a little less developed because it was an earlier game, but really any time there was a plot twist it seemed to come out of nowhere--
Kain betraying the party AGAIN after he'd already done it once (when he takes the last Dark Crystal)
was pretty surprising too. I still haven't finished the DS version--there may be hints dropped throughout some of the conversations in that one--but in the SNES version there certainly weren't any that I can remember.
 
VIII was responsible for some of the worst, in my opinion. They were far too left field, or just poorly handled.

1.
The ever-infamous orphan revelation, and using GFs as a horrible means of excusing it.

2. The "our school happens to fly" twist that came later in the game, just in time to bail you all out.

3.
The plot twist of Ultimecia herself. This one was particularly bad because there was no hint of her for most of the game, not even the most vague suggestion. Then, all of a sudden, this woman you've never heard of is suddenly supposed to be some be-all-end-all enemy for you to face. And then to add that, Time Compression...
 
My favorite plot twist would have to be the world going to ruin in VI and Kefka pretty much ruling over it. Usually the villian doesn't fully accomplish his goal in a video game.

The whole orphanage twist isn't that bad actually as it drives much of the plot. (Seifer wanting to protect Edea because he never lost his memory because he never used the GF's, thus saw Edea as his mother, Irvine's feelings for Selphie were only brotherly)

My least favorite plot twist would have to be the whole Tidus is only a dream. It just felt very out of place in X because so much else was already going on. It felt like it was only added so that Tidus has a reason to disappear at the end without actually being killed so that he and Yuna could have an emotional exchange. And it made the whole relationship between Tidus and Yuna very strange. I would have much rather the plot twist had been that Tidus really was from Spira and that he really did get too close to Sin and his memories of Zanarkand would have been someone else's memories of the past. They could have easily used that as a reason for Tidus not being fond of the summoners sacrifice or Yu Yevon.
 
in the orphanage twist; when edea recieved sorceress power a few year prior, she felt that these specific children had a connection to the sorceress so she had cid use his connections to have them out of the orphanage, to be adopted by families and later sending them to gardens to tain SeeD to stop the sorceress
 
Really? The orphanage plot twist is a huge coincidence?
They
were all together in the orphanage until they were transferred to garden. All of them are almost the same age and started training at the same time. That means that they will cross paths sooner or later especially if they become SeeDs. I think that there were other children in the orphanage, too, not only the main characters.

HighwindPilot said:
3.
The plot twist of Ultimecia herself. This one was particularly bad because there was no hint of her for most of the game, not even the most vague suggestion. Then, all of a sudden, this woman you've never heard of is suddenly supposed to be some be-all-end-all enemy for you to face. And then to add that, Time Compression...
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but I have to comment this, too.
Why is that so bad? She is actually there from the beginning but without your knowledge. It kinda reminds of IV
where Zemus is introduced much later then Ultimecia was in VIII
. It doesn't need to be like in VII. It seems that everyone compares games, especially RPGs, to FFVII.

Anyway...
My favorite and least favorite plot twist come from the same game, FFVII.
Favorite:
The part where you find out that Cloud was Zack from the beginning of the story.
Now you haven't expected this, but my least favorite plot twist is
when Aerith dies. It was so predictable, even in the first hours of the game. They were like showing Aerith "in your face" all the time just to like her. Even in the dating mini game it was a much higher chance to get her then the others. Developers tried so hard to make Aerith stand up from your other party members and later 'kill' her.
 
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I can't particularly think of a favourite plot twist in a Final Fantasy title given I've not played a PS1 era title or before and think Post-PS1 era has generally predictable or poor storylines. That being said, I've played too many AAA storyline titles over the last few years for FF to be amazing.

As for the worst, credit goes to Final Fantasy XIII with
Orphan at the end of the game, it has to be the most ridiculous twist in a game ever and pointless at that, it feels like it was shoved in there as a final boss fight for the sake of it. There was very few, if any references of Orphan throughout the whole game which a) made it surprising that this "thing" just suddenly appears at the end and b) made it pointless since you'd hope the last boss with have a solid background and development :ffs:
 
One of my favourite plot twists was
finding out that Edea was Cid's wife, who actually raised every protagonist asides from Rinoa, who nobody really cared about. I think the whole orphan thing was quite cute, it was just extremely poorly handled...it seemed like the GF excuse was thrown together at the last second. It would have been better if Edea had wiped their memories or something. Edea's relationship with the protagonists was awesome. Why they couldn't remember this was what ruined it.

The worst plot twist was easily in FFXIII, when it was revealed that
FFXIII didn't have an actual plot.
 
My least favorite was in ffiv where
Kain gets posessed every five seconds
it was just frustrating to me...
 
FFVI gets my mention for the best plot twist. You have Kefka enter the stage and initiates a tremendous cataclysm on the world, creating the World of Ruin. He essentially destroys the world, something that villains of this type always attempt to do, but Kefka actually managed this feat, marking him as being one of the most prestigious villains in the series. Not bad coming from a madman dressed as a clown who would initially run away instead of fighting you. =D

The worst? It's usually the punching bag villains. Necron is one of them. He comes in from out of nowhere and takes over the "final boss" crown in FFIX. Ultimecia suddenly exists in FFVIII from out of the blue when you're expecting Edea to be a greater source of villainy. But neither get anywhere as close to the direness that was FFXIII.
Orphan. Everything to do with that wheel bastard. We spend much of the game wondering who are our villains. The Sanctum government? Galenth Dysley? The Fal'Cie Eden? Then suddenly Orphan is mentioned once, then a few times and then suddenly we are thrown into a battle against it without actually getting a full picture of why we are fighting him. The "battery" of Cocoon? His death would mean the death of other Fal'Cies? Then what was this hype about with Eden being the "Trinity" Fal'Cie if Orphan suddenly walks in at the top of the hierarchy? Having Eden as some cunning orchestrator as opposed to Barthandelus and Orphan would have been MUCH GREATER SENSE. :gonk:
 
My favourite plot twists would be in FFVI when
you learn that Terra is half human, half Esper. There was hints about it before ramuh told the party however. The fact that Ghestahl betrays the returners but letting Kefka out of prison was unexpected IMO.

In FFVII,
I was really surprise learning that cloud was actually the guard accompanying Sephiroth. I tough on my first playthrough for a second that he had false memories and was in one of those mako cabin in the reactor.

The worst plot twist is definitely in FFVIII and it's the same as some of the others members posted:
All the character grew up in the same ophanage and they are all seeds in their adult life.
What kind of coincidence is that? Even in a fictional book, an author wouldn't have come up with something like that...
 
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My favourite plot twists were;

In FFVII
I liked that Cloud has false memories, because it made the story all that more complicated/interesting. I was kind of expecting it, though. Also, just when I thought he hadn't been there at all, it was revealed he was there but as a normal mercenary guy, I liked that too.

In FFVIII
when it was revealed that Edea wasn't evil and that it was Ultimecia controlling other sorceresses and that Rinoa was next. I also didn't mind Ultimecia appearing late on in the game, because she'd actually been present (sort of) for the whole game... not just randomly appearing at the end. (I'm looking at you, Necron of FFIX)

Edit; oh yeah, in FFVII
when Aeris dies. I hated her character and she was rubbish in battle, I wasn't sad to see her go at all. I WAS surprised, though.

My least favourite;

In FFX
when it was revealed Tidus was a dream. Raaaage, I was so annoyed, I think it would have been perfectly fine if he really had just been transported forward in time and then stayed in Spira as it was then instead of just being a dream. He and Yuna should have had their happy ending, there was no need for Tidus to disappear. The fact that he disappeared also created the plot for the worst FF ever made, FFX-2
:mokken:
 
My favorite Plot twists were in FF9. Firstly,
when Freya finally reunites with Fratley, only to find out he cannot remember her or much less anything else
. Then,
when Zidane learns that he was actually created to destroy the very planet he's been trying to save.
, sort of like Goku from DBZ (and ironic how both have monkey tails. Hmm....)

The worst twist was actually with a lot of games and has been mentioned before: sudden, unknown final bosses that actually have little to no references in the game itself until the very end. I prefer having a villain that you build up a hate for and have the satisfaction of offing at the very end, like Sephiroth and Kefka. Kuja would have been great alone as a final boss,
but then Necron shows up out of nowhere an provided even less of a challenge than Trance Kuja.
 
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