Looking back at this Yoshi P statement(story spoilers)

[KizuyaKatogami]

snip

ff4 also had an actual character death. FF6 actually has shadow die if you dont end up doing a niche thing that 99% of players are not going to do their first time through. FF7 doesnt need to be explained. FF2 has numerous promininent characters die as well. 10 as well. 12 had some prominent characters die as well. Namely reks and reddas, one of them whose death is what even serves as a catalyst for one of the main characters drive to move forward, and the other resulting in the main cast being saved. Type 0 also had many deaths as well so again, its almost a staple in the ff games, but since you brought up ff6, yes, it was an end of the world scenario that actually went through with the end of the world, not just one or two zones but the ENTIRE WORLD.

As far as Graha goes, end of shb conflict involving him was a massive plot hole anyways so i wouldnt really mark tht as a good thing or good writing, as far as your lol scions leveling up comment goes, yshtola, if we go by HW, should actually be the opposite, her health is supposed to be deteriorating. Keeping characters alive and resorting to plot armor to do so can come with just as much baggage if not worse, so im not sure thats a good excuse tbh. Especially when it comes at the cost of trying to portray the strength of some antagonists. Again, it doesnt make sense for the scions to suffer more consequences at the hands of primals or garleans than god-like beings and an apocalyptic end of the world scenario, it just doesnt. It also doesnt help when the head developer of the game continuously preaches "be careful just because a scion is locked behind a side quest doesnt mean theyre safe, no one is safe, this expansion is the highest stakes yet." Thats borderline false advertising. Like someone else in here said, you guys all want to say how killing off characters can be detrimental?So can the constant death flags and fake preaching.

I've played almost every ff game, and almost all of them have far more consequences and death than 14 does.

Arenvald may not be a “main party member”, but again, how often is a main party member killed or severely injured to the point they can’t go on fighting anymore in the middle of an Final Fantasy game? I can only think of two cases in the whole series where that happened outside of the ending and both of those were over twenty years ago.

Meanwhile there are many cases of that happening to a guest party member and I feel like Arenvald would qualify. Guest party members are often used in FF games to flit in and out of the story and have bad stuff happen to them to increase the stakes without depriving the player of a main character.

I’m still not sure why there’s a fervent desire to have main characters killed anyway. I feel like the current main characters are so established that many players will feel put off if they killed one of them and enjoyment will be lost.

And what of those that feel that way for the antagonists and feel put off? It doesnt prevent them from being killed off now does it? As far as party member injured or killed, ff7,ff6,ff5,ff4,ff type 0,im sure theres more i cant think of atm. Arenvald literally wasnt even in the ShB story until that patch he came out of nowhere. Thats a perfect example of what we dont want, people just being introduced or reintroduced for the sake of "oh yeah see? We totallyyyy have consequences look at this random side character that just had a repercussion." That just feels half assed.

[Kyrj]

I mean, okay? I have a hard time believing anything they say about death when they constantly do fake outs every expansion. Even at 5.3/5.3 Y'shtola had "died" what 2 times already? Idk I've lost count. Also, I'm going to be that person, the ending to Endwalker was complete garbage. It was basically Oprah Winfrey just going "You get a fake out death and you get a fake out death! EVERYBODY GETS FAKE OUT DEAAAAAAAAATHHHHHSSSSS!!!!!!11!!!"

[HollowedDoll]

Wait, but didn't Venat die though?

She made the ultimate sacrifice and has no way of returning

Even though the ancients died and no longer are stuck in limbo, they should be able to reincarnate.

Her death has a lot more considerable consequences going forward - as there are no longer new Warriors of Light to support the realm and the reflections while there are still ascians left in the other shards.

Yes.

Good.

A portion of ancients may be able to reincarnate, the rest are stuck fractured.

Echo isn't the same as her blessing so there will still be people like Arenvald, plus I don't remember Gaius being a Warrior of Light who killed multiple ascians so I believe that they'll be fine. The ascians have no real goal anymore, and the underlings could die rather easily in comparison to the red masked ones.

[BaconBits]

As far as I know, the most recent party member in a Final Fantasy game to get severely injured to the point of not being able to fight back would be Ignis after getting kidnapped and blinded. He didn't go full "Blind Master" immediately after receiving his injuries, it took him most of the 10 year timeskip relearning how to fight effectively in spite of his disability. It's even reflected in FFXV Comrades which takes please during the timeskip, where Ignis fights by throwing Blizzagas in your general direction and waiting for you to mistime a swing so he can launch a counterattack.

[MikkoAkure]

ff4 also had an actual character death. FF6 actually has shadow die if you dont end up doing a niche thing that 99% of players are not going to do their first time through. FF7 doesnt need to be explained. FF2 has numerous promininent characters die as well. 10 as well. 12 had some prominent characters die as well. Namely reks and reddas, one of them whose death is what even serves as a catalyst for one of the main characters drive to move forward, and the other resulting in the main cast being saved.

These were already called out in my posts.

I already mentioned in my post that there were 2 games in the series that have main party character death (FFII and FFVII). I even called out FFVI in regards to a main character dying if you don’t recruit them back (Shadow).

FFXII falls into my second post where I said guest party characters are free game. Reks and Reddas are both guest party members, not main party characters who are considered the main cast. All 6 main characters walk away from the events of FFXII with nothing more than bumps and bruises.

FFX falls into the part of my second post where I said “outside of the ending”. No main characters die outside of the absolute end of the game after gameplay is over. One of those characters has already been dead for 10 years and the other’s death was reversed by the end of the sequel.

And what of those that feel that way for the antagonists and feel put off? It doesnt prevent them from being killed off now does it?

If you’re playing a game and expect the antagonists to come out unscathed and get upset they didn’t because you got attached to them, that’s on you. “Antagonist in a video game” is a profession that doesn’t exactly have a high survival rate.

[Kolsykol]

Imo I thought Alphy would've died and it would've been the wake up call for their dad, especially with how he really felt and his real motivation it would've stung even more.
I also think that Thancred should've died when Zenos possessed your body.
He should've been the one to intervene but failed and Zenos in your body killed him instead, but you got your body back before he died from his wounds and his last words would've been about how confused he was as to why YOU killed him.
It would've made the whole possession thing have more impact and been a huge moment and pretty traumatic especially when we went back to the first and saw Ryne again.

I think Thancred and Alphy's characters are kinda done too, they both have had full character arcs, the others I think there is more room for.
Altho Gra'ha kinda feels like nerfed Crystal Exarch and your fanboy, I didn't like how the game basically treated it like he was my favorite Scion too and like we were the bestest of friends.
To me he was just a new addition I didn't feel much of a connection to the real Crystal Exarch as far as I am concerned died in the First and Gra'ha is some ARR character.
As much as people meme about Moenbryda and while I do think the Urianger moment was really touching.
The reason it was touching was because of Urianger and not because of Moenbryda, if Moenbryda had been brought back and been put into the role of Gra'ha and the game had treated her like my best friend I would've been a bit annoyed and bothered by it too.

Edit: Worth noting I guess that the story isn't over, people can still die in the post MSQ.
But I still think they should've in the main MSQ.

[Tehmon]

XIV's story is still ongoing, even if the first saga is complete. And I think the death count for the first saga is pretty good already. To compare it to already finished products and stories that don't need to think about '' oh damn wish we could use this character again but we can't because we offed them '' or '' will the fans of this characters stop enjoying and subscribing to our product if we off them now '' is pretty wack to me. Yeah yeah, artistic integrity or whatnot, but that goes both ways: if the writers don't want to kill anyone right now, then that is their freedom to do so yuh.

[BaconBits]

IMO saying "THIS IS THE HIGHEST THE STAKES HAVE EVER BEEN BOIS, NO ONE IS SAFE" then only killing off some C-listers in the same expacthey debut in is soft as hell.

[Kolsykol]

IMO saying "THIS IS THE HIGHEST THE STAKES HAVE EVER BEEN BOIS, NO ONE IS SAFE" then only killing off some C-listers in the same expacthey debut in is soft as hell.

In their defense at least most people don't actively want to see their characters killed off as opposed to another certain MMO lol.

[Minarisweet]

I feel they already missed out on their chance for it, if any of them die in the next patches it will feel weird and artificial.