Quote Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus View Post
FFXV is also infamous for its finale being extremely rushed and being largely incomplete without the DLC/novels to tie things together, with said tie-ins even making a case that Noctis's sacrifice was mostly wasteful.

FFIII-2 is the second part of a story which, not only kills NO ONE in it's ultimate finale a game later, literally brings every main character that did die back from the dead to punch God with the power of friendship.

Gabranth is a "Support character". His death has similar plot significance to that of Zenos, and he's even an "antagonist" that helps the protagonists in the final hour, much like Zenos.

Honestly, you would have made a better point arguing for Shadow at the end of FFVI or Vivi at the end of FFIX. But even then, we're talking about specific exceptions to the FF formula. I'm sure that you really enjoy those games where the heroes have to sacrifice themselves in the end or die, but not EVERY game needs to end that way. I don't care if a story is an unambiguous happy ending or not. Chrono Trigger and FFX are two of my favorite games in the series, with two radically different types of endings, but I don't think either is worse for it.
I’m not saying every game needs to end that way. But when the writers and the devs are preaching how suffering and sacrifice is necessary, it comes across as a rather hollow sentiment when none of the main cast has to actually sacrifice or suffer from anything. Not to mention the amount of plot altering plot armor or plot holes that are created purely to keep these characters alive that ruins the flow of the story. How am i supposed to take certain antagonists or threats seriously if they can’t even land a scratch on the main cast? How am i supposed to feel invested if i know the heroes are always going to win? This was what was interesting back in ARR,HW and other ff games. Games like 7,9,10,12 etc that actually had lasting consequences for the heroes and where they actually had losses. This has been absent from 14 for a long time know and this isn’t some unknown thing, it’s incredibly prevalent.

15 being rushed doesn’t matter. Endwalker was rushed, doesn’t change much.

13-2 is still a game in itself, it still had a “final disc” portion that you want to preach about.

Gabranth was a pretty pivotal member of the main cast, considering he makes numerous appearances throughout the entire game. 6 or 9 aren’t exceptions to the ff formula. If we want to make a case for a formula it’s that a main character usually dies. This has been prevalent as early as ff2, and has since been a thing in ff4,ff5,ff6,ff7 and ongoing.