Ardbert's Party vs the Scions Analysis

[aveyond-dreams]

If only the franchise was known for those. Because admittedly while I didn't play X, XIII and XV that much the lasting consequences for main cast of other games were... Muted? Non existent? 4 still takes the cake for that btw with numerous sacrifices written as impactful being absolutely reversed very fast.

Very fast? The twins' petrification wasn't reversed until quite late into the game and various other sacrificial moments did not see the character in question return until much later. It was anything but fast. The journey towards the ending respected these sacrifices well enough and didn't make use of gizmos like Azem's Crystal to work as a a special undo button. FFIV was one of the first Final Fantasy games I ever played and in no way was the handling of its characters comparable to FFXIV's lack of development in the main cast.

XV did, but it was a rather depressing game to behind with. 13 had some, but no deaths. 12 didn't have any deaths outside the intro.

7 only had the 1.

10 didn't really have any. Everything ends happily ever after (at the end of x-2)

I suppose you've forgotten the death that sent Hope down the path of revenge that eventually culminated in his character growth, the immense guilt that plagued Vanille as a result of her actions, along with both her and Fang turning to crystal for 500 years. FFXIII did not need to kill off its characters because it actually did something with them to make them grow. FFXIV doesn't do this. FFXII also managed to do things with its characters with Ashe rebelling against the Occuria's plans and having some stakes when Penelo got captured and the whole party thrown in jail early on. I shouldn't even have to re-state the events that occurred at a certain lighthouse in that game too.

FFX in the main story saw us, as in the player, have to kill off Yuna's aeons one by one and for those of us who regularly used them in battle it was an extremely moving moment. Tidus's sacrifice took an entire other game to undo, again this wasn't resolved within the span of a half hour like Ultima Thule or Emet Selch pulling Y'shtola out of the life stream. Overall just like FFX the cast of FFX grew and learned over the course of the game. They didn't keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again like Alphinaud has been doing each expansion.

Please just do something with FFXIV's cast on par with the better-received single player titles. Meaningful character growth and development. If this cannot be done then please replace them with new characters. FFXIV is very much in a position where it has to work to keep my attention, I will not be following this game for another 10 years of very little being done with the irreplacable scions. I imagine that there are a significant portion of other ARR vets like myself of a similar mindset.