Dark Emo Grim

[Madonna]

A lot of Final Fantasys have extremely messed up situations: people dating people who look like their dead ex, men running around with children in the wild, plots to abduct and have ways with women, and most of the people you know and love die in gruesome fashions. This could be potentially lame, but these dark Final Fantasys do a good job of not only laying foundations, but adding sidequests or main quests to flesh out both the tragic events and the characters who have had them. While it might be easy to imagine how absurd things can get, I find these more morbid origins to work for world-saving badasses, unlike, cough, Zell, who only really wants hot dogs.

So what particular icky situation throughout the series stick in your mind? Mine? Easy; just knowing someone and a blue elephant conceived Queen Brahne.

[Jowy]

seeing that creepy little smurfing doll jump behind the castle wall

not only were you fighting an abomination of evil a good solid what i assume would be two hours after crashing your awesome flying boat in a land foreign to everyone in your company, but you're forced a boss battle so early into it involving a surprise attack where you'd feel some serious psychological damage from afterwards watching all of your friends be picked off slowly and one by one by an even larger, more frightening foe until by the graces of god comes your bailout of this situation

[Madonna]

When that happened, I, as a player, was horrified, so I could imagine everyone else was just absolutely crushed.

How about in IX when Zidane learns he is an artificial construct, and thus so very like Vivi, a guy Zidane has been doing his damnedest to convince how human he is? Suddenly, Zidane is not telling Vivi, "Hey, you are like me!", it is, "I...I am like Vivi." And he is suddenly looking at Vivi to see how to deal with the world instead of the other way around.

[Jiro]

Oh man, that last one is a good one. It seemed to shake Zidane to his core.

[Mercen-X]

knowing someone and a blue elephant conceived Queen Brahne.

Chuh... she wasn't always Queen Brawnie, you know. I'm sure at one point, she was Queen Tubby.

[Del Murder]

Uh, Edge having to fight mutated undead versions of his own parents is probably the most smurfed up thing in any Final Fantasy game.

Tidus also had to fight a mutated version of his dad, but he hated his dad. And Jecht was like that by choice. So not even close.

[Sephex]

***FFVI SPOILERS. I AM PUTTING THIS HERE BECAUSE I KNOW ONE OF YOU IS PLAYING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME***

(SPOILER)Celes believing that the world had ended and that she was the only person left alive if Cid dies. Sure, the world ending is messed up enough, but the feel the loneliness, hopelessness, and despair Celes felt is just brutal;.

[Wolf Kanno]

***FFVI SPOILERS. I AM PUTTING THIS HERE BECAUSE I KNOW ONE OF YOU IS PLAYING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME***

(SPOILER)Celes believing that the world had ended and that she was the only person left alive if Cid dies. Sure, the world ending is messed up enough, but the feel the loneliness, hopelessness, and despair Celes felt is just brutal;.

This ^ Especially if you don't catch enough fish...

I also would say when Vivi discovers the graves in Black Mage Village and has to hide the fact he knows what "stopping" really means. Hell any scene dealing with Vivi's story is pretty grim in IX.

[Jinx]

***FFVI SPOILERS. I AM PUTTING THIS HERE BECAUSE I KNOW ONE OF YOU IS PLAYING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME***

(SPOILER)Celes believing that the world had ended and that she was the only person left alive if Cid dies. Sure, the world ending is messed up enough, but the feel the loneliness, hopelessness, and despair Celes felt is just brutal;.

This ^ Especially if you don't catch enough fish...

I also would say when Vivi discovers the graves in Black Mage Village and has to hide the fact he knows what "stopping" really means. Hell any scene dealing with Vivi's story is pretty grim in IX.

Especially when he finds out that his ticket isn't real, and then that jerk in the alleyway steals money from him.

[Jiro]

You can always steal your money back. Vivi is bl-- not going to let myself get caught up in one of those again.