People die in every mainline It's just a thing that happens. Knowing how quickly it happens, however, is the kind of knowledge that is utterly useless and generally uninteresting. Note that I said generally. For a solemn few, myself included, meaningless statistics about favourite media franchises are an odd𒉰ly exhilarating source of intrig𝓰ue.

Are you my friend? Do you, too, thrive on minutiae? Do you want the internet to have an unrivaled repository of data illustrating the precise point upon which a named character perishes for the very first time within Final Fantasy, from the fir🐈st to the sixteenth? Swell. Let's do it.

I'm not going to count monsters for this unless they actually speak, displaying surefire sentience. Sorry, Whelk/Ymir. Youꦆr moans don't count.

Final Fantasy 11 and 14 are also excluded. Not because they're MMOs, but because by nature of being MMOs, named character deaths can occur at differing p🦩oints depending on when various quests are accepted. It doesn't help that each of the two games has selectable starting cities with their own storylines!

14 👍 Final F🌊antasy 10

Time Of Death: ~9 Hours Into The Game

For a game about death, processing death, and what may await us in the great beyond, Final Fantasy 10 is surprisingly kinꦑd to its cast for the first several hours. Now, one might be briefly inclined to say that the dreadfully-named Zanar, a sports announcer in Zanarkand, is the first named character to die. Zanarkand is seemingly destroyed roughly ten minutes in, and certainly, Zanar would have perished in the explosion.

One must remember, however, that the real Zanar has been dead for a thousand years. This iteration of Zanarkand is the Dream of the Fayth. Its denizens aren't truly alive. In which case, we must fast-forward some nine-odd hours to Operation Mi'ihen. The ill-fated assault on Sin provided a similarly grim destiny for either Luzzu or Gatta

Who lived, and who died, is dictated by a choice the player makes shortly before Sin's ferocious counterattack. I usually go 𝐆for Gatta, because it's a darker spin on the story. What about y'all?

13 Final Fantasy 8

Time Of Death: ~8 Hours Into The Game

Final Fantasy 8 claims its first of relatively few named victims toward the conclusion of its first (of four) discs. The sorceress Edea murdered power-hungry Galbadian President Vinzer Deling in cold blood with a purplish spell tha🗹t leaves no question he was dead as a door nail.

With his corpse brushed aside, Edea - or rather, Ultimecia - went on to celebrate her🔯self with intense revelry. That is, until Squall Leonhart crashed a classy-looking automobile into a gate, which somewhat spoiled the CG-fueled festivities.

12 ⛦ Final Fantasy 5

Time Of Death: ~3 Hours Into The Game

Faris Scherwiz' beloved sea dragon friend, Syldra, almost died about an hour into Final Fantasy 5 when a whirlpool erupted over Faris' ship. The good news is, she lived. The bad news is, she died not much later than tha𒆙t, saving Faris and her newfound friends from the destruction wrought by the Tower of Walse.

With the last of her strength, she ferried the quartet of heroes to the shoreline. Thankfully, her spirit was s🅷till not-alive-and-kicking at the Pirates' Hideout much later on, allowing the Warriors of Light to tap into her power as a summon spell, and proving that Syldra possesses an unending desire to defend Faris.

11 Final Fantasy 7 💧

Time Of Death: ~2.5 Hours Into The Game

Cloud 🤪Strife and Aerith Gainsborough head to the seedy mans🍒ion of the seedier Don Corneo in a bid to rescue Tifa Lockhart from his creepy clutches. The whole sequence is timeless in that distinctly Final Fantasy 7 way, and it's all the better in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. But we're here for the OG version.

If the cross-dressing Cloud is not chosen to be Corneo's "bride", he'll have to fight his way out of an awkward situation when Scotch, one of Corneo's hench🍌men, and an assortment of unnamed underlings find out their quasi-date has been hiding quite the secret. Scotch kicks the bucket in the ensuing kerfuffle.

Should Cloud be chosen, th🍃e first named death would be Aps, Corneo's pet, about 20🔯 minutes later.

10 🌄 Final Fantasy 4

Time Of Death: ~2 Hours Into The Game

Althoug♔h it's the first time Final Fantasy really pushes for a complex story, Final Fantasy 4 is something of a breakneck experience. The full plot can be experienced within 15-20 hours with relative ease.

Thus, Anna, daughter to Tellah and paramour to Prince Edward Chris von Muir, faded away a mere two hours into the proceedings. It feels like longer, but by this point, a lot had already transpired. Anna's spirit assisted Edward in overcoming his grief a ༺little further on, but she had very much expired by then.

If Rydia's mother had a canon name, she'd be the first person I'd list here, and that'd be about 20 minutes in; alas, while I can only assume s🌞he possessed one, no official source has ever mentioned it.

9 🌱 Fi🌃nal Fantasy 15

Time Of Death: ~80 Minutes Into The Game

This one's weird, right? So much of Final Fantasy 15's story is so oddly told. By now, I reckon that most of you know what's up with all of that, so let's cut to the chase. Arguably, thꦐe first on-screen death of a named character in FF15 is 80-ish mi🤪nutes or so into the game.

We don't see the exact moment that King Regis Lucis Caelum sacrifices himself to General Glauca's blade,♈ because that's all part of Kingsglaive, the prequel movie that really ought to have be🔜en FF15's actual prologue. Instead, we see him a few seconds prior via flashback footage from the movie itself, as Cid Sophiar tells the party of the king's demise.

There's no indirect implication here; Regis' murder is conveyed. Does this mean that a bunch of named characters died prior to FF15's opening sequence? It sure does, because Kingsglaive effectively is 🌄the opening sequence. But so it goes; I'm not going to label this "~Negative Minutes Inཧto The Game", because that's cheating.

Should you decide not to count Regis - as I mentioned, we don't see the blᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚade go through him in the game, just the film - then uh, I guess t💫he first named death in the game would be Loqi Tummelt. Offhand, I'd clock this at around four hours in.

8 Final Fantasy🌠 13

Time Of Death: ~35 Minutes Into The Game

"Moms are tough." These weren't actually the final words of Nora Estheim, but they've been immortalized by way of meme to the point tha♎t it rather feels as though they were. Another minute or two later, and Hope's mother fell to her death after Snow Villiers lost his grip.

There is something darkly funny about𝓡 the fact that Nor♐a fell from a ledge in a place called Hanging Edge. I'm sorry, Nora. It had to be said.

7 🎀 Final Fantasy 3

Time Of Death: ~30 Minutes Into The Game

The Djinn isn't much of a name. I'll readily admit it. But he speaks his evil words and does his evil deeds and very clearly identifies himself as The Djinn. He placed the poor citizeജns of Kazus and its neighboring castle under a curse which turned them into ghosts, but with his defeat, the foul thing was undone. And yep, sure enough, that happens around half an hour into Final Fantasy 3.

Here's a fun fact, since there's not much else to say about this one. In the 2D version of FF3, the party is a full four team members from the get-go. But, in the 3D remake, it takes a bit of time to assemble everybody; The Djinn's the first boss with the full party assembled. (It may take you closer to 45-60 minutes to get to him in🐠 the 3D version, for the record.)

6 ♍ Final Fantasy 2

Time Of Death: ~25 Minutes Into The Game

For a guy who dies just 25-odd minutes into his game, Scott is a pretty helpful fellow. After sustaining mortal wounds from the Palamecian Empire's ruthless attack on Fynn Cast✤le, he not only forked over the Map Ring, which used to be the only way to view Final Fantasy 2's world map; he also clued Firion, Maria, and Guy in on the wicked schemes of an alleged ⛎ally, Borghen.

Not t🐽o ꧅diminish these dual achievements, but in Final Fantasy 2's Pixel Remaster version, the Map Ring is positively useless. You can access the world map at any time, including those precious 25 minutes prior to obtaining it. Oh well - how was Scott to know his game would be getting ports 30+ years into the future?

You get to play as Scott 🍨and three other de🉐ceased allies in a nifty postgame story in numerous versions of FF2. Too bad Pixel Remaster isn't one of them. I really wish Square Enix hadn't deprived these otherwise-terrific modern ports of the bonus content added in previous post-release versions...

5 Final Fantasy 16

Time Of Death: 17 Minutes Into The Game

One of precious few deaths that I can rather precisely time, Biast of the Sanbreque squad known as the Wyverns dies to a falling boulder just 17 minutes into Final Fantasy 16's opening sequence. Chronologically speaking, his death isn't the first; an extensive prologue 🅰starts not long afterward, jumping back 13 years. But it's certainly the first named death we, as players, behold.

Is Titan the killer? Or is it a combination of Tita🦄n and Shiva? That's harder to say.