Nelly, Josef's daughter, who was kidnapped by The Empire merely to ensure Josef's cooperation. And then Josef dies while helping Firion's party to repay them for saving his daughter...
Rydia. Your introduction to her is amidst the destruction of her village, crying over her dying mother, whom you inadvertently killed. Then, after losing consciousness, she is taken to a desert town, and watches Cecil, who was unintentionally responsible for this, fight off the guards that are after her. THEN, she travels to Fabul, witnesses several people injured in the attack. En route to Baron by ship, she's swallowed by the Leviathan and taken to the Feymarch, where she is forced to live for years (to her) without any of the supporting figures that she knew. And finally, upon returning she has to watch as some of her friends slowly go off to their apparent deaths, as well as atrocities such as what becomes of Edge's parents. And keep in mind, most of this starts when she's barely SIX!
Edward. He had his entire castle nuked, nearly everyone, including his parents, killed, and his lover dies in his arms after protecting him from the soldiers. This was implied to be mere DAYS before they hoped to marry. And on top of this, the guy isn't even given time to grieve before he agrees to help Cecil acquire a sand-pearl to help Rosa. Finally, he's confronted by the spirit of his lover, watches her move on, telling him to have courage. Subsequently, he's horribly injured in the Leviathan Shipwreck, and washes ashore near Troia. When the party finds him, he saves them from the Dark Elf with the whisperweed, which leads his would-be Father-In-Law Tellah to finally accept him. And then Tellah dies fighting Golbe.
Bartz may be one of the more cheerful protagonists but he is really hiding a lot of emotional trauma. His mother died when he was very young, and his father sacrificed himself to save his world. Throughout the game, Bartz sees terrible things happen to people he cares about, including his own hometown Lix sucked into Void Between the Worlds. After that, he's utterly broken and vows vengeance on Exdeath.
Gilgamesh is an unlikely Woobie, who despite being an enemy, becomes progressively more lovable and sensitive (as well as an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain) as the story progresses, culminating in the complete respect and sympathy he demands after his Heel–Face TurnHeroic Sacrifice to save his enemies.
Krile is a fourteen-year-old orphan who nearly loses her beloved wind drake and does lose Galuf, her only living relative, to Exdeath. Then she has to take his place immediately to defeat the enemy that just killed him after begging him not to die. In the end, she's left feeling lonely because her fellow Light Warriors have their own lives to lead—thankfully they come to cheer her up. The poor kid really needs a hug.
Lenna. Losing her father, her mother, and her wind drake: walking across poisonous plants to try and save it. And when she finds her long-lost sister in Faris, Faris initially denies it. By the end of the game, Faris is her only relative still living.
Final Fantasy VII: All the main characters quality, but some are especially notable:
Aerith. An adorable flower girl who just wants to be happy with her adopted mother, but, since she's the offspring of a forgotten race, is constantly being pursued by Shinra's top agents, is at one point captured by them and (almost) forced to 'mate' with a wolf-creature (albeit an awesome wolf creature, but still, furry and four-legged). Oh yes, and then Sephiroth/Jenova kills her
Red XIII aka Nanaki, had terrible things happen to him. His mom was dead, his father was Taken for Granite and he didn't know it for years, then was captured and used in experiments, and by the time we found him he was pretty much the Last of His Kind. And then we have the Tear Jerker of a scene in which he learns what his Disappeared Dad was not the Dirty Coward he always thought...
Tifa certainly counts. She loses her mother at a young age, and then almost dies herself when she tries to follow her soul into the dangerous Nibel mountain range. Then her father is murdered in front of her by Sephiroth, she's stabbed by Sephiroth herself and almost dies, and her beloved hometown is burned to the ground in front of her very eyes. And this is all before the game actually begins. Tifa then has to try and coax her childhood friend and crush out of his Mako induced stupor, and then she has to spend the first half of the game worrying about Cloud because his personality has clearly become merged with Zack's own. Then she loses Aerith, who at that point is a very close friend of hers, and then Cloud falls into the Lifestream and becomes comatose...
Jessie. Her few scenes show that she's clearly carrying a torch for Cloud and desperately wants his approval, but the most she gets, if the player so chooses, is slightly less abrasive replies than he'd give otherwise. Even when she apologizes for her fake IDs setting off Shinra's security systems on the train (because she'd put extra effort into Cloud's, making the others in more of a rush), Cloud doesn't even reply. It's one of the last times she ever speaks to him before her death when Sector 7 is destroyed.
Final Fantasy VII Remake: As per the original game, pretty much all of the main characters qualify, with a dose of Adaptation Expansion. We see Tifa's response to the destruction of her bar before later breaking down and crying into Cloud's chest over everything that they've lost (to say nothing of her apparent Guilt Complex), Aerith's lonely upbringing and deeply-rooted fear of abandonment (as seen in the Train Graveyard), Barret's emotional torment as he struggles with the weight and consequences of his actions (particularly his grief over the presumed loss of his daughter), to say nothing of Biggs, Wedge, Jessie, or even Cloud himself.
Final Fantasy VIII: Almost everyone can qualify due to them being orphans, but there are some examples that especially count:
Quistis, who had a crush on her student, Squall (which was later found out to be merely a brother/sister relationship) was told by the Garden Faculty that she failed as an instructor and was fired, and made a regular SeeD. When she tries to get support from Squall, he immediately shuts her down and acts like he doesn't care. Granted, it's revealed he does care, but acts like he doesn't to avoid being hurt. She was originally going to be adopted, but it didn't work out, and because of this, became a student of Balamb Garden at 5, then became a SeeD at 15. She's also potentially one of the characters who could be "sacrificed" at the Galbadian Missle base, which is a lot for her to go through.
Irvine could count being a genuinely Nice Guy who is the only person who remembers the party's childhood at the orphanage, and remembers that Sorceress Edea, the person they are supposed to assassinate, is in fact their adopted mother and the matron of the orphanage. Because of this, he acts all cocky and tries to be a womanizer to hide his fear and self-loathing at not being able to spit it out to the others that they were orphans together raised by Cid and Edea. Quistis says it's because the SeeDs used Guardian Forces. Irvine was one of the lucky ones to be adopted, but he was raised in Galbadia, and never met the party until the end of Disc One, meaning he couldn't tell them they were all orphans raised in the same orphanage.
Ellone. Just ask Laguna. To start with, she's an orphan with a power she can't control, and she's spent her whole life fleeing evil sorceresses that want to recruit her for their cause. She's also running on survivor's guilt - as while Laguna was trying to rescue her, Raine died in childbirth. Her whole motivation is trying to change time to make sure that Laguna is with Raine when she dies. Thankfully she has a happy ending; through seeing the past, she realizes just how much she was loved that no less than four people devoted their lives to her as a child.
General Caraway if you think about it. It's said that he became Julia's Second Love after she thought Laguna died. They were married for a while and had a daughter, but then Julia suddenly died in a car crash. Relations between him and his daughter have been strained ever since.
Rinoa could already count when the game begins - she lost her mother at a young age and has a difficult relationship to her father - but she's definitely one by the time it's over. She sees her ex-boyfriend brainwashed and turned into a slave of a mad sorceress who Mind Rapes her and tries to kill her. She experiences the dark side of war, admitting that she's terrified she'll one day lose the friends she's made. Then she becomes a sorceress - and prepares herself for a lifetime of being feared and/or treated like a walking time bomb. She's ready to seal herself away forever as soon as she wakes from her coma, which is a sort of suicide attempt. And she endures a horrible near-death experience in space.
Poor Vivi. A kid who has no idea of his past, he was raised by an adoptive grandfather who died prior to the events of the game, and winds up in the middle of a conflict between two kingdoms. He then finds out that he is an artificially-constructed Person of Mass Destruction along with the rest of the Black Mage species, and THEN he discovers that due to his species' reduced lifespan, he only has around a year to live at most. Not only that, but him being a Black Mage results in him usually being greeted with fear or anger due to the other Black Mages devastating the towns and cities of IX's world, save for the party members and his friends from Alexandria.
Princess Garnet, or Dagger, had her father die when she was young, her mom go bat-shit insane and try to take over the world, is hunted down when she tried to tell her "uncle" about her mother's genocidal tendencies, had her magic ripped out of her by two freaky clown guys, is sentenced to death by her mom after she is seen as having no more use, had the stolen magic used by her mom to kill countless innocent people, and then watches her pathetic mom die at her feet. This is all before she finds out that she wasn't the queen's real daughter and her real mother had also died getting her to safety. Eventually, this gets too much for her, she has a nervous breakdown and goes mute.
Eiko is the sole survivor of the summoner tribe aside [[spoiler:aside from Garnet, making her an orphan with only moogles to look after her. She's an adorably cute six year old girl who has no family aside from the aforementioned moogles. As her quote in the game suggests, she doesn't want to be alone anymore and is overjoyed at Zidane coming to her home. In the third disc, her love letter to Zidane is misplaced, she's kidnapped by Zorn and Thorn (who are now working for Kuja), loses [[spoiler:loses her guardian Mog, and finds out Zidane loves Garnet more. After all this she gets her happy ending when Regent Cid adopts her.
Tidus. He grew up with a neglectful father, a mother who was driven to suicide following the disappearance of her husband, saw his hometown destroyed and then got sucked into a world where his family's past and achievements are long forgotten. Even worse, he finds out that the plan to save the world means sacrificing his girlfriend, and that he and everybody else he knew from Zanarkand are just part of a dream world. Even if Tidus figures out how to save Spira without Yuna dying, he still has to die.
It's hard not to also feel this way about Yuna. She grew up as a celebrity orphan, idolizing her late father and training to eventually follow in his footsteps, knowing that she would meet the same fate if she did. Everywhere she goes, people flock to her and cheer, but only because they know she has promised to die for them. She's constantly being asked to send the souls of the dead and comfort people in their grief. She begins to fall for Tidus and allows herself to fantasize about a future with him, only to break down crying when she realizes she can't abandon the people who invested all their prayers in her. She's then told that to defeat Sin, not only will she have to die, but one of her loved ones must die as well, and that her hopes of defeating Sin for good are futile. Finally, when she does find a way to vanquish Sin permanently, it costs her the love of her life. There's also a heavy implication that, before Kimahri took her to Besaid, she had been shunned by people in Bevelle because she's half Al-Bhed, just as Braska was kicked out of Yevon for marrying one.
The rest of the party also has some Woobie in them: Lulu and Wakka are still both reeling about the loss of Chappu, with the former heartbroken over the death of him, and the latter nursing a hatred towards the Al Bhed for what he perceives as their role in his passing. Kimahri is a Black Sheep of his clan, being born smaller than most other Ronso and having his horn (a symbol of pride) broken by two of his dickhead clansmen. Auron had to watch his two closest friends die for no reason thanks to Yevon's machinations, and died trying to avenge them, only to come back an Unsent and be revered as a hero who can't even speak the truth about Yevon to most people. Rikku, the most upbeat of the group, still has to contend with the Fantastic Racism that most of Spira hold toward her people, and constantly frets over Yuna's impending suicide.
Final Fantasy XII: It's a game with a lost war as the backstory. This trope is everywhere to varying degrees.
Oh Larsa, you poor, poor thing. First, he gives a pretty trinket to a girl he seems to have a crush on, which turns out to be nethicite, which could have possessed or killed her. Then, his brother kills his father, and becomes a bloodthirsty dictator in search of power. This means Larsa to help kill his own brother for the greater good. Near the end of the story, while the other character are looking towards the sky in hopeful poses, Larsa is inside in the dark crying over Gabranth's nearly-dead body.
Whether or not Larsa remembers it is debatable, but Vayne also killed their two brothers as well.
Vaan lost his family and lived with his brother before his brother was killed during the end of the war by one of Dalmasca's most noble knights.note Well, so he thinks. He's since endured being trapped in Rabanastre under Imperial rule, and unable to fly as he dreams. Penelo is in a similar boat, but she's very promptly ripped out of that lifestyle and constantly has to worry about Vaan.
Basch is an Iron Woobie. He lost the monarch that he was defending, lost his homeland, lost his brother who actually turned against him, and failed to protect his king all in the backstory. By the start of the present, he's been chained up for two years and is hated by the general public. Despite this, he maintains his honor throughout.
Gabranth is a Jerkass Woobie. The twin brother of Basch, he lost said homeland and mother, but also faced the belief that his brother had abandoned them, and he joined the Archadian military and became a judge. During the game, he has to continuously watch his brother go on, infuriating him, be put down by Vayne and Cid as he fails, and suffer a major crisis of beliefs as a result.
Ashe lost her husband within days of their marriage, lost her father, and the world believed her dead. She struggles with the Resistance for two years, and also has to deal with a boatload of stress from the Occuria choosing her as their next pawn via appearing as Rasler's ghost.
Balthier real name Ffamran mied Bunansa was a former Judge candidate, but when his father, Dr. Cid, encountered Venat, Balthier believed he was slowly watching his father go mad. He eventually fled, but his past catches up with him in the game, where he is ultimately forced to kill his father.
Subtly implied with Fran, as she can no longer hear the voice of the Wood thanks to leaving it.
Final Fantasy XIII: Pick a protagonist. Chances are, they'll each get at least one scene in this role.
Serah ESPECIALLY. She gets killed to be turned into a McGuffin...TWICE!
Final Fantasy IV: Cecil, the main protagonist. A very kind and compassionate Anti-Villain at the start of the game loses his position as the commander of Baron's Red Wings, his girlfriend ends up nearly comatose looking for him, he watches his friends sacrifice themselves, he is an alien and has to fight the Big Bad who just so happens to be his brother, his adopted father The King of Baron (who he lost trust in at the beginning of the game) turns out was murdered by a minion of the Big Bad, his friend Kain ends up working for the Big Bad, and yet despite all this and the heartbreak he goes through, Cecil is still able to keep smiling and earns his happy ending by marrying Rosa, and having a child named after himself and his brother.
Terra's first memories are being brainwashed by the empire to kill people. Feared by people both because she worked for the empire and because she knows magic, she questions her ability to feel love. She finds that she is half "esper" and that her people are being tortured to provide the empire with magic, at which point she goes crazy and flies into the sky as a flaming purple banshee. Shortly after that, every esper apart from herself is brutally killed by Kefka, leaving her as the Last of Her Kind shortly before the apocalypse.
Celes Chere can lose "Grandfather Cid" on the Solitary Island, which then precedes to attempt to kill herself, with Sparkling Stream of Tears. She struggles with her loneliness throughout the game—it's implied that until she joined the Returners, she never had any real friends or family. But she becomes sort of the main protagonist of the World of Ruin and helps Setzer in his "Woobie moment".
Locke. A good hearted "treasure hunter" with a tragic backstory. He used to date this girl named Rachel and they went on adventures together. On one of their adventures, just as Locke was about to propose, she saves his life and falls, gaining a concussion and amnesia. When she awakens, she doesn't even remember Locke. Locke is then thrown out of her house by her father, and Rachel says she never wants to see him again. Then he meets Celes who reminds him of Rachel only to watch her nearly get killed by Ultros. Later he's a lone wolf thief in the World of Ruin having pretty much lost everything that matters to him. It's only through the Power of Friendship, that Locke is able to rejoin Celes. Poor guy...
Zidane Tribal is the 16-year-old Chivalrous Pervert hero of the group. As the story begins, he falls in love with a princess named Garnet. On the way to Lindblum, Zidane sees the horrible misdeeds of Queen Brahne. As he continues his journey, he witnesses many deaths at the hands of Vivi's race, The Black Mages. By the time Zidane has found out about the true author of the war, his hometown of Lindblum is destroyed and his adopted brother, Blank, is turned to stone by the Evil Forest. When the remaining group of Zidane, Vivi, Dagger (formerly Princess Garnet), and Quina head to the Outer Continent, Zidane discusses his Calling the Old Man Out to Baku, his abusive adoptive father, and how he was looking for his home, with the only clue being a blue light. When Zidane finds out he is an Artificial Human from the neighboring planet of Terra, he falls under Garland's mind spell causing him to reject his friends. It is only after Dagger saves him that he realizes that he was under a mind spell and his resolves grow to stop both Kuja, now revealed to be his brother, and his actual father, Garland. In spite of all this, the kid still manages to keep a smile. When the Iifa Tree threatens to consume the world, and Necron tries to absorb the souls of it, Kuja pulls a last-second redemption and dies in the process, causing even Zidane to feel sorry for him. At the end, when Zidane is thought to be dead, it turns out he survived, and the ending has Queen Garnet embracing him.
Freya Crescent starts off the game as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold dragon knight to the Kingdom of Burmecia. Throughout the game, both her entire hometown (including the women and children) are massacred by Kuja's black mages with only a few survivors. Upon heading to the neighboring settlement of Cleyra, Freya's resolve to protect it grows, especially when the stone creating the sandstorm protecting the village shatters. When the Alexandrian Army and Kuja's mages invade Cleyra, Freya witnesses even more death of innocents from her hometown, and meets her boyfriend Sir Fratley, who sadly doesn't remember her at all. When Brahne summons Odin to destroy Cleyra, Freya is among the few survivors of her hometown, and Cleyra is both in ruins. After all this, Freya barely keeps it together, having lost everything.
Final Fantasy X: Auron doesn't say much but that's because he witnessed his two closest friends (Jecht and Braska) give their lives to protect Spira after growing to like both of them so much. And it's a senseless sacrifice too! Jecht leaves Auron with one last task: to ensure the next generation fulfills their duty and defeats Sin. Seeking revenge for his fallen friends (one who is now Sin), Auron attempts to attack Yunalesca but is promptly killed by her. He makes it back down Mt. Gagazet only to meet up with Kimahri and tell him to look after Yuna. Auron makes it to Zanarkand by riding Sin, but realizes he'll be leading both the daughter and son of his two best friends to their deaths. Auron feels so much guilt for all this that he barely talks, only telling the others to hurry up. It's only with Tidus' sacrifice that Auron is finally able to help destroy Yu Yevon and make everything right so he can rest in peace. Even Sora admitted Auron had a rough life.
The Al Bhed are this as an entire race. They've been cast out by Yevon, are solely blamed for the Machina war that supposedly summoned Sin, are generally disliked by worshippers of Yevon, being seen as evil kidnappers and murderers, as well as one of the major reasons Sin still returns due to their continued use of Machina, and have had their home blown to bits, forcing them to rebuild. Twice. And despite all of this, they don't seem to have anything against Yevon itself, or their worshippers, just the sacrificial aspects of the pilgrimage, and genuinely are willing to work with them if it means defeating Sin. While they are shown to be kidnapping summoners early on and throughout the plot, it's really because they don't want them to die summoning the Final Aeon, and many of them spend their lives protecting them from the Guado when they attack Home.
Final Fantasy XIII: Fang. She became Ragnarok to crack Cocoon's shell to complete hers and Vanille's focus. She mentions on several occasions that Pulse has a fear of Cocoon just like Cocoon has a fear of Pulse. Forgetting everything about her time as Ragnarok, she's tortured in front of Vanille by Orphan, watches helplessly as her friends are transformed into Cie'th, and decides to go through with becoming Ragnarok to save Cocoon at the end of the game, becoming a crystal again. This woman has had it rough.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII: Genesis might be a cocky jerk, but consider the events of the game from his perspective: He's one of the stars of SOLDIER when suddenly, he receives a small wound and his body begins to degrade (and considering that it happens over the course of five years it likely wasn't comfortable). Hollander informs him of the truth about Shinra, thus giving Genesis extra incentive to rebelnote while this isn't the case for most of the members shown in Crisis Core, remember how many people at Shinra are legitimate assholes and he also begins considering himself a monster, implying that he's taking a Then Let Me Be Evil stance.
Lucrecia. She suffers horribly, but she brought nearly all of it upon herself.
The Tsviets fit this trope as well. They're monsters and yet you can feel sorry for them. Especially Nero. At least he has a happy ending of sorts.
Final Fantasy VII Remake: In Intergrade, Weiss is a Blood Knight who loves hunting his victims. However, he did not deserve to have his mind hijacked by Hojo and be used as a vessel for an experiment.
Final Fantasy VIII: Like Squall and Quistis, Seifer was never adopted and unlike those two he's been failing the SeeD exam for at least 3 years. The other SeeDs (particularly Xu) show him No Sympathy, and say he'll never be a SeeD. It's also revealed his only friends were Raijin and Fujin, and the reason he acts like a Jerk Jock is because he wants friends. He's also shown to have much potential which was only recognized by Quistis, who pitied him. After attacking the president of Galbadia, it's implied he's been executed and the party, despite not liking him very much, feels bad for him. Turns out, he was mind-controlled by the sorceress, and because of this, kicks the dog on several occasions. As bad as he can be, you can't help but feel some sympathy for him.
Final Fantasy X: Seymour Guado is an Obviously Evil dick with a lust for death, but his mother killed herself to become a fayth, his father was at the very least distant which left him very emotionally stunted. Then the woman he loved didn't even love him back. Though to be fair, he was mainly using her. Even so, you can't help but feel bad for the guy when Yuna finally sends him, regardless of how vile he was.
Jecht. Later on in the game, he begins to see great strides of Character Development for this man. It's shown that Jecht, in his own way, genuinely loved Tidus, but could never properly express those feelings, so he tries to shape Tidus into a better and stronger man than he in his own way. This is further compounded when Jecht realizes that he'll never be able to return home. And as such, he decides to be Braska's Final Aeon, seeing it as a chance to finally be of some worth somewhere. Only this ends up backfiring, as due to the continuation of a 1000-year status quo, Yu Yuvon possesses Jecht and slowly reshaped him into the next Sin. It was all for naught! So, over the course of several years, Jecht was trapped in an And I Must Scream situation of almost unparalleled magnitude. It was only by luck that he and Auron were able to orchestrate the majority of the game's events, and even this plan was simply constructed so that Jecht could be felled by his own son.
Wakka spends much of the game ranting about the Al Bhed, accusing them of crimes against Yevon and preventing humanity from "atoning" for the heresy that produced Sin. He later finds out that the Grand Maester of Yevon is an Unsent, and Wakka has to participate in the slaying of both Maester Seymour and Lady Yunalesca (Yuna's namesake and the co-founder of his religion). Which naturally gets Wakka branded as a traitor to Yevon. He ends up sympathizing with the Al Bhed after they fall victim to an unjust massacre by the Guado. Then he has to ride in a "forbidden Machina"...then learns that Yuna is half Al Bhed...then learns that the great Sir Jecht is Sin and that he was responsible for killing his little brother Chappu.
Wakka: I, uh...I think I'll just pretend I didn't hear nothing. I'm getting a little confused, ya? Why...Why'd all this have to happen?
Lulu is pretty hot-headed and rude to almost everyone besides Yuna when the game starts. But then you discover that the Chappu everyone keeps talking about was her fiance and that he volunteered to fight with the Crusaders, which resulted in his untimely death. Additionally, she's been a Guardian twice. Although the second simply gave up his pilgrimage, the first died under Lulu's care. Doing the math puts Lulu as a teenager when this happened.
Cloud Strife. Lonely, alienated childhood, check. Told that he was too weak to join SOLDIER, which was his dream, check. Watched his mother killed, best friend almost killed, and childhood crush apparently mortally wounded, check. Used as a human guinea pig by Hojo, check. Is dragged across a continent by his best friend while Shinra chases them and can't do anything when they catch up and kill said best friend, check. Resulting in Trauma-Induced Amnesia, check. Manipulated into almost killing a potential love interest, twice, check. Same manipulation and a serious Mind Screw result in him giving the Big Bad the black materia, again twice, check. Watching Aerith die, check. Realizing he'd promised to be his living legacy and to never forget, and then having ''forgotten'', check. Failing to find a cure for Geostigma and coming down with it himself, check...
Vincent Valentine never got along with his father, as said father reveals when Lucrecia kills him by accident. Vincent is then employed as Lucrecia's bodyguard and falls in love with her, despite his discovery that she watched his father die. She then also sleeps with Hojo, her evil boss, which Vincent claims he's fine with so long as she's happy. She falls ill while bearing Hojo's child, so Vincent confronts Hojo, only to be killed by him for being 'noisy'. Lucrecia brings him back to life by making him a host of Chaos, then apologizes while locking herself away in a Mako crystal. Vincent wakes up, discovers he's now immortal and that Lucrecia is gone, and then locks himself away again for 30 years as atonement for his 'sin' (which is, apparently, merely watching Hojo's experiment). Cloud and co. wake him up later only to inform him that Lucrecia's child has become the homicidal, world-ending Sephiroth. Despite how much he has suffered at the hands of Hojo, and in general, he doesn't let his angst show, and even wishes that Hojo rest in peace when the heroes kill him in-game.
Final Fantasy VIII: Squall. Like Cloud, he started out as a Jerkass but also like Cloud, he has a very good reason for doing so. His birth mother died at childbirth, and his father didn't even know he had kids aside from Ellone, because he was kidnapped by Esthar to be their leader, meaning he grew up as an orphan. His only support was Ellone, his big sister and disappeared shortly after they were adopted by Cid and Edea Kramer. Unlike many of the other heroes, Squall was never adopted and as such, was raised by the military. This gave him a very gray outlook on life and made him very cynical. Everyone thrusts the world's safety on his shoulders when he's pretty emotionally messed up and as such, ends up being quite abrasive to his companions. It's also implied he's only abrasive because he doesn't want to be hurt by the loss of a friend like he was with Ellone. It does lead to a Heartwarming Moment when he finally does open up to Rinoa; of course, she was unconscious at time. He also blames himself for his friends almost dying to the exploding missle base. They survived, but imagine the self loathing Squall would feel if they didn't... But since he had not childhood, basically being raised by the military, it's understandable why.
Dissidia Final Fantasy: The Warrior of Light, the protagonist from the original Final Fantasy never falters or stops trying to do the right thing, this leads many of the other heroes to think he has no doubts (which is incorrect). He does let his woobieness show when he and the other heroes are on their way to fight Chaos, and the Warrior opens up about feeling more and more uneasy the others are regaining their memories while he is not. That, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg, turns out he can't remember a past because he was born during the cycles of war between Cosmos and Chaos. Having been created by Cid in a previous cycle of the conflict and abandoned by his father to fend for himself in a warzone.
Practically every villain of the Final Fantasy series from VII onward is either this or else Put Them All Out of My Misery, and arguably the villains from many of the previous games and spin-off lines.
Final Fantasy VII: Sephiroth, thanks to the revelation that he is the product of a Mad Scientist's experiment, compounded by the effect of falling into the Lifestream and being exposed to the voices of all souls not currently alive, warping his mind even more. His crossing of the Moral Event Horizon keeps him from truly being a Woobie, but then again, he is the premiere Draco in Leather Pants of the Final Fantasy series.
He's built up much more into this in the prequel, Crisis Core, where his two best friends turn out to be flawed prototypes, abandon Shinra, and are hunted down like animals. One goes insane and the other commits Suicide by Cop in fear of doing the same, and in a few months, Sephiroth loses the only people he could relate to and any pretense of trusting the organization that rules his life. So when Genesis and Hojo set him up for The Revealabout himself and Jenova starts messing with his head, he cracks because he's got nothing worth holding on for. Also, Crisis Core shows that prior to the Nibelheim incident, Sephiroth was a fairly decent and caring person.
A much more straight example of this trope is Dyne, who snapped when Shinra took everything away from him.
While Ultimecia may not be a future version of Rinoa, her own backstory is just as tragic. Due to being a Sorceress, she was persecuted her entire life because of the terrible actions of evil sorceresses in the past. Not only that, but thanks to history, she knows she is destined to die at the hands of a bunch of teenage mercenaries and all her plans are based on a desperate desire to escape her fate. Sadly, her actions in the past to achieve this goal caused the start of the persecution of Sorceresses in her own time. The story itself screws her over because of the subtle method of storytelling in the game, her backstory has to be pieced together from hints and comments by characters and plot events, making her seem like a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere.
It's implied that this affects Kefka Palazzo in Dissidia Final Fantasy during his surprisingly touching final scene in which it is implied that the reason Kefka became an Ax-CrazyNietzsche Wannabe was because he's so damn insane, he thinks there's nothing worth living for except destruction. Terra herself says that he was destroying to try and fill his "broken heart".
While you don't find out exactly why Garland betrayed Cornelia, his actions in Dissidia are said to be motivated by him pitying Chaos and Cid of the Lufaine. Also, One Man's Monologue depicts him lying paralyzed in the destroyed parallel world for several days and clearly shows that he felt regret about his time loop shenanigans in hindsight.
Caius Ballad. He was tasked by Etro to forever guard over the Seeress of Paddra (Yeul), and 'blessed' with Etro's own heart, making him immortal. Which means he's had literally millennia of the same cycle; Yeul dies young, is reborn, dies again... etc. By the time the game starts, his mind has become so warped by the pain of her thousands of deaths, that he believes Yeul's cruel existence must be put to an end, and that stopping time itself from existing (after all, how can a seeress have visions if there's nothing to see?) is the only way to truly save her.
Bahamut and the remaining Meracydian dragons would certainly qualify for this as well. Forced to be summoned for thousands of years, his followers prayed to Bahamut for salvation — not knowing that Bahamut himself was imprisoned and tortured alongside them. By the time Bahamut destroys Eorzea in the opening cinematic, he has literally endured hundreds of lifetimes worth of torture. By the end of the Binding Coil storyline, you start to realize that the opening theme of the game, Answers, was more about the Meracydians than modern-day Eorzeans.
Answers Opening Chorus: "I close my eyes, tell us why must we suffer? Release your hands, for your will drags us under. My legs grow tired, tell us ere must we wander? How can we carry on with redemption beyond us?"
In the endgame of Stormblood: Yotsuyu, the cruel Boomerang Bigot viceroy of Doma, has lived in hell for practically all of her life. Her mother died when she was young, leaving her in the care of her relatives. Her aunt hated her with every fiber of her being. She was forced into marriage with an abusive drunk, then when he died in debt, was forced to pay off those debts in sexual servitude before being recruited into the Garlean military, where she took out her rage on her own countrymen. She was believed dead near the end of the game, but actually survived, albeit with amnesia. It seemed for a time she would finally get a chance at happiness as the childlike "Tsuyu", unburdened by memories of abuses both suffered and inflicted...until her foster brother Asahi forcibly resurfaced her memories and manipulated her into performing a summoning and becoming the primal moon goddess Tsukuyomi. During the battle, she realizes her power came from her suffering, inviting phantoms of those who hated her to strike her down, until a vision of Gosetsu tries to save her. She laments, however, that she is beyond redemption as the primal influence robs her of her agency. Then after Tsukuyomi is defeated, Asahi shoots and hits her until he gets his Karmic Death at the hands of Yotsuyu in her dying moments.
