Thursday, June 20, 2019

Final Fantasy Uberboss Rundown (Now with XIII and XV)

Final Fantasy is a series that has uberbosses in abundance. What's an uberboss? Not a German boss, but good guess. Anything that falls into the postgame and is (usually) more difficult than the actual final boss of the game is an "uberboss". In recent years more people have started referring to them as "superbosses", likely in an attempt to sound less German. The Final Fantasy series, in addition to brimming with androgynous girlboys, sports many of these uber/super bosses. In Final Fantasy, "beating the game" often means you're just getting started because there's usually a huge postgame where the real challenges are.

The very first uberboss in the Final Fantasy series was the fabled Warmech back in the original Final Fantasy. Warmech isn't much to write home about. It's about equal to the final boss in difficulty, if that. It barely qualifies as an uberboss. I steamrolled over this thing long ago. I need to give it props for being the genesis of the Final Fantasy uberboss, however. One could argue that the Iron Giant in Final Fantasy II is a similar randomly-occurring uberboss. However, the uberboss as most of us know it wouldn't really appear again until Final Fantasy V and then Final Fantasy VII. I didn't particularly care or bother to take on uberbosses during those early parts of the series. That is, until I played...

...Final Fantasy XII. I was shocked by the fact that about half of the runtime of my FFXII playthrough was postgame. After finishing the main story, I stuck with it and played the entire postgame, and it was more fun than the regular game. It was the first time I played a Final Fantasy all the way to a 100%-like level. At this point I realized, that FF uberbosses are a fun time... So I set out in search of more uberbosses.

FFXII had a lot of postgame bosses, but the two bigwigs were Omega Mk. XII and Yiazmat. While Yiazmat is generally regarded as the game's top boss, Omega Twelve is also pretty nasty. People frequently debate over which of the two is the more difficult fight. It's ballsy of Square to call it "Omega Mk. XII", since Omega has only existed in...well, a couple of games in the series.

Yiazmat on the other hand... with his 51 million HP, Yiazmat is basically the king of uberbosses. I fought Yiazmat for six hours before I won. Yes, six hours. I've heard of people fighting him for 45 minutes, but... six hours? I must have been doing something wrong, right? Yeah, probably. But ya know what? It was an epic six hours. I'm not ashamed.

At this point I embarked on an Uberboss Crusade, where I'd take on every Final Fantasy uberboss I could find. Skipped over the original Final Fantasy since I trounced Warmech long ago. Problem is, Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III (the Japanese ones) don't have any uberbosses! Neither does Final Fantasy IV. Final Fantasy IV Advance, however, adds a semi-needed postgame. I took this one on back in 2006, right after my victory over FFXII. The big boss here is Zeromus EG. What is he? I don't know, but he's a little bit tougher than the final boss of the normal game, and has a naked lady for a stomach. I rolled him over, and it was on to a real challenge...

Final Fantasy V Advance introduced a whole slew of uberbosses, in addition to Omega and Shinryu who were the uberbosses of the original FFV. This remake transcends them with a lineup of some seriously nasty foes like Neo Shinryu. The culmination of this extensive postgame is Enuo. He's big and bad and makes Exdeath look as threatening as a kitten. I took on everything this game threw at me, won, and moved on. As far as involved postgames go, this one is more expansive than the norm, with a massive dungeon and several offshoot areas. It even introduces four new classes that weren't in the original FFV.

Final Fantasy VI Advance introduces a lengthy postgame to one of the greatest RPGs of all time. I played this one on and off in 2008 and 2009. This postgame isn't as robust as FFV's postgame, but it did have the somewhat tricky Kaiser Dragon as the endboss. This makes up for the fact that Archangel Kefka is about as tough as the Whelk. Regardless, this was one of the easier uberboss fights in the series, due to the fact that the characters in FFVI are able to get so powerful. It'd take a lot to have a real endgame challenge in that game, but at least the Advance version gives us something.

Perhaps the most famous uberbosses in the series were next on my hit list as I took on Final Fantasy VII. Emerald and Ruby Weapon are two major-league badasses. It's difficult to say which of the two is harder to take down, but I'd probably give the edge to Ruby Weapon. Seriously tough fights here, no matter how you approach them. Ruby Weapon in particular requires a ton of strategy.

Emerald Weapon is less strategy and more of a raw power fight. Not to be braggadocious, but I beat them without Knights of the Round. One can spam KOTR/Mime all day and kill anything, but where's the fun in that? There are other effective strategies for these fights.

On that note, it seems to be a consistent fact of most of the FF series that the most powerful attacks in any given installment are multi-hit attacks like KOTOR or Omnislash. Right from the beginning of the series, too. In Final Fantasy, the Master's multi-hit attack is the most potent in the game. FFV and VI have their multi-swing relics and abilities, while VII, VIII, and X all give the main character dominating multi-hit limit breaks later on.

Compared to the likes of FFV and FFVII, it's safe to say that Final Fantasy VIII's optional uberbosses are a complete joke, and almost not even worth going into here. Ultima Weapon isn't any tougher than the final boss, and Omega Weapon is only marginally more difficult. Their dungeon is potentially difficult, but Encounter-None renders that moot as well. If you've beaten the game, you're maybe an hour away from being done with the postgame. I rolled over Ultima and Omega Weapon for the first time back in 2009. It was fun to revisit for uberboss purposes. The game is in dire need of a real postgame fight, though.

Final Fantasy IX only has one true optional uberboss: Ozma. Said boss has fewer HP than any other Final Fantasy uberboss (aside from the original WarMech), at a measly 64,000. This means less than nothing to the difficulty, though, because Ozma is one of the fiercest fights in the entire series. Not bad for a giant ball. While it may be the only postgame boss in the game (there are three other optional fights, but they're much lower-tier), it takes a LOT of preparation and a foolproof strategy. I had a great deal of fun with this game, and it was the one I revisited in 2010. A lot of that fun came from preparing for this fight: Ozma is arguably more difficult than even the two Weapons in FFVII. The solitary uberboss would be compensated for in later installments of the series, like...

Final Fantasy X-2. This game has what amounts to an orgy of uberbosses (among other things). There are a number of them throughout the world, and then there's an entire postgame dungeon (Via Infinito) with more of them. Hell, the later fights in Via Infinito are basically uberbosses to the uberbosses, which means this game - for all of its flaws - has an endgame to the POSTGAME, which is pretty insane. It just goes on and on. Angra Mainyu, pictured above, is one of the most unique-looking uberbosses in the series. It's too bad that it only gets to be #6 or so on the pecking order in this game, since it looks so badass that it should have really been the game's big boss. Instead, we got...

...this dude for a final final boss. Lots of people claim that this guy is easy, but I had more trouble with him than possibly any other fight in the entire series. Hey, I took six hours to beat Yiazmat... maybe I'm missing something. I still won. This game is ATB, and this guy attacks extremely quickly. Half the time I'd be waiting for my characters to execute a command I'd already entered when he'd do something first and completely screw up my strategy. Then one character would start to do something and he'd be like "lol" and take another turn. At least that's how it felt. Either way, this fight gave me a lot of trouble, so I was pretty thrilled when I won.

Final Fantasy X was the last of the original ten that I hadn't postgamed to infinity. There's a reason for that: The postgame of this one is the longest postgame in the entire series, bar none. Not necessarily the most interesting, but certainly the longest. Like FFX-2, the postgame has its own endgame. There are timesinks galore, especially if one chooses to go for the Celestial Weapons (it isn't necessary to get all of them... the three easiest ones suffice for the postgame, and Tidus' can be duplicated with weapon customization). The final boss here is Nemesis, who clocks in at 10,000,000 HP. The biggest timesink in this postgame is the monster hunting sidequest, which can take upwards of 10 to 15 hours by itself. This unlocks the bosses in the Monster Arena, however.

The game also has an optional super-dungeon with Ultima and Omega Weapons in it. These are close to the final boss in difficulty, much like FFVIII's Ultima/Omega Weapons. If the postgame ended with them it would certainly be disappointing. However, the Monster Arena features no less than 35 bosses in it, approximately 30 of which are more difficult than the final boss. These battles are fun and inventive, and some of them are extremely difficult. Finally defeating Nemesis at the end of the line brings a sense of achievement and closure that beating the game definitely doesn't.

Fast-forward to 2011, where I took on Final Fantasy XIII. There's a long list of optional hunting targets in this one, much like FFXII. Only a couple of them are stronger than the final boss. In particular, challenging the Long Gui that roams the overworld during the postgame is something the player may not want to attempt until their party is about as powered-up as it can get. That's really all this fight is, a stat-check that asks you to be maxed-out. From there it's elementary, and not much different from any of the other fights in the game.

Moving onto...nope, not the fifteenth game yet! We're going in on Fabula Nova Crystalis first. Final Fantasy XIII-2 did a much better job with uberbosses than its predecessor, giving us several notable postgame fights... and then several more DLC/update uberbosses later that are even tougher than the original set. I played this in 2014 and it was a fun experience. There are a few uberbosses designed for a max-level party, and the one I had the most trouble with was the supposed "third-to-last" uberboss: Gilgamesh. This guy is an absolute beast, with healing abilities that'll negate all of your work if you don't form a strategy that takes him down quickly. Even with a max-level party it still took many tries to get this guy down. I managed to get 100% on trophies for this game and it was worth it for memorable postgame fights like this. I'd say this one is up there with FFX/FFX-2 for having a good amount of postgame to do. No Celestial Weapons though, not that it's a bad thing.

Moving on we've got Lightning Returns, or 13-3 if you will. This game is mostly played with Lightning as a solo character, which kinda limits the level of challenge it can throw at you without being overwhelming. As a result, there isn't much for postgame. There are a couple of optional bosses lurking around, however, the toughest of which is Ereshkigal (seen here). It's tougher than the final boss and gives the player something to do after the game is over, but I can't say this postgame is a particularly robust one.

Finally, we end the main series at Final Fantasy XV. This game is light on content in general, much less postgame content. It's had plenty of DLC and updates by now, but as far as I know the only real superboss is Adamantoise. He's a turtle the size of a mountain, with insane amounts of HP. He's designed to be more or less unkillable, but a max-level party can deal with him pretty quickly despite that. A bit underwhelming for an uberboss, but hey. At least he's super badass-looking, far bigger than any other foe on this list.

We'll see what kind of uberbosses we get in the future with the FFVII Remake...uh...series. Hoping for Sapphire Weapon at the very least.


  1. Huh, that was pretty interesting.

  2. oh you forgot one theres a final fantasy uberboss in an etirely different game than the reagular super mario rpg you can fight culex and he's got the crystals!

  3. That was a nice introduction, but I want to hear about the specific challenges and the strategies you used to win those fights!