Hardest (and most strategic) battle in Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6?

Bologo

Bologo

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Hi, I know that it's kind of odd to ask such a specific question about a game, but hear me out.

I'm doing a project for my 1st year games of chance/game theory class, and my group and I decided to do it on video games, more specifically, RPGs. We decided to pick one turn-based RPG and one MMORPG to focus on.

I'm in charge of doing the psychology of turn-based RPGs and the strategy of turn-based RPG section. The turn-based game is Final Fantasy. I'm doing two of them, Final Fantasy 6 and Final Fantasy Tactics.

For the strategy section, I'm going to explain how general strategy in a turn-based RPG works. Ie. I'm going to give certain branches a person can take in their strategies, one of them being level-grinding, though I obviously can't focus on that (that's more for the psychology section), since level-grinding doesn't actually involve much strategy or game theory.

I want to give strategies for both of the games as well, so I'm going to basically include them as examples of what I'm saying. I figure that the hardest battle in the game would give a pretty good foundation on how to beat a lot of the other battles in the game fairly easily.

I was thinking that for Final Fantasy Tactics I could do the Wiegraf & co. battle. Back when I played that game, it felt like the absolute hardest battle in the game (provided you had no prior knowledge of it and didn't level grind beforehand), because you were basically thrown into it without any warning whatsoever, and when it's just Ramza and Wiegraf against each other, you have to basically follow a certain coreography or die. Also, even once all of your units can come out, Wiegraf still has all of his minions and you have to coreograph a lot of the battle in order to come out alive (once again, provided that you didn't level grind).

I told my group that the other one would be Final Fantasy 6, but this is where I need your help. I need you to think of the absolute hardest (and possibly strategic) battle in Final Fantasy 6.

I was thinking maybe the final battle against the tower and Kefka if you only have Celes, Setzer, and Edgar (the minimum that you need), but I'm not sure if that sounds plausible without obscene amounts of level-grinding. The reason, of course, being that you have to actually get through the dungeon with just 3 characters split into 3 groups...so 1 person per group. However, it could be possible to analyze strategy of the entire dungeon and how to survive that without level-grinding, and then analyze the final boss battle. After all, the entire report is about 20-30 pages single spaced and my part is a pretty large part.

If anyone has some better suggestions though, please help me out. Just keep in mind that I'm not changing the games, because my group wanted to do final fantasy games for the turn-based RPG part, so I might as well go with that.

Thanks for any help that you can give me.
 
Are you limiting this to the SNES version, or have you thought about including the MegaBosses of the GBA version?
 
I haven't actually played the GBA version, so I'm thinking that I'd probably limit it to the SNES version. I actually have never heard about the megabosses of the GBA version though. If the strategy involved in beating them is really good, then I'll probably consider them too. I'm not sure though, are all of the glitches and such taken out of the GBA version? I'm just wondering because if I use the SNES version, I might get extra points if I can talk about how to exploit the glitches as part of the strategies.
 
I played 6 a few years ago, but only made it halfway through before my hard drive fried, and I've been meaning to go through it again but never really had the desire to go through everything I've already played. But seeing this makes me want to do it again, so I'll definitely help however I can.
 
To be honest Final Fantasy 6 is a really easy game .Its easy to make every character (except Umaro haha) so obscenely overpowered so picking out "that one hard boss." is rather difficult. The challenging bosses come from the GBA remake so if you're limiting it to the SNES
things get complicated.

Don't even consider the final boss battle, its ridiculously easy and almost impossible to lose with a decent party. I checked around and people seem to think that the "Magimaster" is the hardest boss in FFVI, so you might want to try him.

PS: You have the best school related project... ever.

Edit: LOL Berserker Lord I was thinking the same thing. FFV bosses FTW!
 
If only this was on Final Fantasy 5, then I could help you, but alas. I agree with PK Gaming though that FF 6 is rediculously easy considering you can just make everybody into a killing machine and blaze through everything.
 
Most difficult battle in FF7 was stupid Ghost Ship using stupid Goannai in the last round of stupid Battle Square
 
WaterBomb said:
Most difficult battle in FF7 was stupid Ghost Ship using stupid Goannai in the last round of stupid Battle Square
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Haha I found that Zombie Gi guy in the Cosmo Canyon cave really hard... Until I realised I could use Potions on the bitch :s

On topic: I could help you with literally any FF game besides 6, I've had the ROM on my laptop for months now and never got the motivation to play it :P
 
Well, I wouldn't mind doing final fantasy IV or V either, I personally just want to do an SNES one. I could just tell my partner who's doing the introduction and it would just be a one letter change really. I was originally thinking of doing the first real Exdeath battle for final fantasy V (the one after Galuf fights Exdeath), since I remember that one to be pretty hard. I remember Zeromus from Final Fantasy IV to be pretty hard too.

I can set certain conditions on the battle though. Ie. like I said with the final battle for FFVI, if you have only Setzer, Edgar, and Celes. Hell I could even make it like a LLG. I figure it's not a good idea to have too many conditions since my professor isn't an avid RPG player, but I can still have them.

Don't even consider the final boss battle, its ridiculously easy and almost impossible to lose with a decent party. I checked around and people seem to think that the "Magimaster" is the hardest boss in FFVI, so you might want to try him.
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Magimaster is the one at the top of the magic tower that has the Ultima death right?

And it's kind of funny, a lot of people say FFVI is really easy, but I've actually seen some really hard parts when there's no level grinding. Admittedly it is really easy if you manhandle Tyranosaurs over and over and use an Economizer, but without those things the game does have its difficult parts. Although yeah, as far as SNES Final Fantasy games go, it's probably the easiest of the three.
 
yeah, agreeing with PK. can't really say any of it was hard, ff6 was really easy for me even when i played it for the first time (its still a good game though!).
 
Too bad you aren't going to do the GBA version of FF V, I could give you a list of all the bosses in the bonus dungeon because they really do require some stratgey to overcome. If your adamant on SNES, thats fine too, (god does FF V actually make you think to win most fights)

Edit: FFIV really has hard as hell random ecounters rather then hard boss battles, especially in the DS version, but nearly everything in that version banks on you getting lucky that the opponent won't just nuke you into oblivion (CPU in the Giant of Babil), They won't just spam status (Boss somewhere in the final level, forgot name, Malaboros) (likely fucked up spelling here), or catching you off guard (EVERY DAMN BOSS)
 
Hm, I might actually try MagiMaster as one of my examples. This video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNSvyDJPUy4 is a good example for my project. It shows how a boss that can potentially be extremely difficult can be rendered completely and utterly useless by exploiting their one big weakness. This can therefore allow even the crappiest party to beat the boss as long as they have the correct tools. Ie. Know your opponent, even if your opponent is generated by a computer.

That's a good example of a boss with an exploitable weakness. Kind of like Son of Son in Chrono Trigger who's damn near impossible unless you have fire absorption equipment, but is then rendered completely useless.

I think the Wiegraf battle in FFT is a really good example of how you have to play conservatively against foes where there isn't a completely exploitable weakness, because if you have to just dogpile the opponents in that battle you're going to get your ass kicked horribly.

Another point I want to try and illustrate is that a losing strategy against an enemy in a turn-based RPG isn't going to magically turn into a winning strategy by trying again, and that you can only rely on luck so much. A losing strategy actually has to be modified into a winning strategy. If there's actually a battle that shows that, then I'd be glad to see it. Maybe I'll use a FFV battle for this one.

One of the main points is definitely that no matter what you need the right tools to beat a hard boss, whether you're doing a LLG or not. If a boss is repeatedly destroying you, there's probably a good reason. Ie. You're way behind on buying the equipment, your strategy stinks (ie. just holding down the A button to get everyone to attack generally isn't a good idea), your party is sub-optimal, etc.

Maybe I can put something in about strategy with random encounters, since even with the randomness of the RNG, they do require a lot of thinking. I might do a FFIV for that one, because in that game there's actually a consequence to running away (ie. you drop shit-tons of gold when you run). That could actually help me make a good game matrix for whether you want to stay and fight the battle out, or get the hell out of there.

Heh, well at least this thread is helping me get some of my main points across. xD I figure one or two examples for each point might be a good idea since I'm guessing it doesn't hurt to have more.

I might as well edit the title of the thread since I'm allowed FFIV and FFV suggestions too now.
 
Have to say I really struggled with Bahamut on FFV... The fact that there was a time limit before he used Mega Flare really added another level of horror haha.

Maybe I was under levelled, but I ended up turning everyone into Samurai and spamming Zeninage, I eventually managed to kill him before the Mega Flare haha.

Don't know whether what I'm chatting is in the spirit of the thread or just thinking out loud, but there you go...
 
as far as hardests go, i'd say it's EVIL WALL on ff4

you basically have like 1 minute to kill it before it crushes you

wouldn't say it's the most strategic though since all you do is pound the living shit out of it until it dies

Zeromus EG said:
Have to say I really struggled with Bahamut on FFV... The fact that there was a time limit before he used Mega Flare really added another level of horror haha.
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it's like that on ff4 too, except you just used reflect on everybody and bahamut hits himself

but i'd still say Odin is harder, despite having like 4000 hp, he takes like 3 turns to kill you if you don't kill him faster
 
I don't remember ever using strategy in FF6. Beyond grinding and spamming special abilities.

Gotta second Demon Wall from FF4. Yunalesca from FF10 is a close second. Anything from FF4 really.
 
Is it required for it to be 4, 5, and 6? Because I remember in Final Fantasy 3, Garuda was one of the hardest bosses in any game I have ever played. It is ridiculous how hard it is to beat it (if you aren't spamming Dragoon Jump skills). It pretty much necessitates an intense amount of class specialization and utilizing the strengths of each of them. The fact that its Lightning spell pretty much nearly deals half to all your characters at that point in the game makes it even more necessary to be on your toes. Sorry I couldn't help you with 4, 5, and 6; I don't remember those as well. I was just contributing my 2 cents.
 
I'm kind of surprised that you didn't mention Chrono Trigger because that RPG's a goldmine of bosses that require figuring out a strategy.
 
Heh, trust me, I actually wanted to do Chrono Trigger (hell I even wanted to do Pokemon), but I don't think my group members are familiar with it, and I figured it's everyone's report. Final Fantasy is still good, especially because Final Fantasy Tactics is such a godsend for this (lol although watching videos of the dreaded Wiegraf/Velius battle and also the Gafgarion battle at the execution site brought back some bad memories since I was always severely underleveled). And unfortunately, if I were to change it now, it would force my group members to change stuff in their sections too, which I probably shouldn't do.

I know what you mean about Chrono Trigger having a lot of strategy though. Son of Son is one in particular that I mentioned, because it has the potential to be one of the easiest bosses in the game, or be one of the most dangerous.

I also saw a video of someone beating Lavos at the Ocean Palace on a regular playthrough. I can just imagine how much strategy and prior planning the guy had to do to pull it off. It was quite incredible to watch though.

Magus is even a really hard battle too provided there's no level grinding. His spells hit like a truck, and Frog's healing magic is pretty weak. The problem is also that you need Frog to hit Magus with the Masamune to make him more vulnerable to magic. So basically you have to divide your attention between managing your items, keeping everyone alive, trying to get Frog to heal your guys, and trying to damage Magus (while dealing with annoying barrier changes and trying to brace a DarkMatter). A compromise for the healing is to carry Robo in your group if he has Heal Beam (although his magic stinks too), but it comes at a price since IIRC, Magus doesn't have a Shadow barrier change.

Heh, ah well.

--

As for the final fantasies, the reason I want to try and stick to 4, 5, 6, and Tactics, is that I haven't played the other ones (or my brothers haven't played the other ones) in a pretty long time. But for 4, 5, 6, and Tactics, those are like my babies, so I'm very familiar with them. The only other one I beat was Final Fantasy 2 (the GBA version). None of the battles in that game really stood out to me though. I personally felt that FF2 relied way too much on grinding and not enough on actual strategy.
 
For having played all of them multiple times, I'd say :

FF4 : Probably the summon Ashura & Bahamut.
FF5 : The two optional superbosses are quite strong, the dragon and the 4 legged-robots... I just don't remember their names..
FF6 : Sure you can easily get overpowered but that mostly takes away from the last few bosses. Some middle-game bosses, like the Atma Weapon, are fairly challenging. Going in the Floating Island at level 20 is going to be a tough road from beginning to end.

edit : I do back up the Magimaster proposition.
 
Zeromus: Big Bang, Big Bang, Big Bang, Meteor, Flare, Meteor, Big Bang. Fuck off.

Pretty much the only final boss in a FF game that I had to fight multiple times. Grrrr. FF 4 was notorious for punishing the holy shit out of you with Bosses and high level enemies that had counters. :(
 
I remember beating FF4 as a kid never realizing I could use Cure spells to target all my allies at the same time.

I thought I was required to use the Ashura summon for that.
 
i guess for ff6 id say the second kefka fight in the caves of narshe (the one without moogles), wrexsoul and the dream stooges.
 
For Final Fantasy IV (the only one of the three I've played) I personally found the most difficult battle (aside from the DS MegaBosses) to be the Calcabrina/GOlbez mash-up. If you don't KO the dolls quickly and are regularly levelled, only quick wits can stop you getting beaten (and Blink as a backup). Then when Cecil and Rydia are the only ones standing...if you don't recover initially, it's impossible to defeat Golbez, I swear. The final boss is EEEEEEEASY though. Barbariccia was tough but not overly strategic.
 
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