7 Cheapest Final Fantasy Bosses Who Didn’t Play By The Rules

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Final Fantasy games are notorious for being packed full of various unique and memorable bosses.
Many of these bosses are incredibly well designed, but every now and again some slip through the cracks and are just simply unfair. Sometimes these bosses expect players to have knowledge they couldn’t possibly have had on a first blind playthrough. And in these instances, walking into a boss fight with the wrong build can be utterly devastating.
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Credits
Writers: Darryl, Domenic
Editors: Matt

[@normal6483]

Yunalesca's primary tactic is to inflict you with zombify and other statuses so she can heal you to death, meaning you have to remove zombie and the statuses in order to survive and progress. But her secondary tactic is to cast megadeath on the party and kill everyone who isn't already a zombie, so you have to leave people zombified to survive. But if you leave people zombified she'll inflict them with status effects and kill them with healing. But if you cure or prevent zombie she'll inflict death and kill them, so they need to be zombies. But they'll die if they're zombies. But they'll die if they aren't zombies. But they'll die if

[@ThundagaT2]

Reflect prevents her from killing you with heal spells lol. Coincidentally her counters remove every buff EXCEPT Reflect and Regen. You just need to be able to outdamage how much HP she'll be getting from the reflected magic.

[@corpussakahagi2116]

Esuna doesn't remove Zombie in Final Fantasy X. You have to use an item called a Holy Water to remove Zombie.

[@Veladus]

There's a raid boss in FF14 that does this too, where you have to eat the zombification on purpose. Bodies everywhere, every time.

[@ThundagaT2]

@@Veladus There's also Ultima in FF12 that does Holyja which hits the whole party with Reverse, then she attempts to cast Renew on the whole party. While that doesnt kill, it does leave you with 1 HP, combined with her HP Sap field effect if its the current one (she cycles through all of them), it can wipe your party lol.

[@mokrah3632]

The worst part about it is, if you didnt know the damage of your Aeons, she outright banishes them. But if you do, you can kill her in between p2->3 and have the Aeon take the Megadeath for you.

[@MrEvilbyte]

My near foolproof strat for Yunalesca (which I lifted from some guide somewhere), no Zombie or death protection needed. > Bring in Tidus (for Cheer), Yuna (for Reflect and maybe Holy). 3rd member can be whoever (probably Wakka or Auron). > Before you attack, set up Reflect on all 3 (you have nothing to fear from Yunalesca's status ailments or healing spells while you're zombied). Tidus meanwhile casts Cheer 5 times. > Just keep attacking, until you're about to beat her 2nd form. If needed, heal from Zombie so you can heal yourself with potions. Let Yunalesca zombie you again before finishing her 2nd form. > Keep attacking until she bites it. If Yuna has Holy, now's a good time to start spamming it. > If Yunalesca bounces Regen onto herself, you might want to Dispel it. > Bonus points if you have Bahamut in Overdrive, or can Grand Summon Bahamut. Use this to finish off her 3rd form to get an Overkill (getting you multiple lv4 Key Spheres in the process). > Or use some other attack capable of doing more then 9999 damage for Overkill (probably one of Tidus' Overdrives).

[@chaosmetalsonic]

This is a great strategy. But may I make a recommendation of not using reflect. First off I understand why, it nullifies the cura and Regen which are your main issues but at the same time yunalesca is healing herself too. A regular cura from her deals around 2k-3k damage maybe more. But the Regen deals damage based on the HP of the one it's on, so depending on the HP it will most likely count as a regular attack dealing around 200-400 damage. The issue is when Regen is applied to yunalesca as she heals for a massive 4k with a single tick which is a few attacks healed off right there. Plus cura uses having a similar effect. Over all everything else I can agree with. That is just my one critic.

[@asham868]

Yunalesca was the first boss ever in final fantasy that made me grind in order to beat it. Everything else had been easy up until that point (seymour flux made me reload a couple times, but i didnt need to grind). I remember grinding Wakka up to the point where he was just a powerhouse carrying the whole time with shear damage.

[@dodang_9147]

The boss looks like lose/lose fight because you get zombify then she uses heals to damage you but if you aren't zombie, you get mega death. In essence, the entire goal of the fight is to have half your party zombify, let her status effect hit the party members and when party member is low, get rid of her zombie status effect saving that party member and then you cycle their hp bar with other members turning into zombies. this insures that if she does cast mega death, it doesn't wipe party. Only half of it. A complicated fight that most people won't figure out and endless lose over and over.

[@TheMetastasia]

I thought Zanarkand in general was pretty thought starting with this big tiger thing.

[@MarcelisKhaldern]

"Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!"

[@SerunaXI]

The only thing that made Yunalesca tolerable was that outfit.

[@IAMME000]

Cool speech the first time you see it, but when you lose to Yunalesca five times in a row it gets old, lol

[@owangejewice]

Absolute legend of a character.

[@charlieriffs478]

Epic line from Auron! That one hit hard!!

[@jamesmayo9533]

This is a public safety announcement: Yunalesca is made trivial with the "eater" abilities (fire eater, water eater, etc.) You hit yourself with waterga and heal yourself for that much damage.

[@IceQueen975]

When Yunalesca's 3rd form showed up I literally went "OH MY GOD, HOLY SHIT!!!" out loud. *Terrifying*

[@Duckman8213]

Yunalesca. I started that fight at 11 pm hoping to be done by midnight but was playing till 2 am.

[@DiademAce]

I started it at 10pm and ended at 12am😂

[@Duckman8213]

@@DiademAce over the past year since may 2023 I have played and gotten the platinum trophy on FF1-10, 10-2, 12, 13, 13-2, 16, 7 Remake/Rebirth, Type-0, Crisis Core and Strangers of Paradise. Currently starting Lightning Returns right now as we speak. Getting ready for FF14 on the PS5. Really enjoying the franchise a lot. But yeah FF10 was probably the hardest one I’ve played because of a lot of annoying enemies and bosses. Just new to start and platinum Lightning returns and then FF15 and I’m done with all FF games I set out to play which is about 22 games in total.

[@tophfb]

@@Duckman8213hopefully you’re able to add tactics and tactics advanced in the future!

[@Duckman8213]

@@tophfb playing that on an emulator on my phone when not home at the PlayStation

[@Duckman8213]

@@ringobats I got lucky and got the trophy from killing Penance after killing a wasp in the calm lands. Thus I never had to fight the dark Aeons for a chance to fight penance for the platinum.

[@michaelconnell1010]

I remember having trouble with the Gafgarion fight until a friend told me “(before starting the stage) Just take all of his equipment off him and change Gafgarion’s job to Chemist.”

[@Veladus]

90s problems require 90s solutions

[@dirrdevil]

Yep, this was a fun trick to employ on any sus guest character.

[@adammatlack4667]

How low can you get? I love it!

[@Tengokuchi]

That's not for the fight he's talking about in this video. It only works for the battle at the bridge. You could also just take all his equipment and then he can't using his sword arts. The fights you have against him at the execution grounds and castle he'll have his sword back and his original job. For those fights you can either grind until you have the ninja dual sword ability and use it on a monk to trivialize the fight, or if you want minimal grinding you can steal/break his sword. Auto potion will buy you the time you need to do so.

[@hosdelgato1]

@@Tengokuchi Youve played fft on psx, and stole all the genji stuff from the marquis, didnt you?

[@crazymulatto8981]

When I fought Yunalesca the first time she completely wiped me out in the 3rd phase of the battle with Mega-Death. I honestly never saw that coming and she has to be one of the harder Final Fantasy fights in general because if your not prepared, she'll completely destroy you

[@marhawkman303]

Honeslty? I think the first boss that ever properly just handed me my ass.... was Shin-Ryu. In FF4 you have a few treasure chests that have unique traps.... opening them triggers a boss fight. And this one loves to spam elemental AoEs. Thus to win you need not only good armor ratigns... but also resistance or immunity to both fire and WATER. Yeah.... he casts Tidal wave on you... and that REALLY hurts. Ok, it's LESS painful that his atomic heat beam, but still painful.

[@natedeezy1652]

My best friend who I call my brother is 6 years older than me & showed me this game when I was a kid. His Mom had got him a ps2 but no memory card so for a week he left the console on & made it all the way to Yunalesca 3rd phase without dying. Needless to say he still has PTSD from MegaDeath & got a memory card shortly after lol

[@snuggie1849]

​@@marhawkman303thats in 5 not 4. But yeah his abilitys hit for near 7000 damage which unless your level 99 your probably dead unless you have the rings. I always thought omega was harder personally. Rocket punch and encircle are brutal

[@marhawkman303]

@@snuggie1849 Well, yeah, Omega is harder since Omega needs a logic puzzle to figure out how to damage the -----. But Omega isn't something I accidentally ran into while picking up loot.

[@DKNguyen3.1415]

@@natedeezy1652 Hardcore mode.

[@asmodeusml]

If I would single out an unfair fight from FF7 Rebirth, it would be Alexander & Odin one, especially on hard mode. It is so frustrating to deal with them both at the same time, even when you know what you are supposed to do, and if you get unlucky and take too many hits, Odin might wipe you anyway.

[@mythos6308]

I will forever be scared by Lady Yunalensca I literally spent two hours fighting her just to lose when she had about 500 health left because she suddenly got to do 5 moves in a row

[@finalfantasy1912]

I somehow only lost to Yunalesca once. I spammed the fuck out of Holy over and over and had a final Aeon attack the second time and beat her.

[@Blknamor]

Yunalesca took me out twice before I took her down but it was a lengthy battle because my first play through I didn’t get holy till literally after that battle 🤣

[@Blknamor]

@user-wt7rm1ze3i I totally understand

[@beckyweiss6072]

Maybe it was sheer dumb luck, but I don't remember needing multiple tries to beat Yunalesca. Perhaps 2? Something I did notice with her is that the moment I put Auron in my party, she was *ruthless* towards him. It made me simultaneously pissed off and impressed with the devs. I am absolutely convinced that the devs telegraphed Yunalesca to bully Auron in the fight if you have him in your party. Whenever I was cursing a blue streak at Yunalesca, it was because she targeted Auron 9 times out of 10.

[@ThundagaT2]

@@beckyweiss6072 Auron being the target most of the time makes sense actually, her Absorb attack always targets the character with the highest max HP.

[@sparrowhawk2860]

Whenever possible, ALWAYS HAVE MULTIPLE SAVE FILES!!! Not to excuse bad design, it's just a good idea.

[@daviddalrymple2284]

This was always a tricky proposition on the PS1, though, with those 15-slot memory cards.

[@sparrowhawk2860]

@@daviddalrymple2284 True. I used to keep a single memory card just for whatever rpg I was playing at the time.

[@unknownuser494]

Tactics ogre Luct and fft really requires multiple save.

[@sparrowhawk2860]

@@unknownuser494 Absolutely!

[@adammatlack4667]

Seriously, that was my aha moment for multiple game saves.

[@S1EEPLES5]

The thumbnail really knows how to pull me

[@Ravagerblade]

Would it still pull you, if she were Flat?

[@noahhobson4521]

Zodiark from Final Fantasy XII. Some bosses can put up palings and become immune to physical attacks. Some bosses can put up magick wards and become immune to magical attacks. Zodiark can do both simultaneously. He also starts the fight with a dark elemental instant death attack, his elemental weakness is constantly shifting and he has over three hundred and thirty thousand hit points to chew through.

[@KINGOFTHESPARKS755]

The paling bit is awful with him. I remember fighting his last 10% of hp for like 8 minutes because he kept putting up palings

[@Degnique]

yesss FF12 mentioned! Zodiark can be such a pain to deal with, holy fook. If you dispel his reflect the dude's just straight up flips the table on you and shoots you with everything he has just for good measure. lmao opal rings vs him were a must in all my playthroughs

[@RJV-s3l]

Yeah, the trick is to end the fight as soon as possible. With the right setup, it is possible to finish him off in less than 1 minute. But damn it destroyed me so many times before I figured it out.

[@steveozone4910]

Zodiark is easy when you know how he works. But yeah the first few attempts can be a pain 😂

[@caitm4138]

Zodiark is my last Esper, and I've been level grinding on and off for almost a year trying to beat him. I just can't get that last sliver of health!

[@jamiephilip79]

Dude with Yunalesca's fight I literally had to be a strategist

[@Hero_of_Legend]

There's a point I feel you failed to mention about the Rufus fight. Not only is he an absolutely cheap opponent, but you have to defeat Rude and Elana before you can even fight him. And if you decide to "restart from before the fight" so that you can adjust your equipment and materia to better suit the fight... you had to beat Rude and Elana again. And ALL of that, is at the end of an already potentially grueling series of progressively challenging battles. I remember being absolutely incensed by the seemingly endless gauntlet. By the time I finally beat Rufus, I very clearly told myself if there was even 1 more battle, I was going to straight up quit playing. It was that needlessly obnoxious.

[@civilwildman]

Note: You can actually save Kain from paralysis and dying in that fight against Golbez, at least in the original 2D version. Have him use Jump in that fight just before he uses that paralysis ability and again just before the Black Dragon uses that instant death ability. Presto! No need to revive him. Tested it on both the SNES and PS1 ports; it works. 😃

[@bahamutbbob]

I recently streamed the PSP version and wasn't even trying, and Kain helped revive everyone.

[@Duckman8213]

I absolutely hated fighting Rufus in rebirth on Hardmode. I abused level 3 limit break while continuously blocked to build up the charge.

[@stephenb3026]

That was the only way I could beat him too😂

[@sunnyblack3359]

Same but try to land a braver command on this mf as soon as he is reloading. Rufus will get an instant choc state and you will get the biggest dopamine hit you'd ever felt while gaming. I was literally laughing like a villain when it happened

[@jesset1762]

​@@sunnyblack3359 I swear I tried braver, asses says one move will do it but not which one. In remake it was triple slash.

[@sunnyblack3359]

@@jesset1762 You have to hit it as soon as he starts to reload i typically spam the command menu to slow down time to see what he is about to do so that i can catch him asap, triple slash is also the strat in rebirth, it's more reliable and more consistent but it will only give you a pressured state. Sometimes you can even use Cloud basic attack and if he is far, he will leap towards him fast enough to catch him but it doesn't always work. Using triple slash is the most viable strategy don't get me wrong, but the braver tech is more like a cool little secret high risk high reward thing you don't have to feel forced to do at all.

[@Raiyu3169]

There's actually a pretty simple strategy you can use against him. You can triple slash him, when he follows up a dash with an attack. It cancels his attack and leaves him open for a series of combos. Just do a full combo, dodge and combo again, until he counters. Build up your limit and save it. When Darkstar shows up, just continue focusing on Rufus. Stagger him and use your limit. If he's not beaten, then he'll be pretty close

[@Te_N_]

Missing out on the Behemoth from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest - The very first fight in the game (tutorial boss) that could two-shot you, or otherwise just kill you if you get even slightly unlucky.

[@crimsonmaelstrom573]

I saw the title and was like: “Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?”

[@ytmndman]

What confuses me about Pandemonium Warden is that if a group tried for 18 hours and failed to beat it, how could anyone be expected to beat it in only 2 hours?

[@Nebin20]

Iirc, balancing and an later increased level cap. Another boss around that time was Absolute Virtue, and that too had the issue that players could not legitimately beat the boss originally. Only this time, it was because the boss had powerful spells and huge regen. Manykudos did a video talking about this in more detail. m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/r5WyZmuom7aeaqc&pp=ygUJbWFueWt1ZG9z

[@GwenisImmune]

half of the battle and frustration with Yunalesca/Seymour is the long unskippable cutscenes before them 😭

[@Joshuazx]

The solution to the Yunalesca fight was to let yourself be zombied because Zombies are immune to Megadeath. This was actually an interesting boss fight because Zombie as a status means that you can't restore lost HP, so when characters are KOed due to HP loss, pick them back up with Life or Phoenix Downs.

[@Philosophvr]

Yunalesca strategy; Obtain deathproof.. Easy. I'm surprised to see how many people struggled.. Did no one utilze the armor abilities???

[@skunkdoctor]

I hadn’t saved in a long time and Kimhari got his whole self absolutely smoked by those Ronso bullies. My word man, I think I turned that game off for a year and had to start all over.

[@dogoku]

The dark aeon summoners ambushing you in FFX. Killed off a 90h save

[@bobjoemac1]

For real. I had no idea they were a thing when I played the ps3 remaster. Went back to besaid and was destroyed in no time at all... and I had no problem and was probably over leveled throughout the whole game. But that dark summon destroyed me instantly.

[@dogoku]

@@bobjoemac1 same here but this was on my original run on PS2. I went back to Besaid because I didn't get the upgrade for Valefor (Energy Blast overdrive) from the dogo in the village. The 2nd time was the magus sisters. Stupid dark aeons... I was only 15, I had no idea about optimizing my party, I had no chance against them.

[@adammatlack4667]

Yeah, Mushroom Rock Road was scary to traverse.

[@blastortoise]

If you were 90h in then it wasn't killed you were just caught off guard. The time you can face most dark aeons is after the airship anyways, so you can just do the endgame grind a bit early, since you'd have to grind anyways as even the easiest dark aeon is harder than all the sin fights pre-entering.

[@ShadowProject01]

Funny enough Seymour Flux and Yunalesca have the same boss fight music. So whenever I hear this theme I would get ready for a difficult fight.😂

[@adammatlack4667]

Makes sense, the theme is called "Challenge".

[@KnownAsKenji]

I love multiple boss themes. More games need to do that. Chrono Trigger's got two (and one that is in the game files but unused) and that was pretty epic.

[@anjingbabi4468]

True. Seymour flux is so annoying. Zombie touch followed with Life will fk u up. The boss forces us to buy the zombieward gear from oaka nearby.

[@jekw23]

They both gave me problems and I’m not ashamed to admit I used a guide for them. Only time I needed to in any FF game (excluding super bosses).

[@DrStunJosh]

Geomancer Ramza against Gaffgarion is also fairly easy to use as you can status him on rocky or grassy terrain (IIRC). Other option I've used on him (and Wiegraf) is to use Monk with far movement and having already unlocked Chakra, Aurablast, and Shockwave.

[@franimal86]

Double punch as monk against Wiegraf is a guaranteed one-hit kill when it lands. Still my favorite strategy to this day.

[@XSAGA87]

​@@franimal86On both his forms?!?!?

[@guestguest5716]

​@XSAGA87 I can confirm this, ninjas two weapon ability plus being a monk sometimes let me punch for up to 400+ damage per punch without even increasing strength(guts ability focus or accumulate, I don't remember if Ramzas has a different name). Plus monk Chakra, revive, and purify are amazing, and ramza having tailwind, steel, and shout later only made it even stronger

[@DrStunJosh]

@@guestguest5716 once you get Shout in Ch. 4, Ramza becomes almost a perfect flex dps unit. Shout on his first turn and go to town on anyone.

[@guestguest5716]

@@DrStunJosh this, and especially if you got blade grasp/iaido from samurai as well, since with 100 brave anything physical just could not hit you, and if you lower faith enough for Ramza, magic does almost nothing

[@yuantheblue]

My brother is undoubtedly one of many who hit the Gafgarion softlock. he still talks about it from time to time :D

[@adammatlack4667]

Same.

[@Freefall347]

I thought he was going to mention the Weigraff fight, because I think the game prompts you to save right before hand, so if Ramza isn't up for the fight, you're completely screwed, and Weigraff is way tougher than Gafgarion. Oh, and then he changes into Velius and summons a bunch of demons. Nice.

[@lilsunny7399]

I remember as a kid, i managed to somehow reach Yunalesca. I'd beaten Seymour Flux with the power of Bio but Yunalesca was a different beast alltogether. I tried for like, a solid week. Every morning before school i'd take a shot at her. when i finally did it i was so happy.....that i left the Zanarkand Dome without the Sun Crest and because i was on the PAL version of the game, Dark Bahamut was there.

[@bw8685]

I sold everything just to buy 3 cherub crowns because of the instant kill from Orphan in 13. The fight was needlessly ridiculous.

[@Adeios96]

Poison makes that fight significantly easier because Orphan loses ridiculous amounts of HP from it thanks to Poison dealing more to high health targets in FF13. Poison and one Cherub Crown on your leader if you want to avoid some bad RNG and the fight can be done in 1 stagger phase. Congrats on beating it. 😌

[@drewtheunspoken3988]

Rufus was a difficult fight. They key, however, was using either "counterstance" or perfect parry. That would create an opening to press an attack. Steangely, I thought the fight against Rufus got easier once Darkstar got involved. It could be a little tricky but Darkstar was far easier to deal with and Rufus seems to be less tricky once Darkstar is removed.

[@franimal86]

Yeah, Darkstar at least let’s you attack and charge up your ATB quickly

[@MrEsarty]

The other key is using triple slash to interrupt any ‘block able’ attack as soon as he calls them out. Still requires timing but not as bad as perfect timing blocks. Can build up enough limit gage to make phase 2 short with a cross slash

[@Monty2289]

Rufus sucks because attrition not necessarily difficulty since they give you tricks to win. Probably to many. Rufus is dificult in that you can't mash Square to win but he can be attacked while using an ability that's not reload. Some of his abilities have end lag like Guns Akimbo or Bright Lights. His first phase was just made to be as stupid as possible. The attrition part applies to him just getting stray hits some of which will knock you down. You are technically right in that Counterstance and PP will rectify this and stop his follow up ability but well....Square Enix can't make a good parry mechanic to save their lives. Additionally whenever Rufus' connection to Darkstar is severed he'll be forced to use Heel and when Darkstar enters he uses Heel to reign him in. If you have limit you can attack him here and just auto win.

[@marhawkman303]

@@MrEsarty That sounded like a Dark Souls boss fight strategy guide. :D

[@MrEsarty]

@@marhawkman303 patience and adaptation is the name of the game~

[@tedds1000]

I very much agree with Rufus Shinra being seriously frustrating. His attack combos tended to hit almost every time at least once and then it removed my chance to hit. Thankfully I had stocked up with max healing items available in the store by then, since I had to use over half of them on him.

[@frankiemcgoo941]

Still remember keeping an eye on Yunelesca's hp value till it hit right around where a megaflare from bahamut would end her. Spent far too long in that fight and took a break from playing over it too.

[@blondieanon]

I beat Yunalesca a month or two ago through the HD port and having access to things like Haste and Reflect help a ton. She can slap away your buffs but every bit helps. It's a war of attrition and by the third stage, if I recall right you want Reflect on one zombie who has Haste--ideally Rikku--and then your heaviest hitters taking chunks out of her. You could try your luck with aeon overdrives but from what I recall, she'll still get to bask in that recovery time even after the aeon is killed. Very methodical fight that requires you to take a lot more into consideration than HP.

[@ViewTube_Emperor_of_Mankind]

I wish that back in the days they made the "Dark King" in FF Mystic Quest completely unbeatable by normal magic and make him only beatable by using the "Heal/Res" spell. That would've been quite interesting.

[@adammatlack4667]

Right, the heal spells are the only way to go.

[@TearDownGenesis]

That Weigraf fight in FFT was the first time I cheated in a game. Bought a Gameshark. Its because I used custom characters for Ramza was not leveled that much so getting a sudden 1v1 with him, having saved, as I had always done in games up to that point, was ... memorable.

[@Freefall347]

Yeah, springing a sudden boss fight like that is cheap as hell. I thought that was the one they were actually going to be talking about in the vid; the Gafgarion one is kind of messed up too, but I just don't remember ever having quite the same problem with it.

[@Tengokuchi]

Both of them are pretty well countered by auto potion. It uses the weakest potion you own, so just make sure you have no hi-potions or potions and it heals you 150 each time. I believe you can purchase hi potions before gafgarion. And he does around 60 damage while hi pots heal 70. Or if you want to grind. Monk with double punch trivializes every single boss fight in the game.

[@CassidyListon]

Without watching the video, im hoping he includes Wrexsoul from FF6. I was never able to beat that fight fair and sauare. I always had to use the vanish + x zone trick.

[@bahamutbbob]

I just beat Wrexsoul in Pixel Remaster last night! Unfortunately, no vanish/x-zone in this version...

[@zachariahsmith9130]

You attack rufus with an weapon ability the moment you see an attack name come up. It will break his attack.

[@grunner7557]

Rufus is also vulnerable when he dashes. Using fast moves like Focused Thrust or Firebolt Blade will let Cloud close the distance and allow him to efficiently build up stagger on Rufus.

[@thehater6189]

Replaying my favorite, FF9 and it is still a challenge at times. I have not died yet and I am on disk 2 but I was quickly reminded of how difficult the game is when I met Gizmaluke and was forced to use items. I never use items.

[@caseyp3879]

I had a harder time getting stuck under leveled for the Wiegraf/Velius (Belias) fight and getting save locked out with no choice but to retstart the whole game

[@backwash69777]

Symore flux was cheap with his mega cleave and the attack after saying "death awaits you", but I found a cheaper way to best him and its a goodly amount of grinding to do but itll work 100%. All thats needed is to get all summons limit break and characters except Yuna. Then summon aeons and cast their breaks, theyll get "death awaits you" and one shot ko. Once thats done then use character likit breaks and revive. He'll go down quick.

[@Rhy2412TitanGamer]

Yunalesca is an interesting case of a boss being made more difficult by vague Scan descriptions & the *very* rare use of zombie & confusion in the story progression. The first phase is her least threatening by a wide margin & is mostly filled with her using status effects as counterattacks against your characters & using the occasional absorb to damage you and heal herself (if you use magic, she'll retaliate with silence, if you use physical attacks, she'll retaliate with blind etc). The 2nd phase is where her mask begins to slip. She induces zombie status consistently on the current 3 characters out, then casts cura & regen. This kind of strategy is difficult to truly neutralize, but it's manageable. Just keep a high HP character out & make sure shell or reflect are on them (shell halves magical power, reflect bounces the heal back onto her, but it helps zombied characters survive longer). The 3rd phase is where she reveals her true colors. She opens with Mega Death, offlining anyone who's not a zombie or who lacks deathproof armor (this requires 60 farplane winds to sythesize, which requires catching 1 of every monster in the calm lands after activating the monster arena sidequest, which is annoying grinding). She uses the extremely elusive ability called Mind Blast, which curses (disables overdrive use) & causes confusion (two VERY nasty effects). She uses Curaga in this phase as well & can use mega Death whenever as well. You *need* 2 characters zombied in order to have a good chance at surviving (unless mind blast's confusing utterly screws you over if your party starts attacking each other lol) The bulk of her difficulty comes from her 3rd phase pumping out confuse, zombie, & death effects. All of these have *Very* limited counterplay when used in tandem in this way. You can buy Holy Waters from the merchant at Mt. Gagazet for 300 gil, but remedies are 1500 a piece. Most players will lack complete protection against all the status effects she has. There's no reliable armor for death, zombie & confuse all at once, so it's very annoying dealing with her.

[@saladinboss2507]

Damn. I knew there was a reason I avoided the Hell out of Omega in XV!

[@ajflink]

I think he may be the only enemy immune to the Ring. Final Fantasy XVI feels like it has an iteration of Omega that is challenging without BS resistances.

[@thecrimsonmeteor]

For the sake of freshness, I'm going to share an alternative pick for ffxi and it's the shadow lord (specifically in the 50 cap era and global launch window) The shadow lord becomes completely immune to one damage type, meaning if you didn't have the right party comp (or a monk with their 2 hour off cooldown) the boss became unbeatable. Combine this with all the era difficulties and it would take hours to days to get another attempt at it

[@Caluben]

That's funny to hear about Pandemonium Warden taking 18 hours and being unable to beat it because players were fainting/vomiting for playing for so long when the newest Raid in Destiny 2 that just came out also took 18 hours for a team to beat and players were still going afterwards and not one story about that happening came out.

[@doihavetobeg]

Different kind of game and raid, I think. Destiny raids tend to be a huge number of repeats of a relatively short action sequence to defeat a boss/clear a gauntlet. It's the slight fuck ups which force a wipe/reset that prolong the raid. Also, there's a lot more movement and action involved. The FF one looks like it's a standard MMO raid boss with tons of health where you stand around, repeat the same sequence of skill/item uses and maybe move out of red zones. It also look like it might be an epilepsy trigger with the constant color flashes from skills.

[@blastortoise]

Destiny also isn't an MMO rpg so it's going to be a bit easier on the eyes and brain just because FPS games are made to be that way anyways.

[@jashinsamael]

If we going to the mobile game territory, The Rumble of Malboro trial against 'super' Great Marlboro and it's two babies is probably the hardest in FFBE during release. While it now can be easily cleared due to powercreep, but back then, it was near impossible, even with cheese strategy it still insanely hard. Not only the Marlboro has insane def which you can neutralize it for 2 turns by killing all of it's babies at the same turn, you have to repeat the process again every 2 turns. That aside, you will have to deal with many status effects, and if any of the babies survive under 10% hp, it will trigger explosion. Another memorable one is Aigaion, during release it was notorious for being time consuming. Even players with meta characters need hours to beat it at that time.

[@ultimaaxe]

The random red chocobo hoard battles is the most unfair battle in tactics. Even coming across a hoard of yellow chocobos early game can be a complete nightmare if they manage to ball up together.

[@bahamutbbob]

I never stuck with Tactics long enough to experience the red chocobos, but the single red chocobos casting meteor in Rabanastre in 14 was kinda funny, all the NPCs freak out when it shows up.

[@migicalmerwee9018]

Another issue I had with Omega in 15 was accidentally leaving the arena. The fight moves around if it goes on long enough, and it becomes difficult to know where the borders of the fight are. I would go do dodge an attack or get some distance to heal, and accidentally retreat from the fight, restoring its HP.

[@beelor5777]

While yunalesca was hard you could grind and eventually overpower her. Weigraf on the other hand, felt like a scripted lost but then you see the game over. Forcing you to restart the whole game because you were a kid and didnt know about multiple saves so you had the 1 save while inside the castle and you lost to weigraf time after time. Throwing controllers across the room because you felt cheated.

[@obsidianblack7249]

The Judge of wings fight that takes place in the volcano in revenant wings. Its mainly difficult due to the fact you have to fight Chaos first and then the judge immediately after with little to no down time between the fights and you also have to deal with the other enemy units as well.

[@snuggie1849]

To this day i still consider that the hardest story fight in any final fantasy. If you send all the main characters at level 99 against her she can still beat you. Obviously with summons you win easily but still. That fight devolves into having the main character run away as flying units attack her.

[@obsidianblack7249]

@@snuggie1849 The Odin fight where Penelo is no-op is also difficult. Revenant wings is just a weird game. The game does deserve more recognition for better and worse.

[@snuggie1849]

@@obsidianblack7249 i lost the tutorial fight so yeah that game is hard. I eventually learned the game to the point where i had maybe 20 runs through midlights deep and i got the ultimate sword upgraded to the point vaan can solo almost anything

[@obsidianblack7249]

@@snuggie1849 then you have made it farther than me. I'm only slightly past the volcano fight and am feeling drained after that encounter

[@snuggie1849]

@@obsidianblack7249 well its the hardest fight in the story unless you do all missions. If you can beat the judge you can beat the game

[@厶しりあらな]

Rufus is immune to most status effects apart from maybe deprotect, deshell, debrave, defaith. But he's super easy once you get used to his normal attack patterns, when to block, and when he's using ATB. Whenever he uses ATB. interrupt with triple slash. Darkstar is a nonfactor. He rarely attacks, and rufus is at 40% in phase 2. If you build up his pressure gauge before the cut scene, you can stagger pretty fast. Then infinity's end or limit break to finish him off.

[@K2813]

The grind before I fought Yunalesca, I had to actually go online to find ways to fight against her! Never really had to do that before for a Final Fantasy game.. before her at least

[@Combaticon]

Odin in VII Rebirth. Hated him the first time for his BS move of Zantetsuken when previous experience with other summons was to just tank and heal the damage (even after finding all the shrines) and still hated him even after doing To Be a Hero and Bonds of Friendship (as he often ended up being the source of so much time being wasted trying to complete Johnny's collection).

[@georgehater8370]

He is not bad when you get to understand his movement but the fact that he always comes out so late in challenges and that he can insta kill when you have low resources He is not that bad but only bad giving in certain challenges ( Zack sucks) and conditions that make him extremely wors

[@guestguest5716]

I won't lie, I hated bonds of friendship because of both this and bahamut, mainly because like you said, Zack kinda sucks. But Cloud is actually pretty decent against Odin if you put a protect on him and go into the punisher stance, and use the punisher stances auto counter ability while you guard, it does wonders against odin

[@georgehouliaras7239]

Gilgamesh in 13-2 was ridiculous. You stagger him and he hits you with every debuff imaginable.

[@daviddalrymple2284]

That FF 13-2 monster arena just loved bringing back all your favorite joke bosses from classic FF games, and having them totally wreck Serah and Noel.

[@georgehouliaras7239]

@@daviddalrymple2284 True but they were very OP once you obtain them. Especially Omega. I think he was the best Commando alongside Knight of Etro Lightning.

[@RPsj]

I agree, I never managed to beat him, not even at max level

[@marhawkman303]

@@georgehouliaras7239 reminds me of the Malboros in FFX-2 and their "Bad Breath" attack.... poisoned, burning, blinded, silenced... etc..... they're not really even bosses.!

[@MadameTeqi]

Huh. This is silly as all get out, and probably explained, but do you figure that's a reference to his Genji Armor stolen off of him in his debut game V negating those effects?

[@UltimusTerminus]

I beat Yunalesca on my first attempt .... which took 40 minutes. At least she and Seymour Flux have a banger of an OST to go along with the fight.

[@DKNguyen3.1415]

Show off.

[@zidaryn]

That Gafagarian one hits for me. My first time playing FFT I made Ramza a self insert and made him a White Mage. Got to that fight and ended up having to restart my game. Made Ramza a Monk for my next playthrough.

[@buddah1978egypt]

Pandemonium warden also spawned tons of ads per stage

[@sesshomarusama420]

I was there. 3000 years ago. Still am too.

[@adammatlack4667]

I remember when the vom was first reported.

[@M4ruta]

I remember turning the TV set to a different channel during the umpteenth time I had to suffer a five minute cut-scene because either Yunalesca or the final boss beat me once again.

[@kingsylver4428]

Honestly I didn’t find yunalesca difficult as a kid I beat her on my 1st try. Seymour however that 2/3rd fight I struggled and quit for a while fighting him

[@DerickClark-nu9mk]

My first playthrough I got decimated by Seymour and yunalesca. My 2nd playthrough I grinded between each boss fights, leveling about an hour or so. Coming back to these fights the second time and knowing their attacks I'd one shot them. That was the samr playthrough where I got all the characters to max there sphere grids, got all the celestial weapons, pretty much all characters did 99,999 dmg any attack on any boss. Beat all the dark aeons except the magus sisters. I was trying to max out my characters luck but kept running out of luck spheres and grinding for them took forever. So I never fought penance, want to revisit that playthrough though to completely 100% the game

[@Foxiebuttercup]

I Beat Yunalesca my first try😁 ,although i'm a little fuzzy on the specifics. It was hard and i thought it was impossible until i gave up trying to keep zombie off of everyone and stopped trying to keep everyone at high hp. Instead i focused on healing, cleansing, and reflecting one or two party members at a time while attacking using the others then letting them die. When everyone else went down i just popped a mega phoenix (team revive) and if i only had one person alive and they had zombie i still used a mega phoenix to revive everyone else while that party member died and revived them again all while chipping away at her health with one or two members at a time. Basically i'm glad i farmed over 100 mega phoenixes before i fought her and remember a reliable way to clear zombie is through death for death cures all ailments 😇

[@tcrobot]

Yunalesca channelled the power of Dave Mustaine.

[@truesoprano2152]

I don't think I've ever struggled with any FF boss as much as I have with Seymour Flux and Yunalesca. I feel like I was stuck on them for days when I first played. The raid bosses in MMOs are a different kind of difficulty though since you have to coordinate with other people and either be at the risk of static drama or the inconsistincy of party finder. Fortunately at least in XIV the hard ones aren't required to progress the story.

[@doubletee1320]

While i will always think wiegraf in fft was the biggest break from me (being i had to reload as i was underleveled and this is a multi battle area), gaffer was also rude because the party layout was backwards. Meaning if you are used to putting mages & ranged in back row, the map flips them and is in front row. In front of knights, archers, etc.

[@Malacite]

OMG PW was such a pain. Yeah the group that infamously attempted it was Beyond The Limit, the best linkshell on my home server of Seraph (now merged into Bismarck) That thing was the absolute height of BS alongside AV. Worst of all, I think it was required to complete a Mythic Weapon (well the higher level versions) Honorary mention goes to Shinryu and Omega Weapons in XI, both of whom are supremely cheap even when fully prepared - nothing like popping a Primeval Brew during Shinryu only for him to suddenly change weaknesses and start absorbing your attacks. Rani too... Such a troll boss.

[@samsmith9370]

I remember dying a few times to Yunalesca, finally getting to kill her in the 2nd phase only to be mega-deathed at the start of the shocking reveal of the third phase... I nearly cried.

[@adrianomp1895]

Having played FF11 for over a decade, I can say that MANY of its bosses are harder than every single other mentioned in this video. Pandemonium Warden and Absolute Virtue were just the most infamous and cheap bosses of them, but others like Dynamis Lord, Diabolos, the Divine Might crew, Omega+Ultima, Jailer of Love, the wyrms (Nidhogg, Tiamat, Vrtra) were, also, forces to be reckoned with, requiring discipline, teamwork and some luck to beat. Best FF ever.

[@tattooitachi9424]

Crazy yunalesca was a pretty fun fight for me every play thru lol . First play thru I was a kid so maybe not then . Longest it took me was prolly like 4 tries . That dragon you fight when tryna get the thing for Anima in zanarkand was way harder for me but that also took me like 3 tries .

[@Mortified42]

Pandemonium Warden was indeed a toughie due to the length of the fight, but Absolute Virtue was a much more difficult fight. Players found a cheese strat and finally beat it. The devs then banned those players and made the fight even tougher. The devs released a video of the dev team beating it, but the requirements and reaction times needed didn't work on normal servers due to latency.

[@gbode2443]

The Cape Westwind duty from FFXIV in which you face down the legendary Rihtahtyn sas Arvina was the toughest boss ive ever faced. Honestly makes shadow of the erdtree look like a tutorial. Devs had to remove it because a large influx of players during endwalker were all getting to it and wiping over and over draining the servers with thousands more instances than normal. Its been replaced with a solo fight that while alright lacks the heaven shattering intensity of the old Cape Westwind. Thinking about the many weeks of attempts before i got past keeps me up at night even today...

[@joe9739]

The Gafgarion fight: Monk + Item. You hit twice to his once, and use Hi Potions as needed.

[@JoshuaVerscha]

Future recommendation, Ff14, the masked carnivale #29 or 31. I’m partially disabled and am constantly left out of other blue mage events due to not having either of these completed.

[@blastortoise]

I hate those events where you can't beat them, especially if it's a one time event for a great reward, you just feel like shit for not getting it especially if you put a lot of time into that. Never got past the intro of 14, too much bullshit for me.

[@lenn7272]

One thing with FF9 you could find yourself at lvl 12 and be on the 3rd disc lol. Ruby Dragon farm and lucky Garnet Odin bombs worked well to resolve this near Gizamaluke's Grotto. With some save scumming because if Odin failed, so did you.

[@DownBadDad-iz9mp]

Dawg. Belial was no joke the first time you meet those kinds of creatures. They hit hard asf and had goons with them.

[@mattwestrick6088]

As a gamer, I love your content. As a pc gamer, I very much appreciate the spoiler tag for rebirth. Thank you!

[@thumbhead3370]

Rebirth Sephiroth I think had some pretty shit mechanics. This fight is just a series of Sephiroth starting 10 second countdowns you have to interrupt with very little skill involved. It's just dodging and waiting to use your ATB gauges on his wing over and over again for like 10 minutes all to see if you can maneuver perfectly to survive the last 5 seconds. I swear to god I could get to The End Is Nigh in my fucking sleep at this point, but it's literally just a tossup if you actually succeed. Even if you survive Octoslash, the game loves its instakill countdowns so fucking much that he instantly launches into another one just to make sure you're dead. And then you can't skip the god damn cutscene if you fail.

[@kofinart]

Yunalesca does play by the rules. Healing kills you, in order to avoid that you can actually keep your zombified characters in zombie status and heal them with poison/bio/

[@01bullbl]

Tactics has like 3 different mean bosses. Elmdore, weigraf, and gafgarion. All 3 are probably harder than the last few bosses.

[@thatonecomicbookguy]

Rufus in Rebirth (& Remake) was so brutal. I managed to beat him on my first try, but it wasn’t a satisfying victory.

[@hathus5536]

Any of the Zodiac bosses from Tactics could be here as well..if you didn't know what to expect and were not leveling up, the Zodiac bosses could be brutal.

[@gregburts4630]

it's been over 20 years... and I've never had a problem with the Yunalesca or Seymour Flux battle

[@Flamsterette]

Thanks for the upload!

[@Seru_Omen]

My problem with Gafgarion was never beating him with Ramza- it was my team getting absolutely wiped out by summoners without Ramza's help.

[@Typical.Anomaly]

The number of times I've had to defeat CalBrina because Golbez annihilated my party right after... probably at least 20. It's bc he knows I'mma cast 'Warp' right after to get the Earth Crystal and skip the Sealed Cave lol

[@daviddalrymple2284]

Yeah. Even if Cecil is still alive, it's not a trivial battle. Golbez's spells hit hard, Rydia is very fragile and very slow...

[@Typical.Anomaly]

@@daviddalrymple2284 Back in the mid-90s, I levelled Rydia up to around 70 before the Leviatan (sic) attack. When I got Rydia, _Rosa and Kain_ back, they were _all_ around 70. That save file hit 99:59 before I got her that high too lol

[@bobjoemac1]

That fight and the demon wall were by far the hardest fights of my childhood. No other boss fight on the snes rpg Era came close.

[@veghesther3204]

I could do that but its just best To SOLO LV Paladin Cecil TO LV 40 on Mt Ordeals THEN to LV 70 BEFORE The magus sisters bosses. BUT the WARP Trick is only on the SNES/PS1 version the GBA and Pixel FF4 the game won't even allow you to USE the spell after the dolls + Golbez battle at all. But if you DO the warp trick still KILL Ashura and Leviathan while Kain IS still playable and he won't be if you enter the Sealed Cave if you do the Warp Trick on the SNES and PS1 version to skip it.

[@tylerrobertson6228]

First encounter with Yunalesca was ridiculous 😂 but once you do it again and know how she works it’s so easy

[@thecomingofchrisit0]

Do a video on what Ozma is, or on what Necron is, and definitely Nox Suzaku. Lots of deep lore with the last one. If you guys can think of any bosses, similar to the ones above, add them down below.

[@002DrEvil]

One thing I don't like is acquiring a really good spell or technik only to find all the bosses are immune to it.

[@MoonMagicks]

That FFVII Rebirth fight was BS. I died so many times on that fight.

[@polly1062]

I Just beat Yunalesca today and didnt had much difficulty tbh. I Just blasted her First place with the ice aeon since She can heal and Same thing with the second phase. On third phase i unleashed a storm of overdrives and won

[@axlefoley6330]

I’ve completed XV so many times and defeated Omega as many times. How the hell did I not know to use the Royal Arms and I’ve never seen that beam attack.

[@AzrenSA]

God, that Golbez fight was a *beast!*

[@user-ki4no3ly5]

The thumbnail got me

[@MarceloOmegaAGDM]

Me fighting Bhunivelze in 13-3. my build worked against every single boss, then i reach him and i couldnt stagger final form for the life of me. Had to google why and it pissed me off so much.

[@lenlimbo]

8:08 To be fair, Cecil is actually quite tough, so it is hard for him to be dead and other party members to be alive. Even with the augment Draw Attacks. Cecil is really THAT tough. So if he arrives at that battle dead... you probably deserves the L, if you don't revive him fast enough.

[@mattkite7246]

Bloody Yunalesca traumatised 12 year old me on my first runthrough; every single subsequent runthrough in the 20 years+ since, I've spitefully overlevelled at Mt Gagazet so I can Flare and Holy spam that bikini armoured witch into the Farplane.

[@talantus]

See, Back in the days, when we encountered those "unfair" bosses we just thought "challenge accepted!"

[@Bnice10]

What about Chac from X-2? She can instantly turn you into stone even if you wore the Dark Knight armor. Ribbon doesn't prevent it either.

[@sephtis]

Yunalesca was an interesting fight just because managing your hp was so...odd in that fight and that fight alone.