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| Mythic Weapons from Final Fantasy XI |
Not so long ago, Doctor Q did an article regarding stupid
weapons in games. While I mainly agreed with him (I still think Final Fantasy VIII’s gunblades are
beyond stupid), in this article I want to point out some deliberately awesome
ones in the main installments of the Final
Fantasy games. Here are some of the more memorable ones to me, whether because
of how cool they look, their sheer destructive power or if they straight out
broke the game. Let’s take a look at some Final
Fantasy game weapons.
The Buster Sword
(Final Fantasy VII)
Whenever I think about iconic weapons in Final Fantasy, the Buster Sword immediately pops in my head. This sword is
recognizable anywhere, perhaps even more than the hero that wields it. After it
was introduced, other games in the franchise made note or reference to it and
even featured it in some of their games. Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy XII) even owns a wonky replica. All of its variations
are visually striking and recognizable. It’s a sword with a history (if you
play the prequels), it’s ridiculously reality defying and a perfect fit for a steam punk fantasy game sword. Regardless of what you think of the game, the
people that get to use it or just how ridiculous its size and physics are, you
have to give props where it counts. A game as iconic as Final Fantasy VII deserved an equally iconic weapon for its
protagonist and it definitely delivered.
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| It says a lot when the sword covers the main character and you still know it's him. |
The Kraken Club (Final Fantasy XI)
If ever
there existed a weapon with a nefarious reputation in the early days of Final Fantasy XI, it was the Kraken
Club. When this MMORPG started out, players camped out for days on end wanting
to get their hands on a Kraken Club. To acquire one you had to defeat the Lord
of Onzozo, a lottery pop from another monster every 18-34 hours. If you managed
to kill it, you had a sliver of a chance in hell for it to drop. Square Enix
over time decreased its usefulness and provided players with better
alternatives but it caused all sorts of destruction before that.
The stats
are pretty decent and almost everyone can use it. Then you read the description…
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| Now THIS is a boom-stick... |
Occasionally
Attacks 2 to 8 times? Wait, what? Suddenly this club is an actual threat. Because of
the low delay and high percentage of its ability activating, you could
either unleash pain or easily sell for one for over 1 million gil (in-game currency). Gold farmers
and bots often sold them at insane prices. In the hands of damage dealer, such as a Dark Knight with haste and his
abilities activated, meant death to whatever he attacked. At one point an alliance
of Kraken Clubbed Dark Knights defeated within minutes what was once one of the
strongest monsters in the game, Absolute Virtue, which prompted Square Enix to
take action. They made the Dark Knight weaker, the monster stronger and the
Kraken Club more accessible so people wouldn’t compete so much over it. In
short, this weapon got jobs nerfed, monsters changed and assisted in messing up
the in-game economy. If that isn’t hardcore in Final Fantasy history, I don’t know what is.
Lion Heart (Final Fantasy VIII)
While I will always think that gunblades are stupid looking
weapons, there is no denying the coolness factor of the Lion Heart. In a game
already broken by how easily you could just spam your limit breaks, once this
was acquired it was game over for everything in Squall’s way. Already deadly on
his own with his seriously overpowered limit break, Renzokuken, Lion Heart
added insult to injury by activating the limit with the same name; which
unleashed yet another barrage of blows and looked wildly awesome while doing
so. It’s also aesthetically pleasing, as far as gunblades go. Haven’t you ever
wanted to take down a giant, winged, purple lion hell bent on killing you with a
blue laser sword that activates destruction incarnate? Well, Squall has. What
did YOU do today?
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| And in Dissidia, he actually looks like he's going to unleash hell upon you. |
Chicken Knife/Brave
Blade (Final Fantasy V)
This I included only because I love the concept behind it.
During your adventures in Final Fantasy V,
you encounter a man who gives you either one of these blades. You can’t have
both of them and either one has ho-hum stats. That is, until you figure out
that they quickly become some of the deadliest items ever. If you pick the Chicken
Knife, it powers up the more battles you run away from. The Brave Blade is the
opposite. It powers up the more battles you fight. Take into account the insane
random encounter rate from earlier Final Fantasies and now you get the gist
behind this. It was ridiculously easy to overpower either one of these items.
However, you had to take into account some things. The Brave Blade’s power
diminished drastically whenever you ran away from battle and the Chicken Knife had
a random chance of making your party escape from battle when you used it,
negating experience points. But like always, there’s a loophole. If you used
abilities that prohibited the player from running but used the weapon, like the
“Aim” ability, you could trounce whatever enemy crossed your path. The Brave
Blade was so insanely overpowered if you didn’t run, that the thought probably
wouldn’t even occur to you and as long as you never ran from a battle, you were
good. As for me, I always picked the Chicken Knife. There was something oddly
satisfying to me about killing a monster with something named after poultry.
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| I may be a coward old man, but I can gut you with my overpowered knife. |
Drill (Final Fantasy VI)
Though technically not a weapon, I decided to include this
because let’s face it, this and the chainsaw are two of the best attacks in
the game. They are iconic to the character Edgar in Final Fantasy VI and very, very deadly. Also you can purchase the
drill like a weapon and once you get it, you pretty much forget Edgar has an
attack command. So that counts for something, right?
Anyways, the drill in particular is on this list because it
is perhaps the cheapest weapon in the entire game. You can acquire it early
enough and not really through any special means. You literally can go into a
shop and get one. Then you unleash it in battle and Edgar no longer needs any
weapons. This unholy tool of hell ignores defense, is unblockable and does
insane damage. If you pump up Edgar, this thing is even deadlier. Put haste on
him and he’ll easily do 6k+ damage before the other party members realize
what’s going on. The reason this game needs a remake with voice acting is
because I want to hear Edgar pull this out in battle and the monsters whimper
in fear, knowing that they just became the king of Figaro’s newest fur coat.
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| Even in cutesy iOS graphics, that's freaking deadly. |
Obviously there are many more weapons and I plan to
highlight even more in subsequent entries, which hopefully Doctor Q will assist
with. Yet I know that whenever I think back at any of the Final Fantasy games
in the main installments, these come to mind immediately. Are there better
weapons? Certainly. I intend to elaborate some more upon them, but for now
let’s keep it short.
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