Saturday, April 9, 2016

The Top Ten Most Difficult Battles In Final Fantasy Tactics

Now that Final Fantasy Tactics is concluded, I'd like to rank some of the more difficult battles in the game. Which ones stand the test of time in difficulty? Which are the biggest roadblocks to progress?

NOTE: I'll be using the names from the original PSX version.

NOTE 2: Thanks to Orioto for the wonderful artwork above, check out his excellent work at http://orioto.deviantart.com/




Honorable Mentions: The final battle(s) with Ultima, Wiegraf in the monastery, Izlude in the monastery, Deep Dungeon in general

#10 - Fort Ziekden

The final battle of Chapter 1 is a bit on the difficult side, certainly above average. The enemy crew outguns your party unless you've done a fair amount of over-leveling up to that point, with black mages hiding behind well-equipped knights. The good news is that defeating Algus means the end of the battle. There are other fights later in the game that are more difficult than this one, yet can also be won by taking out a leader. Izlude and Wiegraf in the monastery come to mind. At that point you're likely better-suited for assassinating enemy commanders, though. The Fort Ziekden fight, being much earlier, is going to drag on for considerably longer. Algus also doesn't bum-rush your party like many commanders do, choosing instead to stay back and snipe like the jerk he is. This is a tricky fight, but it isn't as bad as anything else on this list.


#9 - Queklain, the Impure King

The first Lucavi demon is actually fairly difficult to take down. He's quick and can unleash a variety of status effects on your party, including putting everyone to sleep with little chance of resistance. Later in the game, Zalera is basically the same fight with more HP and goons added; however, by then, your characters are through the roof on power. Again, this is a fight that is mainly difficult due to the point it shows up. Relative to your party at the time that you fight him, Queklain is more of a challenge than most of the other Lucavi and can definitely catch players off guard who haven't previously dealt with status effects.


#8 - Walled City, Protect Rafa

Not the only "Protect Rafa" battle to appear on this list. Your first meeting with Rafa can be a frustrating one, as she doesn't have many HP. Being AI controlled, she also likes to stand right in the open where enemies can easily attack her. The enemy group is composed of meleers who can reach her on the first turn AND Summoners; this means she's very likely to get annihilated without the player having very much input on the matter. The good news is that if you get control of the tide quickly, it really isn't all that difficult. Those first couple of turns with Rafa out in harm's way can be rough.


#7 - Dorter Trade City

The first fight on the list that is significantly difficult to the point of maybe ending some playthroughs. Potentially encountered within the first hour of the game, this is a true test of your party strength and it comes before most players are prepared for it. Black Mages make their debut here, and they debut with a bang. Less notable but equally deadly are the enemy Archers, who of course start with the high ground on you as usual. To top it all off, your party is outnumbered. This is a big wake-up call that the game isn't going to play fair, and there isn't any good way to end the fight quickly. Without many strategic avenues to victory, you might need to stop and level/class grind until your party can manage it. On the other hand, it sorta teaches you the value of mages.


#6 - Elmdor Final Battle

The fight with Elmdor, Celia, and Lede in Limberry Castle is a very difficult one. It isn't the first time you face some combination of these trio, but unlike the previous skirmishes you can't win by simply taking out one of the assassins. Defeating Elmdor is the only path to victory, and with his Blade Grasp skill, it's easier said than done. Most physical attacks won't even land on him, and even powerful non-physical attacks with 100% hit rates seem to do vastly reduced damage. In other words, even Orlandu can't save you here.

Defense aside, Elmdor is also a beast offensively, dishing out large amounts of damage with both physical strikes and Samurai AoEs. Top all of this off with Celia and Lede having the ability to stun your characters (at range, no less) with 100% effectiveness, and it's a frustrating battle. On the bright side, this is one of the ultra-rare fights where your characters actually outnumber the enemies. It's a matter of focusing all fire on Elmdor and hoping you can take him down in time. After this Elmdor transforms into Zalera, a much easier opponent. He should have just stayed in his original form!


#5 - Lionel Castle Gate

A composite battle, with most of your party fighting a goon squad outside the gate while Ramza fights Gaffgarion one-on-one. This can be a very difficult fight if you haven't prepared for it, since Ramza is likely to be outgunned. Gaffgarion's ability to self-heal while attacking makes him particularly frustrating. The good news is that even a minor amount of preparation makes all the difference; giving Ramza a movement ability like Teleport can allow him to get the gate open quickly and let the rest of the party in for a beatdown on Gaffgarion. However, for unprepared players and underleveled Ramzas, this one is a big challenge.



#4 - Elmdor Rooftop Battle, Protect Rafa

Atop Riovanes Castle, the objective of protecting Rafa again rears its ugly head. Not only that, but you're protecting her against Elmdor and his overpowered assassin duo. Simply defeating one of them ends the battle, but good luck accomplishing that when they can easily annihilate Rafa on their first turn if she moves poorly (and she's AI controlled, so she probably will). This battle is a recipe for major frustration, and the fact that it follows another super-difficult fight in Riovanes just makes it even more of an ordeal. At least you don't need to defeat all three of them, which would make it a candidate for first place on the list.


#3 - Finnath Creek

A somewhat unsung battle, this is a main story (mandatory) fight that looks and acts like a random fight. It's against a squad of chocobos that scale with Ramza's level, and given how completely overpowered chocobos are... this fight can actually end a playthrough. If you've been playing normally (i.e., not grinding more levels than you absolutely have to), then this battle is manageable. However, if you're well-built, the fight edges towards impossible. Get here with a level 99 Ramza and it's likely the chocobos will destroy your party on their first turn. The variance in difficulties keeps it from being higher on the list, though with a high level Ramza this is absolutely a contender for #1. Also, unlike the top two, this fight doesn't box you in; you're free to go work on your party and make any adjustments that could help you win.


#2 - Golgorand Execution Site

First of all, Gaffgarion leads the enemy charge and starts out within striking distance of your party, meaning someone is going to take an attack from him before you even have a chance to move your characters. Take down Gaffgarion, and you've still got his SEVEN goons to deal with (you can bring five characters to the fight). Several of them start on top of a wall, making them difficult to reach, and they're much higher-level and better-equipped than the enemies in previous fights leading up to this point. It's extremely difficult to get through this battle without losing at least one character permanently, even if you spent a lot of time getting ready for it and training up your party.


Also, you're boxed-in on the overworld before this fight, which means no leaving to build up; this adds a new layer of difficulty. There's one overworld square that you can use for training, but it's an awful swamp stage that isn't in any way conducive to building your party. While level-building will give you the edge over this battle (as opposed to doing the reverse like Finnath Creek), the game doesn't give you much of an option to go do that once you realize you have to. This fight is sheer brutality, and it says a lot that the brawl with Gaffgarion is just the beginning of the horror.


#1 - Wiegraf and Velius

Finally, we come to the most famous part of Final Fantasy Tactics. The battle with Wiegraf at Riovanes has ended many a playthrough of the game, as players are tricked into saving before the fight and thus can't do ANY building-up or preparation before trying again (assuming they've only been keeping one save slot, which most people do until they know better). That aside, this is also the hardest fight in the game, and the worst possible time for it to box the player in. One could argue that Wiegraf and Velius are two separate fights, but I'd say that they're Part One and Part Two of a single battle.

The first fight begins with Wiegraf fighting Ramza one-on-one, and if the player isn't absolutely prepared for this, their game is likely over. Wiegraf is extremely OP, dishing out Holy Sword attacks like they're going out of style. After Ramza somehow survives this completely lopsided duel, his allies join him to fight Velius and a bunch of Archaeodaemons. This fight is equally difficult in its own way, with Velius leading off by dropping the devastating Cyclops summon on the party. Both he and the Archaeodaemon squad are capable of all kinds of range attacks and can easily blast your party with impunity while you slowly march up the steps to try and eke out a counteroffensive.

Absolutely the hardest fight(s) in the game, and the way the game boxes you in beforehand makes this section into the stuff of nightmares. I know my first playthrough ended at this point; the good news is that the game is so good that a second playthrough isn't the worst thing in the world. Still, it's a terrible surprise to drop on the player three-quarters of the way through the game.

This concludes the Top Ten Most Difficult Battles In Final Fantasy Tactics, as well as my coverage of the game. Stay tuned for Dragonball Z Month!

Other Final Fantasy Tactics Posts

25 comments:

  1. Queklain is also an entirely new type of battle to the player. Even with how terrifying he looked, I wondered just how tough a single unit could be when I had 5 units. I found out. The new player won't know to spread their team out beforehand either.

    New players probably get to Dorter with squires and chemists. Maybe one knight! They mostly die and come back with a black mage (and maybe a white mage) as the battle showed them their use. You don't make a point of getting archers because you start on the low ground and they won't help much.

    The execution site is nuts. 8 on 5 in chapter 2 when you're still somewhat limited. I suppose a summoner with Golem would help more than anything in that one, even if you're not safe from the time magic and Gafgarion.

    Wiegraf and Velius... no joke, man. No joke.

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  2. Good point by Brayn that, in Andre the Giant's words, you get used to melee fights and have to use different moves when attacking just one person.

    Great job reviewing all these battles!

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  3. same thing happened to me on #1, I got save stuck on this fight and tried every combination at least 10 times each

    I remember even trying to calculate my chances with the best possible variation and somehow it came to a 1 in 2600 chance of getting through both phases so I gave up and started a new playthrough

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  4. "The battle with Wiegraf at Riovanes has ended many a playthrough of the game!"

    Yup! Couldn't beat them in 1998, couldn't beat them in 2020..

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    1. The key is to make a save outside the castle, always. I usually end up spending a good 3-4 hours making party changes before I try the fight. The best avenue to victory that I found was to make Ramza a monk with Auto-Potion (make sure you only have Hi-Potions+ so it doesn't use regular Potions). Wave Fist does a lot of damage to Wiegraf (and Velius for that matter). Having Auto-Potion mitigates most of Wiegraf's damage. If you spend a few hours grinding, you can get Ramza a lot of Monk abilities (Earth Slash can hit from outside Wiegraf's attack range). Sometimes I even make him a Time Mage for the Teleport move skill and he essentially becomes an invincible teleporting monk. Have Squire abilities set as your secondary and teleport around building up his stats with Yell or whichever stat-up ability, then go in for the kill.

      Just make sure you level up your other characters as well during all of this because if Ramza outpaces everyone it'll make random fights a lot harder (since enemy levels go up with Ramza's I think).

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    2. You can cheese it pretty well with Yell and Accumulate. Ramza gets whatever class you want plus guts, yell until you take at least 2 turns between Wiegrafs, accumulate for a while to build power, then wreck his face. Your speed and power stick with you for Velius.

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  5. wiegraf is actually pretty easy, especially if you have auto potion with ramza and x potions only. Just keep using yell until you get like 4 turns before he gets 1 then use accumulate to get offense up.

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    1. I beat him my first time as a Lancer with jumping. Velius was a lot harder though.

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  6. I think Elmdor Final Battle is easily the most difficult fight in the entire game, this is because not only do you have to win, but you have to steal every single one of his unique items (the Genji equipment & Masamune) without killing him first and without losing a single party member. The artificial restrictions imposed (at least if you want the unique item set you can't get anywhere else) makes this very difficult and victory will only come about from sheer luck and perfect planning. Further complicating this is if you haven't yet gotten Ultima you'll also not be able to kill the assassins until they've cast Ultima on Ramza and have him survive. Also killing them doesn't remove them from the fight, they'll keep reviving as lucavi demons after 3 turns over and over.

    After that the second most difficult fight is probably with Elidibs on the final stage of Deep Dungeon because now you have to win with a squad of summoners and have them all get hit with and survive a casting of Zodiac in order to learn the final summoning skill of the game. Most people I know just give up and only have one or two summoners learn the spell, rather than their entire squad. To be fair, it is also possible to learn this spell later on in the game, by casting it on an enemy summoner, have them survive and learn it, and then have them cast it back on your unlearned summoners. Still a difficult proposal.

    Finally third I'd agree that Wiegraf and Velius is the next hardest fight, but only because of that stupid prompt about the save. Malicious game design indeed.

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  7. Fun game, but ridiculous battles you can't possibly prepare for after you're committed to a fight really were a poor design for an otherwise great game with a fantastic story.

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  8. I fiend wiegraf and velius so easy, just start sprinting around the stage and use tailwin on ramza til hes fast enough to have 3-5 turns per wiegraf, and then hit your self with 4 focus and just punch each enemy once, if you got an orator (i normally do by the time i even get to dorter) i get my static brave in mid high 90s and just wipe the wall with everything as a monk with the squire abilities.

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    1. I actually just did a Youtube video of the Velius fight where I happened to do this same exact strategy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME2SagVKKAg

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