The villains of the Final Fantasy series exist on a wide spectrum, where they are either a major part of the story from the very beginning, or are just a big monster that shows up to give the player something to beat up during the final battle of the game.
The individual strength of each Final Fantasy villain is difficult to quantify, due to how different the combat system is in each game.
The world-devouring demon of one game might pose a major challenge that tests the player’s knowledge and skill, while another might be a total pushover, thanks to some quirk of the programming.
The combat potential of a villain doesn’t diminish their credibility as effective characters. A victory against a hated opponent will still be sweet regardless of how long the battle took.
The moment of triumph is all the sweeter if you had to work hard for it and some Final Fantasy bosses were better at putting up a fight than others.
We are here today to rank the Final Fantasy villains in terms of their combat ability, based on the final encounter in each game.
From the parasite who refuses to let you pass away to the mysterious woman who will spend every turn breaking you with her raw power, here is Every Final Fantasy End Boss Ranked From Weakest To Most Powerful!
Yu Yevon (Final Fantasy X)
Final Fantasy X ends with an epic conflict with a colossal whale monster. The party has to engage the behemoth known as Sin head-on, before entering the beast’s body and fighting through an epic final dungeon. Y
ou then have to battle Braska’s Final Aeon, before being forced to fight all of the Aeons who had fought by your side throughout the game.
Once all the awesome stuff is over, you are thrust into battle against Yu Yevon, the creator of Sin.
Yu Yevon is a massive insect, whose fight is a mere formality that stands between you and the final cutscene.
The reason why the fight against Yu Yevon is so easy is due to the fact that the party has the Auto-Life spell cast on them throughout the battle. You have to go far out of your way in order to lose this battle.
Orphan (Final Fantasy XIII)
There are many games in the Final Fantasy series that give the player access to status effect spells that adversely affect the enemy, such as Poison or Slow.
The most powerful status effect spells are the ones that have a chance of instantly destroying the enemy, such as Death or the Odin summon.
The vast majority of the boss monsters in the Final Fantasy series are immune to instant death spells, as it would make them too easy.
One of the biggest exceptions to this is Orphan, the end boss of Final Fantasy XIII, who can succumb to Vanille’s Death spell once it is staggered.
Orphan’s weakness to the Death spell was an intentional shout-out to the Creator, who was the end boss of Final Fantasy Legend. It was possible to destroy the Creator using the Saw weapon, thanks to a glitch.
The Dark King (Final Fantasy Mystic Quest)
The Dark King is the end boss of Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest and can be quite tricky to deal with, as you only have two party members during the final battle.
This means that your strategic options are limited, to the point where having one character focus on healing and the other on damage is easily the most highly recommended method of conquering the Dark King.
The Dark King isn’t as tough as he looks, thanks to an overflow glitch that is present in the game. It’s possible to destroy the Dark King within the space of a few turns, thanks to a bug involving the Cure spell.
Casting the Cure spell on the Dark King will cause a glitch that will create an attack that breaks the damage limit and deals over ten-thousand points of damage.
The Dark King only has forty-thousand hit points, so he isn’t going to last long against the might of the basic healing spell.
Emperor Mateus (Final Fantasy II)
Emperor Mateus was responsible for untold destruction, thanks to the military might under his command.
He was so effective at being an evil dictator that he didn’t let a little thing like his own demise get in the way of conquest, as he was just too busy being a bad guy to stay down for long.
Mateus managed to take over Hell and become its ruler, which meant that the party had to travel to the underworld in order to finish him off for good.
The power that comes with becoming the ruler of Hell is meaningless in the face of glitches, as it is possible to destroy Mateus in a single turn, by casting the WALL spell, followed by TOAD. This will cause a glitch that will force the animation for TOAD to play out and end the battle, even though he is normally immune to it.
You get to enjoy the thrill of seeing Mateus hopping around in his new amphibian form before the ending plays.
Safer-Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII)
Sephiroth is easily the most famous Final Fantasy villain of them all. This is partly due to the fact that he was responsible for taking the life of Aerith, which became one of the most iconic moments in video game history.
Sephiroth’s long list of evil acts that he commits throughout Final Fantasy VII will have you desperate to put him down once and for all. Final Fantasy VII will provide you with the tools necessary for this task, though they may be a little too good at what they do.
The presence of the Knights of the Round summon and the Mime materia make the final battle against Sephiroth trivial.
He won’t survive more than a few Knights of the Round and likely won’t be able to destroy the party before you can summon them.
The Mime ability, coupled with the fact that you have no reason to save your best healing items, means that the high MP cost of Knights of the Round is meaningless.
Ultima, The High Seraph (Final Fantasy Tactics)
Final Fantasy Tactics has one of the most uneven difficulty curves in the series; the game starts off with some brutally difficult battles which may turn away the more casual gamer, while the second half of the game is almost laughably easy.
The reason the latter part of Final Fantasy Tactics is so easy is due to the unique party members that the game gives you as part of the story.
Characters like Beowulf, T.G. Cid, and Meliadoul possess a range of powerful abilities that your generic party members cannot gain access to.
The presence of the unique party members means that the final battle against Ultima, the High Seraph is a joke.
You are free to ignore her Ultima Demon allies and just wail on her with ranged attacks, as she won’t be able to endure a barrage of Divine Ruinations for long.
Ardyn (Final Fantasy XV)
The last battle of Final Fantasy XV is essentially a mirror match, as Noctis must fight someone who possesses the same combat abilities that he has.
Ardyn has access to his own version of the Royal Arms and can both phase and perform warp-strikes against Noctis.
This forces the player to have to think of ways to deal with the attacks that they have been using throughout the game.
The battle against Ardyn is actually pretty easy, due to the fact that he doesn’t deal a great of damage with a single attack and prefers quick attacks that deal a small amount of damage.
The fact that you are given hundreds of healing items throughout the games means that it is easy for the player to quickly restore their health at a moments notice and always stay ahead of Ardyn in terms of damage being dealt.
Kefka (Final Fantasy VI)
It seems like most anime and video game villains want to become a god. Kefka has proven that possessing the powers of the Almighty isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, considering that he can be defeated by a yeti, a Moogle, an elderly man, and a young girl who wields the power of DeviantArt.
The last fight of Final Fantasy VI is an endurance battle against the many forms of the Statue of the Gods, followed by ascending to the heavens and fighting Kefka.
The game throws the player a bone by allowing you to use all twelve party members in the fight, assuming you completed all of the character sidequests and assembled the whole team.
You can assemble all of your characters into three teams and can use them all throughout the battle.
This sheer amount of combat potential makes the end boss trivial, as even the might of the God of Magic cannot compete with so many player characters.
Neo Exdeath (Final Fantasy V)
Neo Exdeath can be hard to describe to someone who has never seen it before, as it looks like all of the bosses of the game have been stuck together with glue.
Don’t let appearances fool you, as Neo Exdeath possesses a range of powerful attacks that will wreck the party.
It’s possible to skip the final battle with Neo Exdeath, thanks to a glitch that involves beating his previous form using reflected damage, or with the Kiss of Blessing bug.
The presence of these bugs isn’t necessary, as Neo Exdeath is a pushover, thanks to the presence of the Mime job. It’s easy to unlock the Mime job and have every party member use it in battle, as they can also equip extra abilities alongside it.
All you need to do to beat Neo Exdeath is have someone cast Bahamut (the most powerful summon in the game) and have everyone just mime the previous action so that you can spam the best spell in the game for free.
The Undying (Final Fantasy XII)
Vayne Solidor might not be the most interesting Final Fantasy villain, but he at least put up a good fight towards the end of Final Fantasy XII.
Vayne merges with Venat and becomes the creature known as The Undying. This begins a final battle that is all about planning and preparation, rather than brute strength.
In order to defeat The Undying, you need to have a smart equipment and Gambit setup, with an emphasis on defense and healing.
You need to be able to outmatch The Undying’s damage output, as you cannot rely on the usual buffing strategy for long, due to his love of casting Dispelga.
The Undying also likes to heal, which is actually a perfect opportunity for you to deal a ton of damage, rather than taking a time out for your team.
Zeromus (Final Fantasy IV)
Final Fantasy IV ends with a battle against Zeromus, even though he has almost no role in the story and Golbez would have been a far better choice for the final boss.
The battle against Zeromus doesn’t require much in the way of strategy, as you really don’t have many options going in.
You are stuck using five specific characters and their limited choice of abilities when you reach Zeromus.
It is due to a lack of options that Zeromus can be so tricky, as he is a powerhouse in battle and you can’t cheat or abuse the system in order to beat him.
The only way to fight Zeromus is to have every character perform their assigned role as best as possible and do your best to survive his Big Bang attack.
Necron (Final Fantasy IX)
Necron might be the most disliked end boss in the entire Final Fantasy series, due to the fact that he usurped the position at the last minute with no build up or even a single reference to his existence.
Necron also took over the role from Kuja, who was a far better villain and the main antagonist for most of the game.
Necron might be a letdown, but that doesn’t mean he is a pushover in combat. The player has a lot of options available to them when fighting Necron.
However, the battle will still boil down to finding a way to protect yourself from his numerous status effects and outpacing his own healing spells, which he has a tendency to use after a successful round of attacks by the player, in order to undo all of your hard work.
Chaos (Final Fantasy)
Chaos was the first end boss of the Final Fantasy series and he has remained one of the most challenging to date. The original Warriors of Light had their work cut out for them when it came to stopping Garland and closing the time loop once and for all.
The reason Chaos is so powerful is due to his incredibly high stats; Chaos can deal incredible amounts of damage and can soak up plenty of hits, thanks to his high defense and HP scores.
He also has the ability to inflict status effects, with even his physical attacks possessing the power of paralysis.
The method for defeating Chaos depends on the four jobs that the player chose at the start of the game, as each party makeup has different strategies available to them.
The one tactic that remains effective for all groups involves beating Chaos before he can start firing off his healing spells, which will put you right back to square one.
Ultimecia (Final Fantasy VIII)
The boss battle against Ultimecia at the end of Final Fantasy VIII might be the most frustrating one in the series, due to how random it can be, thanks to her ability to remove large parts of each character’s arsenal of magic.
You have to defeat Ultimecia, Griever, and the fused form of the two before you are able to challenge the final version of Ultimecia.
This final form possesses the usual stock of Final Fantasy end boss abilities, including powerful attack, debuff, and status effect spells, as well as one that reduces the party’s hit points to one.
Ultimecia also possesses the ability to destroy each Guardian Force and remove a character’s stock of spells, even if it is junctioned to a stat.
This means that Ultimecia has the potential to randomly remove key magic spells, which will cripple your party and give you almost no chance at victory, as your stats will become too low to survive her onslaught.
Cloud Of Darkness (Final Fantasy III)
Cloud of Darkness lacks the creativity of the other bosses on this list when it comes to her tactics in battle. She will generally only cast a single spell with a simple effect, but it somehow manages to make her one of the most ruthlessly difficult bosses in the series.
Cloud of Darkness will usually cast the Flare Wave spell on each turn, which will deal over a thousand points of damage to the party.
She doesn’t waste time with buffs or debuffs or status effects, as all she needs to do is wail on the party with incredibly powerful attacks in order to grind them into the dust.
It’s possible to defeat some of the bosses on this list at very low levels, either through exploits or smart tactics. These won’t work with the Cloud of Darkness, as you need to acquire the best equipment and jobs in the game in order to beat her.
You will need an optimal setup in order to be able to survive her constant damage and be victorious in battle once more.
What do you think? Which Final Fantasy boss is the strongest? Sound off in the comments!
