Forceful Final Fantasy

[Torzelbaum]

Combat is an integral part of Final Fantasy games. Usually the characters start with some combat ability/strength but not an incredible amount - it's usually just enough to face the weak enemies that first appear. However that strength tends to grow through the course of the game until you can wield incredible amounts of power in battle. So which Final Fantasy made you feel the most powerful (in game)? But are there any games where you just stopped trying to get more powerful?

Note: This isn't just about the raw numbers since those can be relative.

 

[Kirin]

I suppose the Ur example here is FFT Calculators that just let you break most late-game battles over your knee if you so choose - but really most FFs have ways to do that, at least post FFIV or so where they started featuring optional content that intentionally tempts you to make builds that go way beyond what’s necessary to roll the credits.

 

[FelixSH]

I think the games that do this the most for me are VII and VIII, with these absurd limit breaks. They are so delightfully overpowered, I'm thinking especially of Cloud and Squall. And, of course, Tifa, who can lift a Kaiju like it's nothing. Or Xell and Quistis, who can be devastating.

Considering I don't fiddle around with systems much, I normally don't get really op in these games. Like, there might be a lot of ways to get absurdly strong in VI, but I always have trouble getting my whole team up to speed, to fight through Kefkas tower. But in VII and VIII, the limit breaks are basically baked into the game, and you often experience op moves, that just get more and more op. And granted, with VIII, except for my last playthrough (playing it like a regular JRPG works really well), if you stay low leveled and keep your HP low, to be able to do limit breaks all the time, you are a walking god, nearly from the word go.

 

[Lokii]

There's a genre of youtube videos I enjoy that showcase crazy materia builds in VII. You can really push that system into some creative places.

I've always wanted to do a fiesta with a chemist but have never pulled it (but have gotten plane jane dragoon three times). It's the class notable in V for being able to just plow through all opposition and I've never been able to savor its sweet nectars.

 

[Torzelbaum]

So which Final Fantasy made you feel the most powerful (in game)? But are there any games where you just stopped trying to get more powerful?

The game that is an answer for both of these questions is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. When I played it I used a strategy for breaking the game and became so powerful that my party could easily defeat just about any enemy force with near impunity. (But I still couldn't defeat the laws.) It really became too easy - the guide I was using outlined additional steps for becoming even more powerful but it just seemed unnecessary and redundant by that point.

 

[ozacrot]

This is cheating (if not intentionally), but the strongest I've ever felt in a Final Fantasy game was the first time I played FFVI, when I sketched a Hoover and accidentally gave myself 99 Illuminas/Gem Boxes/Economizers.

Highlights of by-the-books OP FF include:

• Mastering every single job in FFV
• Abusing Aura to complete the last 1/6th of FFVIII with mostly Limit Breaks
• Using the Arena, the Master Tonberry, and a few weapon abilities in FFX to make Yuna powerful enough to one-shot anything
• FFXII: Haste + Berserk + Genji Glove. Simple as!

 

[gorha]

FFVI is the one that makes me feel the most overpowered in normal gameplay. Just by learning stronger attack spells as the espers that teach them become available and raising your magic stat, you can tear through most enemies with just one or two characters' actions, and beat bosses in just a few rounds. Once you learn Life 3, you can't really die anymore, either.

In one playthrough of FFX, I did the thing where you go around the sphere grid replacing nodes with small stat increases with bigger ones. That was the biggest gap between how strong I felt at the beginning and at the end. I only really boosted strength and speed, just doing enough to roll over all the arena bosses, but it's possible to go even further, and it would even be helpful against some of the new bosses from the rereleases. That game is a real grinders' paradise.

In one of the missions in FFXV where you attack an Imperial base, I was zipping around with warp strikes and one-shotting most of the enemies. It only lasted a few minutes before the boss showed up and brought me back down to earth, but I think that was most powerful I've ever felt at one moment in a Final Fantasy game.

 

[Oathbreaker]

Omnislash/Lionheart/Tifa. For all the hype that Knights of the Round got back in the day, it was disappointing by comparison. I get why they don't want the instant win to be a consistent effect, but getting it to proc when using Alterna in FFXV is just wild. Like what if bosses weren't immune to Quistis's Degenerator.

Once I started reading the "Perfect Game" guides for FFIX that explain how leveling up and stat gains from it actually work, that became the game in which I delighted in just giving up on getting stronger. The difference in power when you prevent the party from leveling up until you have the good late-game gear feels like the difference between no junctioning in FFVIII and complete sets of 100 of each powerful magic filling out all your stats, except IX's superbosses have tens of thousands of health instead of between a quarter million and over a million.

 

[ThricebornPhoenix]

FFVI, man. It has a fairly normal RPG start with limited options and a more-or-less well balanced difficulty.

At the end of the game you can dish out 9999*8 damage with one input, with the right equipment and a moderately high level. I don't think there's any other Final Fantasy in which you can reliably one-shot the final boss.

 

[Paul le Fou]

FFX will remain notable for me as the first one in the series that lets you break the 9999 damage limit (which is almost iconic in the series up to that point. I know there were attacks that let you do multiple 9999s or close, but I mean in one big number). It also lets you get insanely powerful so that you're doing so regularly. I didn't even do much sphere grid replacing and re-leveling or go all that far in the monster arena, and I still got to the point where, when I finally went to the last bosses, I walked over them almost instantly and one-shot the final boss with my opening debuff attack.

 

[Kirin]

FFXII: Haste + Berserk + Genji Glove. Simple as!

Also notable in XII: the Nihopalaoa + Remedy combo, letting you instantly inflict an enemy with most status ailments. Particularly useful for brining many tough hunt marks down a notch.

 

[lincolnic]

This thread reminded me that I beat FFVII's endgame (including the Weapons) as a kid by grinding for a ridiculous number of hours to get maxed out Knights of the Round linked to maxed out HP Absorb for all three of the characters in my party. And then, you know, wasted who knows how much time sitting through the Knights of the Round animation over and over through all of those fights. For 12-year-old me, it felt awesome.

 

[nataeryn]

I guess for me because I have played FF5 more during the 4JF than regular, I find it really fun in the specific ways you can break the game with a certain fixed set of jobs. Having an ability that will just delete certain bosses to me is more fun when you know there's others out there you don't have the tool for.
FF11, being an MMO subject to power creep, getting more powerful was fun for a time. All of a sudden our little group of 4 or 5 could take on challenges that would have required a dedicated team of 18 with specific jobs and gear. Sure the gear progression was far beyond Dynamis and Nyzul Isle by then, but those are some of my favorite memories of FFXI. But the fact is we were doing that stuff for the novelty and style points of that gear.