History DiscOneNuke / FinalFantasy

** ''XII'' is full of opportunities to [[SequenceBreaking sequence break]] and obtain weapons and equipment that are not typically available until much later in the game. Because the game adjusts most monsters' stats relative to your level, a sufficiently powerful armor can allow characters whose level is in the single digits take virtually no damage. If they are using powerful weapons, they can deal thousands of damage as well. Powerful equipment is central to a "122333 Challenge" game, where all the characters are left at their initial levels.

* A second example occurs afterward once you obtain said canoe. Instead of using it to reach the volcano where the next fiend resides, you can attempt to get though the [[ThatOneLevel Ice Cave]] first, getting the airship and opening up pretty much the entire game world (most importantly, shops in Gaia and Onrac, along with the Waterfall Cave, which allows the player to get Defender and Wizard's Staff pretty much for free). You can also use the canoe to skip straight to the Castle of Ordeals and get a few good magic items there, and the item that'll let you [[PrestigeClass class change]] once the airship is available.

* Captains, enemies which normally show up as mid-late-game mooks, are stationed at Fynn throughout most of the game. Once Minwu was acquired, crafty players could down Captains with liberal application of magic and receive the Flame Bow, a fairly powerful weapon for the early game, and the [[GameBreaker Toad Tome]], which could effectively one-hit kill nearly anything in the rest of the game, including some bosses, and with a little abuse of the game system, [[http://lparchive.org/Final-Fantasy-II/Update%2017/ even the final boss]].

** Cloud's 3/1 limit break, Meteorain, fires 6 shots at random targets, each doing 1.5x his normal attack damage. While this is powerful against a group of mooks, it's utterly ''catastrophic'' when you're only fighting one enemy, such as a boss, and all six shots are guaranteed to target him. Even the "hard" disc 1 bosses like Lost Number and Demon's Gate can go down in one hit!
** Aeris' 3/1 limit break, Planet Protector, makes the party invincible for a short time. This can assist greatly in gaining the aforementioned game-breaking enemy skills, as well as being powerful in its own right against boss monsters. Her ultimate limit break, Great Gospel, combines this with full recovery.
** Aeris' 'Fury Brand' limit break is potentially even more powerful. It empties Aeris' limit bar and automatically fills the limit bar of the other two party members. Not only is this incredibly useful for grinding limits and putting out large amounts of damage, but if the other two party members are on their third tier of limit breaks, it can be used to fill their limit gauges at an increased speed.

* There's a BonusBoss in Alexandria Castle's library, [[http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Tantarian Tantarian]]. If you beat this Boss, you will be rewarded with the Running Shoes, an accessory that teaches Auto-Haste status on your party. It's possible to fight Tantarian as early as Disc 2, although he would certainly be a challenge then.

* The Genji Glove, which allows DualWielding and effectively doubles a character's offensive output, can be had very early with only a little bit of GuideDangIt. Throw it on an offensively unremarkable character like Locke and have fun one-shotting anything you randomly encounter for most of the World of Balance. In the SNES version, the [[GoodBadBugs Evade glitch]] (which makes [[ArmorIsUseless shields useless anyway]]) means that its only weakness is obviated.

* Once the canoe is acquired, a crafty player could make their to Mysidia by going south from the Altair region.. This usually required exploiting tricks to avoid enemy encounters, but allowed powerful enemies with excellent drops, and a town stuffed full of end-game equipment to buy.

* Speaking of Mysidia, once the canoe is acquired, a crafty player could make their way there by going south from the Altair region.. This usually required exploiting tricks to avoid enemy encounters, but allowed powerful enemies with excellent drops, and a town stuffed full of end-game equipment to buy.

** The Chocobuckle enemy skill from wild chocobos counts, ''if'' you're playing the original Japanese version. It's obtained about the same time Beta becomes available, and costs only 3 MP. It deals damage equal to the number of times you've run from battle multiplied by the caster's level, so by escaping 100 times or so, you can easily be doing four-digit damage before you reach Junon. Being a GameBreaker, later releases nerfed it to only deal damage equal to the number of times escaped (which makes it virtually worthless).

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' expected players to head towards the Earth Cave and hunt down the first major boss once the game's third or so BrokenBridge is dealt with, opening up the whole sea to sail in. One can instead use this newfound freedom to seek out Crescent Lake, and the town where you'll get yet another exploration item once you've defeated the fiend of earth. While you can't get the canoe until after dealing with the Earth Cave, you can still take advantage of the slightly better equipment in the shops. A second example occurs afterward once you obtain said canoe. Instead of using it to reach the volcano where the next fiend resides, you can attempt to get though the [[ThatOneLevel Ice Cave]] first, getting the airship and opening up pretty much the entire game world. You can also use the canoe to skip straight to the Castle of Ordeals and get a few good magic items there, and the item that'll let you [[PrestigeClass class change]] once the airship is available.

** Soldier of Peace - Gave access to the insanely powerful Artemis Arrows enhancement. Of course, you need to beat an [[BossInMooksClothing Aster Protoflorian]] to complete the quest. Also notable in that it actually scales well in the late-game.

* The ''International version/HD Remaster'' has the Psychic dressphere, rewarded by winning Shinra's [[MonsterArena Fiend Arena]], which is available since Chapter 1. Its support skills grant immunity to both physical and magic attacks (from every element), making the character immune to anything but StandardStatusEffects, which can be amended through a Ribbon.