Awesome Bosses / Final Fantasy

One of many reasons for the Final Fantasy series' blade-piercing popularity is its awesome boss fights. Here are some of the more memorable ones.

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Multiple games

• The Final Fantasy series in general deserves a nod because, any time you beat a boss in any game in the series, you get the same tune. Which seems like musical recycling at first, but after playing the games for a while, the victory theme takes on a whole new meaning. As Drew of Nintendo Power once said, "That simple melody may not seem like much, but its forever associated in my mind with some of the best moments of my gaming career. And you can't beat that."
• Odin, especially in Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy V. When you beat him in both games, he gives his power in the form of a summon, in which he either wipes out all enemies on the screen or tosses the legendary lance Gungnir for heavy damage if the former fails. Although he does have somewhat low HP and a weakness to lightning-based magic, his fights are on a real time limit before he unleashes a party-wide Zantetsuken. This could easily put him into That One Boss territory if his fights weren't such a refreshing change of pace and a fair challenge. That, and the fact that you're fighting Odin.
  • In Final Fantasy IV, he's the former king of Baron and would like to test Cecil's strength. Upon losing, he takes solace in the fact that Baron will be led and watched over by capable hands.
  • In Final Fantasy V, he's just hanging out in the decrepit, sealed-off basement of a castle that can only be accessed through a cave that has a few traps and enemies that can easily take out a decently leveled party in a few hits. And when you talk to him, he says he doesn't have time for you because he's busy and can only spare a single minute. Keep in mind that he's by himself in the bottom of a fortress. What happens when you exceed that minute fighting him? He calls time and instantly wipes out the party, giving you a Non-Standard Game Over. His bestiary entry says he's only level 2.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, he tells you not only will he kill you if you can't beat him by the time limit, no one will ever know you existed!

Final Fantasy

• Chaos, and his lesser form; that is quite a plot twist for an old NES game. And for the 8-bit graphics era, this◊ is quite spectacular.

Final Fantasy IV

• The rematch against the four elemental fiends, though That One Boss to some, can also be one of the most satisfying fights in the game. With the exception of Rubicante (whose cloak has fallen aside to make him vulnerable to magic attacks), all four are in their most powerful forms (Scarmiglione in his second form, Cagnazzo summoning water, and Barbariccia in a whirlwind (with no Kain to knock her out of it)), and the fight is set to the alternately tense and frantic Fiend Battle theme, making for one of the most intense fights in the game before Zeromus.

Final Fantasy V

• Gilgamesh is noteworthy for his theme music, his constant Trash Talk, and his constant running away from battle on the verge of defeat. His popularity is such that he cameos in nearly every subsequent entry in the series.
  • Cameos that are canon, mind you. Yes, even when he was retconned in as an Optional Boss in some of the remakes.
    Gilgamesh: Enough expository banter! Now we fight like men! And ladies! And ladies who dress like men! For Gilgamesh... it is morphing time!
  • And then there's the point where he has his Big Damn Hero moment, complete with "Clash on the Big Bridge" playing, and shrugging Necrophobe's attacks off as if they were mere trifles. He then promptly reveals that he wants to be friends with Bartz and the gang, says a few lines of encouragement and praise for each of the characters, basically tells Necrophobe to shove it, and does a Heroic Sacrifice to take him out in one blow. Needless to say, many manly tears were wept. A couple of quotes:
    Gilgamesh: Hah! If I'd just left you in the lurch, I'd look like a jerk for all of history!
    Gilgamesh: Oh really? Just try it, Baldy! You cannot even hold a birthday candle to the blazing flame of my winning spirit!
• Exdeath really is an amazing final boss and a hell of an underrated big bad. Without going into detail, Exdeath was a sorcerous entity that coalesced and gained from every unspeakable evil ever to be sealed away in a certain holy ground over the eons, given flesh by its own force of will. To put things in perspective, Sephiroth attempted to destroy the world after becoming godlike. Kefka tried the same and succeeded. In broad strokes, Exdeath destroyed two worlds, then yanked every civilized nation on them into Hell - as part of his plan to gain ultimate power. And when you meet him for the final time, he easily shoulders into position as the last final boss in the series that lived up to his own hype when the chips were down, as anyone that managed to survive Grand Cross can attest.
• Omega. V did it first. V did it best. Omega can arbitrarily remove your members from combat, has fast, powerful attacks, sterling defense, and is all around a tremendously difficult boss without serious levelling and very careful preparation- preparation most likely got off the Internet, so spare a thought for the poor players back in the '90s who learned the hard way by getting ground into paste a few times. Here's the kicker, though: the Bestiary lists Omega as Level 119, making him the only boss in the entire series to simply ignore the arbitrary level cap by force of his own sheer badness. In the Advance version, it's revealed in one of the bonus dungeons that you fought only one of many Omegas, as there is a level filled with them! The kicker is that the level in question contains an upgraded Omega MKII.

Final Fantasy VI

• Final Fantasy VI had lots of fun boss fights, but Ultima Weapon (Atma Weapon in North America) was the coolest. It looks badass, has awesome, fitting music playing, one of the coolest boss quotes ever "My name is Ultima, I am power both ancient and unrivaled... I do not bleed, for I am but strength given form... Feeble creatures of flesh, your time is nigh!" Apart from that, it has a wide variety of attacks, the battle is hard, yet not frustrating or cheap, and the player can use a wide variety of strategies or builds. It's also very satisfying when beaten.
• The Phantom Train. It's a steam train that carries the souls of the dead to the afterlife, and when your characters attempt to stop it from taking them to the afterlife, it bucks the party onto the rails and chases them. The party then proceeds to fight the boss while running away from it. It counts for an Awesome Moment for Sabin, too, since he can SUPLEX THE TRAIN.
• The final fight with Kefka combines a multi-stage battle, beautiful and terrifying graphics, and "Dancing Mad".
• If you want to talk about the remake, two words: Kaiser Dragon. He comes at the end of a long, deep, and difficult Bonus Dungeon after you kill souped-up versions of the Eight Dragons. Then you fight him amidst a field of flames, while Battle to the Death, the secondary boss theme, plays. And you can pull out all the stops to fight him and it still feels like a struggle, and it feels so satisfying when you win. Multiple phases, massive health, all of the best attacks in the game. He's basically everything that makes Ultima Weapon cool and then cranked up to 11. Kaiser Dragon is boss all other bosses aspire to be. Oh! he also has an awesome pre-battle quote.
  "Humans and your insatiable greed. Your lust for power leads always to a lust for blood. This is a sanctuary for wayward souls... What business have you filthy creatures here? You slaughter my brethren and befoul their rest with the profanity of your continued existence... In the name of all dragonkind, I will give you the death you desire... I am the dealer of destruction... I am the font from which fear flows... I am Kaiser, and your time is at an end."
• And AFTER Kaiser, we get the Omega Weapon, which is Kaiser turned up to 12!!
• The defense of Narshe leading up to the battle with Kefka is pretty epic too. After being split up, your party reunites just in time to fight their way through ranks of imperials, and then you finally engage Kefka, who has been taunting you all game, in a proper battle.

Final Fantasy VII and spinoffs

• From the entire Compilation, Sephiroth has had many epic boss fights to his name and easily the most of any Final Fantasy Big Bad:
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • The battle against Safer Sephiroth. A genuinely climactic battle that increases in difficulty the better the player has done in the game, and a memorable battle song.
    • Bizarro Sephiroth is notable because it is the very first time in the game you actually get to fight Sephiroth in a genuine boss battle, and right after a truly rousing speech by Cloud, nonetheless. The awesome boss music counts as well. To make it even better, you get to fight him with your entire team (assuming you fulfill a few, fairly easy conditions prior), making the battle even more exciting.
    • The one on one fight with Sephiroth may be a Foregone Victory, but for some, that just makes it even more awesome: Sephiroth has a measly 1 HP, and Cloud's Limit Meter just filled up and allowed him access to Omnislash, even if he doesn't have the move equipped; the former SOLDIER is not getting out of this unscathed. After two back-to-back fights against him in stronger forms, as well as everything he did throughout the game, it's immensely satisfying to watch Cloud cut the madman to ribbons. Heck, you don't even have to grant him that level of respect; you could just hit him with a basic slash, or even let him attack you, only for Cloud's counter to finish the job.
  • Crisis Core is largely cited as the main reason to get a PSP. Some would cite the battle with Sephiroth as the main reason to get Crisis Core. It's tough, it's an intense Climax Boss, and it's a sword duel between The Ace and Final Fantasy VII's ultimate Big Bad. The only thing that could have made the fight better was if the latest remix of One Winged Angel played during the actual fight, and not during the rather silly "defeat him before he pushes you off the edge" fight.
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake threw a giant curveball at fans by having the party fight Sephiroth much earlier than in the original game, just as they are leaving Midgar. This comes after the party kills the Audience Surrogate eldritch beings that tried to keep the timeline from veering completely off-course, and so what better way to mark the start of this new timeline than by fighting the Final Boss of the original game at the end of what was essentially the game's prologue?
• Emerald Weapon is probably the largest boss in Final Fantasy VII, and the second strongest. On top of it all, you're normally only given twenty minutes to whittle away his 1,000,000 HP. One of the most awesome and enjoyable boss battles from any RPG.
• Diamond WEAPON. There's a lot at stake in this battle and the boss looks cool to boot. An awesome cutscene follows it too.
• The optional boss fight with Lost Number in Shinra Mansion qualifies if only because the player is still giddy with success at finally having got that damn safe open, as well as taking another step along the road to acquiring Vincent.
• The fight against Professor Hojo was particularly memorable, as well. Most players were thrilled to give him a thrashing for everything he did, and unless you were prepared for an onslaught of status attacks or horribly overpowered, his third form would kick your ass. The fact that they used JENOVA's battle theme for the fight made it all the more awesome.
• The battle between JENOVA Life is particularly memorable, mostly due to the fact that it takes place directly after Aerith's death scene, and unlike most boss battles, the regular battle theme is replaced with Aerith's solemn theme tune.
• The battle against JENOVA Birth. It occurs after the first real encounter between the team and Sephiroth, after a brief but effective build-up that creates a really creepy atmosphere in this ship where the crew was slaughtered. (The Trail of Blood soundtrack strikes again.) The fight itself is decently challenging, as the boss has a lot more HP than the previous ones and hits harder. If you're not prepared enough, it can give you a very hard time...
• Say what you will about Dirge of Cerberus, but it had some awesome boss fights. The second match against Azul The Cerulean in the slowly descending elevator and both fights with Weiss are intense and leave you feeling like the biggest badass when after you've cleared them.

Final Fantasy VIII

• The one nice thing about the Guardian Force magic system was, there were lots of optional awesome bosses to fight. Bahamut, Tonberry King, Ultima Weapon and giant Cactuar were all pretty badass, and so was Griever. And then there was Omega Weapon...
• Odin. He appears and slices through anything in his path. Giant possessed pieces of armor almost immune to physical attacks included. To get him, he'll give you 20 minutes to reach and defeat him, while he just waits . Take too long and no one will remember you existed. He even mocks you if you try to leave his tomb.
• Both battles with Edea, particularly the second one at her home base in Galbadia Garden.
• The climactic final battle against Ultimecia, which has you pitted against three of her increasingly-monstrous forms with a Griever battle thrown in the middle. Made all the more epic and terrifying by the fact that fallen party members can be removed from the fight permanently, and the stage eventually turns into an endless void as time is compressed. Even better: Griever is a Guardian force drawn from Squall's mind, meaning that you're fighting Squall's perception of ultimate power.
• X-ATM092, which relentlessly chases you through a war-zone and is nearly impossible to defeat without serious level-grinding (it's eventually finished off via badass cutscene).
• The boss battles against Seifer, though for different reasons. The first is a Breather Boss who's easily smacked around by Squall, showing which of the two is superior. The next time he appears, he's exponentially stronger, able to stand up to your entire party. Third is just him acting as a shield for an unimpressed Edea, while the final battle with Seifer triples his strength again. And if you've recruited Odin? The fight begins with Seifer parrying Odin's instant-kill strike and cutting him in half.

Final Fantasy IX

• In Final Fantasy IX, you finally get to fight Trance Kuja, who's ridiculously easy, but nevertheless beats you with Ultima. The player is lead into a state of WTF, and then suddenly the characters wake up in the afterworld and challenge what can only be some kind of god of death into a battle. The music alone makes the battle so awesome you're probably crying tears of joy, and in addition, the boss is happily challenging if you haven't partaken any significant Level Grinding. On the other hand, the fact that the boss comes out of absolutely nowhere in the story has made plenty of people pissed off. Even Zidane sounded annoyed at the development.
• Normal Kuja as well. He's been built up as quite a villain for two whole discs, and now you finally get to do what you've been waiting to do for a LONG time now. There's no special boss music or anything, just the regular one—but arguably that makes it even cooler.
• The Boss Rush at the end of Disc 3 in general. It starts with a Silver Dragon, then is followed by Garland, The Man Behind the Man who's (partly) responsible for most of the game's troubles. Then comes the aforementioned fight against Normal Kuja, right after he successfully overthrew Garland.
• Every single Beatrix battle. Three reasons. One: they're insanely memorable. Two: every one is a forced-loss battle (which are always climactic). And three: that fucking song.

Final Fantasy X

• Yunalesca. Sure, she's also That One Boss, but that just makes battling through her three forms even more exciting, especially when set to "Challenge", one of the best boss battle themes in the game. The cutscene before the battle also contains Yuna's Screw Destiny Moment of Awesome and Auron's Rousing Speech.
• Kimahri's Duel/Dual Boss fight against Biran and Yenke. Mostly for the fact that "Servants of the Mountain" continues to play during the fight, but also because it was extremely cathartic to beat the crap out of them after all the stupid abuse they put Kimahri through during the game. Also, Biran and Yenke's stats are determined by Kimahri's at the time, so they pose a challenge regardless of how much you've been powering him up. The fact that you can steal most of the Blue Magic in the game from them instead of resorting to the usual "use Lancet on every goddamn enemy you run across" nonsense also helps. Along with some Lv 3 Key Spheres.
• The Sinspawn Gui fight. First, the backdrop: Gui appears at the end of the Mi'ihen Highroad/Mushroom Rock Road level/area, which she considers the point where the game hits its stride. Your party is mostly complete (six out of seven members), the mandatory expositing slows down some for development of the introduced plot and characters, you're free of that getting on boats nonsense and blitzball folderol, and things are basically just getting juicy. Sinspawn Gui is fought as part of a major event, Operation Mi'ihen, a colossal military undertaking with a heartrending aftermath. Gameplay-wise, Gui is also significant: the battle system in Final Fantasy X is such that every character has a specific niche to fill and allows you to swap all your six available characters out on the fly as needed, and Gui is the first boss whose stages and multiple targetable parts require you to take advantage of all your character's strengths and weaknesses to get to victory. Gui also hits hard enough and has enough health to pose a considerable challenge to a normally leveled party, without being so difficult that he turns into a controller-destroying nightmare. Plus, this fight is the first appearance of the game's serious-boss-music, Challenge, which is most definitely Awesome Music. As if all this wasn't enough, you get to fight him again, though this time it's a Curb-Stomp Battle designed to show off how awesomely powerful the villain is. Still awesome, though.
• The boss battles with Sin's fins and its core, right down to Cid's airship using its cannons to shoot off its fins. And then you watch the monstrosity come crashing down...
• Inside Sin, the final fight with Seymour. Yes, he's a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere, but the opportunity to bash his smug, psychotic face in that one last time, and send him so he finally stays dead, is a joy to be savored. Plus, this is on the way to the endgame, when your party is at its peak. If you have the right combination of powers, he goes down in a handful of rounds.
  • And if you've been killing time in the Monster Arena (and have weapons with Break Damage Limit), it's completely possible to one-shot him.
  • What makes the fight truly satisfying, however, is obtaining Anima (who is basically Seymour's own mother) beforehand, and summoning her during the fight. Do so for an absolutely priceless reaction. Bonus points if you Grand Summon her and she proceeds to one-shot him with Oblivion.
• The optional (and only in some versions) Dark Aeons, or at least a few (Bahamut mainly) are pretty amazing. And of course, once they're all defeated you have the option of fighting an even stronger (yet unexplained) boss called Penance, set to the song that also plays against the very definitely final boss.
• The final boss battle with Jecht. This one is also backed by Awesome Music. And the cutscene after you beat him is a definite Tear Jerker.
• The battle against Evrae in the skies above Bevelle. The fight takes place atop your newly acquired airship, and in order to interrupt Yuna's wedding, you need to kill the airborne dragon-like guardian of the city. What makes it so cool is the trigger command, which has Tidus or Rikku yell at Cid (the airship's pilot) to either pull away from the boss's airspace or close in accompanied by a great animation each time. You have to back out when Evrae gets ready to use Poison Breath, and only Wakka or Lulu (who's not too good due to halved magic damage) can hit him, but if you stay back long enough for Cid's turn to come around again, he fires a goddamn Macross Missile Massacre at the thing. And as your reward for bringing it down, you're treated to one of the best FMVs in the game.
• For those of us who like Blitzball, there is the possibility (pretty much entirely determined by whether or not you got the Jecht Shot) of beating the Luca Goers, finally shutting up those smug bastards. Then there is the tournament win that nets you Wakka's ultimate weapon.
• The Sanctuary Keeper. Oh, sure, it's hard. But that's the point. It's one of the first bosses that breaks the "hit it until it dies, spam its weakness, avoid its strong attack" mold. The first thing it does? Cast Curaga to heal itself. Then, after you cast Reflect to prevent any healing, it starts putting Reflect on your characters just to get around that. Cast Slow on it? It immediately responds by casting Haste. It was basically the game's way of saying "we've figured out how you play and we just wanted to let you know - that's no longer gonna cut it".

Final Fantasy XI

• Final Fantasy XI has more than its fair share of memorable boss battles. In particular are the five Ark Angels, powerful avatars representing the strengths and flaws of each of the five playable races. Each possesses all spells and abilities for two different job classes, as well as their own unique and devastating attacks. You can fight them one at a time with a party of 6, but for the best challenge (and reward), you can go up against all five together at full power with an alliance of 18 people. The battle is challenging enough that even with a full alliance at the max level, a significant amount of skill, strategy, and teamwork is necessary for victory, but that makes success all the sweeter after such an arduous fight.
• Promathia at the end of the Chains of Promathia expansion, if only because of the absolutely gorgeous fight arena, the Empyreal Paradox. Fighting miles above Vana'diel against a tough (but not Nintendo Hard) boss, and, for those who consider Prishe The Scrappy, this fight gives her a nice chance to get Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, since she not only breaks Promathia's shields, but if she does die, unlike a lot of other NPC assists in other boss fights, including the other NPC in that same fight, Selt'haus, not only does the fight not end of she does drop, but you can raise her and she'll be able to jump right back into the fight. And the closing song should qualify for Awesome Music.
• Some of the Campaign related bosses are quite satisfying to fight as well, from Poisonhand Gnadgad (who can be tanked solo for quite a long time by a Paladin/Red Mage, no mean feat for most other campaign bosses) to ones from various story and Campaign assault missions.

Final Fantasy XII

• After a couple minor cameos in VIII and IX, this is the game that solidified Gilgamesh's popularity in the fandom thanks to the glorious boss battles with him. First, he gets a remix of "Clash on the Big Bridge", one of the few bosses in the entire game to get his own personal battle theme. Second, he's voiced by John DiMaggio, who brings his Large Ham tendencies to life like never before. Third, he ups the ante from wielding famous weapons in his past appearances, by wielding (counterfeit copies of) the iconic weapons of past Final Fantasy protagonists, namely the Buster Sword, the Revolver, the Orichalcum, and the Brotherhood, as well as the Zantetsuken, the Tournesol, and the Wyrmhero Blade of Dragon Quest. Finally, both fights with him are genuinely challenging even into the late game. This all adds up to a perfect storm of an epic boss fight.
• Both of the fights against Dr. Cid. The first for hilarity value, especially that attack where takes out the biggest damn gatling gun you've ever seen in your life, holds it in a very suggestive position before opening fire into your party, laughing like a maniac the whole time. The second fight atop the Pharos was very dramatic from a story perspective as well, and it doesn't hurt that Cid summons an esper against you halfway through.
• The Final Boss, the Undying. It is truly an epic showdown.
• Most of the Esper battles, with the most triumphant being Chaos; when you enter his arena, he closes the doors behind you telekinetically by slowly pushing his hands together. It's one thing to make a grand entrance, but when you're not even the one coming in? Also, and your yardage may drift, but Yiazmat; if you have your gambits set just right, just watching your characters beat up on a holy dragon god who's so massive he could swallow them all whole at once is just so satisfying.
• Deathgaze. After you accept the quest, it's possible that, when you are taking a skyferry, this boss appears and you have to fight him - on a crowded airship, with 7 possible, completely unique scenarios depending on the airship where you can walk around and talk to the scared people.

Final Fantasy XIII

• Barthandelus, Galenth Dysley's real form. The scene starts out with Jihl, the Jerkass who taunted and tortured Sahz with his feelings for his son, stepping up to protect Galenth Dysley. Time to get that bitch back! But before the party lays the smackdown her, she is dismissed with magic to the back of the head, fired by Dysley. He then starts to float in the air, murdering everybody that isn't your team. After some dialogue, he merges with the mysterious white owl that has been following you around, going One-Winged Angel as "Fighting Fate begins. He delivers an I Am the Noun declaration and a "The Reason You Suck" Speech and promptly destroys any unprepared team. And then you get the second fight in Oerba, which is also awesome.
• The airship boss battle is just Lightning, Hope, and Fang (no Humongous Mecha or BFG) versus a warship! Back the battle with kickass Eidolons and you're in for a good time. And when you think about it, this game turned the airship from "ally" to adversary, much like XII did with the Cid of Ivalice.
• Though not a boss battle, the series staple Adamantoise returns with a big upgrade... a REALLY big upgrade of Shadow of the Colossus proportions. Without proper planning, this will literally be a Curb-Stomp Battle. Taking this guy down requires taking its legs out so it can fall down, and then beating the crap out of its face (rinse and repeat, if you don't finish it before it stands again). It's a fun fight and is highly rewarding if you're lucky enough. And then the Long Guis show up...
• XIII-2 has you fighting three Bahamuts at the same time in the final battle. Awesome.
• And Lightning Returns tops everything with its final battle against GOD ALMIGHTY! With some of the best visuals ever seen in the entire franchise. One word: Hypernova.

Final Fantasy XIV

• As the boss fight that is in many ways the capstone to 1.0, The Final Coil of Bahamut - Turn 4^note Most often referred to as "turn 13" by the players, due to Unusual Chapter Numbers. more than delivers in this department. Beating up the primal who was directly responsible for Dalamud's fall and all the destruction that followed would be satisfactory enough. Doing so in an Amazing Technicolor Battlefield while the main 1.0 theme, Answers, plays in the background makes it excellent. Having that theme sync up so that it reaches crescendo right when Bahamut uses Teraflare? Fuck. Yes.
• Ravana's hard mode fight is generally considered one of the best, if not the best primal battle in the game. It's one of the few fights without any adds whatsoever. And during the fight he has three modes. One mode where he wields four different katanas and does consecutive quick attacks, another where the dual wields giant greatswords and attacks with consecutive AOE attacks and a mode where he is unarmed but can use wind attacks like ki blasts including a Kamehame Hadoken. All while a bombastic opera track plays in the background.
• The final boss of Heavensward's main story quest King Thordan and his Twelve Knights is essentially the Knights of the Round Summon from Final Fantasy VII turned into a Primal Trial. This also marks the second appearance of the Knights of the Round in the mainline Final Fantasy games. It gets insane when Thordan activates Ultimate End, which is pretty much an endurance attack where the party has to last several minutes of the Knights unleashing their strongest attacks in an Amazing Technicolor Battlefield, culminating in Thordan and his knights combining their powers for one attack. And if you survive it? Thordan is left with a permanent crippling debuff.
• Brute Justice in the 8th floor of Alexander. It's praised for being a fun challenge, intentionally campy in concept (in the best way possible), and just an all-around awesome battle and a massive improvement from the bosses from the Gordias segment of the Alexander raids.
• The duel against Flame General Raubahn in the patch story quests for Heavensward. The fact that he sets the stage by incapacitating all your allies singlehandedly (in every literal sense of the word) before surrounding an arena with fire and engaging you makes it all the more awesome.
• The final boss of the Alexander raid, Alexander Prime is an amazing fight both in gameplay and in story. The fight is quite average for the first half. It then gets awesome as it summons its Humongous Mecha body to use Divine Judgement and after the party survives this, Alexander activates its second form, which is a straight callback to Final Fantasy IX. After this Alexander starts spamming Time Stands Still powers in addition to its light attacks. At the last quarter of the fight Alexander sends the party to the past to prevent their allies from getting killed by Alexander in the Bad Future. Then the final phase of the fight Alexander summons the previously mentioned body in addition to its Prime body. Throughout the fight not only is Alexander treating the party as Worthy Opponents but also trying to help defeat the Big Bad of the arc as well.
• One of the new primals added in the Stormblood expansion, Susano, is quite memorable. His Boisterous Bruiser tendencies aside, the phase transition features him growing huge, drawing a sword the size of the arena, and bringing it down on the party...only to have a tank single-handedly block the sword while the rest of the party attacks it. It's not for nothing that videos exist where Rules of Nature is played over that part of the fight.
• The final boss of Stormblood, Shinryu. The identity of the boss is awesome enough for the first phase of the fight, but the transition to the final phase where he decides that the sky is too small to contain the battle, destroys the platform you're fighting on and takes you to an Amazing Technicolour Battlefield which, as the name "protostar" suggests, may be a newborn world, accompanied by an epic Victorious Chorus... the whole thing is just so very Final Fantasy.
• In a crossover with Final Fantasy Tactics, one of the bosses on that list comes back, bigger and badder: Argath. In full Lucavi form, Argath is the final boss of the Royal City of Rabanastre. Not only is he massively entertaining to fight, he introduces new Interface Screw mechanics never before seen in XIV, and is Chewing the Scenery through the whole fight. All this accompanied by remastered music from Tactics (specifically, Ultima's Transformation).
• The boss of The Twinning can be thought of as a meta-sequel to the Alexander Prime fight; not only is it the Garlond Ironworks' take on Alexander Prime itself, but it incorporates many of the mechanics from that fight with a twist: time stops for its attacks. To top it off, the music you fight to it is The Primals' rendition of "Locus".
• Every boss of the first raid from the NieR: Automata crossover series "YoRHa: Apocalypse" is a treat:
  • The Serial-Jointed Command Model is first, and it is a tricky one, using a variety of projectile attacks and gargantuan arm swings to wear the heroes down.
  • Next is Hobbes, a Goliath-model Machine Lifeform that performs stress tests on other Machine Lifeforms. This entails surviving barrages of laser blasts, flamethrowers, electrified floors, and boiling liquid. Hobbes's Villainous Breakdown as you prove far less destructible than it would like is just icing on the cake.
  • Third is Engels, a titanic oil rig-looking Machine Lifeform. Saw blades, missiles, lasers, the works. What makes this fight all the more awesome is that this is a boss that the player characters of Automata had to fight with Mini-Mecha, but not you: all you have going for you is whatever gear you brought with you, but it just might be all you need.
  • Last, but absolutely not least, is 9S, who appears to be in the throes of madness from the insane climax of Automata, fighting you with hacked Machine Lifeforms and throwing everything he's got at you, up to and including goddamn ballistic missiles. All the while, the fight is accompanied by an epic, yet hauntingly beautiful, battle theme that combines the Final Fantasy prelude with "Weight of the World" from Automata. And then the kicker comes in the next part that he was Good All Along.
• The Puppet's Bunker, the second part of "YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse", not only brings in callbacks to more of Nier Automata, but to the rest of the Drakengard series.
  • 813-P Operated Aegis Unit is the first "triangle raid" boss where each party has to split up. Besides calling in androids in flight units as attacks, it also uses an attack, Life's Last Song, which calls back to the Grotesquerie Queen of Drakengard 1 and the Intoners of Drakengard 3.
  • The Alpha-Beta-Chi units are three units that can only each be damaged by their respective alliance party (A for Alpha and so on) until one of them goes down.
  • 905P-Operated Heavy Artilery Unit is a Player Punch for those who've played through Nier Automata since its personality is based on 21O, 9S's Operator. It's also quite the Puzzle Boss where instead of watching for the usual tells, you have to watch the background for where the attacks are gonna come from.
  • Finally, you meet... The Compound, which plays out like the Machine Lifeforms are about to give birth to Adam. It's a Body of Bodies that wouldn't look out of place as a Legion in Castlevania, and that's just Phase 1. The real kicker is the final boss of this raid... Compound 2P, a giant version of 2P made up entirely of androids fused together to resemble her, including her SWORD! While she's fought, her theme is called "Torn from the Heavens/The Dark Colossus Destroys All (Medley)."
• The final boss of Patch 5.3's story is Elidibus as the Warrior of Light. Not you, but the goddamn original Yoshitaka Amano designed Warrior of Light! He brings everything to the table to destroy you, the Warrior of Darkness, once and for all while "To the Edge" plays as a Triumphant Reprise to Shadowbringers' main theme. At the 45% mark, he sends the party to the void where everyone has to Press X to Not Die and break out of their chains to get back to the fight. Just as he thinks it's over, the party is not only summoned back, but endorsed by what is essentially the ghost of Emet-Selch! Wo L!Elidibus busts out a LEVEL 4 LIMIT BREAK!^note Players can only go to Level 3 at most and continues to send everything at you from the souls of heroes and even weaponizing limit breaks from melee and ranged classes until he finally goes down!
• The boss of the level 70 Blue Mage questline, Gogo the Mimic, opens the fight by copying and chaining together the abilities of most of the previous bosses in the Masked Carnivale in deadly ways, such as casting Ultros' Imp Spell with the incurable Doom spell. However, once the fight reaches its second phase, Gogo stops playing around, copying attacks from raid bosses like Exdeath while hitting the player with hard hitting debuffs that will kill them instantly if they're not careful. Blue Mages will need to make use of a wide variety of defensive abilities just to survive some of his attacks including a few that must be shielded with Diamondback. In the end, Gogo is a really efficient Final-Exam Boss not just for his particular questline or the Carnivale, but for the Blue Mage job as a whole.
• As the Grand Finale for Final Fantasy XIV's original storyline, Endwalker goes all out for boss confrontations. Establishing that everything is on the table, Zodiark is the first trial boss of the expansion. Living up to their reputation, the fight is chock full of wide AOEs that can easily wipe a party that isn't vigilant in staying mobile while frequently shifting the arena in addition to raid-wide nukes that will have healers and tanks needing to unload their entire arsenal to keep the party up. With all the buildup and lore over the previous decade, that this fight is commonly viewed as That One Boss and at such an early point in the expansion hammers home just how all the stops have been pulled out in Endwalker.

Final Fantasy XV

• Titan, the first of the Six, is a gigantic rock god that provides a fantastic introduction to these beings. Being something of an Advancing Boss of Doom at first, Noctis goes full Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance by blocking his stomps and slams. Getting to the fight proper, Titan, having to keep Meteor on his back the whole time a la Atlas, is a swift and powerful foe with just one arm. Eventually, Imperial Magitek Troopers start joining the fray, making the whole thing close to The War Sequence. A magnificent set piece, you eventually beat Titan by stunning his arm so your True Companions can freeze said arm and Noctis can smash it. Which is damn satisfying, we should add.
• Let it be known Aranea Highwind deserves her fearsome reputation. A Dragoon that sports all the classic abilities you’d expect, she’s a fast, hard-hitting enemy that you need to be on constant guard against. You can Parry her big Jump attack, sure, but you can also warp up to initiate some Air Jousting if you’d prefer. Which you will. The fight even manages to bring in Adds that aren’t annoying! They’re not very beefy and just mean you need to divide your attention a little bit for Crowd Control. And since your party can keep her busy, it’s really well balanced. The Aranea boss fight may just well be the shining example of how good XV’s battle system is.
• Leviathan gets this because of the epic music and the fact that Noctis temporarily gets use of the Royal Arms, even the ones he hasn't obtained yet.
• Ifrit is a glorious Climax Boss. With greater agility than you might expect, he is a graceful, beautiful fire demon. When you deplete his health, Bahamut comes in and attacks. Ifrit dodges everything but is opened up to an attack from Noctis that breaks a horn. He keeps going for Round 2 though! Stronger, faster, and with an occasional immunity to damage, you need to be skilled and strategic to beat him again. Oh, and you can counter a big jump attack from him and slam him into the ground. He is finally finished off when Shiva freezes him with Diamond Dust and shatters him with a kiss. Yes. Two Summons were needed to beat him. Making this even better, if you pay attention to the Mythology, Ifrit is the Greater-Scope Villain of the game, originally responsible for the Starscourge, making the fate of the least likable incarnation of Ifrit very cathartic.
• Ardyn Izunia (or Ardyn Lucis Caelum, if you prefer) is a Duel Boss that mimics most of Noctis’ abilities, including weapon summoning, warping and magic. Now you know how your enemies felt. You need to be clever here. Ardyn doesn’t leave himself open for long so you need to make good use of evasive and hit and run tactics, paying attention to when he’s using magic and when to use Warp Strikes to interrupt his own warping attacks. Eventually, he wants to see your full power. So, bringing back the 11th-Hour Superpower from the Leviathan fight, Noctis and Ardyn use their Armigers to fly through the city, replete with Visual Effects of Awesome (props to the visual wizards at SE for pulling that one off) and lay into each other with all they have. Eventually, both hurt and tired, they resort to a “war of attrition”, limping towards each other and swinging their swords, culminating in Noctis hitting with each Royal Arm in succession to finally end the fight. While a little more understated than some other fights in the game, especially at the end, it’s a very appropriate Final Boss and, shockingly, Ardyn doesn’t go One-Winged Angel! He didn’t need to be any more of a badass.

Final Fantasy XVI

• The boss fight against Titan, by itself, was already a joy, thanks to his complex attacks. Then comes the fight with Titan Lost, who can be accurately described as a living, breathing, and immensely pissed mountain. The first part of the fight involves a mad dash to Titan Lost while dodging all of the rocky debris kicked up by its emergence, then running along stony tendrils to get in closer, before finally taking cracks at one of Titan Lost's arms, eventually culminating in taking one of those stony tendrils and driving it into Titan Lost's body! But the fight's not done yet! What follows is one last throwdown with Titan through the collapsing husk of Titan Lost's body, in a manner not dissimilar to the first part of the Phoenix VS. Ifrit battle. All of it is a visual spectacle that ensures your fight with Titan is one of the most memorable in the game!

Final Fantasy Tactics series

• Final Fantasy Tactics:
  • Gaff Gafgarion runs away when defeated, has the Dark Sword ability so he takes little damage if you're underlevelled, and your last battle is practically one-on-one. Boy, that's one nice arse to kick.
  • Argath/Algus, because there is nothing more satisfying than finally getting to kill that smug, arrogant, bigoted bastard. This is made even better in the PSP remake, where he comes back as a zombie, and you get to kill him again.
  • The fight with Marquis Elmdor and his arm-candy assassins on the roof of Riovanes is an example of a boss fight that is truly tense, frantic, and emotionally powerful... and you know you're outclassed.
  • The preceding fight against Wiegraf, consisting of memorable dialogue punctuated by a one-on-one duel against a foe (on average) only marginally better than yourself (rather than being hideously outmatched or hideously outmatching the boss), is one of the most monumental in at least the Final Fantasy series. The whole Riovanes series of battles, though a much dreaded Difficulty Spike or That One Boss to some, is to others essentially a nonstop Awesome Moment.
• In Tactics Advance 2, the final boss is a daring fight in which you're fighting on the boss itself. It's a nice multi-part boss without being too frustrating or counter-intuitive, and it has many powerful attacks without any that would annihilate your party like the previous game's final boss did.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series

• The final boss fight of Crystal Bearers was incredibly awesome. Layle faces off against Jegran, who's transformed a battleship into what in-game called the "Jegran Armor", a massive crystal/robot hybrid. Boss fights against something so huge are always fun. Better still, Layle gets a spiffy new form that enables him to fly around the sky via surfing on a large crystal, and his Crystal Bearer powers get SUPERCHARGED to where he can take the mooks that show up during the fight and annihilate them just by throwing them once. Plus, he can tear the Jegran Armor's armor off. He can even tear a cannon off of it for use AGAINST it! And then eventually the Jegran Armor creates a massive arm that can kill you in two hits. Unless you're using accessories that increase your Defense or some such... All in all, an epic boss fight to end a decent game.

Dissidia Final Fantasy

• All of the Destiny Odyssey final bosses, easily.
• Chaos is one awesome final boss. Besides the fact you're facing the Big Bad of the original game, you face him three times, and each round he gets more berserk and powerful. And then you hear him call out "Shiver, at the power of a god!" If there was an Awesome Moment trope for simple attacks, Utter Chaos would be an entry.
• Then in the prequel you get Feral Chaos, who is even berserk and powerful than the original, accompanied by Awesome Music, and you fight him using your own personal Five-Man Band of any characters you like.
• Also in the prequel, the final boss of Light To All. After individual tales where four of your five current party members have fought a Warrior of Chaos as the final boss, you get to the party's destination and find the four enemies waiting for you with Garland, and fight a series of battles as each party member takes on their designated villain again, culminating with Lightning facing off against Garland. While the difficulty of the fights is likely not that great, they are nonetheless epic.

Final Fantasy Type-0

• Let's just get this out of the way first: the simple fact that level is not an issue even to an inexperienced player, as long as you pay attention to the tutorial sessions, means that anything is awesome even if you're horrendously underleveled if you can land a Breaksight hit - and the fights that require Breaksight hits are awesome in their own right:
  • Shinryu Celestia, the Cie'th-esque dragon that the Azure Dragon l'Cie Celestia becomes, is as horrendously overpowered as the name Shinryu deserves, and she's flying around a frozen cloud in dark skies to the point that you will only see the lights of her eyes until she tries to eat you - and she will outright swallow you whole. If you fail to Breaksight her enough times before all ten of your selected Classmates Zero are down, Arecia calls in Bahamut ZERO, providing the Bahamut-versus-Shinryu fight that everyone has been waiting for. The finisher is a thunder of Bahamut dragons bombarding Celestia with so many Mega Flares that only six-to-nine hits register and they all break the damage cap.
  • Gilgamesh has been in the world of every other Final Fantasy since V, but his appearance in Orience is finally a decent fight that isn't turn-based, Superboss unfair, or both. He's decked out in legendary Black Tortoise Armour that soaks up everything Class Zero can throw at it, and he's swinging a "Garland, eat your heart out"-sized BFS that will one-shot you at the recommended level. And this applies for both the original fight with him and the fight using Machina-as-Incognitus.
  • The final boss Cid Aulstyne as the Rursan Arbiter is impossible to lose. This does not make it anticlimactic, as it requires some proper strategy to win and is chock-full of awesome visuals. The twelve core Classmates Zero, backed by Machina and Rem's "Vermilion Fire", each suck out one of his twelve phantoma until Gala, Defiant to the End, drowns in his own pool of blood.

Chocobo's Dungeon

• The Boss battles in Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon are amazingly well done, especially when you consider that Chocobo's Dungeon is a Roguelike and boss battles in those kinds of games tend to be back and forth hitting each other. The four Guardian bosses either fly around randomly or use knock-back attacks and often have very flashy charge-up attacks, something that most regular enemies use. Oh, and the music helps too.

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