This is...THE FINAL DUNGEON!!!! [/spoilers beware]

[Bahamut2000X]

Well let's chat about the Final Dungeons of FF's shall we?

To me a game needs an impressive Final Dungeon in order to be fun and epic. If the Final Dungeon is lame, short, and easy the game is totally ruined for me. It's also got to have some good tunes to listen to as I stroll through fighting the final challenges leading up to ultimately saving the world.

As far as Final Dungeons are concerned I found many of the FF's to have enjoyable Final Dungeons, and some to be less them impressive.

Of my all time favorites FF III's Crystal Tower stands out. It has a great song to listen to as I climb the tower and fight monsters.

While the dungeon could use more in the way of puzzles or bosses it was still enjoyable, and was an epic trek towards the final battle.

FF IV was a unique setting for a Final Dungeon and had a nice long trek of fighting bosses and collecting gear to do up until the final battle.

FF VI was a tower made of pure chaos fitted with bosses and puzzles that needed to be overcome by 3 parties before you can take on the final battle.

As for bad Final Dungeons, I would have to say FF X wins that one hands down.

It didn't have a good tune to cruise through. It had a single lame boss fight with a major villain which just ended all of a sudden. There was no puzzles, it was short and could be walked in like 5 minutes. And it lead up to a final confrontation which was epic lame. "Oh hey bad guy! Let's fight!" It didn't build up any suspense and pump me up enough for the final battle, and ultimately let me down.

FF XII's was a short little sky fortress that was about 2 rooms big. While the ending sequences were good, the build up was terrible. "Oh hey guys REVOLUTION!!!" I ran past all the enemies because there was no point to fighting, it took me about 3 minutes before I had cleared the Final Dungeon. I will give the game that it had a nifty cut scene before the Final Dungeon, but once inside it was a let down. :(

Well then! Let's talk about the Final Dungeons and what you like in a Final Dungeon!

[Flying Mullet]

I enjoyed the final dungeon in FFIV the best out of the games in the series. The music was fantastic and it added to the epic feel of making your way to the core of the moon. Even the background played into it as you have the glowing core of the moon behind you as you're making your way through a crystal dungeon. Good stuff.

[scrumpleberry]

FFIV and FFII's pandaemonium were my faves <3

[leader of mortals]

A final dungeon should have the strongest random encounters in the game, good bosses, and lots of equipment you need to go out of your way to get. I think FFXII was the worst, then FFX. FF3, 4, 7, 9, and X-2 were all pretty good. X-2 wasnt as good as the others, but the puzzle at the end is really fun and the aeons you fight are good bosses.

[Depression Moon]

I think XII's is the worst for obvious reasons, but I disagree with you about X's final battle they had it planned out that they were going to fight Yu Yevon, it just wasn't that he appeared and they just decided to fight him. For IX I'm not sure what part I'm supposed to count the Crystal World or Memoria?

VIII's can say was okay, it frustrated me the most out of any of them. I agree that IV's was good. More dungeons need good treasure in them. VII's I don't really like either. You can't quickly run through it if you're in a hurry and dislike the enemies there. X-2's was okay, nothing special. It looked cool though.

[Wolf Kanno]

IV's is my all time favorite for basically everything Mulley said so I'm just going to quote him.


I enjoyed the final dungeon in FFIV the best out of the games in the series. The music was fantastic and it added to the epic feel of making your way to the core of the moon. Even the background played into it as you have the glowing core of the moon behind you as you're making your way through a crystal dungeon. Good stuff.

I like pretty much every final dungeon in the series. I, IV, VI, IX, and XII's stand out for me but I like all of them to be honest. I didn't like CC's but then again, I was against Genesis reappearing. X-2's was also a bit pointless but I blame it on not liking the story to begin with so it was sort of doom to begin with with me.

FFI: I like the idea of revisiting the first dungeon and having the first boss be the last boss as well. Rematches against the Four Elemental fiends and what not, it was a kick ass concept.

FFIV: See quote above

FFVI: You get to use basically everyone, good puzzles nice collection of boss fights and the final dungeon being the warped ruins of the Imperial Capitol of Vector was a nice touch.

FFIX: I love trippy dungeons and I feel IX wins this hands down. Good boss battles lots of secrets and the twisted remix of the Crystal theme made the whole place fun and unsettling.

FFXII: I actually lump the Pharos into the final dungeon category cause it basically is the final dungeon to resolve the major objective that came to pass in the game (stop the Occurians). Sky Fortress Bahamut was nice and short and let you jump into what you needed to do, kick the final boss' ass. I appreciated this, cause it rarely happens in RPGs.

[Bahamut2000X]

I did find the Pharos to be good, but since it didn't lead up to the final battle directly I just couldn't call it a Final Dungeon.

FF I also did have a nice concept for a Final Dungeon, and FF II, I felt was epic in many ways. Nothing like visiting the castle of Hell on Earth.

[Wolf Kanno]

I understand where you are coming from but for me, after finally getting through the Pharos, it was nice to just jump in and get it over with. Really, I don't think I hate any of the main series final dungeons. :cool:

Also, this is for you Bahamut2000X (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZkllM8znx4)

[Bahamut2000X]

Someone got my reference for a change! I am entirely stoked right now.

[The Crystal]

I play FFs for the story, not gameplay. So IMO, the best is Memoria/Crystal-World. The final dungeon of FFIX was beautiful! All the different "rooms" of Memoria, showing the history of Gaia. And then, the legendary Crystal-World, the place where all life came from.

That dungeon was so magic, epic, beautiful, and surreal, that I have to vote in it.

[Sir Lancealot]

I did find the Pharos to be good, but since it didn't lead up to the final battle directly I just couldn't call it a Final Dungeon.

Yet you count the Crystal Tower as a final dungeon, when it should be the Realm of Darkness or whatever it's called.

[Bahamut2000X]

Once your at the top of the Crystal Tower there's no going back. You go straight from it to the Dark World.

With the Pharos you complete it, then you can save....and explore the world....and do any other manner of things. Hence it's not a Final Dungeon if you clear it and get back outside to the normal play and still have another dungeon to do.

[arcanedude34]

Memoria/Crystal World wins for obvious reasons.

[I Don't Need A Name]

FFX's dungeon did suck. and it was quite possibly the worst final boss ever.
can anyone safely say that they actually had any trouble at all with Yu-Yevon?

[Depression Moon]

Well it didn't need to be too hard because you already fought six bosses before it and nine if you got all the Aeons. I guess another reason for it's difficulty was because of story. Yu Yevon was only a real threat with his coat of armor Sin. all I did to him was hit him with Zombie Strike and watched as he killed himself. I didn't think that the dungeon was really bad, it was just plain.

[MJN SEIFER]

Yu Yevon was a story battle seen loads of times in FF games (and probably other games too). The only difference was that it was imposible(?) to lose not win.

I liked V's final place, it looked pretty cool starting of as a mixture of places then being this sureal-ish type place. VI's was nice that you had to use practically all your people, VIII's was quite interesting as you can try it with hardly any skills if you want (which I didn't) as much as I like VII nothing really seperated it from any other "dungeon" area in that game - thankfully I like them enough for it not to matter.

[The Turk]

The Crater is really underrated. I found that place to be very cool, the left path especially. Walking down that spirally staircase and being attacked by those horrid Death Dealers or the scary Dragon Zombie. Then you have the screen full of bones that always confused me...who's are they?

I think I just liked the way you kept heading down, down, further down right to the core of the planet and the fact I don't visit the Crater often as I usually do the side-quests first so I haven't seen it much. The music is very creepy too and the monsters have very strong spells like Level 4 Death, Level 5 Death, Roulette etc or are intimidating and/or unusually like the Gigas, King Behemoth, Magic Pot, Gargoyle, Malboro, Mover and Master Tonberry.

[Bahamut2000X]

Yu Yevon was a story battle seen loads of times in FF games (and probably other games too). The only difference was that it was imposible(?) to lose not win.

The problem was it was against the main villain and final boss. A story battle like that has no place at the very end. It would as if in FFVI instead of having an epic battle with Kefka, instead they just gave you auto life and made it impossible to win, but only had the bosses before hand able to beat you.

It makes no sense and kills any level of epic let alone thrill when "Oh great...I can't die...TO THE MAIN VILLIAN!"

[Wolf Kanno]

Damn you "Swear thread" I want to join in about Yu-Yevon... :cry:

As for the Crater, I do actually like it but I was really annoyed when the opportunity came for your party to split up and the game only lets you see one path. I know they did the multi-party dungeon idea in VI but damn it, its so fun and has lots of puzzle opportunities. The Crater was very reminiscent of the Lunar Core in IV. Funny enough, I find it funny how many similarities VII has with IV... :shifty:

[MJN SEIFER]

Yu Yevon was a story battle seen loads of times in FF games (and probably other games too). The only difference was that it was imposible(?) to lose not win.

The problem was it was against the main villain and final boss. A story battle like that has no place at the very end. It would as if in FFVI instead of having an epic battle with Kefka, instead they just gave you auto life and made it impossible to win, but only had the bosses before hand able to beat you.

It makes no sense and kills any level of epic let alone thrill when "Oh great...I can't die...TO THE MAIN VILLIAN!"

Agreed. It was stupid.

[The Crystal]

The Crater is really underrated. I found that place to be very cool, the left path especially. Walking down that spirally staircase and being attacked by those horrid Death Dealers or the scary Dragon Zombie. Then you have the screen full of bones that always confused me...who's are they?

I think I just liked the way you kept heading down, down, further down right to the core of the planet and the fact I don't visit the Crater often as I usually do the side-quests first so I haven't seen it much. The music is very creepy too and the monsters have very strong spells like Level 4 Death, Level 5 Death, Roulette etc or are intimidating and/or unusually like the Gigas, King Behemoth, Magic Pot, Gargoyle, Malboro, Mover and Master Tonberry.

I agree. The idea of going down to the core of the planet, the place where all the Lifestream comes from, is very cool.
And even if some screens of the dungeon look just like a normal cavern, the ones showing the Lifestream(the spirally starcase, and the abyss with the floating platforms where you fight Jenova at the end) and with giant colored Materias(in the background of the screen with bones), are beautiful.

[Jessweeee♪]

Yu-Yevon wasn't supposed to be hard, you have auto life the whole time no matter what you couldn't die if you tried xD

Braska's Final Aeon is the last boss.

Anyway, I thought FFX's dungeon looked pretty cool. I just wish there was more of it (same goes for X-2). The crystal collecting and navigating through those floor tiles that kept popping up was really annoying, though (especially when I tried it with the DDR mat).

FFXII had some nice cutscenes and good music, but the place itself was kinda meh. It's really the only suitable location, but an air ship can only be so big. Ulty's Castle is probably my favorite. I hate North Cater or whatever it was, as much as I like the rest of FFVII x.x

[the AJman]

I personally consider both the Pharos and the Sky Fortress both as the final dungeon in XII, and thats one of my favorite final dungeons. Another would be the Crater in VII, I like the idea that you keep going down further into the heart of the planet. I was also very fond of Ultimacia's castle.

[Unstoppable Pig]

FFX final dungeon sucked. Well I have only completed it once so I don´t remember it well but I remember I hated room where you had to catch crystals and you had nasty encounters. Also that place looked boring.

My favorite is IV. I just like how you moons core on your way music there is awesome and lots of treasure sidequests. V was nice, I liked how the bosses introduce themselves when you enter into Cleft of Dimension.

VI was cool too but what made actually enjoyable that it was multiparty dungeon. You could technically take all your characters. I usually leave Gogo and Umaro behind because I like it better when "story characters" travel through tower. I liked VII too, lots of difference places and treasures. It was like many dungeons in one.

I consider Pharos as part of Final Dungeon in XII. It is hard and long and its good for the story that it aint the real final dungeon. I always find it a bit silly that your characters can leave final dungeon to go have adventures outside. It is like " hey guys lets go get better equipment I´m sure Kefka and Sephiroth will just wait for us here meanwhile" .

[black orb]

>>> Temple of Fiends for me, is the only final dungeon that give me the creeps, the music and the retarded powerful monsters there help a lot..