Final Boss. What is that?

[Elpizo]

I too think Vayne was a step in the right direction. Heck, I even lost to him once on lv 55, because he was so quick to use his special attacks. He was certainly more challenging than Kefka, Sephiroth and Ultimecia. I never beat X (got to BFA and then quit), but I remember Necron.

Oh yes, Necron is possibly the hardest Final Boss of the after-VII FFs. First time I faced him I lost 7 times in a row. Because of his damned Grand Cross and Neutron Ring. He's not superhard and with some preparation the battle can be pretty even, but there's no super quick way to beat Necron or Vayne.

Personally, I wish SE went back to the pre-VI days. Chaos, Cloud of Darkness, Zeromus and NeoExDeath were great challenges without being frustrating. It took preparation and some skill to beat them, not just the superuberabilities. (Though for Zeromus this changed pretty much in IV DS)

And I'm also not agreeing with how the superbosses are the greatest challenge. What is a superboss nowadays? A random beast with billions of HP and supermoves that all in all goes for a boring battle.

I beat Yiazmat and I swear I'll never do it again. It was such a damn pain in the behind because it was so BORING. Attack, revive, attack, revive. Save. Repeat.

Omega and Shinryuu. Those were great superbosses. They didn't have plenty of HP (less than the Final Boss) and fighting them required some strategy. You had to work with your jobs to find the good combination to fight them on even ground unless you wanted to be wiped out. I remember stealing all those Dragon Lances to beat Shinryuu (cheap, I know ) or working to get Spellblade so I could beat Omega. They were challenging, a bit cheap maybe, but much more fun than any superboss after VI.

Here's my guess: FF XIII will have a rather weak Final Boss (something alike to Yu Yevon) and a superboss with 100 million HP or so that can only be beaten by having superabilities and weapons that do 99 999 damage.

[Seamus>Yiazmat]

I don't know why you guys think you NEED the legendary weapons ever in FFX. I beat Nemesis no problem without them, it just took forever. The only thing you need for Nemesis is Auto-Life and a lot of Ethers/Elixirs/Megalixirs. And no overdrives or he counters with Ultima.

As for Yiazmat, I thought the fight was really fun. I set my gambits up so they do very little work and I do most of the command-entering, but that's just how I like to play the game.

I do agree that the final boss of X was way too easy, but the second form of the final aeon was pretty hard.

Kuja and Deathwing were easy, I can solo them with Garnet, but Necron gave me some real trouble. I was very satisfied with the final fight of IX. I doubt I'll ever fight Ozma though.

And there's no quick way to beat Vayne because his last stage has no HP. It's a survival battle. You just have to survive until he goes into HP critical (which he does by himself) and then hit him a few times. Don't get me wrong, I think it was a good idea, they just could have made it harder to survive IMO.

[Wolf Kanno]

I too think Vayne was a step in the right direction. Heck, I even lost to him once on lv 55, because he was so quick to use his special attacks. He was certainly more challenging than Kefka, Sephiroth and Ultimecia. I never beat X (got to BFA and then quit), but I remember Necron.

Oh yes, Necron is possibly the hardest Final Boss of the after-VII FFs. First time I faced him I lost 7 times in a row. Because of his damned Grand Cross and Neutron Ring. He's not superhard and with some preparation the battle can be pretty even, but there's no super quick way to beat Necron or Vayne.

Personally, I wish SE went back to the pre-VI days. Chaos, Cloud of Darkness, Zeromus and NeoExDeath were great challenges without being frustrating. It took preparation and some skill to beat them, not just the superuberabilities. (Though for Zeromus this changed pretty much in IV DS)

And I'm also not agreeing with how the superbosses are the greatest challenge. What is a superboss nowadays? A random beast with billions of HP and supermoves that all in all goes for a boring battle.

I beat Yiazmat and I swear I'll never do it again. It was such a damn pain in the behind because it was so BORING. Attack, revive, attack, revive. Save. Repeat.

Omega and Shinryuu. Those were great superbosses. They didn't have plenty of HP (less than the Final Boss) and fighting them required some strategy. You had to work with your jobs to find the good combination to fight them on even ground unless you wanted to be wiped out. I remember stealing all those Dragon Lances to beat Shinryuu (cheap, I know ) or working to get Spellblade so I could beat Omega. They were challenging, a bit cheap maybe, but much more fun than any superboss after VI.

Its funny cause I was actually thinking about Omega and Shinryuu of FFV when I made my post about how to do it right.

Overall I completely agree with your post on this and this is basically what I was trying to get at. Especially how the quality of super bosses have been simplified in recent years.

I don't know why you guys think you NEED the legendary weapons ever in FFX. I beat Nemesis no problem without them, it just took forever. The only thing you need for Nemesis is Auto-Life and a lot of Ethers/Elixirs/Megalixirs. And no overdrives or he counters with Ultima.

I do agree that the final boss of X was way too easy, but the second form of the final aeon was pretty hard.

I don't need them except to fulfill my inner completionist but I make it a point not to use them. Beyond that though, I still find it rather sad that the final boss can be taken out in a single hit if you want to. That just really cheapens the experience for me.

As for Yiazmat, I thought the fight was really fun. I set my gambits up so they do very little work and I do most of the command-entering, but that's just how I like to play the game.

My problem with Yiazmat is that he's boring to fight. When it comes down to it, its just a 6 hour endurance match. The game even gives you plenty of options to remove the fear of death. I started battling him a year ago and gave up out of boredom rather than frustration. That, to me, just says that you messed up somewhere.

I'd rather have a fight that was more about challenge and a simple mistake could cost you everything (like Omega from FFV). The funny thing is that XII provided this countless times with some of the Mark Hunts and Esper battles yet Yiazmat and Omega XIII are rather disappointing "endurance matches". The whole strategy is to just outlast the other.

Kuja and Deathwing were easy, I can solo them with Garnet, but Necron gave me some real trouble. I was very satisfied with the final fight of IX. I doubt I'll ever fight Ozma though.

Ozma is hard for only two reasons:
1) There is no defense against the Mini status he can inflict
2) Meteor

He's more about luck than skill. I still hope to beat someday. Perhaps when I get around to replaying IX again.

And there's no quick way to beat Vayne because his last stage has no HP. It's a survival battle. You just have to survive until he goes into HP critical (which he does by himself) and then hit him a few times. Don't get me wrong, I think it was a good idea, they just could have made it harder to survive IMO.

Actually, the Undying does have HP. He's said to have about 65,000. Beyond that, I agree that they should have upped the damage of his attacks. Bubble does put a damper on things. Hell, just chaining some of his abilities quickly could have been fun. Especially when he starts using the Palings.

[Karellen]

His HP is more like 220,000.

I found the battle to be decently challenging, but then I was level 48, didn't have bubble or bravery and had weapons with 90-100 attack power. I suspect if I had kept up with the hunts I probably would have trounced him.

[Seamus>Yiazmat]

That, to me, just says that you messed up somewhere.

Messed up somewhere? What do you mean? I don't like my gambits doing all the work for me, I just have them to refresh buffs and attack automatically. I set healing ones if I can't get to healing fast enough but that's it. I do most of the work and that's what made Yiazmat fun for me. I know people who set up a bunch of gambits and just sit there and watch Yiazmat go down with no interference. That would be really boring and that's why I do almost the exact opposite of that.

And there's no protection for mini in IX? Crazy, I totally thought there was but I never went into any kind of status attacks or protection. The only thing I always protect against is Death.

[Depression Moon]

I believe that Ultimecia and Necron in VIII can still give you a challenge I remember losing frequently to necron when I first started IX, well I was 10 then so that's probably why, but I don't think Ozma's that hard either because I had beat him on my second try. With XII I agree he can be far too easy I beat him on my second try on my first playthrough, and now I'm trying to complete a lot of sidequests so he'll probably be very easy to beat, most of the later hunts are harder than him. Maybe someone should implement some kind of way to increase the level of the final boss as you get stronger if you so choose or a third option that the final boss will be the toughest when you reach Lvl 99.

[Wolf Kanno]

That, to me, just says that you messed up somewhere.

Messed up somewhere? What do you mean? I don't like my gambits doing all the work for me, I just have them to refresh buffs and attack automatically. I set healing ones if I can't get to healing fast enough but that's it. I do most of the work and that's what made Yiazmat fun for me. I know people who set up a bunch of gambits and just sit there and watch Yiazmat go down with no interference. That would be really boring and that's why I do almost the exact opposite of that.

I manually control my party as well and play on Active mode. Like you, I only use Gambits for buffs, emergency healing and some pre-strategy and beyond that its all me baby.

The problem here is that Yiazmat has so much damn hp that it takes hours to kill him and since his strategy only has a few minor changes you end up repeating the same actions over and over again for hours... That to me is tedious and not fun. The game is practically telling you to just set up your gambits to play themselves and go out and watch a movie. Yiazmat was fun the first few hours but after awhile the whole thing seemed tedious and boring and when that happens, you did something wrong. This is coming from a guy who actually enjoys grinding for crying out loud.

I don't mind having to battle for awhile if its intense but after a few hours, even the most disastrous attacks he pulls feel routine. Throw in the fact you can leave in the middle of the fight and restore your health (and sanity) and I feel the bosses threat level is significantly depleted. The Shadow Seer was an intense battle, the King Behemoth was an intense battle. Yiazmat felt like a chore...

And there's no protection for mini in IX? Crazy, I totally thought there was but I never went into any kind of status attacks or protection. The only thing I always protect against is Death.

No there isn't and believe me, it does matter, as mini takes out the usefulness of your physical fighters and allows most of his spells to one shot you. Its pretty annoying. I probably could be Ozma if I wasn't hell bent on stealing his rare items and just focused on killing him. Using Quina would also probably help. :rolleyes2