When jumping into a Final Fantasy game, it's pretty much guaranteed that at some point or another, the party are going to come up against some pretty brutal and unforgiving boss fights, but this doesn't exactly apply to all of them. For one reason or another, there have been several bosses throughout the series' history who a lot of fans agree were pretty underwhelming, and who ended up being slightly too weak for their own good given how dangerous and intimidating they're supposed to be within the context of the story.

Related

Final Fantasy: 5 Underrated Bosses

Boss fights in Final Fantasy games are always a spectacle, but these bosses don't get the respect they deserve for how great their fights are.

This can be made even worse when the game tries to hype players up for the boss by dropping hints as to how immensely powerful they are, only for their actual encounter to be little more than a bump in the road. This especially goes for these Final Fantasy bosses, who definitely could have benefited from being just a little tougher in their overall challenge to help make them more memorable and unique.

7 Seifer (First Fight)

Final Fantasy 8

The epic duel that takes place between Squall and Seifer during the intro cutscene of Final Fantasy 8 presented the latter as being a skillful rival to the protagonist who no doubt would put up one hell of a fight by the time players reached him in the story. While he's actually fought a grand total of four times throughout the game, and poses quite a challenge later on, Seifer's first encounter is unfortunately a little easy, primarily because of how few attacks he is actually able to use in the fight.

While his strongest attack is the Fira spell, he very rarely throws this out, instead opting to use his own personal Hyperion gunblade to slowly whittle down Squall's health bar. Because the battle is set up to be a one-on-one fight, it seems as though Square were hesitant to make Seifer too strong in case he ended up overwhelming the player, but it just made him quite predictable and a bit of a pushover as a result.

6 Aranea Highwind

Final Fantasy 15

While she does eventually become an ally to Noctis later on in the story, Aranea initially tries to stop the young prince in his tracks when she shows up to face him, and although she has a few hard-hitting moves up her sleeve, she's ultimately very manageable and doesn't come across as much of a threat. Aranea can easily dance around Noctis' regular attacks, but she's incredibly vulnerable to magic, and although her leaping Highwind ability can dish out some serious damage, the player only needs to hold down the parry button to deflect it and steal a chunk of her health bar.

Related

The 6 Strangest Jobs In The Final Fantasy Series

Final Fantasy's job systems are renowned for adding diversity to a player's build choices, but some job options are so wild that they're just...odd.

Up to this point in the story, the party has already faced countless Imperial foot soldiers, some of whom can be pretty challenging when kitted out with armor and special weapons, so Aranea really should have been a big deal since she's a commodore of the Niflheim Empire. Unfortunately though, her lackluster defense and predictable attack pattern make her actually quite forgettable, which is a real shame.

5 Control Node

Final Fantasy 16

Despite being nothing more than a small and irritable Orb, the Control Node could have been a memorable and difficult boss if it was beefed up just a little more, but after learning its attacks, it really doesn't pose much of a challenge at all. While its laser attacks can be very painful if they manage to hit Clive, this simply means that staying as close to the boss as possible can completely negate this ability, so the only thing to look out for would be its Static Shock.

By alternating between close-quarters attacks and ranged magic, the Control Node can be taken down with little to no effort. It also doesn't help that there's another boss in the game, Terminus, who's essentially just a stronger version of the Control Node and is much trickier to take down, making the original boss seem pretty bland in comparison.

4 Shiva Sisters

Final Fantasy 13

Every party member in Final Fantasy 13 has their own unique Eidolon which they must defeat in order to acquire it as a summon. The way these battles work is by filling up a small bar that appears underneath the Eidolon through dealing damage, inflicting debuffs, and just generally using the Paradigm roles to their full effect. All of these are brutally difficult fights, but the one exception to this is Snow's battle with the Shiva Sisters, who can literally be defeated in a few minutes by just spamming Snow's Sentinel abilities to defend against all their attacks.

Related

7 Hardest Final Fantasy Spin-Offs, Ranked

From Final Fantasy Explorers to Dissidia Final Fantasy, these are the trickiest spin-offs in the Final Fantasy series.

Because the sisters are already so weak, and the fact that Snow's defense skills last for so long, it means that all the player needs to do is protect themselves, and occasionally throw out a few magic spells to ramp up the gauge. Considering just how beloved Shiva is as a summon in the series, it would have been nice to see this iteration put up a little more of a fight, potentially through attacking more often, or just hitting harder in general to make the battle more intense and tactical.

3 Leviathan

Final Fantasy 15

From just its appearance alone, the Leviathan looks like one of the most terrifying and destructive monsters in the entire series, and within the world of Final Fantasy 15, it actually is supposed to be this strong, according to the lore. However, the Leviathan can unfortunately be taken down with only a few attacks, a parry here and there, and a handful of QTE segments, which really downplays just how insanely strong it's supposed to be.

For the start of the fight, players simply need to Warp Strike away from each of her attacks before then getting in close to let out a flurry of slashes when she's vulnerable. Although she does have a handful of attacks that can be pretty deadly, because Noctis is able to completely regenerate his health by Warp Striking, it largely negates this altogether. If the level design for this fight were improved to make it a traditional one-on-one fight as opposed to a gimmick-heavy encounter, it no doubt would have been much more challenging.

2 Seymour Omnis

Final Fantasy 10

Although Seymour isn't technically the main antagonist of Final Fantasy 10, he does become a constant thorn in the side of Tidus and the other Guardians for much of their journey, and he makes quite an impression in his first boss fight, which is incredibly difficult to survive. Therefore, by the time he reaches his Omnis status and transforms, many players were expecting a thrilling encounter that was going to be tough as nails, but unfortunately, it was a bit of a letdown, primarily because of how easy it is to break down his defenses.

Related

5 Darkest Side Quests In Final Fantasy Games

While the main plot of any final Fantasy game is bound to take a dark turn somewhere, these side quests tell some of the franchise's darkest stories.

Armor Break and Mental Break can instantly make Seymour far more vulnerable to damage, and because he primarily uses magic spells, all the player needs to do is equip a few pieces of equipment and armor that either absorb or largely neglect their affects, and he becomes far less threatening. Unlike in his previous fights, Seymour also won't banish Aeons from being summoned in this encounter, which can also be used to melt his health bar thanks to their devastating attacks.

1 Emperor

Final Fantasy 2

Emperor is the final boss of Final Fantasy 2, and it's fair to say that he's hyped up a considerable amount throughout the course of the game's story. Although he already controls the Palamecian Empire, the Emperor seeks to control the whole world through using his demons to subjugate the entire population to his will, which already paints him as an incredibly merciless and intimidating figure right off the bat. The issue is, by the time that the player reaches the Emperor at the top of Castle Pandemonium, they will have already been given two weapons which are capable of completely annihilating him; the Blood Sword and Ancient Sword.

The Blood Sword is able to drain 1/16th of the Emperor's health with each slash, and although he could have protected himself against the ability if he possessed an Undead Flag, Square made the bizarre decision not to give him this. Additionally, the Ancient Sword is able to completely bypass the Emperor's status defenses due to its Curse effect, meaning there are plenty of ways to take him down in no time at all. A lot of fans have theorized that Square never intended for him to be this weak and simply forgot to make him resistant to the sword's effects, but either way, he definitely should have been much harder considering that he's the final enemy of the entire game.

More

Final Fantasy: 7 Best Dressed Villains In The Series

The villains of Final Fantasy might be well-known for their terrifying personalities, but some also have a very captivating fashion sense.