There are a lot of Final Fantasy games out there. It's easily one of the JRPG franchises with the most games with entries ranging from old-school turn-based RPGs to epic action RPGs and massive MMOs. No matter the Final Fantasy game, though, most entries in the franchise share the same hallmarks. One of these is ultimate weapons, or weapons that are incredibly hard to acquire.
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What exactly makes them hard to get your hands on differs from entry to entry. Sometimes the process is just incredibly tedious; sometimes they acquire the player to take on dangerous bosses, and sometimes the player needs to check off a massive to-do list. Whether the weapons end up being worth all the effort is up for debate, but oftentimes it's worth doing just for bragging rights.
9 The Onion Sword
Pray To The Gods Of RNG
The Onion Knight first appeared in Final Fantasy 3, and Onion Knight-themed gear has been a staple of both the franchise and JRPGs as a whole ever since. Final Fantasy 4' has a lot of versions, but the Onion Sword only appears in the 3D remakes. It's not just a silly easter egg either, it's one of the best weapons for both Cecil and Kain.
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Unfortunately, it's also a real pain to get. To receive the Onion Sword, the player must deliver a Red Tail to the game's Tail Collector. These are only dropped by the Red Dragons, found in the late game area, the Lunar Subterrane. These dragons only have a 0.4% chance of dropping the tails and are a random encounter themselves. They're also not the easiest things in the world to kill. This all adds up to an absolute grind-fest, especially since players will likely want to buy two Onion Swords, meaning twice the grind.
8 The Zodiac Spear
Ridiculously Easy To Miss
One of the oldest scams in gaming was to lock a game's most powerful items behind such stupidly obscure criteria that buying a guide was pretty much mandatory. The original Final Fantasy 12 might be one of the most timeless PS2 RPGs, but it was incredibly guilty of this sin. Its best weapon, the Zodiac Spear, was painfully easy to miss.
The Zodiac Spear was obtained in a special area of the Necrohol of Nabudis as long as the player hadn't already opened four specific chests, some of them located in very early areas of the game. Essentially, punishing the 99% of JRPG players who endeavor to open every single chest they come across. If the player had opened these chests, they were given another chance to obtain the weapon. Deep within the Henne Mines Phase 2 Dig (which requires having unlocked 10 Espers and completing the difficult Mindflayer Hunt), a secret chest can spawn.
However, said chest only has a 10% spawn rate, with a 10% chance of it even holding an item. Even worse, the chances of that item being the Zodiac Spear were just 10%. So, a 1 in 1000 chance. Not great odds. Oh, and the party leader must be wearing the Diamond Armlet for the spear to drop. For the Zodiac remake, the spear was made easier to get (but not much) but was no longer the best weapon.
7 Onion Knight
Dodging Lightning Isn't Fun
Final Fantasy 10's ultimate weapons, called Celestials, were all famously difficult and annoying to unlock. To be fair, grabbing the weapons was rarely the problem, it was powering them up to the point where they were actually useful. Lulu's celestial weapon, the Onion Knight, was one of the worst to get.
The weapon itself is hidden in an underwater chest in Baaj Temple, which is locked unless the player has the Celestial Mirror. Not too bad. Powering up the weapon fully requires the Venus Crest and Sigil. To get the Venus Sigil, the player must dodge 200 consecutive lightning strikes at the Thunder Plains. It's a tedious, difficult mini-game that only a masochist could enjoy. To adult insult to injury, the game has another weapon, which was even worse to get, as well as two of the hardest summons to unlock in the franchise.
6 Tinkerbell
Harder Than it Sounds
Tinkerbell is Final Fantasy 5's best bell weapon, which makes it ideal for the game's Geomancer and Freelancer classes. At first glance, it doesn't sound that hard to get. The weapon is dropped by Twintania, a not particularly difficult boss found in the Interdimensional Rift. As long as the player is reasonably prepared, the fight isn't too bad. The bad news is that simply killing Twintania doesn't guarantee a Tinkebrell drop. That would be too easy for Square Enix.
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For a start, the party must take out Twintania when it isn't charging its powerful Gigaflare move (if they do instead). Even then, there's only a 6% chance that the weapon will even drop. Since Twintania is a boss who doesn't respawn, the player will likely have to repeatedly reset their game and fight Twintania again and again if they're determined on getting Tinkerbell.
5 Ultima Weapons
The Ultimate Test Of Skill
Final Fantasy 14
- Platform(s)
- PC , PS3 , PS4 , PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S
- Released
- August 27, 2013
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix
- Genre(s)
- MMORPG
As an MMORPG, Final Fantasy 14's meta is constantly being tinkered with, and frequent expansion releases bring new powerful pieces of gear into the game's ecosystem. MMO's need to keep players engaged, which means they nearly always make their best items difficult to obtain. Final Fantasy 14 is no different. Of all its difficult to obtain gear, two sets stand out: the Zodiac Zeta weapons and the Ultima weapons. The Zodiac Zeta weapons take a lot of time and patience to unlock, but they aren't as bad as the Ultima weapons.
Ultima weapons are purchased from Eschina in Rhalgr's Reach for the princely sum of one Ultima Totem. These are dropped from The Weapon's Refrain (Ultimate), a level 70 raid that takes the form of a boss rush. Anyone who wants an Ultima Totem must team up with friends to take on five of Final Fantasy's hardest bosses, with no break in between to heal up and recover. These bosses are the first three primals from A Realm Reborn, then the Scion Lahabrea, with a fight against The Ultima Weapon to top things off. It's an arduous task that will test not just each individual player's skill but the party's cohesion.
4 Seitengrat
Infinitesimal Odds
Square Enix may have made the Zodiac Spear easier to acquire in Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age, but that doesn't mean they were done trolling completionists. They added several, even harder-to-acquire secret weapons to the remake, with the hardest to get being the Seitengrat. It's a weapon so difficult to obtain, doing so was meant to be either a complete fluke or the result of an unhealthy obsession.
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The Seitengrat is found in a chest on the deck of the Skyferry. A chest that is invisible and only has a 1% spawn chance. This invisible chest only has a 20% chance of containing an item and will only have the Seitengrat inside if the player is wearing the Diamond Armlet. Even then, it's only a 5% chance. That means, in total, there's a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting the weapon upon each visit. The vast majority of players who ever got the weapon relied on RNG manipulation, which was certainly not an easy task in and of itself. With secrets like this, it's no wonder Final Fantasy 12 is one of the hardest Final Fantasy games to 100% complete.
3 World Champion
Hours Playing Water Soccer
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With all his overdrives unlocked and his celestial weapon, World Champion, fully leveled up, Wakka can dish out damage in the millions. In the history of Final Fantasy, his Attack Reels are the highest-hitting attacks, and it's not even close. Getting there can be a major chore, though. Especially if the player doesn't enjoy playing blitzball (the love child of water polo, volleyball, and soccer).
To get their hands on the World Champion, the player must have the Celestial Mirror and speak to the barkeep in Luca after either winning 5 matches or placing third or higher in a tournament. To fully power it up, they then need to acquire the Jupiter Crest (easy) and the Jupiter Sigil (not easy). The Sigil has a 50% chance of dropping as a blitzball tournament league prize after Wakka's Overdrives have all been unlocked in other blitzball tournaments. This means the player will have had to win anywhere from 24 to 44 blitzball matches to get the final version. For those players who hated blitzball or just weren't good at it, it was torture.
2 Zwill Crossblade
A Very Difficult Fight
Final Fantasy 15 has one of the best combat systems in RPGs but getting some of its best weapons can be a bit of a pain. Some are simply found on the map, while others require completing difficult quests. Getting the legendary dagger, the Zwill Crossblade, is the worst, though. It requires completing a series of difficult quests and defeating a very difficult superboss.
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The Zwill Crossblade is given as a reward for completing the Wondrous Weapon sidequest, the final of Randolf's Legendary Weapons quests. Randolf tasks the player with taking down Naglfar, and it's recommended that the party be at level 99. Naglfar himself is level 120, has just shy of one million HP and hits like a truck. Even with his weakness to fire, he's an incredibly tough boss to take down and can wipe out the party fairly easily. By the time the player has the Zwill Crossblade, they won't have much use for it.
1 Excalibur 2
A Race Against Time
In Final Fantasy 9, Steiner's hidden ultimate weapon is called Excalibur 2, and it's a weapon that very few players ever get to see. Final Fantasy games are known for being pretty long, usually taking dozens of hours to complete, even if the player's in a bit of a rush. Final Fantasy 9 usually clocks in at about 40 hours, especially if the player hasn't bothered with all the side content.
If players want Excalibur 2, they'll have to rush towards one of Final Fantasy's best endings and reach the game's final area, Memoria, in under 12 hours. If they manage this feat, they'll find the weapon hidden behind a pillar after defeating Lich. Thankfully, these days, the task is much easier to complete when playing the remastered version since it offers myriad options to speed up and generally cheese through the game.
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