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Malboros in VIII were worse, imo. Mainly because you didn't have access to nearly as broken character options as in X, and the hp cap was higher at lvl 100
The Malboro in FF VIII used to scare the crap outta me. Unprepared that thing would screw you right from the start leaving you to watch your party endure a slow and painful death. Plus that laugh was creepy as all hell.
@@bigcountrymxog you pretty much NEED Aurons Masamune fully upgraded for First Strike AND send him down Tidus’s path of the Sphere Grid for Flee first time there, those things are an instant game over most of the time.
ahh chac floor 80 and can appear anywhere in floor 81-99 lol but hes actually really easy if you drain his mana before it uses its magic attack then just have a berserker with evade and counter and you cant lose
Agree that it's pushing 'random' a bit too far, I get the feeling they really wanted to include something from Final Fantasy 7 in this list as they didn't in the previous lists. However, those past lists already included Malboro, Tonberry and Behemoth so who else to include from the original game?
Well technically it's not a boss, yeah it is fixed encounter and you've been warned, but at the same time curiousity like with FF IX and gizamkule grotto, F it I'm going through. Even tho Zolom ain't that hard, apart from fact he never misses and beta counter
@@jamesgravil9162 That, but I was talking about cute and cruel. In fact, Yan the sheep caused multiple Game Overs for me because I took him lightly the first time I met him. I ended up farming for experience points from him since he gives crap load of exp, I was able to level up Zidane to level 99 while others in virus state in 1 hour or less.
Screw Yans and their random damage. You either take care of them like they are no threat whatsoever, or they literally kill you before you have a chance to make a single input. One of the things i absolutely hate about FF9, so many annoying random damage enemies. Ozma is the same, you can solo him with a lvl 7 Freya solo, or he obliterates you into game over with his first attack simply doing 9999 damage to your entire party.
Trying to guess 5 of them before watching the Video 1-Warmech/Death Machine (FFI) 2-T-Rex (Thanks thumbnail because I'd have went for Ruby Dragon Island closest to hell for FFVIII) 3-Yan (FFIX) 4-Malborro... any really but let's say FFX because if they ambushed you, you're dead. 5-Hill Gigas (FFVI) Edit: Darn, after 10 seconds of the Video, I'm reminded of the Brachiosaurus from VI, I don't think I'll do too well. Edit 2 : I wouldn't call the Midgar Zolom and "Random" encounter Edit 3 : Got only 2 (and one of them is the Thumbnail monster...)
I've been caught by surprise by a Malboro in FFVII at Gaea, since then i always wear ribbon when possible... The T-Rexaurs got me the first time i've played FFVIII but ever since i always grind Triple Traid ( i love that mini game so much 😍😍😍) combined with Diablos abilities i make a joke of this monster everytime i replay FFVIII; Mental Attack Death 100% or the more amusing one Pain 100%. I love seeing kill itself by the poison while it can't attack you anymore because of blind. 🤩🤩🤩 Change it into a card before he dies and that's 10 AP without leveling up your characters. 😉
after my first encounter where i was destroyed, i simply did farm the plant to get max sleep spell and assign it to attack after that, you kill it while it sleep like a baby (and fully farm your spell on it at the same time)
For me, a surprising enemy that frustrated me were the Dorky Faces in Final Fantasy VII. Found in the ShinRa Manor in Nibelheim, these floating pumpkin heads could inflict Confuse on the entire party at once. This makes them frustrating, as anti-Confusion equipment is rare the first time you go through the Manor. One particular encounter with them, however, left me chilled: I'd ordered Tifa to cast Aqualung, but she got confused before the spell went off. She proceeded to cast the spell... on my party. Cue me running like a panicked chicken.
The dragon from ff9, when you climb up the ladder after saving the mog stuck under a bell. If you were unlucky enough it would use thundara on its first turn and wipe your whole party.
have to get coral ring from the festival to be able to farm them early. might be able to synth them also with limited resources. something else too for the birds up there, to prevent petrification i think. grand dragons are the best exp source in the game though iirc
The Grand Dragon outside the alternate exit of Gizmaluke’s Grotto. Known for using Poison Breath, a Dual physical hit, or its infamous party Thundaga. It was possible to defeat and power level if you had antidote equipped for the party and Vivi with Dbl Mag Blizzara but even then the amount of luck to get the first down was definitely a lot for any new player.
@@cellamuert The Grand Dragons are the best grinding spot for most of the game, but the Yans on Vile Island are best for late-game power-leveling. Of course, once you can reliably kill Yans, you don't really need to grind any more.
@@VeeGeeA I'm the kind of player that needs to explore every corner, so even though the mogs warn you as you're climbing the ladder, I still climbed it. Did NOT expect there to be a level spike in monsters and something told me I was cooked after I seen it. Went from cutesy looking monsters to an impressive looking dragon.
@@cellamuert they are and I and my second play through I broke the game by grinding them early and I regretted it. Ff9 is not a hard game (beat ozma drunk off my ass and don't remember the fight 😂) and it took any little challenge the game had completely away.
I'd correct you and say it's called a 'Mindflayer', but Square's localization team was super sketchy with translations around that time... so it totally could have been called a 'Mindflair'.
@conorjohn490 oh I think you may be correct, but I do for some reason remember mindflair, whether that be an attack made by another mob in another FF im not sure. Maybe self Mandela effecting lol
@adramelke1722 yeah 100% but as a generic monster it was essentially as bad as Marlboros bad breath, inflicting berserk, confusion and so on. That monk only battle is Insane aswell
@@virtualbunksie5117 that isn't where the monk battle is... the battle i'm refering to features hydras, dragons, minotaurs, and other montsers... i specifically said "monster battle".... th-cam.com/video/7RW_QUW41Tg/w-d-xo.html the monk battle you're most likely talking about features 11 monks and is found on grogh heights....
For FF8, I think the TRex may be the one most people remember because it happens so early in the game, but the one that scares me every time even when I'm prepared for it is a Marbbro. The ability to preemptively douse status effects for those who are not ready will almost guarantee a game over before you even have a chance to react
Brachiosaur might be worth it just for the chance to steal Ribbons and the Celestriad drop For those who don't know, in FFVI, you can equip two relics in addition to the Mainhand-Offhand-Helmet-Armor setup, the Ribbon nulls all status ailments and the Celestriad reduces any magic ability's cost to 1
Glass-cannon mage with Soul of Thamasa and Celestriad makes for good fun if you also have Quick and Ultima. Hope you can get another character's turn to cast Haste on you first, though
I remember playing Final Fantasy VI in the 90s shortly after it was released on the SNES and I must have gotten really lucky with the Brachiosaurs because I recall getting a ton of Economizers from them. Years later when I tried to farm the Economizers from them in later versions of the game (PS1, Game Boy Advance), I never got a drop after an insane number of hours of killing these things - and they're a rare encounter!
7:08 When a friend of mine first let me try out FF7, I randomly managed to walk past the giant snake as it got caught bouncing around in a corner of the lake. His jaw dropped as he returned from a pee-break while the scene with the scewered snake played.
From what I remember, there was a random encounter in FF Tactics that consisted of about 16 Monks! The max number of characters your could take into the battle was 5. There was no other encounter in the whole game with that many enemies. I always felt it was clearly a cruel troll by the programmers, and wiped to it several times without having saved before.
It was 11 monks, and while I think it does technically count as a random battle, it's also like a special secret battle only available in the last chapter when entering a map location from a specific direction a low percentage of the time. Fun fact, every random battle location has one of these secret fights. The Grog Hill monk party is the most famous and difficult.
The worst version of that was if you were unfortunate to have over levelled before getting Bahamut. The forced encounter with a ruby dragon there ALWAYS opened with that breath attack when over a certain level and it would always hit for 9999 making it literally impossible to beat.
At least you were warned multiple times about T-Rexaur (as if it wasn't obvious that a starting character vs a giant dinosaur wasn't a good idea). Ruby Dragons can remain a threat for much longer in the game even when you do know the Junction system quite well.
@@TheBlackSeraph yeah, but the big difference is that with T-Rexaur you are warned and given a solution at the same time (junction attack with sleep), you don't have a solution if you are in the situation above with the red dragon
also don’t try and be smart with reflect, it’s smart enough to cast reflect on itself and bounce spells off itself and make healing a nightmare because you can’t use magic to heal.
In my desperation after getting the whole party one shotted, was to equip “auto protect” it would absorb some of damage and at least give an opportunity to revive/heal.
@yt-dm8ns I don't remember exactly, but blind was better. You could draw all day because T Rexaur couldn't hit if it was blinded. I think that's the better option
Grind those 80 AP on Quezacotl for Card Mod, turn your starter Card Gesper into a Dark Hole and let Quistis oneshot him with Degenerator, can be done in the first hour of the game.
Honestly if you go digging for some better junction magic, you can get Curaga and some other magic early enough to turn T-Rexaur into a joke by then. Even without status effects.
The chocobo encounter at the Finnath River wasn't a big issue for me mostly because whenever I was going into a red marker in Tactics, I _always_ saved right before. Was still a brutal battle, but if I had a game over, I simply changed around some aspects of my group composition to include more instant healers or more distant ranged attackers like Mustadio. As for the encounters that made me curse in terms of true random encounters (that fight at Finnath was a story fight based off Ramza's comments), the Greater Malboro in X or the Malboro on the Island Closest to Heaven were extremely obnoxious. Ambush plus turn 1 Bad Breath meant if I didn't at least prevent Confuse, I was doomed. The T-Rexaur was a challenge, but if you listen to Quistis carefully prior to the Balamb Training grounds, she recommends junctioning Blind to your Attacks. Even on the Island Closest to Hell, where it's level 100, the Blind effect is still useful, though by that point, I'm more fearful of the Ruby Dragon given its fire breath can OHKO those with poor vitality.
I remember stumbling across the Midgar Zolom and getting stomped repeatedly! I’m embarrassed to admit running away from it didn’t occur to me until I looked at an FAQ, lol! (Was soooo bad a** in the original how you came across it slain by Sephiroth later!)
Your thumb nail perfectly demonstrates my attitude to encounters I am absolutely not ready for. "Challenge Accepted." Followed by various curse words I probably can't say on TH-cam.
1 thing for sure, FF will never run out of tough encounters. my first encounter that made me actually swear for its lengthy battle was FF13's Long Gui for its instant Ultima, its condition to make it appear (which is completing the 7 mission circlet found in the archylte steppes, and then refreshing the steppes area), and the poisonous strat needed to destroy that 16.2 M HP on top of its million HP legs that must be taken down each time except when summoning, which does cut the legs for us as a quick round... doesn't help that the Roar + Ultima is a killing move (assuming that you have max health prior to the aforementioned roar, 'cause that can kill too)
fun fact: I'm almost sure the Finath River chocobo encounter is not random. Since I first played, oh so many years ago, I don't remember a single playthrough that I didn't go through it: same bat-place same bat-time , unlike the monk or samurai encounters. It just looks like one
It's a mandatory battle, but the exact enemy make up is somewhat random. Exactly how many chocobos and of what color is random. There's also at least a few battlefields where you can randomly encounter several chocobos as well, so the entry is more than fair.
I'm actually surprised the monk encounter wasn't the one used in this list. I think I was only able to complete it once in all of my many playthroughs!
That monk encounter was so dirty too, you get ready to fight thinking you have a chance and they just nuke your whole party. If ever you needed to know how strong monks could be, this encounter would tell you.
The one that always happens to me is the Barius Hill encounter that has dragons and behemoths. Happens every time I wanna level several people in useless jobs. I know the game is gonna screw me and yet I still do it lmao
In Final Fantasy XII, I know it's not too much of a deal, but the Dinosaur you encounter in East Dalmasca's first zone is pretty scary, even though it doesn't agro the party unless prompted. Got me some game overs as a child!
Just travel through Zertinan Caverns (Zodiac Age) until you find Archaeoavis. They are the the strongest field enemies, dealing massive damage, can insta kill and have ailments like confusion. You have to farm them for some bazaar stuff if you go for completion like I did.
I have lost sleep over those enemies. Constantly trying to find a way to cheese them early for the Emperor Scales so I can get Mithuna ASAP. Still haven't found a way but recently learned Elder Wyrm and Deathgaze have them as a rare steal so gonna see if that speeds up getting it in my next playthrough.
T-Rexuar was my first regrettable encounter as well. That was before I actually read and understood what junctioning was. I love ff8, it was practically my first ff game and was what got me interested in the genre.
Yan deserves an honourable mention, you see it and just think 'look at the cute wee thing, it'll be easy to kill' and then it starts spamming Meteor and you regret the decision.
In the early stage of FF9 you could accidentally took a wrong turn just before reaching Treno and encounter a lvl 50+ grand dragon that casts thundaga on your party when theyre just below lvl 25. This results in 1 hit KO.
As kids, my brother and I farmed for economizers with vanish/doom cheese. It's probably a good thing they fixed that glitch in later FF6 releases. It trivialized so many fights.
You are so right about the FFT battle, when I got to it, Ramza was way ahead in levels above everyone, and in other story missions that didn't matter much. In Finnath battle those chocobos scale their level to your highest unlike fixed levels for most story battles.
For me Malboros, almost everywhere but specifically in X, where the worst ones. Also Behemoths in VII, those Dark Knights in the final Dungeon of II and, while not random, the Coeurls in XV - they are, for me, the meanest iteration, as they are doable just fine except for their megaattack that could one hit my Noctis until late in the game - So if there would be more than one, and the other would prepare that attack out of my vision it was game over.
In FF VIII, those who really unlucky (myself) can encounter T-Rexaur at very beginning of the game in the forest betweeen balamb garden and fire cavern, imagine fighting that in your very first battle of this game with only lvl 1 Quetzacotl and Shiva with no magic to junction.
What made the Jackanapes devilish and making me curse at FFV so hard that i'd only finish it years later on PR, is that they appear in the lower floors of a friendly castle, an area that you don't expect to find encounters inside. If i remember right, the music doesn't even change from the upbeat castle tune while you explore those dangerous floors. Looking for treasures in Baron Castle in FFIV was safe in comparison, so if you play V after IV you're really caught up by the change of standards. At least, the lower floors of Figaro Castle in VI made it more clear you entered a dangerous area.
I adore Midgar Zolom, its inclusion and positioning in VII made it perhaps my favorite enemy in the game, and I do love that, with experience, it is possibly an easy fight, but not at all for first timers. Besides, it is a remarkably fair battle, since it's very likely that you will have one party member blown away before it uses Beta, and as long as one party member is blown out, you will exit the battle to the edge of the swamp, since the blown out member didn't actually get KO'd. Also, having Beta be an enemy skill was just genius
I love the clip with the Brachiosaur. Brach: Meteor Seztzer: ...What? RUN! T-Rexaur is funny with having as much HP as the 1st boss in the final dungeon. I used it to save up a ton, though, with Squall's limit break. Squal was near-death my entire game...
Malboro's from 8 are the scariest enemies in the series. Unless you prepare for them from the start of the game or have Enc-None, there is a good chance at least one will kill you. 8 actually has the scariest random encounters on average in the series. Ruby Dragon's Breath attack causing a shitton of damage. Triface being fast with powerful physical attacks as well as Pain. Grendel has powerful physical attacks and can attack fast as well.
Except for ruby dragon, most of them just needs certain status def/atk junctioned. Pain and break def for malboro, stat atk death for grendel, and stat atk break for triface should make them easy for you
About those their rare enough and in FF6 they don't even DROP them you need to steal them which in FF6 is pointless since you need 4x ribbon users BEFORE fighting them and when IT uses Meteor/Ultima say GOODBYE to at least 6000 HP when it uses BOTH spells.
@@veghesther3204 Uh no u can farm with one ribbon, just gotta play smart in the fights. But u can get several on the main journey anyways so ur mostly good by that time. Ur either good to go or not so if u struggle than u need to find power somewhere else first. The fights are tough but not that bad for high level and you r farming ribbons to make the endgame cake.
At 8:41 why is the graphics so good in ffXII cut scene? I must play the original again if i can upgrade the graphics to be as good as shown in this video
The worst "random" encounters or "normal" enemies imo are the ones that are essentially pseudo-superbosses in disguise with War Mech/Death Machine being the first ofc. *Hades (FFV GBA): This guy can effortlessly wipe out your entire party with Almagest, cause instant death with Reaper's sword, blow you up with Meltdown and more. I know the Sealed Temple is ment to be challenging (screw you Omega MKII!) but why is the lord of the underworld one of the random encounters? Also still kinda salty all the extra content wasn't brought back in the pixel remaster (yet more proof emulation is the only true way of preserving entertainment and keeping it accessible for the future). *Archaeoaevises (FFXII Zodiac Age): In the vanilla version of XII they're pushovers as long as you're not underleveled but in the ZA/international version of XII these monstrosities were buffed up to absurd levels (for some reason) and are now legit tougher than most of the bestiary with randomized levels between 50 to 99. They can inflict instant death with regular physical attacks, dispel your buffs, inflict multiple status ailments (including disease and confusion), always attack in pairs and if you unfortunately encounter a lv99 one it has nearly 1 million HP. I feel bad for anyone who played the vanilla version of FFXII, fought these unremarkable cave dragons in the Zertinan Caverns and just assumed they'll be exactly the same in the ZA version (if it wasn't for the Libra skill and the damage cap getting removed in the ZA, I feel like even more folks would've gotten screwed over). *All the lv99 overworld enemies (FF Type-0): The game blatantly slaps the NG+ in your face repeatedly with several battles you're not excepted to win in your first play-through but this takes the cake, you get warned there are "tough" enemies wondering about on the overworld map but what the game doesn't tell you is they're all lv99 and you're expected to wait until the NG+ to actually fight them, seriously? Sure you can avoid them by riding your Chocobos but having to play keep away for large portions of the game is just annoying (you also encounter NG+ recommended enemies during story missions too just to add insult to injury), funny enough the lv99 overworld enemies flee after killing all your active party members so its not an automatic game over but still pretty BS regardless. It is actually possible to beat some of the NG+ recommended enemies during your first play-through (including the lv99 mooks) by abusing the game's killsight mechanic but this is definitely one of the more gratuitous examples of a new player's trap in the FF franchise alongside the Shinryu chest in FFV and levelling up in FFVIII. Also small mention to the encounters in the "dead end" rooms in FFII because going on a wild goose chase wasn't punishment enough apparently...
The Zolom is not a random encounter at all tho????? you can see it coming and it is the same every time. I think we can give 'new players' enough credit to know something is up with the giant shadow snake too. Its an optional boss
The Yans on Vile Isle in FF9 were always the bane of my existence. All it took was a good Comet RNG, or a Snort counter, and suddenly your party's strength is cut down by an insane amount. Of course, Malboros also take the cake if you got hit with bad breath without being prepared
Bombs, in particular the variants that spawn in the pathway to the Eidolon kingdom in FF4. If I had a dollar for every time they game overed me I could probably buy a copy of the FF7 remake.
In FF13 a version near the end of the game just one shot most characters, if its your leader, game over, and they can and will one shot with Chain Reaction. The most maddening part? they are not really that tough its just hard to survive once they all go boom.
Midgar Zolom was not in the LEAST a random encounter, it was in fact the first monster that you could see on the world map and avoid or encounter as you chose by entering the swamp with or without a chocobo!
Brachiosaur was a major PITA, which had me grinding to around level 75 with a strong mage (Celes was good for me on this, though I did grind out a game-breaking Sabin for funsies later). Quick, Soul Of Thamasa (Gem Box), Celstriad (Economizer) and Ultima saved the day, but there was always that chance of Disaster, which could be mitigated with swapping the swapping out the Celestriad with Ribbon, but oh the MP cost. Gotta have Haste too, though.....
My third playthrough of the original FF during covid, I had 2 fighters and 2 black belts. Once I got to this point in the game I would just keep coming back to hunt the Warmechs. I believe my record was 6 before I had to go home because my only healing option was potions while in there. It's amazing what forced free time will get you to do.
Lemme tell ya, some of these make even us MMO players shiver. Red Chocobo shows up in the Ivalice raid, one of the very first encounters! It's really something to see 24 players bombarded to death by meteors... Not a nice something, of course, ha! And coeurls are no joke in 14 either, whether as battles out in the world or as mobs in a dungeon. That stun attack they have is a pain in the neck to say the least, especially when you're lower level and don't have any of your own stun/interrupt abilities yet. Obviously it's not quite the same in FF14, since field encounters aren't precisely random, not even FATEs, but the difficulty and intimidation are still there. I already moaned about Tonberries on one of the other videos of this sort that y'all did, though. >.>
This one's probably the most tame of these, but the Hell House from VII was the monster I quickly learned was best avoided rather than fought. It was an encounter infamous enough to be re-imagined as a boss in Remake. In the original version, the Hell House would self-destruct, potentially wiping the entire party with one hit. The only remedy I found for this is to have my party defending when the attack comes. But usually, I'd just run.
Two more encounters from FF1 should make this list-multiple cockatrices and multiple wizards. Cockatrices from every FF game can petrify you (often by using their ordinary attack). But for some reason, it seems as the petrification hits you a lot more often in FF1 than the later games. And they almost always go first. You run into a flock of more than 2, and your party can be wiped with petrification status before you even get a turn. And it doesn’t matter what level you are. Wizards just hit like a ton of bricks. Nothing special but get a group large enough, you can be dead quickly. And you can’t run from them.
And with those Coeurls, there was the fact that in the footage their physical attacks (much like FF1's mindflayers) could instantly-kill a party member. Honestly, I'd go as far as to say these spotcats are FF1's equivalent to FF1's mindflayers (Blaster 10 being the same as the illithid's "Mind Blast" ability, and thedeathtouch attacks).
I remember encountering the T-Rexaur when I was 8. I didn't know what to do, where to go, or who the characters because I always skipped the dialogue, so I missed the warning. The battle felt like it took forever and I was running out of potions, so I restarted the game. My aunt was watching the entire time and facepalmed so hard. She let me know I was about 2-3 hits away from killing it. I still think about that every now and then lol
Probably not a big one for much anyone else, but I remember my first time playing FF9. There's a spot up in the mountains, there's the married moonless where one is stuck under a fallen bell. But outside that little bit you could climb up a hill. And there I encountered these green dragons that were WAY higher level than your pay at that point in the game. My brother told me about it, but I didn't believe him. So I went up, found a dragon and wiped pretty quick...
In fftactic (original)... the army of monks... took me by surprise and i guess 5% chance of survival for a party that is prepared for any random encounter... encountered while still grinding for levels/job points is mainly fatal... only a fully prepared party that is master in multiple jobs and have the best equipements and is not in the middle of grinding a job have a chance to survive... leaving that "chocobo herd" behind...
I tend to treat T-Rexaur as a fun early game grinding challenge these days. Ignore Quistis' advice to use sleep, instead I let it get Squall to critical HP, blind it, then start spamming Renzokuken and Shiva. Takes a while, but the rewards are pretty worth it early on.
I actually didn't realize the T-Rexsaur was supposed to be a difficult battle haha, by the time I encountered it I was lvl 8 with all the ga spells and stuff, I spent the whole day fighting with a guest character since I knew enemies scaled with level, I didn't realize enemy spells raised with it too so at one point the soliders gave me the Ga spells which was a pleasant surprise Edit: forgot but my GFs were almost lvl 99 at that point too
I played the ff8 many years ago on the pc version (great game), I never understood the junction system. But I managed to defeat t-rex. If I remember, only I steal sleep, and apply to the t-rex, being unable to do anything, and spam multiple attacks.
Had an idea for the next Evolutions video: the Crystals. They started as Orbs (at least in English) and they've been in and out of the games since, with varying powers and importance to the plot.
Quistis: "Squall, have you fought T-Rexaur in the Training Centre?" Squall: "I'm not sure..." I'm pretty sure Squall would remember if he had fought a 20-foot, 5-tonne dinosaur at some point. It's not the sort of thing you'd forget, even with GFs messing with your memories!
I actually enjoy most of those fights nowadays especially the t Rex. I didn't before but it made me really appreciate debuffing/ status magic which mixed with the fact I typically lean more to the theif/assain class, it made my rpg character (mainly in the souls game) who he is today.
Final Fantasy X-2 is probably the single worst offender when it comes to horrible random encounters. Many of the wolf enemies just have instant death attacks, they come in packs, and are nearly everywhere. A lot of randoms have attacks that set HP to 1, or hit for a percentage of max HP. Then there's the super dungeon, where the randoms there are super cheap (Mega Tonberry and that blasted Mushroom are the worst). And then the lower floors just have the super bosses as RANDOMS. Yep, you can potentially randomly run into Chac at any given time xD
You forgot to mention that the battle with T-Rexaur can be easy enough if the player succeeds to cast on him the ''sleep'' spell (and drain his hp with the GFs, because normal attacks will awake him), or the ''blind'' spell at least (that it can make his attacks to miss their target quite a few times).
Brachiosaur was my endgame grind creature of choice. It and the the Rex mob gave great AP for spell leveling. Vanish/X-Zone did a lot of heavy lifting!
I have a save on FFVIII that I play from time to time. It is right before going against Ultimecia and last time it took over 4 hours to beat her. The random stealing of stuff is brutal in that fight and I have never won without any of the other characters getting ripped out by Ultimecia. You have a 100 hour mark to get into disc 4 if you go over that you cannot go on. I got in at 99:59 after lots of exploring and it is the third or something playthrough. I suggest you play Arcana on the SNES where you only can save in towns. Those dungeon tours are very "random" in how many encounters and how hard encounters you get to have.
Let's be honest, any random encounter where the enemy hits your party with devastating status effects is bad. Malboro is most games (and especially VIII) are more than likely to be bad. And of course, the infamous Frog Lock of VII.
Midgar zolom’s beta skill learned by enemy skill carried me in many a fight. Totally worth learning imo Also not a random encounter. Boss fight that was broadcasted in order to get the player to get a chocobo. You don’t need to get one but it’s there to encourage that.
I think you could make a video like this just for FFVIII, so many enemies can kill you if you don't junction properly, like if you the lamp as soon as possible, when you leave timber, you can explore an area that spawns visages, at the prison desert, you can run into chimeras, and when you go to heaven and hell islands, anything there can obliterate you.
The T-rex really got me as it came so early in the game 😆 ,FF games has taught me to always prepare for the worst when I see something I dont recognize 🤣
When I was a kid, I did a play through of FF7 where I made a point to learn Meteor Strike with Cloud before leaving Midgar. Needless to say I didn't need to ride a chocobo to cross the marsh
What makes Brachiosaur so nasty is its in the same location as another monster that you use for rapid levelling. so make sure to save every battle cos you would not want to lose time grinding levels to raise stats then get murdered by the thing that should be the others food. edit: im currently playing the pixel remaster and training, beat 2 so far and jesus christ the fear is real!
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@FinalFantasyUnion but you can control when you encounter the midgar zolom so it doesn't count as a random encounter
Its tradition for every new player to be hit with Bad Breath at some point and question what they are even doing with their lives.
A rite of passage!
Ikr i get so turned on i wonder why that happens
Vietnam flashbacks of 9 year old me getting owned by Molbols in FFVIII
Just yesterday I was playing FF4 and opened a monster chest that had FOUR Malboro's in it and I felt like I was being punished for something. XD
This comment has just made my life man ❤😂
I always thought it was hilarious that a Dinosaur could cast Meteor 🌝
Yess, I swear they programmed that on purpose!
Ha....the irony....would have been comedy gold as a final cast on defeat.
Omg I never realized that😂😂😂
Someone's obviously not a dinosaur
holy shit, you are so right
Sees title, immediately remembers the great malboro inside the omega ruins
That was in the other list.
Christ, the demon walls were also panic inducing xD
God 😢😢😢 that and the crazy monoliths.....or tonberrys....the Omega Ruins scarred me...😅😅😅 Still go back to level up tho
For me it was the green dragon in the additionnal exit in Gizamaluke's Grotto in FF9.
Malboros in VIII were worse, imo. Mainly because you didn't have access to nearly as broken character options as in X, and the hp cap was higher at lvl 100
It wasn't the T-rex in the Garden training area that always got me, it was the one in the forest just outside the Garden that did.
Hahaha same 😂
The Malboro in FF VIII used to scare the crap outta me. Unprepared that thing would screw you right from the start leaving you to watch your party endure a slow and painful death. Plus that laugh was creepy as all hell.
yup, single biggest threat i'd say, status ailment bomb and you can only be immune to 4 of them plus it has the highest HP of any regular enemy.
If I remember correctly, it would inflict sleep too, and I would hope and pray someone would wake up so I could flee before everyone died😂
The blue one in ffx in the omega dungeon scared me because it would always ambush you
That laugh was fuxking LOUD too 😂
@@bigcountrymxog you pretty much NEED Aurons Masamune fully upgraded for First Strike AND send him down Tidus’s path of the Sphere Grid for Flee first time there, those things are an instant game over most of the time.
FFX-2 via infinito floor 81. That basilisk that can petrify you THROUGH RIBBON was a double take
Ah yes, fack me sideways hard xD
I always hated fighting that thing even more so when it's oversoul.
ahh chac floor 80 and can appear anywhere in floor 81-99 lol but hes actually really easy if you drain his mana before it uses its magic attack then just have a berserker with evade and counter and you cant lose
What?! That's absolute BS... makes me glad I haven't even bothered booting it up past the first "events."
And then you found out there's a SUPER Ribbon
Feels like a stretch to claim Midgar Zolom is a random encounter - It literally wasn’t random at all, and fully broadcasted that you would run into it
Agreed - list invalid !!
Agree that it's pushing 'random' a bit too far, I get the feeling they really wanted to include something from Final Fantasy 7 in this list as they didn't in the previous lists. However, those past lists already included Malboro, Tonberry and Behemoth so who else to include from the original game?
Well technically it's not a boss, yeah it is fixed encounter and you've been warned, but at the same time curiousity like with FF IX and gizamkule grotto, F it I'm going through. Even tho Zolom ain't that hard, apart from fact he never misses and beta counter
The list was viewer voted. Apparently, not as many people agree with you as you think.
Pretty random for it to come out of nowhere and absolutely obliterate you tbf
Yan the sheep in FF9 is the cutest, cruelest, and unexpected encounter I have ever had in FF9.
You've obviously never met a Friendly Monster and attacked it by accident instead of giving it what it wants.
@@jamesgravil9162 That, but I was talking about cute and cruel. In fact, Yan the sheep caused multiple Game Overs for me because I took him lightly the first time I met him. I ended up farming for experience points from him since he gives crap load of exp, I was able to level up Zidane to level 99 while others in virus state in 1 hour or less.
@@jamesgravil9162what?? I literally have diamonds for you…(dbz powerup shout)
*AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?!*
Honestly it’s not that far off.
I assume the sheep makes the party fall asleep, but what does the Friendly Monster do?
Screw Yans and their random damage. You either take care of them like they are no threat whatsoever, or they literally kill you before you have a chance to make a single input. One of the things i absolutely hate about FF9, so many annoying random damage enemies. Ozma is the same, you can solo him with a lvl 7 Freya solo, or he obliterates you into game over with his first attack simply doing 9999 damage to your entire party.
Trying to guess 5 of them before watching the Video
1-Warmech/Death Machine (FFI)
2-T-Rex (Thanks thumbnail because I'd have went for Ruby Dragon Island closest to hell for FFVIII)
3-Yan (FFIX)
4-Malborro... any really but let's say FFX because if they ambushed you, you're dead.
5-Hill Gigas (FFVI)
Edit: Darn, after 10 seconds of the Video, I'm reminded of the Brachiosaurus from VI, I don't think I'll do too well.
Edit 2 : I wouldn't call the Midgar Zolom and "Random" encounter
Edit 3 : Got only 2 (and one of them is the Thumbnail monster...)
I've been caught by surprise by a Malboro in FFVII at Gaea, since then i always wear ribbon when possible... The T-Rexaurs got me the first time i've played FFVIII but ever since i always grind Triple Traid ( i love that mini game so much 😍😍😍) combined with Diablos abilities i make a joke of this monster everytime i replay FFVIII; Mental Attack Death 100% or the more amusing one Pain 100%. I love seeing kill itself by the poison while it can't attack you anymore because of blind. 🤩🤩🤩 Change it into a card before he dies and that's 10 AP without leveling up your characters. 😉
after my first encounter where i was destroyed, i simply did farm the plant to get max sleep spell and assign it to attack
after that, you kill it while it sleep like a baby (and fully farm your spell on it at the same time)
Farming Brachiosaurs back in the day for Economizers is among my favorite FF memories!
Vanish + X-Zone for the win!
@@josefu_velen Unless you get hit with ultima before you can move.
@@josefu_velen I think they patched that bug in the Pixel Remaster, but yeah, it was a good cheese back in the day.
For me, a surprising enemy that frustrated me were the Dorky Faces in Final Fantasy VII. Found in the ShinRa Manor in Nibelheim, these floating pumpkin heads could inflict Confuse on the entire party at once. This makes them frustrating, as anti-Confusion equipment is rare the first time you go through the Manor. One particular encounter with them, however, left me chilled: I'd ordered Tifa to cast Aqualung, but she got confused before the spell went off. She proceeded to cast the spell... on my party. Cue me running like a panicked chicken.
The dragon from ff9, when you climb up the ladder after saving the mog stuck under a bell. If you were unlucky enough it would use thundara on its first turn and wipe your whole party.
have to get coral ring from the festival to be able to farm them early. might be able to synth them also with limited resources. something else too for the birds up there, to prevent petrification i think.
grand dragons are the best exp source in the game though iirc
The Grand Dragon outside the alternate exit of Gizmaluke’s Grotto. Known for using Poison Breath, a Dual physical hit, or its infamous party Thundaga. It was possible to defeat and power level if you had antidote equipped for the party and Vivi with Dbl Mag Blizzara but even then the amount of luck to get the first down was definitely a lot for any new player.
@@cellamuert The Grand Dragons are the best grinding spot for most of the game, but the Yans on Vile Island are best for late-game power-leveling. Of course, once you can reliably kill Yans, you don't really need to grind any more.
@@VeeGeeA I'm the kind of player that needs to explore every corner, so even though the mogs warn you as you're climbing the ladder, I still climbed it. Did NOT expect there to be a level spike in monsters and something told me I was cooked after I seen it. Went from cutesy looking monsters to an impressive looking dragon.
@@cellamuert they are and I and my second play through I broke the game by grinding them early and I regretted it. Ff9 is not a hard game (beat ozma drunk off my ass and don't remember the fight 😂) and it took any little challenge the game had completely away.
The mindflair from tactics was a pain in my ass as a child
I'd correct you and say it's called a 'Mindflayer', but Square's localization team was super sketchy with translations around that time... so it totally could have been called a 'Mindflair'.
@conorjohn490 oh I think you may be correct, but I do for some reason remember mindflair, whether that be an attack made by another mob in another FF im not sure. Maybe self Mandela effecting lol
the barius hill monster battle is notoriously worse...
@adramelke1722 yeah 100% but as a generic monster it was essentially as bad as Marlboros bad breath, inflicting berserk, confusion and so on.
That monk only battle is Insane aswell
@@virtualbunksie5117 that isn't where the monk battle is... the battle i'm refering to features hydras, dragons, minotaurs, and other montsers... i specifically said "monster battle"....
th-cam.com/video/7RW_QUW41Tg/w-d-xo.html
the monk battle you're most likely talking about features 11 monks and is found on grogh heights....
Looking forward to see how they translate Midgar Zolum in FFVII Rebirth.
I'm honestly hyped for seeing what Beta looks like on the PS5
@@DarkFrozenDepths Yeah, it looks really good.
I'll never forget the feeling of panic the first time I met a Tonberry in ff7
Ffx was my first ff why was he far away than he got closer oh no and on hard mode of ff7 remake they come out of the house monster
Me: "Heh what's this guy doing, walking at me? Oh no, please, don't slowly walk towards m-"
Tonberry: _stab_
Me: *L1+R1*
The first time? No. Every time after that...
@@theretronick3380 The first time I met one I ended up using a megalixer and felt so bad I ended up loading my game anyway...
“Oh it’s slow” “wow this thing is tanky” “omg!” “I can’t stop it!””sephiroth was easier”
New Players: "What's this little green guy? It's actually kinda cute..."
Veterans: "Oh crap! That's a Tonberry!"
For FF8, I think the TRex may be the one most people remember because it happens so early in the game, but the one that scares me every time even when I'm prepared for it is a Marbbro.
The ability to preemptively douse status effects for those who are not ready will almost guarantee a game over before you even have a chance to react
Brachiosaur might be worth it just for the chance to steal Ribbons and the Celestriad drop
For those who don't know, in FFVI, you can equip two relics in addition to the Mainhand-Offhand-Helmet-Armor setup, the Ribbon nulls all status ailments and the Celestriad reduces any magic ability's cost to 1
Glass-cannon mage with Soul of Thamasa and Celestriad makes for good fun if you also have Quick and Ultima. Hope you can get another character's turn to cast Haste on you first, though
I remember playing Final Fantasy VI in the 90s shortly after it was released on the SNES and I must have gotten really lucky with the Brachiosaurs because I recall getting a ton of Economizers from them. Years later when I tried to farm the Economizers from them in later versions of the game (PS1, Game Boy Advance), I never got a drop after an insane number of hours of killing these things - and they're a rare encounter!
7:08 When a friend of mine first let me try out FF7, I randomly managed to walk past the giant snake as it got caught bouncing around in a corner of the lake. His jaw dropped as he returned from a pee-break while the scene with the scewered snake played.
From what I remember, there was a random encounter in FF Tactics that consisted of about 16 Monks! The max number of characters your could take into the battle was 5. There was no other encounter in the whole game with that many enemies. I always felt it was clearly a cruel troll by the programmers, and wiped to it several times without having saved before.
FFT is meant to be broken though. It shouldnt be so bad if you are expecting a fight like that
It was 11 monks, and while I think it does technically count as a random battle, it's also like a special secret battle only available in the last chapter when entering a map location from a specific direction a low percentage of the time.
Fun fact, every random battle location has one of these secret fights. The Grog Hill monk party is the most famous and difficult.
ff8 red dragon will be always the worst enemy to encouter for me.. his breath just onehitting 1-2 people and then kill the last one is just insane
The worst version of that was if you were unfortunate to have over levelled before getting Bahamut. The forced encounter with a ruby dragon there ALWAYS opened with that breath attack when over a certain level and it would always hit for 9999 making it literally impossible to beat.
At least you were warned multiple times about T-Rexaur (as if it wasn't obvious that a starting character vs a giant dinosaur wasn't a good idea). Ruby Dragons can remain a threat for much longer in the game even when you do know the Junction system quite well.
@@TheBlackSeraph yeah, but the big difference is that with T-Rexaur you are warned and given a solution at the same time (junction attack with sleep), you don't have a solution if you are in the situation above with the red dragon
also don’t try and be smart with reflect, it’s smart enough to cast reflect on itself and bounce spells off itself and make healing a nightmare because you can’t use magic to heal.
In my desperation after getting the whole party one shotted, was to equip “auto protect” it would absorb some of damage and at least give an opportunity to revive/heal.
Every time FFU turns out a new video, I’m here for it!!!
The T Rexaur fight used to frustrate me as a kid, until I learn to cast blind. Went from immensely difficult to cake.
Didn't quistis tell you to junction sleep to your status attack?
@yt-dm8ns I don't remember exactly, but blind was better. You could draw all day because T Rexaur couldn't hit if it was blinded. I think that's the better option
Grind those 80 AP on Quezacotl for Card Mod, turn your starter Card Gesper into a Dark Hole and let Quistis oneshot him with Degenerator, can be done in the first hour of the game.
zombie and then life super easy lol
Honestly if you go digging for some better junction magic, you can get Curaga and some other magic early enough to turn T-Rexaur into a joke by then. Even without status effects.
A Dinosaur Using Meteor Is Really Ironic!
The chocobo encounter at the Finnath River wasn't a big issue for me mostly because whenever I was going into a red marker in Tactics, I _always_ saved right before. Was still a brutal battle, but if I had a game over, I simply changed around some aspects of my group composition to include more instant healers or more distant ranged attackers like Mustadio.
As for the encounters that made me curse in terms of true random encounters (that fight at Finnath was a story fight based off Ramza's comments), the Greater Malboro in X or the Malboro on the Island Closest to Heaven were extremely obnoxious. Ambush plus turn 1 Bad Breath meant if I didn't at least prevent Confuse, I was doomed. The T-Rexaur was a challenge, but if you listen to Quistis carefully prior to the Balamb Training grounds, she recommends junctioning Blind to your Attacks. Even on the Island Closest to Hell, where it's level 100, the Blind effect is still useful, though by that point, I'm more fearful of the Ruby Dragon given its fire breath can OHKO those with poor vitality.
I remember stumbling across the Midgar Zolom and getting stomped repeatedly! I’m embarrassed to admit running away from it didn’t occur to me until I looked at an FAQ, lol! (Was soooo bad a** in the original how you came across it slain by Sephiroth later!)
Your thumb nail perfectly demonstrates my attitude to encounters I am absolutely not ready for. "Challenge Accepted."
Followed by various curse words I probably can't say on TH-cam.
1 thing for sure, FF will never run out of tough encounters. my first encounter that made me actually swear for its lengthy battle was FF13's Long Gui for its instant Ultima, its condition to make it appear (which is completing the 7 mission circlet found in the archylte steppes, and then refreshing the steppes area), and the poisonous strat needed to destroy that 16.2 M HP on top of its million HP legs that must be taken down each time except when summoning, which does cut the legs for us as a quick round...
doesn't help that the Roar + Ultima is a killing move (assuming that you have max health prior to the aforementioned roar, 'cause that can kill too)
fun fact: I'm almost sure the Finath River chocobo encounter is not random. Since I first played, oh so many years ago, I don't remember a single playthrough that I didn't go through it: same bat-place same bat-time , unlike the monk or samurai encounters. It just looks like one
It's a mandatory battle, but the exact enemy make up is somewhat random. Exactly how many chocobos and of what color is random. There's also at least a few battlefields where you can randomly encounter several chocobos as well, so the entry is more than fair.
I'm actually surprised the monk encounter wasn't the one used in this list. I think I was only able to complete it once in all of my many playthroughs!
That monk encounter was so dirty too, you get ready to fight thinking you have a chance and they just nuke your whole party. If ever you needed to know how strong monks could be, this encounter would tell you.
@@evitam.k.6712The eleven monks are on the other list.
The one that always happens to me is the Barius Hill encounter that has dragons and behemoths. Happens every time I wanna level several people in useless jobs. I know the game is gonna screw me and yet I still do it lmao
In Final Fantasy XII, I know it's not too much of a deal, but the Dinosaur you encounter in East Dalmasca's first zone is pretty scary, even though it doesn't agro the party unless prompted. Got me some game overs as a child!
What version of Final Fantasy VII is that footage at 8:41 from? That looks really good, actually.
Just travel through Zertinan Caverns (Zodiac Age) until you find Archaeoavis. They are the the strongest field enemies, dealing massive damage, can insta kill and have ailments like confusion. You have to farm them for some bazaar stuff if you go for completion like I did.
Whats funny is they buffed that enemy in the zodiac age and its far less of a threat in the og but still a very tough enemy.
I have lost sleep over those enemies. Constantly trying to find a way to cheese them early for the Emperor Scales so I can get Mithuna ASAP.
Still haven't found a way but recently learned Elder Wyrm and Deathgaze have them as a rare steal so gonna see if that speeds up getting it in my next playthrough.
@@TheWorstPartyMemberRibbons help a lot.
Technically though, XII had absolutely zero random encounters. Every opponent is visible and avoidable.
Surely we can’t talk about this topic without first going into the deep, richly veined history, beginning all of the was back with FF1
T-Rexuar was my first regrettable encounter as well. That was before I actually read and understood what junctioning was. I love ff8, it was practically my first ff game and was what got me interested in the genre.
Yan deserves an honourable mention, you see it and just think 'look at the cute wee thing, it'll be easy to kill' and then it starts spamming Meteor and you regret the decision.
In the early stage of FF9 you could accidentally took a wrong turn just before reaching Treno and encounter a lvl 50+ grand dragon that casts thundaga on your party when theyre just below lvl 25. This results in 1 hit KO.
I remember cheesing Brachiosaurs in FF6 with vanish and x-zone 😂
which on the GBA IOS Android Pixel remaster you can't.
As kids, my brother and I farmed for economizers with vanish/doom cheese. It's probably a good thing they fixed that glitch in later FF6 releases. It trivialized so many fights.
I did that to doom gaze in ff6 the first 2nd time I saw him and accidentally missed out on his magicite.
You guys make some of the best content videos and have for years thanks!!! 😁
You are so right about the FFT battle, when I got to it, Ramza was way ahead in levels above everyone, and in other story missions that didn't matter much. In Finnath battle those chocobos scale their level to your highest unlike fixed levels for most story battles.
For me Malboros, almost everywhere but specifically in X, where the worst ones. Also Behemoths in VII, those Dark Knights in the final Dungeon of II and, while not random, the Coeurls in XV - they are, for me, the meanest iteration, as they are doable just fine except for their megaattack that could one hit my Noctis until late in the game - So if there would be more than one, and the other would prepare that attack out of my vision it was game over.
In FF VIII, those who really unlucky (myself) can encounter T-Rexaur at very beginning of the game in the forest betweeen balamb garden and fire cavern, imagine fighting that in your very first battle of this game with only lvl 1 Quetzacotl and Shiva with no magic to junction.
yeah wrote the same thing, actually can't believe that wasn't the scenario in the video
What made the Jackanapes devilish and making me curse at FFV so hard that i'd only finish it years later on PR, is that they appear in the lower floors of a friendly castle, an area that you don't expect to find encounters inside. If i remember right, the music doesn't even change from the upbeat castle tune while you explore those dangerous floors. Looking for treasures in Baron Castle in FFIV was safe in comparison, so if you play V after IV you're really caught up by the change of standards. At least, the lower floors of Figaro Castle in VI made it more clear you entered a dangerous area.
I adore Midgar Zolom, its inclusion and positioning in VII made it perhaps my favorite enemy in the game, and I do love that, with experience, it is possibly an easy fight, but not at all for first timers.
Besides, it is a remarkably fair battle, since it's very likely that you will have one party member blown away before it uses Beta, and as long as one party member is blown out, you will exit the battle to the edge of the swamp, since the blown out member didn't actually get KO'd.
Also, having Beta be an enemy skill was just genius
I love the clip with the Brachiosaur.
Brach: Meteor
Seztzer: ...What? RUN!
T-Rexaur is funny with having as much HP as the 1st boss in the final dungeon. I used it to save up a ton, though, with Squall's limit break. Squal was near-death my entire game...
Malboro's from 8 are the scariest enemies in the series. Unless you prepare for them from the start of the game or have Enc-None, there is a good chance at least one will kill you. 8 actually has the scariest random encounters on average in the series. Ruby Dragon's Breath attack causing a shitton of damage. Triface being fast with powerful physical attacks as well as Pain. Grendel has powerful physical attacks and can attack fast as well.
Except for ruby dragon, most of them just needs certain status def/atk junctioned. Pain and break def for malboro, stat atk death for grendel, and stat atk break for triface should make them easy for you
I remember farming the bracheosaur area for ribbons!
About those their rare enough and in FF6 they don't even DROP them you need to steal them which in FF6 is pointless since you need 4x ribbon users BEFORE fighting them and when IT uses Meteor/Ultima say GOODBYE to at least 6000 HP when it uses BOTH spells.
@@veghesther3204 Uh no u can farm with one ribbon, just gotta play smart in the fights. But u can get several on the main journey anyways so ur mostly good by that time. Ur either good to go or not so if u struggle than u need to find power somewhere else first. The fights are tough but not that bad for high level and you r farming ribbons to make the endgame cake.
At 8:41 why is the graphics so good in ffXII cut scene?
I must play the original again if i can upgrade the graphics to be as good as shown in this video
Cute and a bit funny the cactuar. Omg those things are deadly. I still wanted one as a pet though. Idc if they would wipe my party out
They’re even more annoying in Remake lol
The T-Rex in 8 could get you some good XP if you knew how to nerf him with sleep strikes.
The worst "random" encounters or "normal" enemies imo are the ones that are essentially pseudo-superbosses in disguise with War Mech/Death Machine being the first ofc.
*Hades (FFV GBA): This guy can effortlessly wipe out your entire party with Almagest, cause instant death with Reaper's sword, blow you up with Meltdown and more. I know the Sealed Temple is ment to be challenging (screw you Omega MKII!) but why is the lord of the underworld one of the random encounters? Also still kinda salty all the extra content wasn't brought back in the pixel remaster (yet more proof emulation is the only true way of preserving entertainment and keeping it accessible for the future).
*Archaeoaevises (FFXII Zodiac Age): In the vanilla version of XII they're pushovers as long as you're not underleveled but in the ZA/international version of XII these monstrosities were buffed up to absurd levels (for some reason) and are now legit tougher than most of the bestiary with randomized levels between 50 to 99. They can inflict instant death with regular physical attacks, dispel your buffs, inflict multiple status ailments (including disease and confusion), always attack in pairs and if you unfortunately encounter a lv99 one it has nearly 1 million HP. I feel bad for anyone who played the vanilla version of FFXII, fought these unremarkable cave dragons in the Zertinan Caverns and just assumed they'll be exactly the same in the ZA version (if it wasn't for the Libra skill and the damage cap getting removed in the ZA, I feel like even more folks would've gotten screwed over).
*All the lv99 overworld enemies (FF Type-0): The game blatantly slaps the NG+ in your face repeatedly with several battles you're not excepted to win in your first play-through but this takes the cake, you get warned there are "tough" enemies wondering about on the overworld map but what the game doesn't tell you is they're all lv99 and you're expected to wait until the NG+ to actually fight them, seriously? Sure you can avoid them by riding your Chocobos but having to play keep away for large portions of the game is just annoying (you also encounter NG+ recommended enemies during story missions too just to add insult to injury), funny enough the lv99 overworld enemies flee after killing all your active party members so its not an automatic game over but still pretty BS regardless. It is actually possible to beat some of the NG+ recommended enemies during your first play-through (including the lv99 mooks) by abusing the game's killsight mechanic but this is definitely one of the more gratuitous examples of a new player's trap in the FF franchise alongside the Shinryu chest in FFV and levelling up in FFVIII.
Also small mention to the encounters in the "dead end" rooms in FFII because going on a wild goose chase wasn't punishment enough apparently...
The Zolom is not a random encounter at all tho????? you can see it coming and it is the same every time. I think we can give 'new players' enough credit to know something is up with the giant shadow snake too. Its an optional boss
The Yans on Vile Isle in FF9 were always the bane of my existence.
All it took was a good Comet RNG, or a Snort counter, and suddenly your party's strength is cut down by an insane amount.
Of course, Malboros also take the cake if you got hit with bad breath without being prepared
Bombs, in particular the variants that spawn in the pathway to the Eidolon kingdom in FF4. If I had a dollar for every time they game overed me I could probably buy a copy of the FF7 remake.
In FF13 a version near the end of the game just one shot most characters, if its your leader, game over, and they can and will one shot with Chain Reaction. The most maddening part? they are not really that tough its just hard to survive once they all go boom.
@@TheAuron32 and then there are the random behemoth encounters in some games. They spam meteor more than Ozma in FF9.
The trex on ff8 was a massive shock for me kicked my arse back in the day till i realised ur suppose to junction sleep magic to attack 😂👍
Midgar Zolom was not in the LEAST a random encounter, it was in fact the first monster that you could see on the world map and avoid or encounter as you chose by entering the swamp with or without a chocobo!
Beauty video FFU team! 🎉🎉🎉
Brachiosaur was a major PITA, which had me grinding to around level 75 with a strong mage (Celes was good for me on this, though I did grind out a game-breaking Sabin for funsies later). Quick, Soul Of Thamasa (Gem Box), Celstriad (Economizer) and Ultima saved the day, but there was always that chance of Disaster, which could be mitigated with swapping the swapping out the Celestriad with Ribbon, but oh the MP cost. Gotta have Haste too, though.....
My third playthrough of the original FF during covid, I had 2 fighters and 2 black belts. Once I got to this point in the game I would just keep coming back to hunt the Warmechs. I believe my record was 6 before I had to go home because my only healing option was potions while in there. It's amazing what forced free time will get you to do.
I used to farm Brachiosaurs for the Economizer item. Got one for every party member. Having each spell cost 1MP made things a lot easier
Especially when combined with the gem box
oh god the T-rexaur. that gave me flashbacks.
Lemme tell ya, some of these make even us MMO players shiver. Red Chocobo shows up in the Ivalice raid, one of the very first encounters! It's really something to see 24 players bombarded to death by meteors... Not a nice something, of course, ha! And coeurls are no joke in 14 either, whether as battles out in the world or as mobs in a dungeon. That stun attack they have is a pain in the neck to say the least, especially when you're lower level and don't have any of your own stun/interrupt abilities yet. Obviously it's not quite the same in FF14, since field encounters aren't precisely random, not even FATEs, but the difficulty and intimidation are still there. I already moaned about Tonberries on one of the other videos of this sort that y'all did, though. >.>
This one's probably the most tame of these, but the Hell House from VII was the monster I quickly learned was best avoided rather than fought. It was an encounter infamous enough to be re-imagined as a boss in Remake.
In the original version, the Hell House would self-destruct, potentially wiping the entire party with one hit. The only remedy I found for this is to have my party defending when the attack comes. But usually, I'd just run.
Two more encounters from FF1 should make this list-multiple cockatrices and multiple wizards. Cockatrices from every FF game can petrify you (often by using their ordinary attack). But for some reason, it seems as the petrification hits you a lot more often in FF1 than the later games. And they almost always go first. You run into a flock of more than 2, and your party can be wiped with petrification status before you even get a turn. And it doesn’t matter what level you are. Wizards just hit like a ton of bricks. Nothing special but get a group large enough, you can be dead quickly. And you can’t run from them.
The Midgar Zolom isn't a random encounter, though. You could see when it was gonna happen. It was a very cool encounter though.
Demonlith from FFX. If you're not prepared for the encounter you'll be wiped out pretty much immediately. Honorary mention for Hexadragon from FF8
If the first Stone Breath missed you, the second one most likely didn't. Made me appreciate customizing stoneproof a lot more.
And with those Coeurls, there was the fact that in the footage their physical attacks (much like FF1's mindflayers) could instantly-kill a party member. Honestly, I'd go as far as to say these spotcats are FF1's equivalent to FF1's mindflayers (Blaster 10 being the same as the illithid's "Mind Blast" ability, and thedeathtouch attacks).
I remember encountering the T-Rexaur when I was 8. I didn't know what to do, where to go, or who the characters because I always skipped the dialogue, so I missed the warning. The battle felt like it took forever and I was running out of potions, so I restarted the game. My aunt was watching the entire time and facepalmed so hard. She let me know I was about 2-3 hits away from killing it. I still think about that every now and then lol
Probably not a big one for much anyone else, but I remember my first time playing FF9. There's a spot up in the mountains, there's the married moonless where one is stuck under a fallen bell. But outside that little bit you could climb up a hill. And there I encountered these green dragons that were WAY higher level than your pay at that point in the game. My brother told me about it, but I didn't believe him. So I went up, found a dragon and wiped pretty quick...
In fftactic (original)... the army of monks... took me by surprise and i guess 5% chance of survival for a party that is prepared for any random encounter... encountered while still grinding for levels/job points is mainly fatal... only a fully prepared party that is master in multiple jobs and have the best equipements and is not in the middle of grinding a job have a chance to survive... leaving that "chocobo herd" behind...
How he leave that one out
The Mega Tonberry in FFX-2 is a certified game ender though, not ever gonna forget the first time I fought one and ate a 5-digit number of damage...
Yeah. With an Adamantite equipped, you can just BARELY survive their attacks.
I tend to treat T-Rexaur as a fun early game grinding challenge these days. Ignore Quistis' advice to use sleep, instead I let it get Squall to critical HP, blind it, then start spamming Renzokuken and Shiva. Takes a while, but the rewards are pretty worth it early on.
I actually didn't realize the T-Rexsaur was supposed to be a difficult battle haha, by the time I encountered it I was lvl 8 with all the ga spells and stuff, I spent the whole day fighting with a guest character since I knew enemies scaled with level, I didn't realize enemy spells raised with it too so at one point the soliders gave me the Ga spells which was a pleasant surprise Edit: forgot but my GFs were almost lvl 99 at that point too
Well yeah, if you do ridiculous power leveling things are gonna be a cake walk. Most people don't do that though.
Bad Breath made many people aware of both the value and the terror of status effects 😂
I played the ff8 many years ago on the pc version (great game), I never understood the junction system. But I managed to defeat t-rex. If I remember, only I steal sleep, and apply to the t-rex, being unable to do anything, and spam multiple attacks.
Had an idea for the next Evolutions video: the Crystals.
They started as Orbs (at least in English) and they've been in and out of the games since, with varying powers and importance to the plot.
Quistis: "Squall, have you fought T-Rexaur in the Training Centre?"
Squall: "I'm not sure..."
I'm pretty sure Squall would remember if he had fought a 20-foot, 5-tonne dinosaur at some point. It's not the sort of thing you'd forget, even with GFs messing with your memories!
I actually enjoy most of those fights nowadays especially the t Rex. I didn't before but it made me really appreciate debuffing/ status magic which mixed with the fact I typically lean more to the theif/assain class, it made my rpg character (mainly in the souls game) who he is today.
Final Fantasy X-2 is probably the single worst offender when it comes to horrible random encounters. Many of the wolf enemies just have instant death attacks, they come in packs, and are nearly everywhere. A lot of randoms have attacks that set HP to 1, or hit for a percentage of max HP.
Then there's the super dungeon, where the randoms there are super cheap (Mega Tonberry and that blasted Mushroom are the worst). And then the lower floors just have the super bosses as RANDOMS. Yep, you can potentially randomly run into Chac at any given time xD
Hey you forget to mention gil turtle at Final fantasy 5
Jackandape was a menace… that moon flute is nightmare when i thought I would have won XD
You forgot to mention that the battle with T-Rexaur can be easy enough if the player succeeds to cast on him the ''sleep'' spell (and drain his hp with the GFs, because normal attacks will awake him), or the ''blind'' spell at least (that it can make his attacks to miss their target quite a few times).
"T-Rexaur!
Sometimes it is better to run away."
Game doesn't tell you how to run away until you reach that one boss that requires it.
Brachiosaur was my endgame grind creature of choice. It and the the Rex mob gave great AP for spell leveling. Vanish/X-Zone did a lot of heavy lifting!
I have a save on FFVIII that I play from time to time. It is right before going against Ultimecia and last time it took over 4 hours to beat her.
The random stealing of stuff is brutal in that fight and I have never won without any of the other characters getting ripped out by Ultimecia.
You have a 100 hour mark to get into disc 4 if you go over that you cannot go on. I got in at 99:59 after lots of exploring and it is the third or something playthrough.
I suggest you play Arcana on the SNES where you only can save in towns. Those dungeon tours are very "random" in how many encounters and how hard encounters you get to have.
FF1 ice cave Mage encounters. Messed up my runs a few times
Great video as always!!
The good old days without auto saves 😊
The zolom isn't a random encounter. If it does then ruby or emerald should as well
Let's be honest, any random encounter where the enemy hits your party with devastating status effects is bad. Malboro is most games (and especially VIII) are more than likely to be bad. And of course, the infamous Frog Lock of VII.
not the hardest, but one of the most frustrating was the six frog pincer fight in 7
That 'slap bwong' noise when you Toad gives me nightmares LOL
Midgar zolom’s beta skill learned by enemy skill carried me in many a fight. Totally worth learning imo
Also not a random encounter. Boss fight that was broadcasted in order to get the player to get a chocobo. You don’t need to get one but it’s there to encourage that.
I think you could make a video like this just for FFVIII, so many enemies can kill you if you don't junction properly, like if you the lamp as soon as possible, when you leave timber, you can explore an area that spawns visages, at the prison desert, you can run into chimeras, and when you go to heaven and hell islands, anything there can obliterate you.
The T-rex really got me as it came so early in the game 😆 ,FF games has taught me to always prepare for the worst when I see something I dont recognize 🤣
I remember playing FF6 Advance and farming brachiosaurs for celestriads. Good times.
When I was a kid, I did a play through of FF7 where I made a point to learn Meteor Strike with Cloud before leaving Midgar. Needless to say I didn't need to ride a chocobo to cross the marsh
What makes Brachiosaur so nasty is its in the same location as another monster that you use for rapid levelling.
so make sure to save every battle cos you would not want to lose time grinding levels to raise stats then get murdered by the thing that should be the others food.
edit: im currently playing the pixel remaster and training, beat 2 so far and jesus christ the fear is real!
Bring the painter girl, she can tame those dinos
Two words: Vanish. Doom.
not an option these days dude@@zalden2565
T Rex became a cake walk when you put 100 pain into Stat Attack.