Summary
Final Fantasyis a legendary JRPG series that needs no introduction. Ever since its debut in 1987, this IP continues to churn out hit after hit to this day, with the numerous remakes and mainline titles doing a great job of helping the franchise stay relevant in the modern era. It may have lost some of its allure back when each entry was considered a must-play for JRPG fans, butFinal Fantasy’s insistence on evolving and keeping up with the times is something worthy of praise.
Most people love theFinal Fantasygames for boasting a ton of side content, including bonus dungeons that players can explore if they wish. Some of these hostile areas are quite challenging and will make players tear their hair out asthey fail to complete puzzles, map out the area, or defeat the many superbosses that will give them a tough time if their tactics aren’t up to par.
There’s no denying thatFinal Fantasy 15is one of the easiest games in the series. The abundant healing items and a generous grace period afforded to party members when their HP is depleted can negate many of the game’s challenges. Perhaps this is why the Pitioss Ruins come out of left field to surprise the player, with this dungeon lacking any form of combat whatsoever. Players can reach the isolated area housing this dungeonafter getting the Regalia Type-F.
Instead, the dungeon is littered with puzzles and parkour challenges that can be frustrating to deal with, even if the threat of death doesn’t loom over the player. Falling into a spike pit is far from ideal and will force players to repeat sections of the dungeon over and over again, adding to the frustration. While players can certainly brute force their way through the Pitioss Ruins, there’s no denying that it’s one of the hardest labyrinths that Noctis must navigate all by his lonesome.
The remakes of classicFinal Fantasygames featured additional endgame content meant to pose a substantial challenge for the player, and it’s a shame that thePixel Remastersdidn’t integrate any of these extra challenges. Of course, players can always pick up an earlier copy of games likeFinal Fantasy 5to get a chance to test their skills after conquering the majority of the game’s content. This includes the Sealed Temple, a unique area that can only be explored properly after beating the main game once.
Players can unlock four additional jobs and engage in a wealth of challenging encounters against some of the game’s toughest foes, withsuperbosses like Omega Mk.II and Neo Shinryu. To add the cherry on top of this difficult yet rewarding experience is the Cloister of the Dead, a boss rush gauntlet that will provide a hefty challenge for players who feel like they can take on anything in this game without breaking a sweat.
Final Fantasy 6was an SNES swansong for the series before it moved on to a 3D aesthetic that made the most of the PlayStation’s upgraded hardware. The game was a massive achievement, with SquareSoft having so much time during development that they decided to craft two overworlds to make this adventure more epic and meaningful than ever. So, it’s easy to see why the company went all out when re-releasing this title on the GBA, adding new bonus dungeons that ramped up the challenge and addressed fan complaints that the game was a bit too easy for their liking.
This includes the Soul Shrine, one of the most rigorous and exhausting gauntlets the series has ever devised. There are ten phases with a total of 128 tough battles that the player must fight in a row, barely getting a respite between battles. To make things even more challenging, the final phasesinclude the bosses from the Dragons' Den, another bonus dungeon with enemies that can flatten parties in no time if they aren’t careful. All of this combines to make Soul Shrine the game’s ultimate challenge that takes no prisoners.
TheoriginalFinal Fantasywas a joy to behold, featuring a gameplay loop that would be improved upon, refined, and expanded as the series evolved. The legacy of this title will endure for time immemorial, and it was nice to see Square give this game the respect it deserves by adding a hefty chunk of additional content to its re-release, including the Labyrinth of Time.
This bonus dungeon includes numerous floors where players must complete a certain puzzle before the time limit expires. Failing to do so leads to an HP-sapping cloud permeating the floor in question while the encounter rate is bumped up significantly. Players who complete the challenge in the allotted time get a Blue Seal for their efforts while running out of time leads to a Red Seal. Every floor becomes a nerve-wracking challenge where players want to avoid failure, with the only respite being that the superboss awaiting them at the end of this dungeon, Chronodia, becomes weaker with each Red Seal acquired by the player.
A perfect marriagebetween old and newFinal Fantasy,Type-0is one of the most overlooked spinoffs in the series that fans should check out. The action-packed combat never ceases to be engaging, while the story is surprisingly riveting and emotional despite introducing fourteen playable characters off the bat. Players who want the challenge of this game to be enhanced considerably should check out the Tower of Agito once all their party members have reached Level 99.
The Tower of Agito is an unforgiving gauntlet where players must fight a hundred units of each enemy across five drawn-out encounters, with each enemy being at Level 128 and potentially one or two-shotting party members if the player isn’t carefully managing their attacks. Tonberries, Coeurls, Glasya Labolas, Mushussus, and Behemoth Kings stand in the player’s way, and having to defeat a hundred units of each is a test of patience. To make things worse, there’s no way to exit and save once this trial starts, meaning that players must stick with this trial till the very end. These five encounters are so exhausting that the battle against the superboss that is unlocked soon after feels like a respite of sorts, even if the Cosmic Malboro can annihilate players if they’re too fatigued to employ the tactics required to succeed.
