<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I was listening to the 2nd to last final battle on FFX and it made me realize how much they could've done with that battle with a track that good, but they screwed up. This made me think about last battle in general. After all, that's the battle that ends the game. It should be treated with care, but most often it's not.
Some things I look for in last battles:
1. If a boss has something that takes 2 minute to animate, don't use it very often.
Pretty self explanatory. Though I never had Sephiroth use Super Nova on me 10 times or anything extreme like that. Another thing. If something takes 2 minutes to use, then it should do a lot of damage. I'd say Skies of Arcadia is the worst offender of games in recent memory. Ramirez's attacks take a LONG time to animate and he uses them almost every round.
2. Linked battles. If there is the 'somewhat significant to story but not quite the last boss' guy, make sure he appears somewhat close to the last battle. Besides, it's kind of boring to see the last boss change form 5 times or whatever. The game guilty of this from recent memory is FFX. To put it simply, it's like FF7 but you fight Jenova-SYNTHESIS in the beginning of South Cave instead of the end. By the time you actually got through the dungeon, it's not clear if you'll even remember who you've fought at the beginning.
3. Wear and tear. Most final battles seem to feel obligated to put you through this huge maze designed to wear you down. However, you'll noticve that 99% of RPG has a save point right before the last battle, which makes it easy to recover from that. The final dungeon should be relatively short. FFX again comes to mind as the worst recent offender. The only purpose of the crystal shard area right before the final boss is designed to wear you down.
4. The Last Elixir Problem. Last Elixir, known as Megaelixir in the US FF games, is one of the biggest problems of final battle. They're called Last Elixirs because you only use them in the final battle. Though not every game has an item that heals everyone completely and all MP too, there are usually items of comparable power. Usually by the time you reach the last boss you've a good stockpile of the godliest of healing items which makes the battle trivial. Boss just blown away three guys? Use Mega Phoenix. Caster ran out of MP? Throw an elixir. Heck, just throw an elixir on somebody every single round! I propose either to get rid of overpowering healing items in general, or use a model like Brave Fencer. You can buy Elixirs and items of similar caliber in town, but you can only carry a fixed number of them, and the cost is nontrivial either. When I play Brave Fencer I try to avoid using the S-Drink or whatever the highest class of healing item is because it's expensive, but it's not out of the question to use one. In RPG you almost never use an item of Megaelixir's power unless it's the last boss, or if you happen to have a ton of them already.
By the way, what's your favorite final battle? Mine is Chrono Trigger, versus Lavos. Though there is an abundance of Megaelixir items in that game as well, Dreamless/Grandstone tends to kill people with low physical/magical defenses, so you really can't take advantage of Megas that easily.</div>
Some things I look for in last battles:
1. If a boss has something that takes 2 minute to animate, don't use it very often.
Pretty self explanatory. Though I never had Sephiroth use Super Nova on me 10 times or anything extreme like that. Another thing. If something takes 2 minutes to use, then it should do a lot of damage. I'd say Skies of Arcadia is the worst offender of games in recent memory. Ramirez's attacks take a LONG time to animate and he uses them almost every round.
2. Linked battles. If there is the 'somewhat significant to story but not quite the last boss' guy, make sure he appears somewhat close to the last battle. Besides, it's kind of boring to see the last boss change form 5 times or whatever. The game guilty of this from recent memory is FFX. To put it simply, it's like FF7 but you fight Jenova-SYNTHESIS in the beginning of South Cave instead of the end. By the time you actually got through the dungeon, it's not clear if you'll even remember who you've fought at the beginning.
3. Wear and tear. Most final battles seem to feel obligated to put you through this huge maze designed to wear you down. However, you'll noticve that 99% of RPG has a save point right before the last battle, which makes it easy to recover from that. The final dungeon should be relatively short. FFX again comes to mind as the worst recent offender. The only purpose of the crystal shard area right before the final boss is designed to wear you down.
4. The Last Elixir Problem. Last Elixir, known as Megaelixir in the US FF games, is one of the biggest problems of final battle. They're called Last Elixirs because you only use them in the final battle. Though not every game has an item that heals everyone completely and all MP too, there are usually items of comparable power. Usually by the time you reach the last boss you've a good stockpile of the godliest of healing items which makes the battle trivial. Boss just blown away three guys? Use Mega Phoenix. Caster ran out of MP? Throw an elixir. Heck, just throw an elixir on somebody every single round! I propose either to get rid of overpowering healing items in general, or use a model like Brave Fencer. You can buy Elixirs and items of similar caliber in town, but you can only carry a fixed number of them, and the cost is nontrivial either. When I play Brave Fencer I try to avoid using the S-Drink or whatever the highest class of healing item is because it's expensive, but it's not out of the question to use one. In RPG you almost never use an item of Megaelixir's power unless it's the last boss, or if you happen to have a ton of them already.
By the way, what's your favorite final battle? Mine is Chrono Trigger, versus Lavos. Though there is an abundance of Megaelixir items in that game as well, Dreamless/Grandstone tends to kill people with low physical/magical defenses, so you really can't take advantage of Megas that easily.</div>
