Demonic Spiders/Final Fantasy

These Demonic Spiders will make you glad you brought plenty of Phoenix Downs.


 * In Final Fantasy I, Ghasts and Ghouls had a paralyzing attack, but the game didn't give you any items to de-paralyze party members, and if you're ambushed by a whole crew of them (which usually only happens in or around the Marsh or Earth Caves), you can end up with your entire party paralyzed and unable to do anything, including the White Mage whose Harm spells are your general standby for dealing with these guys. If that happens, you're left with little choice but to pray that at least one of your party gets out of paralysis long enough to get the hell out before they kill the whole party.
 * Sorcerers. The entire Ice Cave is the hardest part of the game because of these bastards. At effectively the halfway point of the game, you have these Mind Flayer rip offs that do a 4 hit attack which does only about 1 damage per hit. It also has the chance for causing instant death-- and your ProRings, which are supposed to protect you against stuff like this, don't do squat against it (because they're eating your brains). If that isn't bad enough, its other attack is a paralyzing attack that hits everyone in the party. That means it can paralyze your party as it picks you apart. And the best part? They come in groups of 4. You are supposed to flee from them-- unless you get ambushed by them, in which case you're lucky to even get to your first turn. They also happen to pop up in the Lufenian Sky Castle, right on the same small bridge where the most dangerous enemy in the game-- WarMECH-- can be encountered.
 * The Sorcerors' lesser kin, the Wizards, bear the distinction of being one of the very few enemies that you can't flee from. Ever. When you first encounter them (in the infamous Marsh Cave, no less) Wizards can shred almost any class other than Fighters, and by the time you reach the Ice Cave you randomly encounter Wizards in groups of at least five or six. If you're unfortunate enough to lose party members to the Sorcerors, better hope the Random Number God doesn't toss in the Wizards to finish the job. Appropriately enough, Wizards were later dubbed "Piscodaemons". The Sorcerers were also christened "Mindflayers"-- after all, don't they live up to the moniker?
 * In the Temple of Fiends, 2000 years ago, Sorcerers come in groups of nine. And they generally swarm the next-to-last floor, between Tiamat and Chaos. Even a max-level party armed with Excalibur, the Masamune, NUKE and FADE is taking its life into its hands by going into that floor.
 * In the same dungeon, half the battles that don't involve Sorcerers tend to involve Mages, who cast instant-death magic that generally hits 100% of the time. They travel in large groups, and frequently ambush you. In the remake, their instant death spell was replaced by very damn powerful at the time damage magic Firaga, which hit the entire party, and could kill a fully healed party without too much trouble if they managed to ambush. Didn't make things any better at all.
 * In Final Fantasy II, four Great Malboros spawn on the first floor of the Second-To-Last Dungeon. They can kill the entire party before the player can even cast Esuna/Recover. And Esuna is not 100% effective, anyway.
 * The Death Riders in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon also qualify, as they almost always hit multiple times with each attack, and the damage they do with each hit is directly proportional to your total amount of HP.
 * The Imps in the Dawn of Souls remake are this, constantly spamming "Confuse 16" on the party. In this game, Confusion does not wear off if you are hit and if your party happens to be dual-wielding, then they'll destroy each other. Your only chance to survive this is being immune to confusion. The problem is that there is no equipment at that point that can resist Confusion, the Imps come in packs of six or so, and they have extremely high speed. In addition, this is one of the longest dungeons in the game, with three bosses, a fourth optional one, damaging floors and the just-as-demonic Devil's Bloom enemy, which casts the same Confusion 16 spell. Oh, and if you wear out your MP to the point where you can't cast Teleport fighting the Imps, Blooms and bosses and save your game after having beaten the first part of the Dungeon, get ready to start again from scratch. This is 3/4ths of the way through a game generally considered Nintendo Hard, even in the toned down port! Long story short, Imps are one of the worst parts of this whole level.
 * Anything that has the weakness "Dark Blade" from Final Fantasy III, at least in the DS remake. They are tough as nails, do quite a bit of damage, and you can't hit them normally if there's a gap in the row without them "Divide"ing and making a new one, not to mention they have another move called "Multiply". Guess what that one does? Thankfully, they don't Divide if hit with magic.
 * In Final Fantasy IV for the DS, the player will encounter frequent spawns of Flame Hounds in . They are highly resistant to status effects and have tremendously powerful physical attacks. The pinnacle of their cheapness is a nasty AOE flame attack that can hit your lower HP characters for half their health. They can spawn one at a time, where they are manageable. But they can also spawn two at a time, along with another creature that can turn any of your party members to stone, which makes for a really harrowing battle. Worst of it is, they can spawn in groups of three, an encounter that is nigh impossible to even run away from, even for a party that just . It usually starts with each one of them casting their AOE attack in rapid succession, resulting in multiple dead party members, with the survivor or survivors being devastated. If it's a surprise attack, you may as well reload the game. All this while being sufficiently leveled to tromp the ever living hell out of anything else the dungeon can throw at you.
 * Same game, Mages in the underground of the Moon. Especially packs of three that surprise you. Blizzaga, Blizzaga, Blizzaga. DS, meet wall.
 * The Armored Fiends, also in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. They have Flamethrower (an absurdly powerful fire attack on the whole team), Beam (an even more absurdly powerful, non-elemental attack on one person), and most annoyingly, Self-Destruct, which will not only knock out whoever gets hit with it 90% of the time, but will also result in you receiving NO EXPERIENCE OR GIL for all your hard work. Annoyingly, their turn always seems to come up right after you get them under 9999 HP, at which point they will almost always Self-Destruct. The worst part? They're one of the carriers of the added Tail items that you can trade for nice equipment, but have a 0.4% drop rate. That means hours upon hours of fighting these bastards if you like to aim for 100% completion.They're fortunately vulnerable to Slow and Sap. And if you don't Thundaga them, they self-destruct less often.
 * The Blue and Red Dragons of the last dungeon have devastating attacks that hit all party members, and worse yet, are not weak against the elements that fire- and ice-element monsters would be weak against. The blue ones aren't so bad-- they can be Stopped, and Stop will always connect, leaving you to heal from Icestorm (a nasty hit-all ability) and beat on them at your leisure. The Red Dragons, however-- they have two attacks: a standard physical attack that will hit the tank for around 1000 points of damage, and Thermal Rays, which hits the entire party for around 2000 points of damage a piece. To put this in perspective: the tank will have (unless you augmented him) around 4500 HP. The mages will have around 2500 HP. The Red Dragon is immune to Stop, but can be Slowed, and also Berserked to make him use only his physical attack (which will now hit for 2000 points of damage). The trouble is, though, that the person with access to Berserk and Slow is also the only person with access to the healing spells, so in practice, fights go like this: The Red Dragon casts Thermal Rays, everyone scrambles to heal and rezz, the healer finally gets an open turn, the player goes to select Slow or Berserk from the menu—the Red Dragon uses Thermal Rays AGAIN, the party drops everything to heal, rinse and repeat until death.
 * The last dungeon also has the Wicked Mask/Deathmask. It has 37000 HP, more than almost any other random encounter enemy in the game, and casts Reflect on itself. It then proceeds to bounce spells such as Bio, Holy, and Flare off of itself and onto the party. In the DS version of the game, this is made even worse by the fact that they now know Laser Barrage, an attack that can hit the entire party for around 2000 damage. Thankfully, unlike the aforementioned Red Dragons, you can cast Stop on them.
 * Fun thing about Deathmasks and the Dragon pairs? They play the boss music when you fight them. Even the game knows these guys define Boss in Mook Clothing.
 * Malboros are bad enough in the original game, but the Count Malboros in the Lair of the Father in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years are made worse by the fact that you only have two party members, one of whom has a pitiful 190 MP. He's also your healer, as your other party member can't use white magic. You will cry.
 * In Final Fantasy V we have the Gil Turtle. At the time you encounter it, you don't have nearly the XP or skills to defeat it. And it lures you in with a hallway that doubles your gil with each step you take. It has amazing HP, hits very very hard, has poison, is very fast, and makes short work of your party. It'll take quite a bit of reloading and messing around with available skills to defeat this bastard. It's vulnerable to ice and undead, so good luck with that! Especially since you'll have to face it again in the Bonus Dungeon.
 * Mantodea/Greater Mantis in Final Fantasy VI. Their standard physical attacks will likely do over 3000 damage, killing any character that isn't significantly overleveled. You can avoid this by casting Vanish on your party, but that leaves you open for their dreaded Rippler move, which, due to a glitch, can cause Shadow/Relm to PERMANENTLY lose Interceptor. And they're all over the world map as random encounters. Your best bet is to simply stay away from them, either by using the Global Airship or the Moogle Charm, as you don't get anything that special (save Imp equipment) from fighting them. If you are feeling masochistic, the Brachiosaurs and Tyranosaurs in the Dinosaur Forest are a safer bet anyways.
 * Level 20 Magic from the same game. They're only found in a bonus dungeon late in the game, but these guys WILL (not may) pick your party apart. If these buggers appear in twos and manage to cast Banish/X-Zone (depending on which version you're playing), it has a chance to hit everyone in the party with a One-Hit Kill spell. If two party members are already KO'ed by them and the other Level 20 Magic casts it, you better pray it doesn't connect or you'll get Game Over.
 * The Slam/Veil Dancers in Zozo. They cast Ice2/Blizzara, Fire2/Fira, and Bolt2/Thundara, which will either one-shot a single character or ravage your entire party. They also carry a move that puts a party member to sleep.
 * Sprinters, found all over the World of Ruin. Oh, it's not enough that they have crazy powerful physical attacks and unreasonable amounts of HP. No, they have to have Pearl Wind, which will heal the entire enemy party. And they get their own version of Osmose, Osmose Beak (also known as Drainbeak), so you can't even take the cheap way and Rasp away all their MP.
 * Every damn thing on the Floating Continent. Ninjas love to hit the entire party with powerful elemental attacks. The Behemoths have powerful physical attacks as well as Meteo. Dragons can not only use Revenge to dish out crazy damage, but can use Sneeze to remove party members from battle, leaving the remaining two open to a pummeling. The Brainpans will Stop multiple party members, leaving them open to tremendous damage from everything else. Misfits will shred you with Lifeshaver (although you can turn that against them with Gaia Gear). And that damn Chest Monster, Gigantos, you find halfway through is harder than Ultima Weapon!
 * In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, depending on how well you're equipped, any enemy who can invoke Stop, Stun or instant Death on the protagonist can quickly become one of these during the game's many side missions. Oh, so you didn't have that one piece of accessory equipped? Time to either start over or watch helplessly as your enemies pummel you to death and THEN start over!
 * Tomahawk Boomerang, Mace Boomerang, or any other cutscene-style attack that's undodgeable. One of Bahamut's forms is particularly aggravating, as it will not only knock a solid chunk of your HP away, but also reduce your MP and AP to 0, so you can't heal or even dodge his next attack.
 * And then there's the mover type enemies who A) have ridiculously high defense; if you're hitting for, say, 3000 on average, you'll do about 100 to the movers; and B) have the insanely difficult to dodge Delta Attack, which is enough to kill you at a fairly high level.
 * There are also enemies in the game that are invincible to almost anything short of limit breaks, which happen pretty much randomly. More power if they have life-draining attacks, like G Devastators.
 * Dispel doesn't sound harmful on its own, until you realise that by the time you encounter enemies who can Dispel you'll almost certainly be needing those (M)Barriers, and that those Dispel-casters can pack a good punch on their own, like those nasty G Paladins.
 * When mooks start throwing Flare around willy-nilly, it's time to start building towards that HP+ 999% materia.
 * In Final Fantasy X, you only have to fight Great Malboros one at a time. Great! But the Great Malboros that infest the Omega Ruins always ambush the party, and have an 80% chance of casting Bad Breath in their first turn. The only reliable ways to survive them are; to equip Yuna with a First Strike weapon and have her Summon an Aeon, which are immune to status effects and can weather the Malboro's other attack, a very powerful spitting blast, long enough to kill it or run away; to equip someone else with a first strike weapon and swap them out for Yuna); to equip someone with a first strike weapon and a Delay Attack ability to delay the Malboro's turn enough for the player to get a few hits in; or have whoever has First Strike switch in Tidus and his Escape ability. Powerful characters and weapons only make things worse, as Bad Breath inflicts many status effects including blind, poison, and confusion. Because poison Took a Level In Badass for Final Fantasy X, they'll be losing 1/4 of their maximum health as they swat at one another fruitlessly or swing too hard and kill their fellow party member. If you're ambushed with this attack and you don't have any resistant armor or a weapon with First Strike equipped, it's entirely possible to die without ever having touched the controller.
 * The worst Demonic Spiders of the game are the Demon Monoliths in the final Dungeon on your way to and the upgraded Behemoths. The Monoliths had Curse, which gave you a crap load of Status effects that were basically undodgeable, and the Behemoths had a Death Attack that killed you too. And to top off the Monoliths, they rarely showed up alone. They almost always showed up in pairs or trios. It doesn't help that they possessed the attack power of your average endgame boss and always managed to hit with its spammed attacks, which, according to the enemy data, should have incredibly low accuracy. Oh, and to top it off, they can use an attack that inflicts Petrify on your entire party. Have fun.
 * Then there are the birds in that freaking chocobo race minigame, which can't be classed as an environmental hazard because hazards aren't spiteful. That they swerve to hit you is bad enough. That they add three seconds to your time is awful. That a chocobo dodges like a truck is horrifying, and that they can keep you stunned in place long enough for another bird to smack you in the face is unforgivable. There's a reason no-one likes that minigame.
 * In Final Fantasy XII, anything with the move Curse has the potential to become one of these. Curse inflicts Poison (health drops in chunks at fixed intervals), Sap (health steadily drains at a surprising rate) Confusion (the character attacks themselves or allies) and Disease (Current HP=Max HP, meaning the character cannot be healed until Disease is removed. If a Diseased character dies, when they are rezzed they will have a grand total of 1HP and the Disease status effect still in place, meaning that Disease must be removed and then the character can be healed. Disease cannot be removed with Esuna, the Standard Status Effects remover, but only with the spell Cleanse, the item Vaccine, or the Remedy item...IF the player has unlocked that ability for the Remedy). Curse targets all characters. Curse cannot be blocked. Curse will never miss--not even the Malboros' breath attacks are given that luxury. The monsters that wield Curse either come in packs, so that they can make short work of the reeling party before you can rid yourself of the effects, or are giant undead dragons with flunkies who will also use Curse. The only thing to do is to equip your party with Confusion-preventing accessories (you DID remember to buy them, right...?) once you see Curse coming (if you see it in time), have them fling Remedies at each other (you DID remember to upgrade them and buy a ton of them, right...?), and pray that the command-priority-programming is kind to you.
 * The Shield Wyrms in the Cerobi Steppe don't use cheap tricks like Curse--they will beat the shit out of you legitimately (for the most part). They're a regular enemy, and there are TONS of them in the various Steppe zones--but they have over sixty-thousand HP, more than any other regular monster in the game and more than a fair few of the bosses, marks, and rare monsters too. The HP is complemented by high defense and magic defense stats, and the ability to further augment those stats, and the ability to regain a third of the life bar with an unblockable, virtually unstoppable move called Restore. And offensively? It's a hard hitter with many area-of-effect moves, including the -aga spells and Breath, which can inflict Sap, plus its normal physical can inflict Petrify and combo with frequency. And--this cannot be stressed enough--they're everywhere. Can't throw a stone in Cerobi without hitting (and subsequently aggroing) one of these. And Cerobi Steppe is a biiiiig area. To say it gets aggravating is an understatement. At least they're susceptible to Oiling and Blinding, so you can oil/blind them up and roast them with fire magic, chuckling at their puny defense. They are also susceptible to instant death, which means you can just equip the Nihopaloa and toss a phoenix down at them. Then again, everything is weak to the Nihopaloa.
 * The goddamn Reavers in Pharos Penumbra. At level sixty they can smack a third of your health bar away and have a nasty habit of walking into battle with Haste and/or Protect (and sometimes Bravery) and a habit of chucking magical Technicks at your party whenever they get low on health. And they always come in groups of three or more. And you need to kill tons of them to advance the dungeon.
 * Final Fantasy XIII allows just about anything that can kill a character from full HP to be a demonic spider. Why? Because if the "lead" character falls, regardless of the other characters, it's game over. So all it takes is for three enemies to "randomly" decide to gang up on the main character, and there's really nothing you can do to prevent reloading. Then there are enemies like "Vetala," which is immune to physical damage, and "resistant" to magical damage, which means it takes something like a quarter damage from magic. Oh, and it halves all elemental damage on top of that, which basically means it takes only 1/8th damage from magic and 0 damage from physical. Oh, and it can (but thankfully, rarely does) cast "Fog" on the entire party, which prevents spell casting. Other notable examples:
 * The Adamantoise Family, which you probably shouldn't be fighting the minute you get to Gran Pulse, can KO you in one fell stomp. These are 50 feet tall, non-aggressive and very easy to avoid, so they aren't a problem unless you intentionally attack one. As Sazh will occasionally say, "That thing could Gran the Pulse right out of us!"
 * A lot of monsters on Gran Pulse qualify, unless you've done some serious Level Grinding. The Behemoth Kings seem easy at first, but right before they die they stand up, heal all of their HP and start using a saw blade attack to kill characters in one hit. Later on Gran Pulse you have to fight Boxed Phalanx which are accompanied by small armies of robotic minions with a nasty tendency to gang up on the party leader. They continuously summon more minions during the fight, so your only hope of winning is to take out the big one as fast as possible. Unlike the other monsters on Gran Pulse, you HAVE to fight these to get through, they block the passages and there's no way around. The Boxed Phalanx, however, only summons reinforcements if you kill any of the Hoplites present at the start of the battle, so you just have to make sure to target only the Phalanx. It's still tough though, because it will cast buffs on the Hoplites.
 * Tyrant, a centaur like enemy in Taejin's Tower. It has high HP and defense and can summon a blade to attack along side it.
 * The Scalebeasts in the Sunleth Waterscapes, to the point of the point of the game advising you not to face them until you progress in the storyline. They're somewhat less difficult if you sneak up behind them, which is very easy to do.
 * The Boxed Phalanx and variants thereof. They're hard to kill, they hit hard, they come with at least two Hoplites(or variants) that hit at least as hard as they do. All but impossible to back attack. They have an attack that hits multiple members of your party. And should you decide to kill off its reinforcements first, it will summon up to five more. They can easily overwhelm a Sentinel's defenses, assuming they don't decide to ignore the sentinel altogether and go after your party leader.
 * Ochu-type creatures, whose normal attack alone launches entire parties into the air. Its other moves are Screech, which does strong area-of-effect damage; and Pollen, a "Bad Breath" type move. Then there's the Microchu that accompany them. They are numerous, fast, surprisingly resilient, make annoying noises, can be re-summoned, and will be healed/buffed every time Ochu does a move.
 * Back on Cocoon, there are various PSICOM enemies to worry about. The last level has the most advanced form of the game's first midboss;  And in CH.12, outside the obvious wallbangingly-hard enemies lay the Inquisitrixes, who turn most examples of Game Favored Gender on their head by hitting harder and faster than their male counterparts. So hard and fast, in fact, that one attack cycle from more than one of them will leave you restarting the battle again, and again, and again.
 * The succubus type enemies in Ch. 10, thought fairly weak on their own, have a special AI that makes them all attack the same target. If you wind in a group of three or more, have a medic out in your starting paradigm or you're screwed.
 * The sadistic Tonberry. They're slow, sure, and you can run away, but if they get close, a party member is pretty much going to die in one shot. The Genre Savvy player knows to always have a character that almost never gets the final blow on an enemy-- Tonberry's signature move, Grudge, does damage based on the number of kills that character has had. Have a healer that almost never gets the final blow, and Tonberry can't do a thing to them, leaving them free to set up/revive the others. Unfortunately, in some installments, they also have an ability called "Chef's Knife", which will kill you deader than dead if Everyone's Grudge doesn't work.
 * Mentioning Tonberries around veteran FF players will generally provoke the same reaction as Murlocs for a WoW player. Despite this, several FF Fans were disappointed with the lack of Tonberries in Final Fantasy XII, and the weakening of Tonberries in Final Fantasy X 2.
 * Those who complained about Tonberries being weak in Final Fantasy X 2 must not have made it to the lower reaches of the Via Infinito, where Mega Tonberries start showing up. Just to start, they're not only visible on the regular dungeon crawling screens, they literally fill the entire screen. They can be avoided, but only with extreme wall hugging/jumping manuevers and it's often not readily apparent from the camera angles. When you do engage them? These suckers are level 90 at minimum (99 when Oversouled), have ridiculously high HP, Strength, and Magic stats, and unlike every other Tonberry known to Final Fantasy, are extremely fast. The Oversouled Mega Tonberries have a version of Karma that does not only an assload of damage, but also Stone status. Immune to Stone? You instead get unblockable Confusion. Confusion in X-2 is ESPECIALLY dangerous; not only can your party members whack each other to death, they'll randomly use skills and items on random enemies and allies. That Megalixir you're saving for the next boss? Prepare to kiss it goodbye. The first time you run into one, it will very likely be by accident, and you will die. Fortunately, there's actually a relatively quick and easy way to kill them, but it involves careful planning around a specific accessory/Dressphere/Garment Grid combo. Even then, it's risky and not always foolproof, as it requires one of your characters to be at perpetually low HP to execute a Desperation Attack. And then the trick got nerfed in the PAL and International versions.
 * Bonus points for sadism: The oversouled Mega Tonberry is the only source for the ultra-powerful Blue Bullet ability "Cry in the Night". For the player that wants everything...
 * In Final Fantasy X, the one thing you could use to "hide" from many other encounters in-game was your summons. You try summoning an aeon in front of a Tonberry, the little guy makes a clay effigy of it and stabs it with the knife, insta-killing it.
 * The Tonberry in Final Fantasy XIII appears as a Bait and Switch Boss for a mark known as Zenobia the Butcher. Tonberry is about 1000 times worse than she could have ever been. Basically, it starts off just stabbing various party members For Massive Damage with the added effect of dispelling all status-buffs with each and every stab. Then you'll slowly see messages like "Grudging Look" appear. When it reaches "Deep-seated Grudge", it deals massive damage to all party members, recovers ALL its HP, resets its Stagger meter, doubles its resistances to all elements, AND PERMANENTLY RAISES ITS ATTACK AND MAGIC STATS. Oh, and it can do this up to 4 times. There's a reason its Stagger threshold is 666%. It's so bad most guides say the best strategy is to be overleveled enough to kill it before it gets a grudge off.
 * In Final Fantasy Tactics, the toughness of the non-story battles scale with Ramza's level, so if you Level Grind too much you'll find yourself facing some seriously frightening opponents. Bariaus Hill in particular is home to a veritable army of Chocobos, Tauros, Behemoths (who have instant kill abilities), and Dragons.
 * Some of the rare non-story battles can be an absolute bear. The most talked about of these is the 11-Monk battle on Grog Hill. For those unfamiliar with the game, Monks have the most versatile skill-set in the game, having high attack, a ranged move (that hits multiple people), a 100% hit move, a healing move, a revival move and a move to get rid of status effects, all of which have no charge time. In addition they have decent speed and range and can be pretty dangerous one at a time. Oh, and, they're all wearing gear that makes their ranged move heal each other. They can knock you down and stand themselves back up using the same command. And do. When there are twice as many on the map as you have people in your team at the same or higher level than your highest leveled character, be prepared to die and die horribly.
 * Chocobos near the beginning of the game can act as Demonic Spiders on their own, having higher attack and movement than any of your beginning classes, a counter attack that you won't be able to get until later on without ample grinding, and healing to boot. Needless to say, running into a pack of these during the first few levels of the game spells instant death. Later on they are demoted to merely Goddamn Bats as they are still annoying, but far outclassed by the stronger classes in the game. However, Red Chocobos and Black Chocobos remain Demonic Spiders until the end of the game, the later having a powerful physical attack, a strong ranged attack and the ability to fly, and the former having a high hitting 100% ranged move with no charge time. Coupled with high speed they can easily take out a healer or wizard before anyone on your team gets a chance to move.
 * There's a story battle in the game where you fight a group of chocobos of somewhat randomly generated colors. If you're unlucky, four red or black Chocobos will show up and crush at least half of your team before you can fight back.
 * Mandras in Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon. They have a projectile special attack which is stronger than their normal attack, and they can still use it from melee range. And if you are in melee, they can use their other special to inflict Sleep -- luckily this also affects monsters next to them, but they don't need the backup as they can typically survive two or three hits. Finally, they're a fairly common enemy and show up from an early point in the game, so you will experience them before you have ranged attacks or status defenses.