Ever since they were introduced to the world of Final Fantasy, Tonberries have been synonymous with game overs. Their adorable little hooded green bodies hide a bloodthirsty appetite that makes the Tonberry King in about as hard a fight as any series veteran 🉐might assume.

This is a fight that can easily get out of hand, and fast, if you aren't on your toes at all times. To get that Tonberry King's Pristine Crown and wrap up the 'Saga of the Seaside Inn', you will need to remai🔯n vigilant - and maybe keep our guide up while you𒐪're at it.

How To Unlock The Tonberry King Fight

To unlock the fight with the Tonberry King, you must locate four of the six Lifesprings in the Corel region. Corel, being as huge as it is, doesn't allow exploration of its larger southern portion until Chapter 9. The Lifesprings you need are all down there.

Finding the fourth southern-area Lifesprings adds the Tonberry King's Classified Intel mission to the map. You can find the (very𒁏 obvious) battleground beforehand, but it won't spawn yet!

If you've yet to make ample progress (or even unlock) 'Saga of the Seaside Inn', you canꩵ still steal the Pristine Crown. Just hang on to it for when your mission to help Johnny commences in earnest.

How To Steal The Tonberry King's Crown

You're here to steal the Pristine Crown and take no prisoners. The Tonberry King is here to kill you and laugh. The single biggest problem we faced while fighting the Tonberry King stems from his Call for Friends move.

When the Tonberry King uses Call for Friends, numerous 'normal' Tonberries arrive. Like the Tonberry King (and Tonberries in general throughout Final Fantasy), they will slowly saunter toward a party member, whip out a knife, and one-shot them.

Thus, as soon as this happens, you have to weave your way around a bunch of enemies that can kill a party member with a close-range attack. This isn't easy for any party member, but you should still prioritize the usage of long-range fighters for the fight.

This means Barret and Yuffie. We used Yuffie as our regularly-controlled character, swapping to Cloud when the Tonberry King was pressured (more on that in a moment) to hit that stagger bar ASAP.

Yuffie comes with a Steal Materia equipped when she joins the party. All the more reason to roll with her, we reckon. The Tonberry King is pressured when his attacks fail to connect; and while pressured, the Pristine Crown falls to the ground.

This is when your Steal-equipped character can use an ATB charge, select Steal from the Abilities menu, and choose the crown, automatically pilferi☂ng it in the process. Sweet.

How To Beat The Tonberry King

In addition to Call for Friends, Tonberry King has the following attacks:

• Tantrum. An instant kill at close range.
• Hopping Mad. The Tonberry King summons a bunch of pots and pans from the sky, so it's a matter of trying to dodge every one. There's a knockback effect here that can keep a struck victim from moving for a couple of seconds.
• Rancor. Projectiles are launched at a single character. It's kind of fast, but it can be evaded with relative ease.
• Bone-Deep Grudge. It's an area-of-effect attack that stuns the target. Since the AoE here is relatively narrow, it can be used as a setup for Tantrum.

As you can see, staying too close to the Tonberry King for too long can spell disaster. On the other hand, dodging the attacks pressures it. So, what do you do? You don't try to evade Tantrum, that's for sure. Too risky by far.

Instead, keep an eye out for the other attacks, and control Yuffie, use Brumal Form to evade one, and reap the pressure rewards.

Brumal Form is one of Yuffie's starting abilities. It's a terrific technique for dodging attacks, and it even fills the ATB gauge when it works.

Surprisingly, the Tonberry King lacks resistance to most debuffs - though full 💟disclosure here, we didn't try many out, but the Enemy Intel screen when you use Assess on it backs this up. Try them out to your heart's content.