The much-ballyhooed Final Fantasy franchise is one of the longest running and most beloved in gaming. This isn’t to say it’s infallible, that’s for darn certain ൩(there have been some major missteps and fan qualms over the years) but it’s r🔯isen to become the very last word in popular RPG action.

The original game first released in Japan, way back in December 1987. I wasn’t born until the following summer, so you’ll forgive me for not being knowledgeable enough in Japanese to have hopped on board iꩵn utero and been around since the very beginning.

As it turned out, I wouldn’t own a title in the series until the seminal Final Fantasy VII, which –as it did for so many others— introduced me to the JRPG, and to RPGs in general. Falling in love with the title, I pounced on its fellow PS1 releases, VIII and IX, falling for them just the same.

Strictly speaking, this trio of classic titles were the only true PS1 Final Fantasy installments, and they contained all manner of pain-in the-cheeks-to-acquire weapons and equipment. Remember trying to steal the Fairy Flute from🔯 Hilgigars? Or the bizarre Ancient Forest quest for the Apocalypse? Those are just some of the long-repressed horrific childhood memories I’m going to relive for you in this piece, friends.

While those three titles are our main focus here, it’s important to remember that many of the previous entries were ported over to PS1 too. Just for the sake of variety, I’m going to consider those fair game too. Let’s𝐆 dive into it.

30 Gastro Fork, Final Fantasy IX: For Fork’s Sake

Ah, yes. For my money, Final Fantasy IX's Quina is one of the more peculiar player characters in the entire franchise (and that’s saying something around here, friends). Her/his weapon of choice is a gigantic fork. They all♒ have the odd quality of randomized damaged on hit, and the strongest of which is a real pain to acquire.

You earn the Gastro Fork by completing the frog-catching sidequest. 🐬After nabbing 99 of the critters (which will require the ponds to be managed so they don’t run out), Quale will challenge you to a battle. The fight isn’t especially difficult (though Quale does have the highest enemy HP in the game, tied with the Friendly Yan), but it’s a battle of attrition. Victory grants you the Gastro Fork.

29 Lion Heart, Final Fantasy VIII: So, I Heard You Like Triple Triad

As players will know, Final Fantasy VIII’s weapon system works a little differently to the rest of t🤪he series. You can’t simply find or buy weapons, equip them and start carving enemies into sad, defeated hunk𓆏s of monster-spam. What you do is collect components, visit a Junk Shop and ‘remodel’ each character’s weapon into a stronger version of itself.

With handy tools like the Card Mod ability at your disposal, you can do this much sooner than you’d think. All of the main characters’ ultimate weapons can be built on the first disk (with one exception, as we’ll see laꩲter). It just depends how dedicated you are to doing so. Constructing Squall’s best gunblade, Lion Heart, alone, can require many hours of farming levels (some low, some high, as demonstrated ).

28 Excalipoor, Final Fantasy VIII: A Pretty ‘Poor’ Replacement

Another thing that long-time series fans will know is that Final Fantasy does lo🎉ve its recurring weapons. Names like Ragnarok, Masamune, Ultima Weapon and Excalibur will be immediately familiar to franchise veterans. So, too, will the Excalipoor, a joke weapon gener🅠ally connected to Gilgamesh.

While Final Fantasy VIII doesn’t give your party this weapon to dir👍ectly equ🐭ip, they can make use of it.

How? By acquiring Odin prior to the Seifer battle on the Lunatic Pandora. Doing so will cause Seifer to ‘defeat’ Odin, and Gilgamesh (himself a series stalwart) will take the legendary warrior’s place. When doing so —and in every battle in which he happens to appear🌠 thereafter— he’ll randomly ‘equip’ himself with a weapon, one of which can be the Excalipoor.

Which deals a mighty 1hp damage to all opponents.

27 Excalibur, Final Fantasy: Now That’s More Like It

That’s great and 🌼all, Gilgamesh, but sometimes you want to deal just a shade more than 1 damage to your opponents. Such as in every freaking situation ever, for instance.

When that’s the case, you’ll want to junk Excalipoor with the rest and pick up its no-snarky equivalent, the Excalibur itself.

This renowned sword has appeared in almost every main series entry to date, and always performs well. In the original Final Fantasy, you had to complete a little sidequest to earn🐽 it. this consisted of finding Adamantine in the Flying Fortress, taking it to Smyth the… Smith and having him create it for you. Itꦑ’s a bit of a trek, but you’ll definitely want to do it. Your Knight will thank you for it.

26 Construct 8, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Puppet Is Not A Real Boy

Can a character also be a weapon? There’s a philosophical debate to be had there, when we’re talking about machines, but I’m not going to go into that now. I’m in charge here, and I say oh heckola yes it can, buddy boy.

On that note, here comes Construct 8 of Final Fantasy Tactics. This root warrior can only be added to your team by completing a very specific sidequ🅠est, which you can only 🍸begin with Mustadio in the party. Defeat Belias, head to Goug and a cutscene begins which starts everything off ().

There are some tough battles ahead to unlock the character, but when you do, it’s a valuable ally. As a robot, it’s immune to all magic but Lightning (it♛s weakness) and Water (sadly, this includes healing spells), and has some very powerful abilities th🀅at cost a little HP to use.

25 Tinkerbell, Final Fantasy V: No, Not The Fairy

While the s💜eries offers the usual array of swords, spears, daggers and such as weapons, it also boasts a selection of more unusual choices. One of these is the Bell class of weapons. When it comes to recurring ones, the major example is the Tinkerbell.

In Final Fantasy V, it’s instead known as the Tinklebell, and is the strongest weapon of its type. To acquire it, you’ll have to get lucky and snag it as a drop f෴rom Twintania. Bear in mind, though, that this is only possible when the boss isn’t charging its Gigaflare.

24 Great Gospel, Final Fantasy VII: One Weapon I’ve Never Acquired

Just for the sake of mixing things up a little, I’m going to keep pushing the definition of ‘weap🌱on,’ like the fearless renegade from the depths of Satan’s shirt pocket that I am.

Owing to certain unfortunate I used to be an Ancient, then I took a Masamune to the everything story events, I’ve never really used Aeris to her fullest in Final Fantasy VII. It’s a shame, because s✤he boasts some excellent supportive limit breaks.

Her level 4 limit, Great Gospel, is acquired by grabbing a piece of Mythril ღ(acquired from the sleeping man in a cave near Junon, if your total number of battles ends in two matching odd numbers or zeros) and taking it to the cabin by the Gold Saucer after the Rocket Town events.

Great Gospel fully heals the party’s HP and MP, and also makes🎃 them momentarily invulnerab𒁃le to all attacks.

23 Lightbringer, Final Fantasy VI: Sounds Like A Fair Trade To Me

Another recurring weapon 𓄧in the series, the Light💝bringer (or Illumina) is another sword that just keeps popping up.

Always boasting high attack (where eq🍃uippable), it tends to have the handy-dandy bonus effect of randomly casting Holy when wielded in🐻 battle.

What with Holy general🀅ly being regarded as the Ultimate White Magic s🐻pell, that’s sure as heckles not a bad side effect to have.

How do you get your hands on this mighty blade, then? Well, that varies from game to game, but the most obscure method is probably that of Final Fantasy VI. There, you mus𒁏t first nab yourself Ragnarok (which isn’t easy), and then wager it at the Dragon’s Neck Coliseum.

22 Excalibur, Final Fantasy IX: I Found It On eBay

I don’t know about you, friends, but Treno’s auction house in Final Fantasy IX never really did it for me. With my deep-rooted need to nab myself every new piece of equipm𝔍ent from the regular stores and synthesis shops that I could, I rarely had the gil to compete with those nobles at the auction. There were some neat items in there, but nothing I thought was important and missable, so I tended to skip it.

There is, however, one important item that you can only gain in this way: Excalibur. In thiꦜs game, it’s a sword for Steiner, and yo🔥u get it by buying the Doga’s Artifact, Une’s Mirror, Rat Tail and Griffin’s Heart item from the auction, and giving them to the corresponding Treno nobles.

After that, the Magical Fingertip starts b൩eing offered there, which you must also win and take to an old man in Daguerreo🌜, the secret mountain location in the bottom left of the map. He trades you the sword for the item.

21 Knights Of The Round, Final Fantasy VII: Because ‘Table’ Was A Word Too Far

RPGs often run into the problem of what to reward players for defeating the optional superbosses. Oftentimes, these enemies are far stronger than anything you encounter in the course of the main story, and that’s 🍌where the problem arises: if you get a spangly new ultimate weapon, what’s left to use it on?

The neat thing about Final Fantasy VII’s Knights of the Round summon materia is that you do get a chance to use it on the game’s toughest opponents: Ruby and Diamond Weapon. Assuming that you get a Gold Chocobo by breeding, that is, and not by trading the item you win by defeating😼 one of them.

Riding your Gold Chocobo to an💎 invisi-island in the far co💛rner of the map, you’ll be rewarded with a super, super strong summon, which is more than enough to breeze you through any story battle.