History GameBreaker / FinalFantasy

* In the PSP remake of FFI, there is a secret weapon called [[InfinityPlusOneSword Judgment Staff]]. What does it do? It lets you cast Flare, the strongest spell in the game, for free.

* The Paladin/Parivir/Geomancy combo. You get access to the best weapons and armors in the game, and Geomancy makes your ElementalPowers do x1.5 damage against ''everything'' that isn't strong against all of them. You can also inflict the best status effects in the game on top of it all.

** Similar to the Magus Sisters' Passado, Anima's Overdrive attack, Oblivion, chains 16 hits, which can also go up to 99,999 damage, giving a total of 1,599,984 damage. With both Anima's and Yuna's Overdrive gauges full, Yuna can Grand Summon Anima, which allows two Oblivions ''in a row'', dealing a maximum of ''3,199,968'' damage. The only real problem is that Anima is difficult to get and involves a certain amount of GuideDangIt.

* On Disk 3, fly to the Island Closest to Heaven and the Island Closest to Hell, equip the "Encounter None" ability on someone in your party, and keep drawing magic from the hidden draw points. It takes a while to recharge after each draw, but after a while you'll be able to give each member of your party 100 of the best magic spells in the game like Meteor, Flare, and Ultima to junction however you want to raise your stats to ''godly'' levels.

** Unyielding Blade can hit enemies without the specific equipment in the remakes (which means not even monsters are safe) and while She isn't Orlandu Meliadoul still hits pretty damn hard with her skillset. By default she actually hits harder than Agrias, but lacks the (surprisingly useful) status effects and the AoE attacks.

* The Celestial Weapons. When fully upgraded, Nirvana and Onion Knight ignores Magic Resistance. Similarly, Caladbolg, World Champion, Spirit Lance, Godhand and Auron's weapon will all ignore Physical Defense. The weapons also increase or decrease the damage output of any character using it, depending on they remaining percentage of MP or HP respectively (the MR-ignoring ones depend on MP, while the PD-ignoring ones rely on HP). This allows Yu Yevon to be one-hit killed by Tidus, as Tidus is always the first character to act during the final battle, even if you have others equipped with First Strike.
** You don't even ''need'' the Celestial Weapons(which is good, because trying to get the crests or sigils for some of them will make you want to hurt people). In the Macalania Woods entrance, Wantz sell weapons and armor with four empty slots. Just by grinding for money, you can easily create weapons that will [[LudicrousGibs liquify]] any enemy you come across, and armor that will turn you into [[ImplacableMan walking super-tanks]].

* Consider the Dark Knight and the Alchemist classes. The Dark Knight class had exceptionally high HP (iirc, only Berserker had more HP), high attack power, could become immune to Curse, Stone, Poison, Sleep, and Confuse, the Darkness attack would hit everything on screen for high damage and it sacrificed very little HP from the user. The Alchemist was far and away the best healer in the game; a White Mage had nothing on an Alchemist. Alchemists could have an infinite supply of Mega-Potions, Elixirs, and Megalixirs and mix incredibly powerful items like Final Phoenix (revive your entire party and heal for 9999) or Hi-Wall (cast Protect, Shell, and Reflect on your entire party). Alchemists also had an ability that doubled the strength of their healing items so that you could easily survive any encounter by just spamming Stash+Mega-Potion, even the BonusBoss. Once you used a Dark Knight and Alchemist, it was hard to use anything else because all other classes were just vastly inferior to them, except for Lady Luck for its triple EXP and AP.

* The Thaumaturge class, full stop. Upon release, Punishing Barbs lasted for twenty seconds dealing full unblockable counter damage to anything, even if the player actually RESISTED or BLOCKED the attack (so you could take 50 damage and deal 300 in the counter) and the only damage cap it had was the player's actual hit points, easily increased by pumping out VIT. Also, the Firm Conviction trait reduced physical damage for around 80% while casting spells and lasted a few seconds, essentially making Thaumaturges the best tankers in the game as all they needed to do was spam cure (which also generated insane hate) to keep receiving drastically reduced damage WHILE healing themselfs. Then, said abilities were nerfed.....only it wasn't enough. Damage over time spells (Thaumaturges' main offensive abilities) completely ignore all defenses when applied, which means that unlike everything else in the game, their damage potential is not reduced when fightning stronger enemies or notorious monsters, making these spells the main damage source on these fights. The Shadowsear spell also ignores defense, allowing a Thaumaturge to deal 1.000+ damage in seconds if combined with Chainspell for a double casting. Not to mention Thaumaturges are better than Conjurers when using conjury abilities because of their superior Area-of-effect range, to the point the whole community pretty much agrees that the only reason to level Conjurer to 50 is to use its spells as a Thaumaturge. Did I mention that the 'best' conjurer ability, Chainspell is not class-locked while Shadowsear is Thaumaturge-only?

** Unyielding Blade can hit enemies without the specific equipment in the remakes (which means not even monsters are safe) and while She isn't Orlandu Meliadoul still hits pretty damn hard with her skillset. By default she actually hits harder than Agrias.

* The Paladin/Parivir/Geomancy combo. You get the best weapon and Geomancy makes your ElementalPowers do double damage against ''everything'' that isn't strong against all of them. You can also inflict the best status effects in the game on top of it all.
* Make a pair of Illusionists, which hit every enemy on screen with a magic spell, with Magic Frenzy, which pairs any magic used with a physical attack. It takes some preparation, but get those two set up and you essentially win forever.

* Then there's Blood Price Summoners. This allows you to break the game's MP accumulation curve, throwing out devastatingly powerful summon magic from turn one, at the cost of the caster's HP. These guys have healing spells that restore more than they cost. See if you can spot the exploit.\\
Alternatively, equip a robe that allows you to absorb Holy, and proceed to spam your strongest summon every turn. As long as you hit yourself with it, you'll heal yourself for massive HP every turn, AND damage enemies. Needless to say, entire teams have been made that are based around elemental absorption.\\
You can then take this even farther by having one ability be Summoning and the other Red Magic, which includes Dual Cast. So you can then do all of that ''twice a turn''.

* The Bangaa Cannoneer happens to have an ability to assist in any MP-heavy skills, the Ether Shell - an ability that allows the user to replenish the target's MP at no cost. Not much on its own, but add to one of the above... and even in this game, set one up with a Fusilier that's equipped Onslaught and mastered Ultima Sword, and every time that Moogle acts, someone is checking out.

* You can equip an accessory called Brutal that raises the maximum damage you can do to 99999. If you then use the Costly Punch materia, you will do 99999 damage with it. All for the low cost of a tiny bit of HP...[[/folder]]

* The SAW weapon in ''FinalFantasy Legend'' (actually a ''{{SaGa}}'' game renamed for the American market) was supposed to have a chance of automatically killing the target if the user's strength was higher than the defender's defense, which is how it works in the sequel. Unfortunately, there was a programming mix-up between ">" and "<", making it so the SAW only worked if the attacker was ''weaker''. This lead to an unfortunate end to the final boss.

** You don't even ''need'' the Celestial Weapons(which is good, because trying to get the crests or sigils for some of them will make you want to hurt people). In the calm lands, they sell weapons and armor with three empty slots(they have four slots, but one is always occupied, for some reason). Just by grinding for money, you can easily create weapons that will [[LudicrousGibs liquify]] any enemy you come across, and armor that will turn you into [[ImplacableMan walking super-tanks]].

** The risk of leaving characters at low HP is easily offset by another absurdly simple junction setup: set Squall with the Cover and Counter abilities and junction 100 Drain spells to Status-Attack-J. Leave the other two party members' HP as low as you like; Squall will take the hits for them and immediately counterattack, replenishing his own HP with every hit.

* The creation skills (card <-> item <-> magic) could be used to essentially create tons of magic to junction to your stats and increase them, while not really forcing you to fight very much, to keep your official level (and your enemies' adjusted level) down. It could also help you get the materials for the InfinityPlusOneSword on the first disk if you're willing to grind for them.
* [[LimitBreak At low HP]] Selphie could cast a spell called "The End" that killed anything, even the Bonus Boss and the Final Boss. It's part of a slot-machine mechanic, but this mechanic allows infinite rerolls as long as you've got the patience...
** It actually gets even more broken than that by exploiting the way the game operates. By combining various minor flaws in the way the game was programmed, you can "freeze" a battle by making it unable to perform the next character's action, meaning you can play the roulette as long as it takes to get The End with no penalty (like the enemies still attacking you). Since limit breaks take highest priority for being executed, once you find The End, you can "unfreeze" the battle and have Selphie finish the battle immediately.
* And, frequently hitting Triangle on a low-HP or Aura affected member would eventually bring up the limit break. Combine this with Zell's easy-to-execute moves (up-down and left-right) and the Meltdown spell, which worked on any enemy and reduced their defense to 0, and it's possible to deal over ''750,000'' damage in a single, uninterruptable chain of game breakage.
** Just use Zell's Desperation attack, and hope you get 15 seconds. Then just use the combo moves "Beat Rush" and "Booya" over and over again until the time is up. Zell can pretty much destroy ''anything'' with this combination if his strength is high enough and your finger speed is fast enough. Even the FinalBoss and the BonusBoss [[spoiler: Omega Weapon]] can be defeated easily using this method enough times.
* There are items that temporarily make you invincible, and they come in two distinctive flavors: One turns a character invincible, the other does this to the whole PARTY. Even better, through the MiniGame, you can get cards that make 100 each. More than enough for the whole endgame part of the game, including the BonusBoss.
** Another interesting note comes from two temporary party members, namely Seifer and Edea. Knock out your other two characters and use these two, while they're with you, to level your GF's. If you're willing to grind that much (each level IS only 1000 exp), you can have three level 99 GF's and many high level spells like Firaga before you're finished the Dollet Mission. All without raising your average party level even once, because once Seifer and Edea leave their levels are no longer factored in. After that, the game becomes a cakewalk.
* You can also abuse the game's infinite money loop and ItemCrafting in order to max your character's stats out. It takes an unbelievable amount of tedious menu navigation to do so, though.
* If you make sure that the only offensive magic in Rinoa's list is Meteor, her Angel Wing limit break becomes ridiculous, especially when combined with speed exploits. In short, it spams Meteor. [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill Incessantly.]]
* On Disk 4, fly to the Island Of Heaven and the Island Of Hell, equip the "No Encouter" ability on someone in your party, and keep drawing magic from the hidden draw points. It takes a while to recharge after each draw, but after a while you'll be able to give each member of your party 100 of the best magic spells in the game like Meteor, Flare, and Ultima to junction however you want to raise your stats to ''godly'' levels.
** The fun doesn't stop there. Junction 100 Ultima spells to your magic defense, and you will be immune to '''all''' elemental magic, which means that only high level magic like Meteor, Flare, and Ultima can hurt you. This makes the final dungeon considerably easier, especially since 7 out of the 8 bosses use regular elemental magic, and are weakened substantially because of it. The other boss has non-elemental magic, but has low enough HP to defeat it before it can really damage you if you maxed out everyone's high level magic with the trick described above and junctioned those spells to your stats to make everything go quicker.
* Squall + [[InfinityPlusOneSword Lionheart]] + 100 Hastes junctioned to Speed + Aura + Haste = absolute carnage.
* Maximize your friendship with the Final Summon Eden so you can use it in a couple of seconds and watch it break the damage limit for around 40,000+ points to all enemies.

* This is more of a general example, but once you pick up the InfinityPlusOneSword in any of the games (except possibly [[FinalFantasyXIII XIII]]), get ready to [[CurbStompBattle curbstomp]] ''everything''.

** ''FinalFantasyXII'' also has this due to limitations of the Playstation2. When several actions are in queue, spells and abilities that are low in graphic intensity are all triggered at the same time while more powerful abilities in the same queue have to wait until all current actions are completed. When a powerful ability that is graphically intense like Holy or Scathe are used, all other actions in the queue are put on hold until the animation is done. However, regular attacks are not restricted by this rule so enemies and allies alike are free to pound each other while the powerful spell is being cast. This can be frustrating when your powerful spells go off and the enemy wails on you with its melee attacks, but it can also work to your advantage if you do it right yourself to force enemies to wait for their spells or abilities to go off.
*** Similarly, most enemies and bosses have "Charge time=0" as their passive ability when their HP gets low. This allows them to use attacks and abilities without having to wait for the charge to fill up. This works against you if you play with the battle speed on slow since the enemy can keep attacking as fast as its animations allow it. By putting the battle speed to fast, you can get in more hits in this situation while the enemy is restricted to attacking as fast as its animations allow.

** Used with Limit Breaks results in infinite limit breaks every turn. Omnislashing Omnislash anybody?
*** Actually, Mime can't mimic another person's LimitBreak. [[MissedMomentOfAwesome Despite how awesome it would be if it could happed, the game will tell you that it's not possible if you try to do it.]]

** White Wind, which can also be obtained really early in the game, is basically all of the healing materia in the game mashed together for ''less MP'' than any one of its weaker cousins.

** You don't even ''need'' the Celestial Weapons(which is good, because trying to get the crests or sigils for some of them will make you want to rape baby Jesus). In the calm lands, they sell weapons and armor with three empty slots(they have four slots, but one is always occupied, for some reason). Just by grinding for money, you can easily create weapons that will [[LudicrousGibs liquify]] any enemy you come across, and armor that will turn you into [[ImplacableMan walking super-tanks]].

* Once you beat the boss at Oerba, you are allowed the ability to learn {{Limit Break}}s, of which each character gets a single one. [[StaffChick Vanille's]] is a variation of the spell Death, in which it deals big damage to everything on screen and had a 1% chance to kill opponents, increasing by 1% for each debuff on the enemy and increasing even further on staggered enemies. Players quickly discovered a method of powerleveling that does not involve running across the world map for hours: Find an [[GiantMook Adamantoise]], make everyone a [[StandardStatusEffect Saboteur]], summon Vani's Eidolon (which puts the mook into a paralysis state for about six turns), and then spam the LimitBreak until the 1% kicks in and it dies. 40000 CP to use for leveling in about two minutes of work, and double that if you got some special equipment from a BonusBoss. And the easiest way to kill said BonusBoss? You guessed it.

** To add insult to the injury, there's a little ability called "Emulate", which allows Thaumaturges to copy enemies' elemental resistances...and a good deal of the monsters in the game are resistant to the same element their regular attack is based. The result? Thaumaturges are the only class able to solo all notorious monsters currently in the game, except for Uraeus. [[http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/rc/diary/entry?e=175663 Probably, not for long]]. Expect merciless nerfing as soon as the battle system revamping kicks in.

** The ''Osmose'' spell can also be considered a game breaker. It's easy to level up, drains humongous amounts of MP from your foe, and never fails (not even on the final boss). One single ''Osmose'' spell and the final boss is completely drained of MP, leaving him only physical attacks. If you have one PC on the front row with 99% evasion, you are effectively completely invulnerable and you might as well just keep the X button pressed and wait for the boss to die.[[/folder]]

** In the GBA version, Abel's Lance. This weapon has a chance of casting [[HPToOne Tornado]] whenever Kain attacks with it equipped, which would normally be AwesomeButImpractical since with most common enemies you'll save maybe one hit. The problem is that ''it bypasses immunity''. On '''anything'''. Can you say "[[FinalBoss Zeromus]] dies in 2 hits"?