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Infinity Minus One Sword / Final Fantasy

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  • In the original Final Fantasy, at least in the PS, WSC, and Pixel Remaster versions that aren't afflicted with bugs, it is better to keep the Knight class equipped with the Excalibur instead of the Masamune due to the former's damage bonus to every enemy type in the game making it the stronger weapon in practice. This frees up the Masamune for a weaker damage dealer like the Ninja or Red Wizard, or to make the White Wizard a half-decent attacker.
  • Final Fantasy II has an ultimate weapon for each weapon type, with the Masamune and the character-exclusive weapons added in the remakes as the game's Infinity+1 Weapons. However, these pale in comparison to the Blood Sword, which deals 1/16th of the target’s max HP per hit and ironically is as easy to get as a -1 sword if you don’t accidentally pass them over.
  • The Eureka weapons in Final Fantasy III end up becoming these in the 3D versions of the game, since the Infinity +1 Weapons all require a visit to the Legendary Smith and reaching Job Level 99 for the jobs they're associated with.
  • Final Fantasy IV:
    • There's the Excalibur. It isn't too hard to get—you need to visit a blacksmith in a very easy to reach location, he needs Adamantite, also obtained from an easy to reach location. The single catch is you have to trade a Rat Tail for it, which isn't a problem because it's in an optional area you're likely to visit anyway (the area provides access to two good Summons) and the chest holding it is right out in the open at the entrance. Cecil's ultimate weapon Ragnarok is found deep in the final dungeon only accessible via an invisible pathway, guarded by a strong optional boss, while Excalibur can be gotten before you attempt said dungeon.
    • Ragnarok itself becomes this in GBA/PSP and DS versions. In the former, there is Lightbringer that is much stronger and randomly casts Holy on attack, but is available only after beating Final Boss and requires hellish Bonus Dungeon to get through. DS version has Onion Sword, which grows with user's level and for maxed out character upstages any weapon in the game, but you have to get Red Tail from Red Dragon that is found only in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon with absolutely abysmal drop rate of 0.4%. At least you can buy Sirens to get automatically into fight with them, but still.
    • This applies to all weapons for all characters in the game. The ultimate weapons are locked in final dungeon behind optional fights, while their slightly weaker variants are much easier to come by, notably Kain gets his Gungnir spear automatically when he joins you before going to the final dungeon. GBA/PSP versions then get the "Ragnarok demotion" treatment by adding stronger weapons that you can get only when you kill the Final Boss.
  • In Final Fantasy V there are the twelve legendary Weapons Of Plot Advancement. Only three of the twelve are actually the strongest weapons of their type in the original game, and in the Advance remake there are many weapons better. In the literal sword category there's the Excalibur again—the actual strongest sword (not counting the two in the Advance bonus dungeons), the Ragnarok, is obtained in an area roughly three screens before the final boss, and is guarded by Shinryu, a Superboss famous for being incredibly difficult to defeat if you try and face him in a head-on battle of attrition.
    • But if you choose to never run away throughout the entire game, you can pick up the Brave Blade for free with no necessary fights as soon as World 3 becomes explorable (in other words, before you can even get the Excalibur). At max power, the Brave Blade has 150 Strength, stronger than even the Ragnarok. The only thing that beats it is the Ultima Weapon, which can only be obtained by killing Neo Shinryu at the end of the remake's tedious postgame bonus dungeon.
    • Alternately, you can run away a bunch and pick up the Chicken Knife. It's as powerful as the Brave Blade, does more damage, and since it's a knife, can be wielded by a larger variety of classes. However, as a trade-off, it has a 25% chance of causing the party to attempt to flee instead of attacking. However, this is only if you use the standard Attack option. The Ranger class in particular has the 4x-Attack action that negates the effect and does four slightly-weaker attacks, essentially turning the Chicken Knife from an Infinity -1 Sword into an Infinity +1 Sword.
  • Final Fantasy VI:
    • There's the Enhancer. Its attack power is only average, but it gives +7 magic power, the highest stat boost to magic power of any equipment piece in the game—even the ultimate weapons in the bonus dungeon in the Advance release don't give more than that. The Enhancer also gives +20% Magic Block, so with a Genji Glove and two Enhancers, your magic power is +14 and you have roughly a 33% chance to block any blockable magic attack. And if you're playing the SNES version, where evasion of physical attacks is mistakenly tied to the Magic Evade stat, the Enhancer can help make some characters nearly invulnerable. And to top it off, the Enhancer is buyable in a normal town and is actually pretty cheap.
    • For Edgar and Mog, the Holy Lance. High power, boosts magic, randomly casts Holy, and only outperformed by spears acquired in the final dungeon and bonus dungeon.
    • There's also the Infinity Minus One Hat, the Circlet. Its defensive stats are only a few points lower than the top-grade helmets, but it gives a boost to all other stats, is buyable and is very cheap, and everyone can equip it.
    • Locke's Valiant Knife is not the strongest knife in any version of the game, but its ability to ignore defense and increase in damage the lower Locke's HP is, a bonus which ignores the damage penalty from the Offering/Master's Scroll's, makes it more useful than any of the knives that are stronger on paper.
    • The Game Boy Advance version introduced several new Infinity-1 weapons while turning some former Infinity+1 weapons into Infinity-1 weapons.
      • Terra's Apocalypse and Celes' Save the Queen are essentially weaker versions of the Lightbringer.
      • Edgar's Longinus and Mog's Gungir lose out to the classic Radiant Lance since, in spite of being stronger, they don't have the bonus to jump damage usually given to spears, although the Gungir is a true ultimate weapon if Mog is used as a mage.
      • Sabin's Godhand loses out to his old Tiger Claws since the former give no bonus to magic power, and therefore does nothing to improve Sabin's best Blitzes.
      • Strago's Stardust Rod, Relm's Angel Brush, and Gogo's Scorpion's Tail have much less useful bonuses than the classic Magus Rod. An argument can be made for the Angel Brush's speed boost being more useful, but it's obtained so late that Relm will still be using a Magus Rod in the interim.
    • The Mutsunokami and the Excalibur are Infinity Plus One Swords on paper, since you get them from beating two of the last three bosses before Kefka right at the end of the game. They become Infinity Minus One Swords if you're playing the Advance remake. The Mutsunokami's high attack power and great Evasion bonus make it Cyan's weapon of choice through the Dragon's Den until you get the Zanmato. If you chose the Ragnarok Esper instead of the Ragnarok sword, the Excalibur's stat boosts and high attack power make it one of Celes or Terra's best weapons until they get the Apocalypse and the Save The Queen.
  • Pretty much all of Final Fantasy VII's ultimate weapons have some sort of limiter that makes them less than ideal choices, primarily that they have zero Materia growth. Thus you're more likely to equip those mid-game Double growth weapons, rare Triple growth weapons, or weak 8-slot normal growth weapons for a fair chunk of the game if you ever want to level up your Materia at a reasonable pace (or at all). The Infinity Minus One Swords tend to be those one or two weapons with high attack power and normal materia growth that you can use until you're ready to switch over to the ultimate ones-Vincent's Outsider/SuperShot ST, Tifa's God Hand, Barret's Max Ray, Yuffie's Oritsuru, Nanaki's Behemoth Horn/Spriggan Clip, Cait Sith's Starlight Phone, Cid's Spirit Lance/Flayer, and Cloud's Ragnarok.
    • In Final Fantasy VII Remake, the Twin Stinger will likely start out as a straight upgrade to the Buster Sword in terms of being a balanced build weapon. It's stats will be equal to stronger than the Buster Sword and it'll have more materia to work with. However, once you enter Hard Mode and start getting more skill books, the Buster Sword will overtake the Twin Stinger in overall power, making it firmly the Jack of All Stats option, while the Twin Stinger will fall into the specific niche of being for support-y builds that still have some power to work with due to it's passives.
  • Final Fantasy IX:
    • Steiner's Ragnarok sword. His "best" weapon, Excalibur 2, is difficult to obtain to the point of being a Bragging Rights Reward—it is found only in one single spot in the final dungeon, but only if you can get there in under twelve hours. This means a lot of missed content and rushing through the entire game for a weapon that is simply not worth the hassle. If you play the game normally, the Ragnarok will be the most powerful sword you can get for Steiner, making it his real Infinity +1 Sword.
    • Zidane has The Tower and the Masamune, if for some reason you skipped the chocobo hot and cold sidequest, both of which have debatably better Soul Blade abilities and decent attack stats.
    • Steiner's Excalibur sword is something of an Infinity Minus Two sword, if such a thing exists. In terms of stats, it's third-best overall, but as noted above the Ragnarok is Steiner's true Infinity +1 Sword. If you skipped out on Chocobo Hot and Cold and didn't get the Ragnarok, you can obtain the Excalibur with enough gil, a Chain of Deals and a Fetch Quest. The Excalibur is an excellent weapon on its own, is Steiner's real Infinity -1 Sword, and teaches a very good ability in Climhazzard. Shock, the ability Steiner gets from the Ragnarok, is quite frankly overkill in most situations, and since the damage cap doesn't go past 9999 and Shock will do that to almost any enemy unless Steiner is horribly underleveled, the only benefit Excalibur 2 would give him is maybe saving some MP in the long run, which isn't an issue by the time you have access to Shock. The Excalibur can also have its regular attack boosted by equipment that powers up the Holy element, pushing its attack power above the Ragnarok and even Zidane's Ultima Weapon.
    • Freya's Holy Lance is similar to the Excalibur in that it is only her third best weapon on paper, but can be improved by using it alongside armor or accessories that power up the Holy element, making it stronger than her intended ultimate weapon. However, this does not apply to Freya's Jump attack or Dragon skills. It's also store-bought instead of requiring the player to search for a crack in a mountain for their chocobo to dig into.
    • Amarant is another character whose third strongest weapon, the Kaiser Knuckles, can end up stronger than his nominal best weapon because it is elemental, in this case by powering up the Wind element. The Kaiser Knuckles can also be obtained much earlier as part of the Chocobo Hot-and-Cold sidequest, while the Rune Knuckles can be obtained partway through the final dungeon. Like the Excalibur, the Kaiser Knuckles end up even stronger than the Ultima weapon this way. Unfortunately this does not apply to Amarant's No Mercy ability.
  • Final Fantasy X:
    • The Brotherhood - you get it early in the game, and at that point it has only one effect (Strength +5%). However, when you reach Guadosalam and visit the Farplane, it gets an upgrade, gaining a total of four effects (Strength +5%, Strength +10%, Sensor and Waterstrike). These effects are are nothing to scoff at—if you want a stronger weapon for pure power you're looking at expending several rare items to customize Strength +20% onto a different weapon. Furthermore, due to Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors, water attacks are effective against lightning-elemental enemies, and you power up the Brotherhood just before you enter an area full of lightning enemies. The only drawback of the sword is that it heals enemies that absorb water attacks, but thanks to Sensor you'll be given advance warning of them.
    • In the first temple right at the beginning of the game, you can find a Rod of Wisdom. It has the abilities Magic +5%, Magic +3%, and Sensor. It is used by Yuna, a White Mage and Summoner who thus will be using a lot of magical abilities. Considering you don't get to customize weapons and armor until the midway mark of the game, and even then you need a lot of rare items to customize the better abilities, odds are this will be Yuna's best weapon for most of the game.
    • Also, once you get the airship, Wantz will sell a variety of weapons for each character. They are all at 100 000 gil (unless you lent some money to Oaka early on) and they don't have any auto-abilities whatsoever. However, they also have 4 empty slots. With some dedication, they will be on par with the Celestial Weapons. And you won't even have to catch butterflies, play chocobo minigames, dodge lightning or going all around Spira trying to catch fiends; so you may as well go with them.
    • An ability example is Half MP Cost. Although it's obviously outclassed by One MP Cost, it's also a lot easier to get hold of, and will serve your magic users just fine in the meantime.
    • With enough customization, it's arguably possible to create weapons that surpass the Celestial Weapons in certain aspects, such as doing more damage (e.g. by stacking Strength-boosting abilities). This is because the Celestial Weapons have various inbuilt abilities that aren't necessarily useful for what a player wants out of them (e.g. many have Double AP, which helps in Level Grinding but doesn't directly contribute to combat), but which also prevent them from being customized. The only ability that is unique to Celestial Weapons is their ability to ignore Defense with physical attacks (and only physical attacks, it doesn't apply to magic or Overdrives). On top of that, the Celestial Weapons have a little-known disadvantage in that as their wielders' HP (MP for Yuna and Lulu) decreases, their damage also decreases.note 
  • Final Fantasy XI has two main classes of Infinity -1 Sword nowadays, and an unfortunate demotion:
    • Ambuscade Pulse weapons lack the raw power of even unaugmented Aeonic or Relic/Empyrean/Mythic weaponsnote , but make up for it in versatility by being effective stat sticks, boosting the damage of their corresponding quested Weapon Skill, making said Weapon Skill available to jobs that wouldn't normally have access to it or characters that haven't gotten around to that quest yet, and being usable by a much wider range of jobs than the REMA options. What's more, aside from needing an older Pulse weapon to build the final stage, all the materials are easily obtained from running Ambuscade. Even players with a huge collection of ultimate weapons have been known to build these, and not just for the spiffy visual effect when they have one drawn.
    • Divergence/Superior 5 weapons are job-specific weapons that provide fairly generic benefits—albeit with damage, accuracy, and combat skill bonuses on-par with an ultimate—until augmented along one of three paths. Some are clearly and objectively far more useful than others, even fully augmented, and they can't be used until a character's achieved Mastery on the job in question...but on the flipside, some of them completely outclass the REMA option, either situationally or in general—and they can be bought right off the Auction House.
    • Relic weapons, once the best option in the game and extremely difficult to acquire, have been reduced to honorary Infinity -1 Swords by power creep—and only the best among them, like Excalibur and Kikoku, at that, with the rest not even qualifying for Penultimate Weapon status. They're almost trivial to obtain now; even a THF/DNC with nothing but a Sandung and Sparks gear—baby's first iLv equipment—will have a harder time competing with the bots for camps than dealing with any of the mobs. On top of that, progressing through the Rhapsodies of Vana'diel storyline eliminates the once-a-day restriction on entering Dynamis zones, making it possible for a no-lifer to bang out a Relic in a week or two—and bringing the price of Ancient Currency and Dynamis materials crashing down.
  • Final Fantasy XII:
    • The Orochi is acquired from the Bazaar by selling fairly common loot and is the second-strongest ninja sword by 8 attack points. The strongest ninja sword, the Yagyu Darkblade, is a very rare drop from the Bombshell, a powerful enemy deep in a dangerous optional dungeon, and besides the fact that there's a very slim chance it'll drop the weapon at all, there's only a 20% guarantee of the Bombshell itself appearing in the first place.
    • Final Fantasy XII has many Infinity Plus One Weapons, most of them hard to get, so it only follows that many players "make do" with others—the interesting thing is that some of them are, technically, Infinity Plus One Swords—for example, if the player cannot be bothered to go after the Zodiac Spear or the superior greatswords and katanas, there's always the top-tier hammer, the Scorpion Tail. Sure, it requires rare loot, yes—but from particular (relatively) weak enemies available very early in the storyline. Determined players can have it immediately after the first visit to Henne Mines, and it will remain useful throughout the entire main storyline. The best and second-best guns, Arcturus and Fomalhaut, are in a similar position. And even players who plan on getting and using the best weapons will often get these as well, to tide them over until the good stuff is unlockable.
    • This "making do" occurs because any character can equip any weapon (though this was changed in the Zodiac versions), and this technicality also does some very weird things with the Infinity +1 Sword designation. The Infinity +1 Sword is most definitely the Zodiac Spear - it has the strongest attack power in the game at 150. The second-strongest, the traditional Infinity -1 Sword, is the Tournesol, which has an attack power of 140. The problem is that the Infinity +1 Sword, if you know what chests to avoid, is relatively easy to get by the time you hit the Salikawood and available long before that. Meanwhile, getting the Tournesol is absolutely infuriating and can take well over six hours of item hunting. Geeze.
    • It also has this with its armor—the best stuff tends to be either one-of-a-kind from Guide Dang It! chests, ridiculously hard to get drops from Rare Game enemies, or both. Hence, gamers who can't or don't want to chain Helvinek for Grand Armor survive with the Maximilian, fill the empty slots left by only two possible Circlets with Golden Skullcaps, and so on and so forth. It doesn't hurt that the Maximilian is actually better in some ways: it has weaker defense and physical attack power than the Grand Armor, but it gives a large bonus to speed, making the Grand Armor something of a Penultimate Armor.
    • If you simply can't be bothered at all to grind for the materials needed to forge various weapons, or you're playing the game without a guide or FAQ of any kind and don't have the faintest idea what to look for to get the best stuff, it's entirely possible to complete the game with almost exclusively store-bought equipment.
  • Final Fantasy XIII also features a version of this in a more wide term, rather than a single weapon it applies to a rank of weapons. Overall, it's better to keep your weapon of choice in "Tier 2" rather then upgrading it to the ultimate one, as the ultimate ones not only require expensive materials with a absurdly low drop-rate (or extremely-high buy rate in a game where money is scarce), but also lose their ability to create Synthesized Skills with other equipment - and moverover, due to how battle rank and the ATB cost for the "ultimate" attacks are calculated, the higher attack and magic stats and additional ATB bar do not compensate for losing those. Even after players have the capability to make ultimate weapons for the whole party, they are still likely to use Tier 2 ones instead.
    • Final Fantasy XIII-2 does away with the upgrading system to go back to the more typical system of buying weapons or having Chocolina craft them. The "Ultimate" weapons of the game are more of a Bragging Rights Reward, as their stats are tied to how many Fragments you have collected. Players are more likely to use the weapons just underneath them which give useful bonuses, such as an extra ATB slot, a faster ATB charge rate, or an improved stagger rate.
    • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII has weapons with unique auto-abilities that can only be obtained from defeated bosses and Last Ones. Weapons like Chaos's Revenge and the Shard Blade/Flesh Render can be obtained early in the game by a skilled player and will carry them all the way to the Final Boss.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has weapons obtained from exchanging tomestone currency with a specific NPC. They are usually second best compared to weapons obtained from difficult raids or the more time consuming relics, which are the game's Infinity +1 Sword. Sometimes weapons made by crafters and putting a lot of materia on them can also serve as a suitable second best weapon.
  • Final Fantasy XV has the Ultima Blade, which normally would be the Infinity +1 Sword in any other Final Fantasy game. However, in XV the Ultima Blade is the ultimate form of the Engine Blade, which is Noctis's starting sword. Transforming it to Engine Blade II and III is easy, but transforming the latter into the Ultima Blade is anything but note  Once obtained however, the sword is the strongest one Noctis can use during the main questline, and combines big damage with a fast attack speed, making the grind worth it. It's technically not the game's Infinity +1 Sword though, as an even stronger blade - the Balmung - exists, which can only be obtained in the post-game. However, the latter's damage scales with how much MP you have remaining, so depending upon how much you use Noctis's Warp ability, it either will be your best sword... or worse than useless, leaving the Ultima Blade as your psuedo-Infinity +1 Sword.
  • Final Fantasy XVI has the Ragnarok, which is given to the player for completing Blackthorne's sidequest chain (unlocked with four main story missions to go), and the Defender +1 and +2, which can be crafted with materials purchasable in pretty much any shop upon returning from the second-to-last main story mission. All are very powerful and relatively easily obtained weapons which are only really surpassed by the Götterdämmerung, which needs materials acquired from several difficult sidequests and marks in the final stretch of the game.
  • The Excalibur in Final Fantasy Tactics. Not the most powerful sword when it comes to pure stats, but the fact that it automatically buffs the wielder with Haste means it was probably duplicated more than the stronger swords. Not to mention, it comes free when a certain character joins your party, whereas the other swords have to be caught from high-level ninjas in a specific area of the game's most difficult dungeon, or dug up from specific coordinates in the same dungeon with a character with low Brave.
  • Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and its following titles have this. The best weapons in the game require obscure and rare items that only might be dropped by bosses or uncommon and/or powerful mooks. You'll often stick with something a few steps short of best. In the later games, you may find yourself skipping on better head gear since it looks so tacky when combine with your latest armor.
    • With enough defensive artifacts, it pays for the player to get armor that resists status effects rather than get armor for sheer defensive bonuses.
  • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, everyone has a Level 100 Infinity +1 Sword that gives them unique status boosts reflective of their fighting style. However, several generic Level 99 weapons are better depending on your character build. For example, Excalibur II gives Exp +100% (a requirement weapon for Exp -> Brave builds), the Nirvana gives EX Mode Duration +40%, and the Stardust Rod and Ragnarok give +25% damage to magical/physical attacks.
    • The prequel turns the Lufenian equipment, a set of Infinity Plus One Equipment in the original game, into this in the Bonus Storyline. Once you rescue the mured moogle, Lufenian equipment can be farmed easily in treasure chests in several gateways, but aside from its stat boosts isn't that useful due to the effect tied to the equipment being split into two different ones from the first game, and odds are you won't get three matching pieces to trigger that effect in battle. However, the equipment bought in the shop is absurdly expensive, reaching into several hundred thousand gil when you total up the cost needed to trade for low level weapons to trade for better ones, etc, and the trade accessories needed for them are acquired from multi-floor gateways or require trading rare Elixir items to get one at a time.
  • Final Fantasy Legend III:
    • Oddly enough, the game forces you to get the Infinity +1 Sword, and puts another mystic sword right in your path, but you have to quest to find the other two. The #2 blade would be the Masmune, which is found as the Muramas in an optional area of a dungeon that constantly hurts you as you explore it, and then the sword misses every time you use it until uncursed by your party's smith back at your time-travelling stealth jet.
    • The most powerful weapon of all is the Nuke, which has 250 base power and hits all enemies. However, it's single-use, meaning that you have to buy lots of copies (which isn't cheap) and swap them in and out of characters' equipment slots, plus it has the Damage type and can therefore be subject to damage resistance. It's much simpler to just give everyone the Mystic Swords, which have power levels from 75 to 170 and only hit one target, but have infinite uses, ignore all damage resistance, and deal double damage against bosses.
    • The game also features spell synthesis: the best spell is Flare and requires two Fire Stones, but there are only 4. Combining a Fire Stone with any other stone gives you an elemental spell that's almost as good, but lets you get enough spells for everyone. The 'White' and 'Nuke' spells are also a step down, but cost less mana and can be bought with regular money.
  • Final Fantasy Adventure gives you a Rusty Sword that eventually unlocks its true power and is revealed to be the Excalbur (sic), the most powerful sword in the game. However, many players may choose to stick with the Star flail for most of their fights, which is decently powerful and much more versatile. The flail swings around and behind the player so you don't necessarily have to aim directly at your target — very useful when being mobbed — then shoots forward with longer range than a sword (unless you have fully charged your willpower and unleash the sword's special attack). It also breaks false walls, making it easy to test the dungeons as you travel through without constantly swapping weapons.

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