Final Fantasy VI enemy formations

List of enemy encounters found within the data of Final Fantasy VI.

There are up to 575 encounters for the SNES and PlayStation versions, and up to 644 in the GBA and Android/iOS versions (which retain the encounter data from the previous versions exactly, with nothing overwritten), but many of these encounters are dummied. Enemy encounters have various flags assigned to them: musical theme (or lack thereof), introduction of enemies at the beginning of the battle, encounter type flags (determining the possibility of normal, back, surrounded or side attacks), special event flags (determining various effects usually for cutscenes), and other configuration flags (such as hiding messages at the start of the battle). Each encounter must have one enemy, though that enemy name is at times blank. In most cases, the unnamed enemy will have the generic Guard sprite, suggesting it is the default enemy sprite. The location of the encounter is not coded into the encounters themselves.

List of formations
Lists all enemy formations and flags. Enemies appearing in italics do not appear at the beginning of the battle, but are nonetheless coded into the enemy formation. Locations are not coded into the formation data. Special event and other flags will appear below information where valid.

Dummied content
Gau cannot Leap when he's alone, and if the player tries to do this, the miss graphic will appear on the enemy while a message will appear at the top stating "Can't dive!!" (SNES) or "Can't leap!" (GBA). But there's an unused bit that is associated with enemy formation which can affect the Leap command as well. If this bit is activated on a enemy formation, when Gau tries to leap a enemy from that specific formation, he will fail regardless of how many party members are currently present. This was likely intended for enemy formations containing enemies that had no Rages, like the Proto Armors.

When a battle starts, enemies are introduced in numerous ways before the fighting begins; some come out of the water, while others drop down from the sky. But there are three introductions that go unused, and they work if hacked into the game. The first is the enemies coming down from the sky while swirling down. This one looks like it would have been intended for flying or bird-related enemies. The second one has the enemy's sprite blink in and out until it eventually appears in solid form, possibly for ghost-related enemies. The third one has the enemies appearing in a puff of smoke, possibly for ninja-related enemies. A fourth introduction also exists; this one renders the enemy or enemies completely invincible. The enemies in this formation will have their sprite blank out just like if they were under the Invisible status, and the party will not be able to target them.

A number of unused enemy formations exist, including eleven blank ones. Some of the enemies are too big to correctly fit in the screen without clashing with other sprites and appear as glitchy graphical errors. Other formations have enemy placement that looks a little odd, and others looks fine. Unused enemies such as the alternative Umaro, Kaiser Dragon, and Giant.

Gallery

 * GBA

Trivia

 * Encounter 392 in the Android/iOS release is expected to actually be Ifrit, rather than Unnamed esper like in most versions. This is because the unnamed esper still has an unused sprite, presumably for the other dummied encounter with unnamed esper.
 * The eight legendary dragons appear three times in the GBA and Android/iOS releases, but the second is redundant. The second time each of the eight dragons appear in formation data is dummied, presumably from scrapped plans for what would become Dragons' Den, leftover from the SNES release which went unfinished. Similarly, Kaiser Dragon appears twice, firstly his dummied appearance, and secondly his final appearance.
 * While there are many clearly dummied enemy encounters, 575 in particular is curious. It is a Tonberries in the top-left of the screen for seemingly no reason.
 * The battle themes of these encounters are overridden, with the exception of Kaiser Dragon, in the Soul Shrine.