Dark Elf (Final Fantasy IV)



The Dark Elf is a boss in Final Fantasy IV. He bears a strong resemblance to the Dark Elf Astos from the original Final Fantasy. In some versions of the game, the boss is susceptible to the Second Form Glitch.

Final Fantasy IV
The Dark Elf stole the Crystal from Troia, and took it into his lair in the Lodestone Cavern. Cecil's party decide to return it, so they can trade it to Golbez. The Magnetic Cave has a powerful magnetic field inside - meaning no metal equipment can be used.

The party make it to the cave, but the power of the Dark Elf is monstrous. Edward uses his harp through the Whisperweed to disband the magnetic field and gives the party a chance to equip their weapons and fight back.

In the SNES version the Dark Elf has an odd speech pattern that causes him to speak in a repetitive manner and shout all his dialogue. In the J2e retranslation, the Dark Elf still shouts, and also speaks in broken English. The Advance version has slightly less strange mannerisms, but still tends to emphasize random parts of sentences (e.g. "I comMEND you for your efFORts"). By the Nintendo DS version the Dark Elf speaks in a normal fashion.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
The spirit of the Dark Elf still resides in the Crystal Chamber of the Lodestone Cavern. It attacks Palom and Leonora when they enter the chamber to escape the Mysterious Girl. They engage in a fight. When he transforms into a dragon, he resists their magic. The Mysterious Girl then enters the room and destroys him with the Eidolon, Shiva.

Strategy
The Dark Elf follows a simple pattern of triple-casting Fira, Thundara, and Blizzara for low damage, casting Tornado to lower one character's health into the single digits, and finally using Hex to turn one character into a pig. The player should have Tellah heal both the characters in Critical and in Pig, while Yang should use Focus, Cid and Cecil simply attack, and Tellah should use a level three spell when he is not healing a character. Soon, the Dark Elf then turns into a Dark Dragon to defeat them, and the real boss battle starts.

Nintendo DS
The overall strategy in the DS version is much the same, although there is one big difference - the Dark Elf will now cast his Fira, Thundara, and Blizzara spells individually, and they are capable of causing serious damage to your party. However, hitting the Dark Elf with Silence should remove any threat that he poses, and after that all you need to worry about is keeping your HP up for when the Dark Dragon arrives.

If the player has Tellah cast Reflect on the party, the attacks will simply bounce back onto the Dark Elf. After a few turns of this, the game moves to the cutscene assuming the party has been defeated.

Related Enemies

 * Dark Dragon

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years

 * Dark Elf
 * Dark Dragon