Cactuar (Final Fantasy VII)

The Cactuar is an enemy in Final Fantasy VII, found in the Corel Prison desert.

The Cactuar only uses a physical attack; it has but never uses its 1000 Needles attack, making it far less dangerous than the Cactuer. It is elusive, with a very high Evade and is immune to most elements; it tends to run away after three turns, leaving the player with nothing. Choco-Mog and Matra Magic are useful, being the only abilities the player has at this point in the game that are both magical and non-elemental. L4 Suicide will cause damage, but will not of course be able to kill a Cactuar outright as Matra Magic can, nor reduce its damage output, as the Cactuar is immune to the Small status. With few turns to complete the battle, and a relatively high chance for the Poison status to miss in any case, Bio is also less effective than the non-elemental spells.Grenade is also very effective.

When defeated, the Cactuar drops 10,000 gil, making it a very desirable enemy to fight. Its XP to AP ratios are the lowest in the game until the Goblin enemies after the Highwind is obtained; its XP to Gil ratios, until the Mover enemies of the Northern Crater. Low-level challenges usually eschew expensive materia, but the Cactuar makes them more accessible. The Cactuar's low encounter rate eats up a lot of time, making it less desirable for speed runs.

The Cactuar is quite rare, confined to this one desert area, and comprising only 1/8 of the encounters there; the other 7/8 being Land Worms. This desert can only be accessed during the prison event, and by driving the Buggy into the prison buildings at the base of Gold Saucer. In the latter case, the prison carriage will appear on the 10th screen as before, but return the player to their Buggy; the main prison enclosure and junkyard areas can not be accessed after the Buggy is obtained.

Related Enemies

 * Cactuer