Instant Death

Instant Death refers to any attack that automatically kills its victim regardless of what HP they have remaining. Instant death attacks are recurrent throughout the series; several bosses, including final bosses, are known to use instant death moves and some summons, such as Odin and Yojimbo, can also kill instantly.

Some weapons have a chance of inflicting the instant death effect. The most common example is the recurring Assassin's Dagger. In Final Fantasy X, the Auto Abilities Deathtouch and Deathstrike can be manufactured onto a weapon, which gives it the opportunity to inflict instant death. In Final Fantasy VIII the player can include the instant death effect in physical attacks by junctioning 100 Death spells into status attack.

As with the use of curative and resurrective spells such as Raise, instant death's effect is often reversed for the undead. Using an instant death ability on the undead will heal it to full in the same way that using Raise would kill it, though there are some exceptions, such as the undead in Final Fantasy XII.

Instant death spells generally do not work on bosses, however, exceptions exist.

Final Fantasy VI
Due to the Vanish-Doom Bug, in the versions before the Advance remake the Clear status would remove the target's immunity to instant death, meaning even bosses could be easily defeated this way.

Final Fantasy VII
The player can also add the instant death element to a character's physical attacks by linking Destruct Materia with Status Effect Materia in the character's weapon. Equipping the pair in the character's armor will make him/her immune to instant death, instead.

Enemies can also be killed by a single hit if the player performs the Overflow Glitch with Vincent's or Barret's ultimate weapons.

Final Fantasy VIII
The player can add the instant death effect to physical attacks by junctioning 100 Death spells to a character's status attack.

Final Fantasy XII
All of Yiazmat's physical and rake attacks have 5% of inflicting instant death. In addition, Raise and Arise can cause Instant Death to undead enemies, Raise with 70% success rate, and Arise with 35%.

Final Fantasy Type-0
Kill sights cause Instant death to enemies when in battle with them. To initiate a kill sight the cursor has to be red when you attack.

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light
The player gains access to instant death moves with the Death spell, the Ranger's Smashing Blow (25% chance), Monk's Ghost Army and the Bandit's Deadly Blow attack. The Party Host's Pot Luck command has a random chance of executing Sudden Death that kills all opponents instantly.

Some of the tougher bosses use instant death attacks against the party, such as the Leviathan, that has a chance of instantly KOing a party member with its physical attacks.