Penance (Final Fantasy X)

Penance is the name of an exceedingly powerful optional boss found only in the PAL and International versions of Final Fantasy X, located in the Calm Lands but fought on the deck of the Airship. It is a machina that is released after the ten Dark Aeons, who are also powerful optional bosses, are all defeated. It boasts 12,000,000 HP, high stats, elemental absorptions and powerful attacks, making it what might be considered the most dangerous boss in the game. It is accompanied by its two arms in combat which are able to act independently with similarly powerful abilities, with 500,000 HP each. The arms also regenerate a few rounds after defeat. Depleting this boss' hit points can take around one full hour.

Strategy
Like many bosses, Penance has 2 stages, with the second starting after he loses 3 million HP. In the first stage his main attack will be Obliteration, which is a group physical attack that causes Slow. With maximum defense points and by using Protect and other defenses, the damage can be reduced to a mere 6,000 HP, and Slow can be protected against with Auto-Haste. In the second stage Penance will begin using Immolation, which is a single-target physical attack that also drains all the MP from the victim and causes Armor Break. The damage can be reduced to about 4500 using various protections, however the Armour Break cannot be blocked.

Penance's ultimate attack is Judgment Day, which hits all party members for 99,999 HP and 9,999 MP. Penance requires both his arms active to be able to perform this move, so keeping them out of the battle is important. Unlike Dark Yojimbo's Zanmato it will not cancel Auto-Life, however the arms will get turns after reviving and are likely to finish you off before you get a chance to move. There is actually a secret counter for Judgement Day. He uses it when the counter reaches 19. The counter increases by one every time you inflict damage on him, and by one every time he uses Immolation.

Penance himself is in constant Auto-Protect status while in the first form, and with his high defences ordinary weapons will barely make a dent. Only the Celestial Weapons, which ignore all defenses, will be useful against him. Penance gains Haste upon entering the second form, but this is not Auto-Haste, you can dispel it.

The arms will do most of the damage during the battle. Both have very powerful physical attacks, with the right arm able to Petrify and instantly shatter one character, and the left will Dispel any positive statuses. The right arm will use Calamity which causes Poison, Silence, Darkness, Curse, and Full Break. The left arm uses Slowga, and also Tera-Graviton, which causes Darkness, Silence, Sleep, Doom, and a Demi that will remove 75% of the character's maximum HP which can kill the target. It is possible, however, to prevent the arms from ever getting a turn.

The arms will drop Dark Matter after each defeat, and even if the battle is fled from it will still be received, making it sometimes more useful to farm Penance for the valuable items.

Toughest Boss?
As mentioned above, Penance is quite possibly one of the toughest enemies in all of the series, however like all other super-strong optional foes (the WEAPONS for example), Penance really only exists to challenge the player. With a lot of forethought and strategy, he can be killed, rather easily if a strict pattern is followed, though the length of the battle still makes it quite tedious.

However, despite all his power and might, like every enemy Penance can be felled instantly by the auto-kill Zanmato attack used by the Aeon Yojimbo.

Trivia
In the Japanese, French, Italian and German versions of the game, Penance was known as Der Richter, which translates from German as "The Judge", fitting as it is considered the 'last resort' of Yevon's attempt to subdue Yuna and her guardians for good, what with the Dark Aeons having failed.

Richter (FFX)