Chaos (Final Fantasy)/Dissidia



Chaos is the main antagonist of Dissidia Final Fantasy. He is the god of destruction that opposes Cosmos, the goddess of harmony, both being equal in power. However, Chaos summons villains from other worlds to seize control of the Crystals, tipping the balance of power in his favor and setting the stage for the events of the game.

Chaos is voiced by Norio Wakamoto.

Appearance
Chaos' appearance is based on his original artwork by Yoshitaka Amano. He appears as a four-arm fiend in dark and red hues, with wings sprouting from his back and a demonic face with large horns. He also has an alternate form that can be changed to in battle, which is a palette swap based on the in-game sprite from the original Final Fantasy. In the opening FMV, he takes the form of a creature made of magma, emerging from the earth, in contrast to the cloudy form of Cosmos in the same cutscene.

Shade Impulse
After the ten Warriors of Cosmos retrieve the crystals, they return to Cosmos' Throne and attempt to use the Crystals to restore Cosmos' strength. However, Chaos himself appears and incinerates the goddess before the eyes of the heroes. With her final strength, Cosmos' spirit protects the heroes from fading back to their worlds, giving them one final chance to strike back at Chaos and end the war for good. With Chaos' defeat, the heroes manage to return to their homeworlds.

Battle
Chaos fights with relentless and powerful fire and earth-themed combos, and also attacks with brute force using his claws and tail to maximum effect. Using his powers and physique he can easily crush opponents with combos and his long and hard to evade HP attacks. His ultimate attack is "Final Fantasy", in which he grows to monstrous size and take hold of one of four giant swords surrounding the arena, attacking the player with it before taking hold of all four swords and slamming them into the sides of the arena, causing a burst of energy to erupt from the ground. There are places on the ground that do not glow with its energy, and are therefore safe to stand on when the attack is used. Chaos must be beaten three times in succession in any battle in order to be deemed defeated.

In addition to the above, there are several other unique factors to battling Chaos. He has access to the unique summon Shinryu, which can activate one of several random effects, such as that of Ifrit's, Alexander's, and other summons, all severely powerful. To compound matters, the Chaos' Throne arena is very small with practically no obstacles, and thus little room to avoid Chaos' attacks. Chaos has no EX Mode and thus, cannot utilize EX Cores or EX Force, though he can still pick them up to prevent the player from using them. However, "Final Fantasy" is roughly Chaos' equivalent of an EX Mode/Burst, as he tends to use it when he picks up an EX Core, and it is just as powerful as any EX Mode the playable characters can use, even if it is avoidable.

Music
Chaos has his own theme, with vocals, included in the game, titled Chaos. The band "Your Favorite Enemies" performs this song for the game.

Allusions

 * Chaos' ultimate attack, involving four swords that stab the arena, is a reference to the summon Chaos in the world of Ivalice, which itself is a reference to the original Chaos.
 * When the Warriors of Cosmos confront Chaos on his throne, he is sitting in the same pose as Yoshitaka Amano's original artwork of Chaos in Final Fantasy.

Trivia

 * Although Chaos' official artwork depicts him facing to the right, as the artwork of the other villains do, his logo artwork and in-game character icon face to the left, as the artwork of the heroes do.
 * He is the only character to be fought three times in succession.
 * Though he is not a playable character, Chaos can be played using hacks. There are a few problems with this though - Chaos has no victory pose, no EX Mode, while using him the opponent's HP bar will not appear, and when using his "Final Fantasy" attack in an arena other than Chaos' Throne, the camera angles will swing through and inside the arena floor and walls.