Meteor (Final Fantasy IV)



Meteor is a powerful spell in Final Fantasy IV. The ultimate Black Magic, it bombards the enemy with small meteors and can do massive damage. However, it requires significant vitality and power to cast and can easily backlash and kill the caster. In the original localization for the SNES and the PlayStation, it was named Meteo.

Story
The party first learns of Meteor from Tellah. Wishing to avenge his daughter Anna, he seeks Meteor to kill Golbez. Tellah thus is searching for Meteor on Mount Ordeals where he encounters Cecil Harvey. The young mages Palom and Porom warn Tellah Meteor is too dangerous in his old age, but Tellah does not listen. At the summit, Kluya's spirit restores Tellah's memories, granting him all the spells he has forgotten, and also teaching him Meteor. When the party return to Mysidia, the Elder of Mysidia warns Tellah against Meteor, and implies the spell had been sealed away for some time for being too dangerous. However, Tellah still does not listen.

Some time later in the Tower of Zot, Tellah claims his chance at revenge. Assailing Golbez with the strongest spells he knows to no avail, Tellah finally casts Meteor. The spell weakens Golbez, forcing him to flee and shatters his telepathic control of Kain Highwind. However, the effort to cast Meteor drains what is left of Tellah's life force, and he perishes soon after.

In the game's final scenes, Golbez and Fusoya combine their powers to cast Twin Meteor (Wメテオ), originally titled W. Meteo in the SNES and PlayStation translations, on Zemus, killing him. When Zemus is reborn as Zeromus, Golbez and Fusoya use the normal Meteor spell on him to no effect, and Zeromus counters with his own Meteor spell and nearly kills them.

In Battle
In battle, Meteor costs 99 MP to cast and is therefore the most expensive spell in the game, apart from the Twincast option Ultima. However, it ignores magic defense and split damage, as well as Shell and Reflect. This overall makes it the most powerful offensive spell in the game (with a base power of 250 in the DS release, and 800 otherwise), although in the Nintendo DS release Ultima is stronger. When Tellah acquires the spell, he only has 90 MP and cannot gain more normally, although in some releases items and Augments can be used to increase his MP.

Rydia learns Meteor at Level 60 (Level 80 in the Nintendo DS release). Fusoya knows every spell in the game, including Meteor, and has 190 MP and thus can cast it easily. Palom also learns Meteor at Level 50 (55 in the DS release). By equipping Palom and Porom with the Twin Stars, there is a chance their Twin command will cast Twin Meteor, which has higher power than Meteor and does not consume MP. However, they are only able to do this in the Advance and Complete Collection releases.

Although the Twin Meteor spell originally appeared as a normal Meteor spell with a different name, in the Nintendo DS release it has slightly different graphics and breaks the damage limit to do 99,999 damage to Zemus.

Zeromus will cast Meteor during the final battle when at critical health (as his first attack when below 30,000 HP and every third turn thereafter in the DS version, and every other turn when below 12,000 HP in all other versions).

In the Nintendo DS release, Meteor is non-elemental. In all other releases, it is Holy-elemental.

Dissidia Final Fantasy & Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy
Golbez uses Twin Meteor as part of his EX Burst when all of the commands are input correctly.