Chicken Knife (Final Fantasy V)

The Chicken Knife is a unique weapon in Final Fantasy V, obtainable in Moore in the merged world. When maxed-out, it is not only the strongest knife in the game, but also the weapon with the highest damage output in most practical scenarios, due to the wielder's agility stat being factored in the damage formula.

Obtained[]

The Chicken Knife is found in Moore in the merged world. The player has to choose between it and the Brave Blade. The player must head to the left of the inn and go as far as possible, then go down to two barrels in a line next to a tree, then head in front of the barrels and descend into the small building and into the woods. The directions here are: down, right, down, left, up, right, down. On the last direction, the party freezes and the screen goes fuzzy before two boxes and an old man appear. He tells the player to pick a box, the options being the Brave Blade on his left, and the Chicken Knife on his right. In the SNES and PS versions both can be obtained via the item transformation bug.

If the player chooses either, the man turns into a skeleton and walks away while making chicken sounds. In the Japanese text he just has an unusual laugh.

Mechanics[]

Overview[]

The weapon's attack power scales with the number of escapes from battle, capping at 127 power at 254 escapes. When attacking with it, it has a 25% chance to activate its !Flee added ability, resulting in the party escaping, unless the fight cannot be escaped from, in which case the attack is essentially wasted. This can be prevented by using commands such as !RapidFire, !Mug, or !Aim, because only one ability per command can be activated at the same time (the auto-escape trait counts as the !Flee ability, and the ability from the command gets priority). Likewise, if the player equips the Chicken Knife in a character's left hand, and something like a Twin Lance in the same character's right hand, the escape effect can also be avoided even when using a simple physical attack, because !Attack itself is a command, and the always-occurring Twin Lance second attack counts as a special ability, and the order of attacks features the right hand first. This oversight was fixed in the Pixel Remaster version of the game.

At least in the Nintendo Switch Pixel Remaster, when using the Chicken Knife with !RapidFire, it always deals 20x its Attack bonus in damage if both the target and the user are in the front row, 10x Attack bonus if one is in the front and the other in the back row, or 5x when both are in the back row.

Compatibility[]

Being a knife, the Chicken Knife can be equipped by all jobs, with the exception of Monk, White Mage, and Oracle (in the Advance version).

Damage formula[]

The damage formula for the Chicken Knife is:

${\begin{array}{l}Damage=min(9999,max(0,(A-D))\times M)\\A=min(127,run\_count\ //\ 2)\\D=Def\\M=(Level\times Strength)\ //\ 128+(Level\times Agility)\ //\ 128+2\end{array}}$

where:

run_count is the number of times the party escaped from any battle.
// represents an integer division implemented as a n-bit right shift, where n is the binary logarithm of the divisor.
Def is the physical defense of the target.
Level is the level of the Chicken Knife wielder, capped at 99 (i.e., levels [100~255], achievable via !Mix or !Drink, still count as 99).
Strength is the strength of the Chicken Knife wielder, capped at 99.
Agility is the agility of the Chicken Knife wielder, capped at 99.

A level 99 wielder of a maxed-out Chicken Knife can get their strength and agility boosted to 99 by Power Song (Power Drink may not work, as it is bugged in some versions of the game), and Speed Song, respectively. In that case, the maximum damage of a physical attack against a target with 0 physical defense becomes 19558 (before the 9999 rescaling). With !RapidFire, the multiplier M is divided by 2 (via integer division, i.e., the result is rounded down). Therefore, the max damage of each of the 4 hits becomes 9779, irrespective of the target's physical defense, which is ignored by !RapidFire.

Bugs and glitches[]

Damage overflow[]

The !Dance ability triggers Sword Dance 25% of the time. Sword Dance is a physical attack that is up to four times stronger than a regular attack. As the maximum damage of a regular hit with the Chicken Knife is 19558, the theoretical maximum damage of a Sword Dance hit is 78232 (capped at 9999). However, due to an integer overflow that occurs before the 9999 cap is applied, only the value modulo 65536 counts. As such, if the uncapped damage is $\geq$ 65536, only the excess part of it will be considered, resulting in lower damage than expected. Unlike overflows in other games, most notably the damage overflow glitch in Final Fantasy VII, the Chicken Knife damage does not become negative, because the corresponding variable is treated as an unsigned integer. This bug exists in all versions of Final Fantasy V.

Level 255 + Hero Song overflow[]

Any character can have their level boosted to 255 for the duration of a battle by repeatedly applying the Dragon Power mix, among other methods. If a level 255 Chicken Knife wielder is exposed to the Hero Song, their nominal level will remain 255 throughout the battle (as confirmed by Scan), but the effective level used in the Chicken Knife's damage formula will overflow and restart from 1. As such, it is possible for a character with 99 strength and 99 agility to still deal low damage, by virtue of the effective level being low. Unlike overflows in other games the level does not become negative, because the corresponding variable is treated as an unsigned integer. This bug exists at least in the SNES, PS, and GBA versions of Final Fantasy V.

Berserker softlock[]

FFV_Berserk_Glitches — FFV Berserk Glitches

Main article: Berserker job glitch

In the SNES version, equipping the Chicken Knife on a Berserker can softlock the game. Normally, a party of four Berserkers cannot escape from battle. If a Berserker wielding the Chicken Knife attacks, and the auto-escape trait triggers, the party will not escape and any future damage becomes non-existent, making the battle unable to end.

The glitch was fixed in subsequent releases, starting from the PS version.

Agility bug[]

Item transformation[]

In the SNES and PS versions unlimited copies of the Chicken Knife can be obtained via the item transformation bug, by transforming Rising Suns. That makes it possible to own both a Brave Blade, and a Chicken Knife, if the player chooses the Brave Blade in Moore. If the player picks the Chicken Knife, the Brave Blade becomes unattainable, because it is not possible to get a Brave Blade via the item transformation bug. That is the case because the Soot, which is the only item that morphs into a Brave Blade, is not equippable, which violates a pre-condition for the item transformation. The Chicken Knife can be transformed into a Soot via the same bug. However, it is impossible to transform the resulting Soot into a Brave Blade, because items obtained via item transformation must be unequipped and re-equipped before they can be transformed again, and the Soot is unequippable.

Damage comparisons[]

Brave Blade[]

A maxed out Chicken Knife deals more damage than a maxed out Brave Blade in most scenarios. The damage formula for a maxed out Brave Blade is:

${\begin{array}{l}Damage=min(9999,max(0,(A-D))\times M)\\A=max(0,150-run\_count)\\D=Def\\M=(Level\times Strength)\ //\ 128+2\end{array}}$

Brave Blade misses out on the $(Level\times Agility)\ //\ 128$ bonus in the multiplier, but provides a +5 strength, only relevant if the wielder does not in-battle max-out the strength stat via Sinewy Etude. More often than not, the agility bonus in the Chicken Knife formula overpowers the +23 attack (i.e., 150 - 127), and the +5 strength of the Brave Blade. The only exceptions are when the physical defense of the target is very high (e.g. Omega or Prototype), and/or the agility of the wielder is very low. When using !RapidFire, which ignores the target's physical defense, a Chicken Knife wielder with moderate agility will always deal more damage than a same-level and same-base-strength Brave Blade wielder, even taking into account the +5 strength from the Brave Blade.

Ultima Weapon[]

The Advance release adds new weapons with a higher attack value than a maxed out Brave Blade. The most notable is the Ultima Weapon with an attack value of 177 (the highest in the game), and +2 bonuses to the strength, agility, and vitality/stamina stats of the wielder. Its damage formula is:

${\begin{array}{l}Damage=min(9999,max(0,(A-D))\times M)\\A=Atk+random(0,Atk)\ //\ 8\\D=Def\\M=(Level\times Strength)\ //\ 128+2\end{array}}$

The random element in the formula essentially means that the Ultima weapon can have an effective attack value of up to 199. Despite that, the lack of Agility in the damage formula makes it an inferior weapon to the Chicken Knife for the same reasons the Brave Blade is. Since the Ultima Weapon has a higher attack value than a maxed out Brave Blade, the agility value the wielder needs to have for the Chicken Knife to dominate is higher. However, the agility value a Freelancer inherits from a mastered Thief is more than enough for the Chicken Knife to deal more damage than the Ultima Weapon in most scenarios.

Earthbreaker[]

The Earthbreaker has a higher attack (133) than a maxed-out Chicken Knife, and uses the axes damage formula. As such, it ignores 75% of the target's physical defense, and, due to the high variance intrinsic to axes, can have an effective attack of up to 199. As such, with a lucky hit it is possible for the Earthbreaker to deal more damage than the Chicken Knife against a broader range of targets. However, when using Rapid Fire, which always ignore 100% of the target's defense, a maxed-out Chicken Knife still prevails, as the Earthbreaker uses the same multiplier M formula as the Ultima Weapon, and has the same upper limit for the effective attack.

Fairy's Bow[]

Despite having 3 more Atk points (130) than a maxed-out Chicken Knife, the Fairy's Bow is a bow. In Final Fantasy V bows are affected by the agility bug. Therefore, a maxed-out Chicken Knife almost always deals more damage than the Fairy's Bow.

Other weapons with higher attack[]

Including the Advance version exclusive weapons, there are six additional weapons with either a higher attack value or a higher max effective attack (due to randomness in the damage formula) than a maxed-out Chicken Knife. They are:

Apocalypse (145 Atk)
Mutsunokami (142 Atk)
Ragnarok (140 Atk)
Longinus (132 Atk)
Dragon Lance (119 Atk)
Murakumo (117 Atk)

Some of them also provide minor bonuses to various stats, including Strength. However, they all share the damage formula with the Ultima Weapon, yet have lower Atk. Therefore, the same reasoning that explains why a maxed-out Chicken Knife deals more damage than the Ultima Weapon in most practical scenarios still applies.