Chicken Knife (Final Fantasy V)

Chicken Knife
Availability
Obtained	Moore in the Merged World
Classification
Type	Knife
Range	Melee
Element	Hit

The Chicken Knife is potentially the strongest knife in Final Fantasy V, obtainable in Moore in the Merged World. It is notable for the potential to be the weapon with the biggest damage output in the game due to its attack power scaling with the number of battles the party has escaped from.

Obtained

The Chicken Knife can be found in Moore in the merged world, and 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. The player should then head in front of the barrels and descend into the small building and into the woods. In the woods the directions are: down, right, down, left, up, right, down. On the last direction, the party will freeze and the screen will go fuzzy, then two boxes and an old man will appear. He tells the player to pick a box, one with the Chicken Knife, and one with the Brave Blade. In the SNES and PSX versions of the game, both the Brave Blade and the Chicken Knife can be obtained via the Item Transformation Bug,

If the player chooses the Chicken Knife, the man turns into a skeleton and walks away while making chicken sounds. However, in the Japanese text instead, he just has an unusual laugh.

Mechanics

The weapon's attack power scales with the number of times the party has escaped from battle, capping at 127 power at 255 battles fled from. When attacking with it, it has a 25% chance of making the party run automatically from the fight, (equivalent to the Thief's Flee command, unless the fight can not be escaped from, in which case the attack is wasted. However, this downside can be mitigated via using commands that ignore additional weapon effects such as !RapidFire, !Mug, or !Aim. As only one special weapon effect can be activated by a single Attack command, if the player equips the Chicken Knife in a character's left hand, and something like a Double Lance in the same character's right hand, the escape effect can also be avoided.

Damage formula

The damage formula for the Chicken Knife is

(Attack - Target_Defense) * ((Level * Strength)//128 + (Level * Agility)//128 + 2)

where:

• Attack is the attack value of the Chicken Knife (0 ~ 127), effectively '''number_of_runs // 2'''.
  • number_of_runs is the number of battles the player has run away from.
  • // 2 represents an integer division by 2, effectively a right shift by 1 bit.
• Target_Defense 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 with !Mix or !Drink, 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.
• // 128 represents an integer division by 128, effectively a right shift by 7 bits.

A level 99 wielder of a maxed-out Chicken Knife can get their strength and agility boosted to 99 by Power Song (Power Drink does not work, as it is bugged), and Speed Song (or Speed Drink) respectively. In that case, the maximum damage of a physical attack against a target with 0 physical defense becomes 19558 (before the 9999 rescaling). If !RapidFire is used, each hit deals half damage (rounded down). Therefore, the max damage of each of the 4 hits becomes 9779, irrespective of the target physical defense, which is ignored by !RapidFire.

Bugs and Glitches

Overflow glitch

The !Dance ability triggers an attack known as Sword Dance 25% of the times. Sword Dance is essentially a physical attack 4 time stronger than a regular one. 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, any damage is always considered modulo 65536. As such, if the uncapped damage is slightly higher than 65536, only the excess part of it will be considered, resulting in lower damage than expected.

Level 255 + Hero Song Glitch

Any character can have their level boosted to 255 for the duration of a battle, by repeating applications of the Dragon Power mix, among other methods. If a level 255 maxed-out Chicken Knife wielder is exposed to the Hero Song, while their nominal level will remain 255 throughout the battle (as confirmed by Scan), the effective level used in the 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.

Berserker Softlock

In the SNES and PSX version of Final Fantasy V, equipping the Chicken Knife on a Berserker can softlock the game. Normally, a party of 4 Berserkers is unable to escape from any battle. If a Berserker wielding the Chicken Knife attacks and the escape proc gets triggered, the party will not escape. Additionally, any future damage becomes non-existent, and the battle is unable to end.

Agility Bug

The Chicken Knife is not affected by the agility bug that prevents knives, bows, boomerangs, Ninja swords, and whips from fully benefitting from the Agility bonus in the multiplier portion of the damage formula.

Item Transformation Bug

In the SNES and PSX versions of the game, 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. On the other hand, if the player chooses the Chicken Knife, the Brave Blade becomes unattainable, because getting a Brave Blade via the Item Transformation Bug is impossible.

Damage Comparisons

Damage comparison with 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:

(150 - Target_Defense) * ((Level * Strength)//128 + 2)

where the meaning of Target_Defense, Level, Strength, and // does not change with respect to the Chicken Knife damage formula.

Most notably, the Brave Blade misses out on the (Level * Agility)//128 bonus in the multipler. On the other hand, the Brave Blade provides a +5 strength, which is only relevant if the wielder does not in-battle max-out the strength status via Power Song. More often than not, the agility bonus in the Chicken Knife formula, overpowers the +23 attack (i.e., 150 - 127), and +5 strength of the Brave Blade. The only exceptions are when the physical defense of the target is very high (e.g., Omega, Prototype, ...), and/or the agility of the wielder is very low. When using !RapidFire, which ignores the target 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.

Damage comparison with Ultima Weapon

The Avdance release of Final Fantasy V includes, among other content, new weapons with a higher attack value than a maxed out Brave Blade. The most notable is the Ultima Weapon, which features an attack value of 177 (the highest in the game), and provides a +2 strength bonus to the strength, agility, and vitality/stamina stats of the wielder. With the exception of the different attack value, and the different strength bonus, the damage formula for the Ultima Weapon is identical to the Brave Blade one. As such, when considering the difference in damage output between the Chicken Knife and the Ultima Weapon, the same conclusions apply. 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 be dominant 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.