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This holy war between demon, devil, and goddess damages friend and foe alike.

Final Fantasy VI PlayStation esper section

Crusader is an esper in Final Fantasy VI who can be acquired as a magicite. It is the ultimate esper, but summoning it also harms the player's party.

Profile[]

Crusader is made up of three entities: Demon (鬼神, Kishin?) is on the left, Devil (魔神, Majin?) is on the right, and Goddess (女神, Megami?) in the upper middle.[1] According to the 20th Anniversary Ultimania, the Crusader contains a fragment of the power of the Warring Triad, but the three beings that appear when summoning Crusader do not greatly resemble the Triad.

Story[]

The only information on Crusader comes from a scholar in Albrook that found a 1000-year old text: "Eight dragons seal away its awesome might...the might of the one called Crusader... And when the eight shall fall, the one again shall rise..."

When the party defeats the eight legendary dragons, they receive the Crusader magicite.

Gameplay[]

Cleansing Pt1 from FFVI Pixel Remaster
Cleansing Pt2 from FFVI Pixel Remaster
Cleansing Pt3 from FFVI Pixel Remaster

Cleansing in the Pixel Remaster version, depicting the triad espers battling amongst eachother.

Crusader costs 96 MP to summon. Its attack is Cleansing (Purifier in the Super NES and PlayStation versions), which deals non-elemental magic damage to both the enemy party and the ally party. Its spell power is 190, and it is unblockable and ignores Split Damage. Its level up bonus is +50% MP; MP always increases when a character levels up, but with Crusader, the character gains 150% of the base.

Crusader is entirely useless as a summon; due to its high power, it will likely kill the entire party, unless they have Reraise status or extremely high Magic Defense. Even with the party able to survive Crusader's summoning, it is still bound by the damage cap, and by the time the player acquires it, the party has many other means to deal maximum damage to all enemies each turn without Crusader. Its level up bonus is not very useful either: except for a few specific levels a character will only gain 10-15 MP at level up, so it would take many levels with Crusader to have a noticeable benefit.

Spells[]

Unless the party goes out of their way to enter Kefka's Tower earlier and defeat the Skull Dragon and Gold Dragon, Crusader will likely not be obtained until late into the game. By this time the party likely has access to Ultima, which is superior to the Meteor that Crusader teaches in almost every way; the only difference is that Meteor ignores split damage and is not vulnerable to Runic. Ultima has such higher power than Meteor that it will likely deal maximum damage to all enemies in spite of the split damage penalty. Some unusual strategies could be employed with Meltdown by giving the party equipment to absorb fire or wind-elemental damage, allowing Meltdown to damage all enemies and heal the party.

Non-Final Fantasy guest appearances[]

Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Portable[]

Crusader is a chance card in Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Portable, the card's ability: Upgrade your target house value by 50%.

Gallery[]

Behind the scenes[]

Prior to the release of the Pixel Remaster, Crusader's Japanese name was Jihad (ジハード, Jihādo?). The name has been localized as Crusader for several reasons with each release—the original SNES release had the name changed due to censorship practices caused by Nintendo of America's strict localization policies at the time, and later ports not using the name due to cultural and religious sensibilities towards the Islamic faith.

With the release of the Pixel Remaster, Crusader's Japanese name was changed to Doomsday (ドゥームズデイ, Dūmuzudei?), reusing the English name of the Doomsday spell from Final Fantasy IX, which was also previously known as Jihad in its Japanese release.

Etymology[]

The terms "Crusader" and "Jihad" are both associated with the historic "holy wars" fought between the Christian Europeans and Islamic Middle-Easterners for control of the holy land, the birthplace of Jesus Christ. "Crusader" (meaning "under the cross" because they were wearing a cross on their outfit) was a term used to describe the soldiers of the Crusades, the European term for the holy wars.

"Jihad" refers to a method used by practitioners of Islam to wage religious warfare on non-Muslims. Jihad's literal meaning in Arabic is 'struggle', and it is also a term to describe the inner conflict a Muslim undergoes to make him/herself a better person.

Doomsday is comprised of the old English words dom and dæg meaning Judgement and Day. In Abrahamic religions, this refers to the time when God will descend from Heaven and judge the souls of mankind and will be rewarded or punished depending on the virtue of their souls.

Citations[]

  1. Final Fantasy Ultimania Archive Volume 1, p.318
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