Oh, shut up and help me remodel the Enemy type page!
Enemy types are a recurring system of monster classification in the Final Fantasy series. Each game has its own system, but in general enemy types are used to determine what abilities affect which enemies in different manners.
Enemy types mostly affect determining damage from certain weapons or attacks. Depending on the game, an enemy's type may also affect their vulnerability to certain attacks, including status ailments and elemental damage. Recurring weapons that are affected by enemy type include the Man-Eater, which deals extra damage to human-type enemies, and the Dragon Whisker, which deals extra damage to dragon-type enemies. The most common type of ability concerning enemy types is the Killer series of abilities, which increase a player character's damage when attacking enemies of the associated type. Individual games also have other equipment pieces, abilities, or battle mechanics concerning enemy types.
Recurring types[]
Beast[]
Beast-type enemies are often similar to real world animals, usually mammals but also often including reptiles and insects.
Undead[]
Undead enemies include various types of zombie, skeleton, ghost, and other similar entities. Undead are usually immune to dark and poison attacks, and are healed by many Instant Death attacks, but are vulnerable to fire and holy. Life-draining attacks are reversed, healing them and damaging the user, but curative magics and items damage them and revival spells and items kill them instantly.
Flying[]
Flying-type enemies are commonly birds, but also sometimes dragons and insects or any type of enemy. Flying enemies are often vulnerable to wind elemental damage and shoot-type weapons, and are immune to earth-elemental attacks.
Dragon[]
Dragon enemies are often among the strongest monster types of a game. They do not have any consistent elemental resistances or weaknesses, and are used more often to determine which equipment pieces resist damage from them or deal extra damage to them.
Fiend[]
Fiend-type enemies are particularly monstrous enemies, having a mythological or demonic influence. Fiends are often weak to holy-elemental damage and are resistant or immune to dark-elemental damage.
Humanoid[]
Humanoid-type enemies are no different than real humans. Most of the time they are soldiers, fighting using weapons such as swords or guns. Humanoid enemies take extra damage from weapons like the Man-Eater and are commonly vulnerable to status ailments and poison element.
Machine[]
Machine-type enemies are typically weak to lightning and water attacks, and tend to resist status ailments and poison. Sometimes they have numerous parts that can be attacked separately. In Final Fantasy X, Steal instantly defeats many regular machine enemies. Machine enemies are common bosses in the Final Fantasy VII series.
Plant[]
Plant-type enemies are often weak to fire- and ice-elemental attacks, and use plant theme attacks, such as seeds and leaves. Plant-type enemies commonly use status ailments and poison.
Flan[]
Flan are composed of gelatinous material. They have low HP but are highly resistant to physical blows, often taking little, if any, damage from normal attacks. They have a weakness to magic, and many flan-type enemies have specific elemental weaknesses.
Stone[]
Stone enemies are living statues and golems. They resist physical damage but can sometimes be defeated instantly using a Gold Needle. They are frequently weak against wind attacks.
Heavy[]
Heavy is less a themed enemy type and more a classification. Usually reserved for bosses and very strong enemies, Heavy enemies are immune to Instant Death attacks, gravity magic, and other effects, such as fractional damage.
Appearances[]
Final Fantasy[]
There are eight enemy types: Magical, Dragon, Giant, Undead, Were, Aquatic, Mage, and Regenerative. Enemies are free to have any combination of these types, including none at all. Undead enemies are vulnerable to Dia.
Regenerative enemies are programmed to restore 5% of their HP at the end of every round. The original NES/Famicom release has this set to 2 HP, though regeneration is bugged.
Certain weapons are effective against specific enemy types. A bonus of +4 damage is added to each hit, with an additional +40 to accuracy. In the NES/Famicom version, all of these weapons are bugged, and the effectiveness bonuses are not applied.
Final Fantasy II[]
There are eight enemy types: Flying, Aquatic, Earth, Giants, Spellcasters, Dragons, Werebeasts, and Undead. Certain weapons have elemental properties that increase damage against these enemy types. Undead enemies are vulnerable to Fire, healed by Death, reverse the effects of Drain and Osmose, and damaged by Cure and Life.
The Aura spell adds "Extra Damage vs." properties to targeted character, with higher levels potentially granting a greater number of damage bonuses. Each subsequent success of the spell up to the spell level grants the damage bonuses in the order listed above.
Final Fantasy IV[]
Enemies may have the types Beast, Undead, Ghoul, Mage, Flan, Dragon, Giant, and Machine. Enemies may have two types, or have no type at all. Numerous weapons deal increased damage to enemies of certain types, while certain equipment pieces reduce damage from an enemy type.
Undead enemies are damaged by Restorative and reverse the effect of Drain. Flan enemies are resistant to physical attacks. The Heavy flag prevents the Tornado attack from working.
Final Fantasy IV -Interlude-[]
The sequel to Final Fantasy IV reuses many enemies from the original game.
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years[]
The sequel to Final Fantasy IV reuses many enemies from the original game with new ones, the Beast type from the previous two games has been replace by the Demon type.
Final Fantasy V[]
The types included are Magic Beast, Dragon, Undead, Humanoid, Desert, and Aevis. Monsters can have more than one type. Monster types are only influenced by weapons now, with no armor pieces resisting damage from specific types. Magic Beasts are affected by Calm (save the GBA version, where a glitch prevents this from happening), while Desert enemies take extra damage from Aqua Breath.
Final Fantasy VI[]
There is no official series of monster types. However, some monsters are flagged as Undead or Humanoid, affecting some weapons and spells. As a substitute for Flying or equipment monster type, flying enemies are given the float status, which Gau can then mimic with Rage.
Final Fantasy VII Remake[]
The game has five enemy types, which classify each of its enemies in the Enemy Intel screen. Each enemy type has unique properties, and many resist a specific element.
Final Fantasy VIII[]
Some monsters are flagged as Undead or Flying. Undead enemies are weak to Holy and restoratives, but take half damage from physical attacks. Flying enemies are immune to ground-based attacks, but are weak to Wind. The player can apply the undead flag to party members with Zombie, but cannot use Float to make a target "Flying" type; Float makes the affected immune to ground-based attacks but does not render them weak to Wind.
Human enemies cannot be carded or eaten with Devour.
Final Fantasy IX[]
There are eight enemy types: Humanoid, Beast, Demon, Dragon, Undead, Stone, Insect, and Aerial. The game introduces Killer abilities that affect damage against these monster types. An additional enemy flag exists for Heavy, which is treated in a similar manner, but is hidden.
Final Fantasy X[]
Some enemies are flying or distant, and only Wakka can attack them physically with the use of his blitzballs. Learning Ronso Rages does not require to use Lancet on a specific enemy, but rather on the enemy belonging to an enemy type. Some enemies are armored and only take good damage from weapons with Piercing.
Final Fantasy X-2[]
While Final Fantasy X-2 reuses most of the enemies from its predecessor, it also introduced few more. Gun Mage can learn various Fiend Hunter abilities, which target a specific enemy type and can deal quadruple (×4) damage.
Final Fantasy XI[]
There are several monster types, separated into four interrelated groups based on predation or opposition. Plantoids eat Beasts, who eat Lizards, who eat Vermin, who eat Plantoids in turn. Birds eat Aquans, Aquans eat Amorphs, and Amorphs eat Birds. Undead are opposed to Arcana, and Demons are opposed to Dragons. There is another type, Humanoid, that is not in a group with the other types. Predation makes a creature's attacks stronger against that target, and a creature attacking a target who predates it may freeze in fear instead of attacking it. Meanwhile, opposition increases the attacks of both types against the other without conveying the freezing effect. This ecosystem is most relevant to the Beastmaster and Blue Mage jobs, who use the beasts and their attacks, respectively, to defeat enemies, and must be mindful of this system to use their powers to their fullest. However, any class may take advantage of the ecosystem through the use of Killer abilities, which may be obtained via Jobs or equipment.
Final Fantasy XII[]
Enemy types are not often influenced by abilities or equipment. Instead, monster types affect chains. As the party defeats enemies of the same genus consecutively, the chain level increases, causing monsters to drop more loot and to have a higher chance of dropping rarer loot. Monographs also allow monsters within certain classifications to drop additional loot, each monograph affecting specific classifications.
Final Fantasy XV[]
There are two types of monsters: natural monsters and daemons. Daemons appear at night or in dark places like caves. Daemons are weak to holy damage and damage the party members' max HP, which requires elixirs to heal as it recovers very slowly on its own. Daemons are weak to light and thus start to take damage from exposure to sunlight if the battle draws so long the dawn breaks. Aranea has a chance of joining as a guest against overworld daemon battles in Chapters 8 and 15.
Magitek troopers are mechanical soldiers that on the open world are deployed from assault craft during the day. They are not that different from other day-time enemies, but drop equipment and other manmade goods rather than monster parts when defeated.
The Final Fantasy Legend[]
There are four enemy types: Water, Humanoid, Lizard, and Undead. Along with that are four sword that can deal more damage against them.
Final Fantasy Legend II[]
There are fourteen enemy types: Plant, Hard, Soft, Insect, Marine, Reptile, Dragon, Bird, Mammal, Morph, Spirit, Undead, Humanoid, and Robot.
Final Fantasy Dimensions[]
Different enemy types exist, including beasts, humans, dragons, machines, plants, ghosts, and demons. Weapons that target specific enemy types exist.