Joke equipment

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The Chicken Knife, a recurring joke weapon, as it appears in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy.

Joke equipment is a recurring type of equipment in the Final Fantasy series that falls into two categories.

The first one usually consists of useless equipment, often being the weakest type of weapons or armor. They can be even weaker than the initial equipment the party starts with. Sometimes, this type of equipment seems like it would be the most powerful, but ends up being the weakest. The most famous piece of equipment that falls under this category is the Excalipoor, a counterfeit of the legendary sword Excalibur.

The second category consists of weapons or armor that are obviously ridiculous. These pieces of equipment tend to be very powerful and, because of that, usually have a drawback. The Chicken Knife from Final Fantasy V is a good example of this.

Appearances

Final Fantasy IV

The Spoon was the earlier translation of the Kitchen Knife, a weapon known as the most powerful throwing item. The joke goes away in the later versions where they "properly" translated it. The Excalipoor was introduced in the GBA version, and deals only a single point of damage. The Scrap Metal is another weapon that was introduced in the GBA version. It is obtained from Cecil's Trial when he fails all trials inside the Lunar Ruins.

Final Fantasy V

Excalipoor makes its first appearance, dealing a single point of damage. The Chicken Knife can become the strongest weapon, as long as the player has run away 255 times to optimize its full potential. The drawback is that it will sometimes make the attacking character force the entire party to flee, making it unreliable. If the player is fighting a boss, that character will have wasted a turn from the attempted escape.

The opposite of the Chicken Knife is the Brave Blade. It, too, has the potential to be the most powerful weapon. The drawback is if the player runs away even once, the weapon's power will decrease permanently from its original strength.

Final Fantasy VI

Main article: Imp equipment

Imp equipment is ignored by the Optimize option in the equipment menu. They "activate" when equipped on a character with the Imp status. When equipped on a human, the Impartisan only has an attack power of 13, and the rest of the armor set only provides a single point of defense (although they still provide magic defense). Only when afflicted by the Imp status, the true values of the equipment take effect. A character equipped with the full set of Imp equipment and in Imp status cannot cast spells, but will have maxed out defense, magic defense and battle power. Only attacks that ignore defense, inflict status ailments, or inflict Death can harm them, making them practically invincible in the average battle, as any other attack would only do a single point of damage. Since the Impartisan is a spear, it gets the attack bonus from Jump.

Final Fantasy VII

There is a joke weapon for every character that are based on everyday household objects or items of novelty, which increases the chance to strike critical hits on opponents. Most of the weapons are found in the Temple of the Ancients or become accessible around that time, and are powerful at the time the player can get them, but the drawback is that the player cannot equip any Materia since the weapons have no slots. Due to this they are useful for the Wutai sidequest when Materia is unavailable.

• Nail Bat
• Rocket Punch
• Work Glove
• Umbrella - prize at the Speed Square
• Hairpin - in Wutai
• Superball - prize from Fort Condor battle after Gold Saucer date
• Trumpet Shell
• Silver Rifle (despite its name, it is a BB gun)
• Mop - excavated from Bone Village

Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-

The Model Gun is useless at first, but once the player arrives at the second half of chapter 8, they can upgrade it. The first three versions are pretty useless, with poor power, range and accuracy. Weight and speed are not too low, but it is not enough to make up for everything else. However, the final upgrade is the second-best weapon, so it is worth the significant gil, around 250,000, required to upgrade it.

Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-

Zack wields a parasol while battling enemies in Costa Del Sol in both the storyline battles as well as the "Fun in the Sun" set of missions. For gameplay purposes it functions the same as his swords. It alludes to the Umbrella Aeris had as a joke weapon in Final Fantasy VII.

Final Fantasy IX

Tin armor that looks like a toy.

Tin Armor's in-game description

The Tin Armor is Steiner's most powerful armor. It teaches no abilities and every time the player hits the optimize option, the armor will unequip.

The Southern Tropical Outfits set is the weakest armor, even weaker than the starting armor. They can be equipped by every character, but teach no abilities. There are eight of each piece of equipment to be found, enough to fully equip the player's party.

• Straw Hat
• Pearl Armlet
• Aloha T-shirt
• Sandals

Final Fantasy XI

It's hard to pin down what is "joke equipment" since there are close to a hundred cosmetic weapons and armor of varying tones. One that is definitely a joke is Excalipoor, which resembles a stuffed toy sword. The +1 version gives the exclusive weapon skill Knights of Rotund, which is identical to Excalibur's weapon skill Knights of Round but does almost no damage due to Excalipoor's non-existent stats.

Final Fantasy XII

The Wyrmhero Blade (Sword of Toro in the Japanese version) has an Attack power of 130, third only to Tournesol and Zodiac Spear, and has a high combo rate of 80%, but the drawback is that it is the slowest weapon, having the longest Charge Time at 8.15s. It is a novelty weapon, being a reference to the Dragon Quest series and obtainable only after all superbosses have been slain. It is considered among the strongest weapons in The Zodiac Age version, as the damage cap has been removed, making the sword useful despite its charge time.

The Excalipur is a joke weapon added to the Zodiac versions, and shares its model with the Excalibur. It has an attack power of 1. Despite being a greatsword, its damage formula is the pierce formula, which means the calculation deals roughly the same damage regardless of user or enemy. Unlike other greatswords, the Excalipur cannot combo, but it can deal critical hits. It also has no knockback.

Final Fantasy XIV

Some weapons have weak attributes or don't have any at all, however, these weapons are actually designed for the Glamour system, and are not so tied to the "joke equipment" concept.

There are weapons however whose designs fit in the concept, being the Red Mage's Chicken Knife one example, obtained from Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood's Collector Edition. The Gold Saucer-themed weapons and the Kettle Knuckles from the Relic Weapons' sidequest can also be considered joke equipments, though they have certain attributes.

Final Fantasy XV

• Noctis can get a Cup Noodle hat as DLC.
• Thermal Suit can be picked up from outside the EXINERIS Industries after the event at the power plant, which lets the player wear it outside of this event.
• Afrosword is a novelty greatsword inspired by DJ and Producer Afrojack. When equipped, the background music will change to a song by Afrojack. The sword itself looks like a soundboard.

Final Fantasy Tactics

The Nagnarok weapon has an attack power of 1, being the weakest weapon. It has a chance of inflicting Toad per attack and has the second highest weapon defending rate of 50%. Nagnarok seems to be the joke version of Ragnarok as Excalipoor is the joke version of Excalibur.