Summary
For a game with the word “fantasy” in its name, it should be no surprise that theFinal Fantasyseries has featured some of the winged, fire-breathing beasts. In fantasy mythos, dragons are usually considered at the top of the food chain, master predators, and nigh-undefeatable, except perhaps by a team of plucky underdogs with a fabled sword of justice or magical stone of friendship.
Naturally, with such a long history of including powerfuldemi-gods and world-eating monsters, it stands to reason that there should be some sizable dragons flying about its multiverse. Whether it’s to look upon the glory of a majestic tail and wingspans or to wonder how much of an explosion the fall of a gigantic wyrm would create upon being slain,FinalFantasyhas been home to some of the largest and most awe-inspiring dragons ever imagined.
The last hunt side quest inFinal Fantasy 12, Yiazmat, is the most dangerous elite mark available on the board, in part due to his immense size, which grants him an unfathomably high vitality. He can be tracked down to a colosseum in the Ridorana Cataract, where Vaan, Balthier, Ashe, and the rest of the party will need to chip down through his armor and work their way throughhis 50 million hit pointsbefore it can be crossed off the bounty board.
TheFinal Fantasy 12bestiary considers him one of the gods of dragons and even implies that he was big and powerful enough to kill his own creator. Yiazmat’s claws are about the size of a hume, and were he not crazed, as the bestiary described, he could easily climb out of the colosseum to escape in the rare event of being faced with three level 60+ heroes equipt with god-tier gear and anti-Yiazmat gambits.
Shinryu, along with Omega, is one of the most powerful entities inFinal Fantasy 5. The sizes of monsters and enemies in pixel-eraFinal Fantasygames can be hard to establish given that the party is usually depicted in chibi form, some artistic license is taken with enemy models, and there is only so much space on the battle screen. However, one hint of thissecretFinal Fantasysuper-boss' size (in addition to his reputation as the “ultimate dragon”) is one of his stealable items: his whisker.
If the party can rip just one strand of his nostril hairs out, they lay claim to the most powerful whip in the game, and the party can steal any number of dragon’s whiskers from him. If one of his hairs can make a full-sized weapon, then it is fairly easy to imagine the size of the beast it was taken from. Additionally, Shinryu’s attacks have a “natural disaster” theme, including his most powerful, party-wiping “tidal wave” attack.
With the exception of the second game in the series,Bahamut has been withFinal Fantasyin every numbered game, and the fans have been with him. InFinal Fantasy 7, this iconic mainstay had not one, not two, but three incarnations, each literally rising higher into the sky than the last. With its immense body and even larger wingspan, Bahamut ZERO is so large that it would likely not survive within the planet’s gravity, especially given its long limbs.
As such, it delivers its devastating energy attack from outside the planet’s atmosphere. Not only is Bahamut ZERO larger than its draconic brethren, but so is the item required to summon it: the Huge Blue Materia, a super-condensed form of regular summoning materia that grants its user immense power. As one of the largest summons inFinal Fantasy, it makes sense that its summoning materia would match its stature.
The First Brood is a collection of dragons of varying sizes that include some ofFinal Fantasy 14’s most important dragons(names that have appeared throughout the series): Tiamat, Nidhogg, Hraesvelgr, Vrtra, Azdaja, and before their demises, Ratatoskr and the true Bahamut (but not his twisted Primal imitation). The gigantic siblings were sired by Midgardsormr, a legendary being as long as he is large (at least to hume-sized creatures). Any one of his children could flatten a small city by rolling over. However, Midgardsormr has them beaten on length alone.
Although Midgardsormr is long enough to chokeeven the Garlean Empire’s largest and most powerful airship, his true size is difficult to ascertain, especially given he (and his brood) shift in size depending on the amount of aether they have stored in their body (and the fact that Midgardsormr can shrink and grow at will). At full strength, it is possible that the father of dragons could outsize the usherer of the 7th Umbral Era, Primal Bahamut, even at the height of his power (and not just in a stretching contest).
1Elder Primal Bahamut - Final Fantasy 14
The Dreadwyrm That Remade The World
Bahamut’s appearance (while fully alive and whole) inFinal Fantasy 14was brief but incredibly impactful. Moments before being caged and defeated by Louisoix Leveilleur’s binding light, the elder primal shattered his orbital prison, the one that the whole of Eorzia had believed to be a minor moon, and used his Teraflare attack to carve out Eorzia’s new face,ushering in a calamityand the seventh age (and patch 2.0, “A Realm Reborn”).
The Bahamut that remade the world in blasts of fire is larger than any previously seen, and in “Heavansward,” it is revealed that this Bahamut is a dark and vengeful primal incarnation of a more benevolent dragon called Bahamut, the Dawn Wyrm. It is later revealed that this Primal Bahamut survived, albeit in a severed state, in the Binding Coil of Bahamut, in which his massive torn wing and claw can be found. A miniaturized form of Bahamut, Prime, still large and looming, can be fought and beaten within.
