A tribute to Final Fantasy 7’s weird monsters

One of the many reasons I love Final Fantasy VII is how weird it is—particularly its enemies. Its bizarre bestiary is a rogue’s gallery of seriously strange monsters, robots, mutants, animals, and killer bungalows. If you’re an RPG developer and you’re filling your game with wolves, bandits, and other generic fantasy enemies, take a look at these guys and question your lack of imagination.

Hell House

This mechanical monster disguises itself as a tiny house. I’m not sure why, because where it hangs out in Midgar there are no other tiny houses to be found. A useless disguise. But it doesn’t stay hidden for long: attack Hell House enough times and it’ll pop out of its shell like some kind of mad crab and start tossing bombs at you.

Dorky Face

Yeah, that’s right: Dorky Face. I’m not sure who named this monster, but if it named itself it has some serious self-esteem issues. You’ll find Dorky in the abandoned Shinra mansion. Its ‘Funny Breath’ ability isn’t terribly amusing, because it inflicts the party with Confusion, one of the most annoying status effects in the game.

Christopher

I’m not sure why this monster has the decidedly human name of Christopher, but I do know that I hate its weird, creepy face. One of its attacks is called ‘Suffocation Song’, which casts Death on the party—or Sadness if there’s only one person left standing. Why are you so obsessed with death and sadness, Christopher?

Grangalan

This egg-shaped monster can be found on the beaches near the sunny town of Costa Del Sol. It spawns miniature versions of itself like a demented matryoshka doll and casts ‘Darkeye’, a spell that inflicts the party with Darkness. Then, to make matters worse, it uses ‘Silver Wheel’ to hurl deadly sawblades at you. What a bad egg.

Touch Me

Don’t be fooled by its size, or its weird name, because these miniscule frogs can be a real pain. Their primary mode of attack is transforming the party into frogs themselves, which reduces your attack power to almost nothing. As for the peculiar name, I have no idea. Maybe they’re named after that song by The Doors?

Mover

This giant beach ball only has a 6.25% chance of appearing in the Northern Cave, but has low HP and weak attacks, and gives the party an enormous amount of XP and Gil—as well as dropping valuable Turbo Ethers. I get the feeling this was put here by the developers to help people struggling with the game’s tough final dungeon.

Sculpture

This sentient slab is another resident of the Northern Cave. It looks kinda like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but with chimneys. And feet. No, I have no idea what it’s supposed to be either, but I do know that it’s weak to Holy magic. I’d love to know what was going through the dev’s head when they designed this.

Vice

Vice’s particular vice is thievery, and they’ll steal from the party before running away like the cowards they are—unless you manage to kill them first, of course. Or you can steal from them and grab a few handy Speed Drinks.

2-Faced

You’ll bump into this thing in Corel Prison. I don’t know why a floating death-mask is hanging out in the desert trying to kill passers by, but hey, let’s not question its motives. As the name suggests, 2-Face has two faces, both absolutely horrible. When attacked, it’ll either blow itself up or, oddly enough, cast Cure 3 on the party.

Brain Pod

As you escape from Shinra’s headquarters, you’ll encounter this experiment gone horribly wrong. It looks like some kind of steampunk teapot at first, but pops off the cap on its head to reveal the hideous, pink face of a tiny, angry man. I know Shinra created some weird shit in their secret labs, but this is a step too far.

Elfadunk

This fluorescent elephant shoots liquid from its trunk and showers the party with Sadness. We’ve all been there. A little more traditional than some of the other monsters featured here, but I just like the name ‘Elfadunk’—and you don’t exactly see these things running around in Elder Scrolls games, more’s the pity.

Grimguard

The name conjures up images of some Dark Souls-style death-knight clad in black armour, but Grimguard is actually more like something the creators of Pokémon would reject for looking too stupid. But, despite its appearance, it has high defence against magic and physical attacks, depending on which of its two forms it’s in.

Ghost Ship

What does Ghost Ship do when it’s not attacking people in the Junon underwater reactor? Does it hang out with other Ghost Ships? Does it play racquetball? I love how off-theme this enemy design is. Tetsuya Nomura must just really be into pirates. One of its attacks is named St. Elmo's Fire, but probably not after the '80s film.

Thanks to Final Fantasy Wiki for the images.