Patch 6.5/6.55 speculation based on the art work.

[Enkidoh]

Cracking out the list of FFIV bosses, here are the ones that we haven't somehow seen in XIV, in alphabetical order.

[*]Dark Bahamut

We did get 'Lunar Bahamut' as the final boss of Pagl'than back in 5.5 though, so that sort of counts.

[*]The King and Queen of Eblan

Well, to be fair Eblan is the apparent original name of the area where the Garlean capital is located (the area around Camp Broken Glass is called the 'Eblan Rime' on the map, and some of the enemies there also have 'Eblan' in their name). Interestingly Doctor Lugae did appear in the Tower of Babil though, so... maybe they might show up too as Garlean nobility turned into Blasphemies (or else were more fittingly more of Lugae's twisted abominiations?). Or voidsent even.

[Cleretic]

We did get 'Lunar Bahamut' as the final boss of Pagl'than back in 5.5 though, so that sort of counts.

Oh, to clarify: Dark Bahamut and Lunar Bahamut are different bosses in FFIV! Yes, it is very silly. Dark Bahamut is a Lunar Subterrane boss in all versions, and you fight it to get Cecil's base-game ultimate weapon. Lunar Bahamut is from the GBA re-release and all versions derived from it, appears in the postgame Lunar Ruins dungeon, and drops that version's ultimate weapon and accessory for Kain.

Incidentally, the Lunar Ruins were a very faint basis for Smileton, since it was also a postgame dungeon where the entrance was found at the face on the moon! Not related to the discussion at all, but I do think it's neat.

And yeah, I'm aware of Eblan being an extant thing in FFXIV's world in a form that means the King and Queen of Eblan fight can't happen as-is; they're still a FFIV boss that FFXIV hasn't done anything with before, which was the point of that list. I think there's a great space for doing something with that boss fight, I think XIV's writers would knock it out of the park if they translated it more conceptually and approached it less as 'this is literally nobility of a place called Eblan' and more as 'these are the parents/loved ones of a party member'.

I don't think it's a place for the Lunar Subterrane dungeon, but I could imagine some amazing writing coming out of adapting that into 'Zero's parents got turned into monsters' or something. It's more solo duty territory.

[Cleretic]

So we've had the live letter, and I'm sure a thread will crop up about everything from that (I'm a little too preoccupied with audio and video editing to do it myself), I do want to touch on the Lunar Subterrane bosses subject, since it looks like we probably did see all of them, and sure enough, they are all from FFIV! On top of the Dark Elf, I also spotted the Plague Horror (the Ahriman recolor that was an FFIV Subterrane boss), and a fight against all four of the Archfiends at once.

...although curiously, I don't think that last one is actually a boss, because we only see it in cutscene form. What we do see in definite dungeon form, with Trust NPCs, is something entirely different: A fight against the Antlion (which I didn't even include in my FFIV bosses list because I sort of assumed we'd already fought an antlion at this point), in a siege on what I can only assume is the city Golbez and Durande were returning to (which I've been tentatively calling Baron). Which raises a LOT of questions.

[SannaR]

Yeah I saw the Antlion. Does this mean Bards will have to constantly be running away? I'm going to need to watch a trailer break down video cause I was mostly just jamin to the Red Wings BGM. It also looks like we get Zeromus EG for the 1st half of the trial with a remix of that fights BGM. I might be getting some hopes up, but when Zero stands up and starts glowing gold it reminds me of the Cecil vs Dad/dark himself scene where a bright light envelopes him and he becomes a Paladin. Now we know she used to use sword and shield in the past, but I don't think she saw herself as a Paladin. More of just a sword and board type fighter.

[SannaR]

The Antlion seems to be a part of the new PvP map. So not a dungeon boss. Nvm it might be a solo instance, maybe?

[Cleretic]

No, the Antlion fight was definitely with Varshahn, Zero and Y'shtola with the castle in the background. The new PvP map is outside Forgotten Springs; that's different.

And I don't think that first phase is Zeromus EG; I think that's regular Zeromus, it's just that our classical image of Zeromus is side-on with a profile shot of its face, while here we were seeing it front-on with the head bowed. It's a little easier to see the resemblance if you compare the DS version.





Incidentally, I always wondered why they replaced Zeromus' design for the western release, and only now did I notice that oh yeah, that's got, like. Entrails coming out of it, yeah, 90s Nintendo of America wouldn't have loved that.

[Raikai]

and a fight against all four of the Archfiends at once.

...although curiously, I don't think that last one is actually a boss, because we only see it in cutscene form.

Yeah, there's Y'shtola using a barrier, so it's defnitely a cutscene. I'd say we may fight them in a solo duty, though.

[Mostly_Raxus]

i am so disinterested with the current plot, i was so psyched for the void but its just turned in to such a low energy soap opera, plus tho i liked her at first, zero is really starting to bore me. none of this feels like it matters, im so sik of this hole "lets sit around a table and talk about feelings" thing, i want to adventure, i dont care if zero tried a crab rangoon and wanted for more, let me kill a pack of demon banditos trying to steal mana maracas or something...

[SannaR]

No, the Antlion fight was definitely with Varshahn, Zero and Y'shtola with the castle in the background. The new PvP map is outside Forgotten Springs; that's different.

And I don't think that first phase is Zeromus EG; I think that's regular Zeromus, it's just that our classical image of Zeromus is side-on with a profile shot of its face, while here we were seeing it front-on with the head bowed. It's a little easier to see the resemblance if you compare the DS version.





Incidentally, I always wondered why they replaced Zeromus' design for the western release, and only now did I notice that oh yeah, that's got, like. Entrails coming out of it, yeah, 90s Nintendo of America wouldn't have loved that.

Are we sure we're talking about the OG NA release? Cause the picture on the right is the one I remember from when I was a kid. And I think Raikai might be correct that the Baron part might be a solo instance. Or this dungeon takes us on a trip. As we've seen all three Lunar Subterranean bosses with the Plague Horror, Dark Elf and the Fiends redux which have to be memories since two died on the source.

I know people's prayers change the 12, but Llymlean and Nymeia feel as though they're the wrong element. I'm sure Llymlean started out as just the one you prayed to for favorable wind and over time she became someone who controls the seas. As even though she is one of the gods aligned with Air what we see of her fight in the trailer that's a lot of water. With Nymeia on the other hand outside of water getting used by some for divination her look let alone most of her attacks aren't tied to water. Or at least not to me. I wonder if the unknown 4th boss will be all 12 combined into one or if we get to fight some form of the Watcher?

I do wonder where the cut off point is between 6.5 and 6.55 is for the story. Obviously the Krile scene most likely is 6.55 as it would be strange if that scene played out in the 1st part.

[Cleretic]

Are we sure we're talking about the OG NA release? Cause the picture on the right is the one I remember from when I was a kid.

Okay, on looking this up, we definitely aren't, but not in ways we expected! We're falling victim to a pretty commonplace misconception, that FFIV Easy Type (which Zeromus EG's design is from) was just the North American version of IV repackaged for Japan. It wasn't; it has a lot of the NA difficulty nerfs, but also a few more changes for the sake of appealing to younger audiences. That last part is likely why the Zeromus EG design happened in the first place; as I noticed, the original Zeromus design has some real body horror going on, so they probably replaced it so as not to scare the kids.

This Zeromus is just the FFIV Zeromus, no Easy Type elements at all. It's kinda hard to tell right now how much of that original design body horror it retains, though; the stream quality dulls a lot of the detail it may or may not have.

And I genuinely don't think that the Fiends fight is an actual boss fight; not only did they show an awful lot of cutscene for that, more than any boss intro reasonably would, they only showed cutscenes. Including combat shots, too; Raikai noted Y'shtola throwing up a barrier which she only does in cutscenes, but Zero's got a lot of action going on too. My guess, that's what the Scions are doing while we're fighting Zeromus.