UFO? is an enemy in Final Fantasy VIII. It appears on five occasions, though only on the last can the player battle it. It is part of a sidequest that lets the player meet PuPu.
Stats
How to find
Sighting of a UFO is first mentioned in Occult Fan IV, a magazine that centers on bizarre and mysterious events happening around the world, despite being unrelated to this sidequest, as the UFO sighting from that magazine is really the G.F. Doomtrain.
To encounter the UFO, the player must visit four locations. A fixed battle will ensue (even with No Encounters equipped) and the UFO will appear. Once it has appeared, it will not show up a second time in the same location. The locations can be visited in any order.
The locations are as follows:
- Mandy Beach: The beach east of Timber. The UFO carries a Moai statue.
- Winhill Bluffs: The UFO is sighted on the bluffs around Winhill. The UFO abducts a cow.
- Kashkabald Desert: Kashkabald Desert is in southern Esthar near Cactuar Island, and the UFO is sighted on the western part of the desert, carrying a pyramid.
- Heath Peninsula: Heath Peninsula is in eastern Trabia, and the UFO is sighted on the small gray island east of the peninsula carrying a crop circle.
After the fourth sighting, the player must fly the Ragnarok to Grandidi Forest in northern Esthar and land on the highlands above the Chocobo Sanctuary, and they will have a up-close encounter with the UFO. The quest remains available till endgame.
Battle
The party can choose to attack it or draw Demi. If Rinoa is in the party and has Angelo Search, the player can idle in the battle to let Angelo search for items over and over. The battle can be escaped from, so the player can repeatedly use the UFO? for such item farming.
After it has been damaged enough, the UFO? will fly away. The party will get an Aegis Amulet for the battle.
UFO? is one of the few non-boss monsters that is unaffected by Quistis's Degenerator Limit Break, Selphie's Rapture and Odin never appears against it. The others are Grat, Vysage, Lefty, Righty, Cactuar, Tonberry, Esthar Soldier (Terminator) and PuPu.
After the battle, the player can visit the Balamb island where Balamb Garden used to be to find PuPu, who will ask the party for five Elixirs. If the player appeases, they get a unique card.
Aegis Amulet farming
There is an exploit the player can do to repeatedly get UFO?'s battle spoils by both defeating the UFO? and escaping the battle, leaving the encounter still available. The UFO? needs to be defeated by a reflected spell or the auto-triggered Phoenix; the latter happens randomly after the player has manually used a Phoenix Pinion in battle at least once, and the party is annihilated. To use the Phoenix, the player can enter the battle with the two other party members petrified, and then have Squall kill himself with an attack, and then escape when Phoenix is summoned and revives him. The UFO? never starts its proper death animation if defeated by the auto-triggered Phoenix, and instead will only jump in place.
It is easier to use a reflected spell: to set this up one character should have Auto-Reflect, and one Initiative and a high magic stat. As the battle begins, the party member with Initiative should cast a strong reflectable spell on the Auto-Reflect member while holding the trigger buttons to flee. The party will flee as the spell reflects and kills the UFO?.
Other appearances
Pictlogica Final Fantasy
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Other media
World of Final Fantasy has a similar UFO side-game, including collectable issues of Occult Fan that can be found in treasure chests.
Gallery
Etymology
An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky (or near or on the ground, but observed hovering, landing, or departing into the sky) that is not readily identifiable as any known object or phenomenon by visual observation and/or use of associated instrumentation such as radar.