Equipment bugs The equipment bugs are a series of bugs found in various games in the series , most notably in the original " Final Fantasy " and in the " Advance " version of " Final Fantasy IV " . Appearances . " Final Fantasy " . " Final Fantasy " has been released for numerous platforms , and different glitches relating to equipment exist across the versions . Special abilities of weapons bug . In the Nintendo Entertainment System version some weapons have special abilities , which will have no effect . The following list entails what each weapon was originally intended to do , but does not do due to this bug : Equipping bug . Some releases have a useful cheat or glitch that can be used on the equip weapon screen . It has been seen on the Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary edition , but as of yet has not been confirmed in older releases . Because of the function of this cheat , it has many uses beyond the obvious : How it is done : The " " version for Game Boy Advance has the same glitch , but it only leads to a graphical glitch without any effects . " Final Fantasy II " . A couple of weapons in the original NES version are affected by this bug . " Final Fantasy III " . These bugs only affect the NES version of the game . " Final Fantasy IV " . Weapon bits do not have any effect ( affects FF4A US and Japanese 1 . 0 versions ) , which affects the following equipment : The bug here is that all weapons beyond item # 261 ( 0x105 , Flare Sledgehammer ) , or effectively weapons starting from item # 288 ( 0x120 , Nirvana ) are considered " armor " . Elemental attack properties on those weapons will be considered elemental resistances , elemental status attacks will be considered as status resistances , and racial multipliers will be considered as racial resistances . This bug was fixed in the European and Japanese 1 . 1 versions . The weapon Avenger is notably bugged in the SNES version , with various different effects . The " " version of the game has a bug where the weapons obtained from the treasure chests that appear after defeating the bosses in the final chapter appear in the player ' s inventory , but do not become selectable in the character ' s equipment menu . It is unknown what triggers the bug , but resetting the game fixes it . One useful tactic in the original " Final Fantasy IV " was to rob characters ' equipment before they leave the party to keep their items . The trick can also be used in " The After Years " , and by unequipping Cecil ' s hands the player can obtain the , which isn ' t useful to have and only clutters the player ' s inventory , but is not available any other way . In a battle with Kain ? , there ' s a point where Kain does critical damage and the battle ends temporarily . After this part the Hooded Man can use Jump and suddenly has the weapon equipped . In this battle the Hooded Man can equip the Kingsword if the player took it off Cecil earlier , which appears to be a bug , as the Hooded Man can ' t normally equip it , and neither can Holy Dragoon Kain . The Kingsword stays on him if equipped in battle , but it ' s weaker than the Dragoon Lance . This trick is useful also in Golbez ' s flashbacks , in which he has equipped the . Removing the Ebony Blade from his hand will allow him to maintain it in the inventory for the rest of the game , or maybe equip it ( it ' s a weak sword , but it gives boost to Intelligence and Spirit ) . " Final Fantasy V " . Several bugs affect weapons in this game . " Final Fantasy VI " . Weapon behavior bug . Some weapons do not behave like they are suppose to . When using Locke ' s Mug command , many weapons lose their functionality . Similarly , when the relic Master ' s Scroll is equipped , some weapons ignore its damage penalty . The relic Genji Glove also doesn ' t work as intended if only one weapon is equipped . Also , the " Optimize " command doesn ' t always pick optimal equipment . Another minor bug is when the Genji Glove is equipped , with Drainer on the left hand and Assassin on the right ( so Drainer attacks first ) , the player loses the hit points from the Drainer instead of gaining them . Healing Rod targeting bug . The Healing Rod ' s aiming byte is set up that it will target the player ' s characters by default . This results in two bugs : the first being when selecting the Attack command , the Healing Rod will still aim at the enemy as if it was a normal weapon . The second , if the player decides to throw the Healing Rod , the game will target the thrower by default . It doesn ' t read the aiming byte for Attack , but it will read it for Throw . This is especially bad since when attacking with the Attack command , Healing Rod will restores the target ' s HP upon being hit , while it will inflict damage when thrown . Part of this bug was fixed in the GBA version ; the cursor will target the enemy when attempting to throw the Healing Rod . Shield bug . The " shield bug " involves the Force Shield and the Cursed Shield . Normally , when equipped , these shields either grant a positive status effect ( Shell in the Force Shield ' s case ) or inflict a variety of negative status effects ( in the Cursed Shield ' s case ) . However , when equipped in the middle of battle , instead of applying the statuses the shields are supposed to , they instead " provide " immunity to them . For example , if the Force Shield were to be equipped in the middle of a fight , instead of the user getting the Shell status , they would be immune to it . The only status the Cursed Shield does not grant immunity to in this way is the Condemned status , while protecting from Sap , Confuse , Silence , and Sleep , making this the only way in which the Cursed Shield can be beneficial to the user . There is a bugfix patch that players can use to fix the " shield bug " in the SNES version . Equip anything bug . There ' s a bug exclusive to the Japanese version where one can equip any item to any equipment slot for any character . It involves the Optimize option in the item menu . This bug was fixed before the US release by making the 256th item slot inaccessible . To use it , one must sell off all items that the specific character can possibly equip ( weapons , shields , helmets , or armor pieces ) , and put the item one wants to equip in the last slot , the 256th slot . Pressing Optimize will equip the item in the 256th slot on the character . One of the most noticeable things that happens is that some stats will increase by great amounts depending on what the player equips . For instance , equipping Edgar ' s Tool , the Drill , as a helmet , will give the character 255 Defense and 255 Magic Defense , making every physical attack and magical attack , except those that ignore Magic Defense , deal 1 point of damage to said character . If non - weapon items are equipped as weapons , and the character attacks physically with said items during battle , it will cause a variety of graphical glitches , attempting to reference animations that don ' t exist . Perhaps as a nod towards this glitch , the Drill , along with the Chainsaw and Auto Crossbow , appear as equippable pieces of armor in " Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy " . " Final Fantasy VII " . Although not flagged as a long range weapon , Barret ' s Pile Bunker suffers no damage penalty from attacking from the back row or at enemies in the back row even though it uses the melee animation . This is most likely a bug . " Final Fantasy Mystic Quest " . The resistance glitch occurs when the armor on guest characters grant resistances , but they don ' t actually take effect . This occurs when the guest character leaves Benjamin , and their elemental / status protections will stay there . When a new guest character fills in the second slot , the elemental / status protections from the previous guest character will take the place instead of the current guest character ' s elemental / status protection . The new guest character ' s protections will not show up . The only way to fix this is to save and reset the game . For example , when Kaeli is in the party , she is strong against Petrify ; when she leaves Benjamin , her Petrify resistance will still be present under the status screen . When Tristam joins Benjamin , the protection status from Kaeli will be on Tristam and he will be strong against Petrify . He isn ' t supposed to be since he has no armor that provides protection against it . If one saves the game and resets it , Kaeli ' s protections will be gone and Tristam ' s protections will be there instead . " Final Fantasy Adventure " . The earliest the player can bug equipment is when they can find the first upgrades in Wendel , the Iron Helmet . When the textbox appears , the player should press the start button to open the main menu , and move the Iron Helmet to the slot next to it , close the main menu , save , and Soft reset . When the game loads up , the player should press the start button after the textbox and equip the Iron Helmet , which causes the DP to go up to 17 instead of 9 . " Final Fantasy Legend III " . During the battle that starts the game , Sharon has not yet joined the party , and Myron is in her usual slot . As a result , he is not treated as a Guest ( fifth - slot ) party member and his Battle Axe can be unequipped and given to another party member . When he rejoins as a Guest he will have a fresh Battle Axe , so his combat abilities will not suffer .