Creator (The After Years boss)

The Creator is the final boss of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. It has four forms, and is also encountered in a scripted battle before the ending.
The Creator is fought with no breaks, but the party's health and status will be fully restored after the second form.
==Stats==
== First form ==
During the first phase ??? will not attack. It is just a matter of lowering its capacity of HP, which is not a lot. When it goes white and the second phase begins, ??? repetitively casts Drain and Osmose. Although it is not a threat, casting Flare or using Bands like Spiral Blow ensures a quick victory.
Its music, "Planetary Core", is the best-known Creator's track.
TAY IOS Creator's Pod.png|The pod (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS ??? Phase 1.png|First phase in battle (iOS/Android).
FFIV TAY iOS ??? Phase 2.png|Second phase in battle (iOS/Android).
== Second form ==
At the start of the fight the Creator will cast Auto-Reflect on itself and cast it again whenever it loses effect. Physical attacks or Bands like Spiral Blow are encouraged, but this can be remedied with casting Reflect on the party and by casting Black Magic on them. Bahamut proves useful against it, as well.
Creator will use Binding Glare, which does a modicum of damage to a character, but may paralyze them. It also uses Holy and Flare in addition to this when executing reactions. Using Meteor on it causes the Creator to counter with one of its own.
In the Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection version, the Creator does not maintain Auto-Reflect throughout the fight. Instead, he goes through a cycle of casting Reflect, using element drain, analyzing and copying the characters' "reaction", and executing the reaction by attacking. The Reflect activates after the first blow the player deals to the Creator and disappears after the second, meaning that if one is careful they can cycle between physical attacks and magical ones without fear of him reflecting them onto the party.
The Creator's attacks remain unchanged from the Wii-ware version; the only difference is that he will not attack until he has copied a character's reaction. Once the player has hit him three times after he copies the player's reaction, he will say "copy complete;" after that the cycle begins again.
A good strategy in the iOS version involves abusing the Creator's reaction to Bahamut. The player should cast Reflect on the entire party, then attack the Creator three times to make it ready to counter attacks. They should then have Rydia summon Bahamut. The Creator will counter with Megaflare which, provided the entire party has Reflect up, will bounce back and hit him for around 2000 extra damage.
TAY IOS Creator First Phase.png|The Creator (iOS).
== Third form ==
The Creator's third form is faster with more attacks, and can still use Binding Glare, Holy, and Flare. Its most powerful attack is Bahamut's Megaflare, which it can use without even summoning him. Creator can also use Meteor. Because it no longer has Reflect, using any Black Magic is safe. Using it with abilities like Dualcast is especially useful.
It is recommended to be prepared with Esuna or Remedies, because the third form uses Binding Glare more often than the last, and it can easily defeat the party with it if its main healers have no one available to restore their status.
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Binding Glare.png|Binding Glare (PSP).
TAY iOS Creator 2nd Form.png|The second form of Creator in battle (iOS).
TAY IOS Creator Second Phase.png|The Creator (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Holy - Creator2.png|Holy (iOS/Android).
== Fourth form ==
The first phase of the fight is scripted and cannot be won. After a cutscene, the party's status will be fully restored. One character should use one of the eight Crystals on the Creator so the party can attack it. Alternatively, using the rest of the other seven is also effective. During the fight, the Creator has a pattern of dangerous attacks. It will often use Split (Disintegration in the mobile versions), which does high damage to a single character. Responding to this by having a character heal them often is a recommended course of action. It uses another powerful attack called Fuse (Assimilation in the mobile versions), which drains around 1,000+ points of HP from every member of the party to restore its own.
The Creator may use Regenerate (known as Regeneration in the mobile versions), which will restore 9,999 of its HP and it will use this as much as it wishes. It also has the ability to change its weakness with Transform (Mutation in the mobile versions)—using Libra or a Bestiary cannot read it. When the screen flashes purple during the fight, the Creator is readying the attack Explode (Detonation in the mobile versions), which does relatively high damage to the whole party. Multiply (Propagation in the mobile versions), another attack unique to the Creator, does similar amounts of damage to everyone. The Creator rarely uses Metastasis (Contamination in the mobile versions) on itself during the fight, which takes off 3,000 of its own HP.
The Creator also has Zeromus's Black Hole, which has the same effects. The Creator uses Black Hole immediately after the Crystal is used on it making any attempt to buff the party beforehand useless. It will sometimes chain another spell of its own with Black Hole, such as Split or Regenerate. Finally, the Creator knows strong Black Magic and White Magic spells, such as Firaga and Holy. It can use the spell Confuse on everybody in the party as it nears death. Equipment such as the Ribbon can easily negate this.
Using Shell is ideal for winning the battle, as without it, Explode/Detonation can potentially deal over 3000 damage. Haste is also very useful as it gives the party more chances to attack and heal. If the Creator uses Black Hole, the party should re-apply Shell and Haste quickly.
It is best to use strong attacks while simultaneously keeping the party's HP just above 2,000+, which will help survive most of the Creator's attacks. It is not a good idea to use Band abilities that will use up most of the characters available in the party, rather, it is best to perform ones that only use two characters. Kain and Ceodore's Double Jump, or Cecil's and Kain's Sky Grinder are good candidates, because both break the damage cap.
Again, Dualcast is useful with casting Flare twice, which will do at least over 10,000+ damage with the Limit Ring. Because of the Creator's very high HP, this will easily use up a lot of MP, so having MP restorative items is a must.
TAY Wii Split.jpg|Split (Wii).
TAY Wii Explode.jpg|Explode (Wii).
TAY Wii Fuse.jpg|Fuse (Wii).
TAY Wii Multiply.jpg|Multiply (Wii).
TAY Wii Regenerate 2.jpg|Regenerate (Wii).
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Black Hole.png|Black Hole (PSP).
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Transform.png|Transform (PSP).
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Split.png|Split (PSP).
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Explode.png|Explode (PSP).
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Fuse.png|Fuse (PSP).
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Metastasis.png|Metastasis (PSP).
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Multiply.png|Multiply (PSP).
FFIV TAY iOS Creator - Third Form.png|The third form of Creator in battle (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Black Hole - Creator.png|Black Hole (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Mutation.png|Mutation (iOS).
MutatingCreator.png|Mutation (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Disintegration.png|Disintegration (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Detonation.png|Detonation (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Assimilation.png|Assimilation (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Regeneration.png|Regeneration (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Contamination.png|Contamination (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Firaga - Creator.png|Firaga (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Thundaga - Creator.png|Thundaga (iOS).
FFIV TAY iOS Pig - Creator.png|Pig (iOS).
== Encounters ==
The Creator will constantly appear as the party attempts to escape the Depths in a scripted battle. There is no trick to defeating it, each battle is a back attack and the Creator cannot be killed by the party. The Creator can use Collapse (Ruination in mobile versions) to do 9,999 damage to itself, or Destroy (Deterioration in mobile versions) to subtract a large amount of HP from itself and a minuscule amount from one character. It also uses Crush (not to be confused with the ability used by the Demon Wall to one-hit-kill a party member, known as Destruction in mobile versions) to do large amounts of damage to itself and low damage to the party.
It is best to not bother with Bands or summons or even healing (unless necessary, which should not really happen). The player should keep attacking as the Creator does more damage to itself than it does to the party, and it will eventually fall during each encounter. When the party approaches the exit as the Creator catches up, several Maenads will appear on the party's side. They will attack the Creator before destroying it with a Meteor spell.
TAY Wii Collapse.jpg|Collapse (Wii).
TAY Wii Crush.jpg|Crush (Wii).
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Collapse.png|Collapse (PSP).
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Crush (Creator).png|Crush (PSP).
FF4PSP TAY Enemy Ability Destroy.png|Destroy (PSP).
FFIV TAY iOS Ruination.png|Ruination (iOS/Android).
FFIV TAY iOS Deterioration.png|Deterioration (iOS/Android).
Destruction.png|Destruction (iOS/Android).
== Etymology ==
de:Schöpfer (Form 3)
it:Creatore (boss)
Category:Bosses in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Category:Final bosses