You Want a Real Challenge in Final Fantasy XV? Then Try Adamantoise!

There were a lot of goofy moments in Conan O’Brien’s Clueless Gamer segment on Final Fantasy 15, but one in particular stood out to eager fans awaiting the game. Near the end of his exhausting preview, O’Brien fast-forwarded ahead in the game to a quest to investigate some strange tremors. Those tremors led, naturally, to a massive boss, a giant turtle with a mountain on its back.

This is the adamantoise, and it’s Final Fantasy 15’s toughest post-game boss. In fact, according to the Conan O’Brien segment, it takes 72 real-time hours (a.k.a. three full days) to down the massive creature. According to an older interview with Final Fantasy 15 director Hajime Tabata (reported on by Square Portal), the adamantoise was supposed to take 15 hours in real time to fight.

So how do you reach adamantoise and test your patience against this lengthy battle?

The first step is to complete the game. As with the Regalia Type-F flying car, this bonus boss battle is only available with a post-game save. Once you’ve finished, load your save, go to a rest stop and call Umbra to teleport back to Lucis.

Shortly after arriving in Lucis, you should get a phone call from Cindy asking you to stop by her garage. Drive to Hammerhead, and she’ll let you know how the area has been rocked by strange earthquakes lately. Cindy will send you over to Longwythe Rest Area, where you can get more details from Dave, the hunter.

After speaking with Dave, you’ll get a brief side scene where any questgivers who you’ve befriended up to this point (as many as 14 total characters) will get together at the Longwythe Rest Area restaurant. The gathered friends will provide you with some items to thank you for your help and prepare you for the fight to come. Once you’ve collected your freebies, speak to Dave to leave the restaurant and drive over to nearby Longwythe Peak.

At Longwythe Peak, you’ll meet another hunter and have your first proper encounter with the adamantoise. Enjoy the spectacle, but don’t try to fight here; after a few moments of standing up to this beast, your quest goal will become to escape from the living mountain. Once you do so, you’ll receive a “quest completed” reward, but obviously your prey is still out there.

So you want to fight the adamantoise for real? Head to the diner in Hammerhead and speak to Takka, the hunt questgiver there. He’ll now have a new quest to take on the adamantoise properly. Note that the quest recommends a party level of 99 (the same level as the adamantoise itself). As soon as you accept the hunt from Takka, you’ll be placed into battle, so don’t do so until you’re ready — ideally buffed up from a strong meal at camp and stocked full of every kind of potion you might need.

So does it really take 72 hours? Or even 15? Even after completing the game, we were nowhere near that level 99 goal, and our attempts to fight adamantoise in the level 50-to-60 range did not go so well, so we can’t say for sure. However, according to this video guide from YouTube user PowerPyx, the 72-hour and 15-hour claims are a bit of an exaggeration.

PowerPyx took on the creature at level 69 using a specific combination of meal buffs and potions to maximize the damage done. This includes a combo of attacks at certain points in the fight that allowed them to do 9,999 damage (seemingly the max possible) over and over for extended periods.

Even with these advanced strategies, it took PowerPyx about an hour of non-stop fighting to take down adamantoise. So still a long time, but nowhere near that 72 hour claim.

“Unless you go afk [away from keyboard] for 71 hours, there’s no way the fight will last that long,” PowerPyx said to one commenter on their video.

Still, this is a tough boss, so it has to come with some meaningful rewards, right? For completing the hunt, you’ll receive 50,000 gil, the Tortoise Toppler trophy/achievement and an adamantite bangle. Assuming the adamantite bangle operates the same as other bangles in Final Fantasy 15, you can equip this on a character to boost their maximum hit points — although it’s unclear why you might need to do that after taking out the biggest enemy in the game.