Final Fantasy: 25 Greatest Summons

Leviathan has, over time, come to be used as a term for any large whale or sea monsters in general.

Given his existence as a formidable sea serpent in the Hebrew Tanakh, however, the Final Fantasy interpretation is relatively faithful to his mythological origins. Parallels can be drawn between him and the Babylonian Tiamat, the Norse Jormungandr and the Hindu Vrtra, all of whom have also appeared in the series in various guises.

Apart from in VI, where he ceded his role as the water-elemental summon to Bismarck, a whale named, rather bizarrely, after the first chancellor of a unified Germany, and XII, Leviathan has been present in every main series title that has included one. Frustratingly though, several games haven’t, including X and XIII, despite the inclusion of water as a cast-able element.

One of the first summons to ever appear in the series by virtue of his inclusion as a ship-swallowing dungeon in II, Leviathan has been a rudimentary summon, the king of the eidolons (in IV) and the subject of a city-spanning cinematic boss encounter (XV), ever-dependable in any role he needs to play to suit the plot.