A new definition of "Epic Fail."

For the past few days I've been playing through Final Fantasy Tactics again. Earlier today, I got up to the most hated string of battles in the game, the finale of chapter 3. Up until now, the Epic Fail Crown in this segment (and the game in total) had been held by Rafa, who, in a mission where you have to keep her alive, tends to go kamikaze on the opposition. (Which is about as suicidal as my attempt to go through this playthrough with no generic units whatsoever...the closest I have are Rad, Lavian, and Alicia, the Squire in Ramza's mercenary unit and Knights in Agrias' battalion who are with you in the preview battle and join you in Chapter 2.)

Fortunately, the redefining action in question wasn't on the part of anyone in my party...in fact, Rafa was amazingly smart this go-round, targeting a ranged attack and then running like hell. No, the scenario in question happened during the battle with Velius, and the Crown now belongs to one of the Archaic Demons he summons to his aid.

Archaic Demons have, amidst their impressive arsenal of powers, a large-AoE attack spell called Giga Flare, which, on top of looking cool (most of the Demon abilities do...Dark Holy being my personal favorite), does quite a bit of damage to everything in the blast radius.

In order to attempt to kill Ramza and Lavian, this particular Archaic Demon fired it off on the panel directly between them...which was occupied by Velius.

All 3 of us survived that blast...and that one wasn't the one who got the Crown.

The Epic Fail Crown goes to the other Archaic Demon, who did the exact same thing...the 2nd Giga Flare was only survived by 2 characters.

Yep, you guessed it...Velius' own hench-demons vaporized him.