Introduction: Ever since the very first game in the franchise, Dragons have played an important role in Final Fantasy (unsurprisingly, given the fantasy theme). In the first game, in addition to a handful of dragon and dragon-like enemies, and a gruesome dragon-type monster (the many-headed Tiamat) featured as one of the "big bosses", a friendly island community of dragons whose King was the now-legendary Bahamut was integral in the much-celebrated "Class Change" which evolved your party member's strengths and abilities. You had to overcome a trial to prove your courage by retrieving a special item from the dangerous Castle of Ordeals, then return it to Bahamut at which point he rewards you by increasing your powers. Bahamut's reputation as a powerful but helpful, feared yet respected, dragon lord has held throughout the rest of the series.
Final Fantasy II didn't add much to the dragon legacy, if I recall correctly, though it did continue in the vein of the first game, even bringing Tiamat back as one of the final dungeon bosses. Bahamut seemed to be missing, though Leviathan was introduced indirectly as it happens to swallow you during the course of the game. Regretfully, I haven't played Final Fantasy III yet, but by the looks of it, there appears to be plenty of dragons, including the first battle sprites of Bahamut and Leviathan, indicating their newfound role as bosses/summons.
Final Fantasy IV gave U.S. FF fans their first taste of summon magic (or "Call" magic), and among the learnable summons were three different dragons: the Mist Dragon 'familiar'; Leviathan, King of the Land of Summoned Monsters; and Bahamut, God of Summons. In addition, there were plenty of intimidating dragon and dragon-type enemies and bosses throughout the game, including the elusive Mech Dragon from the Giant of Bab-il, the powerful Red and Blue Dragons from the Crystal Palace, and the Silver and Gold Dragons from deeper into the Crystal Palace. Among the bosses were: Wyvern (a.k.a. Dark Bahamut), protector of the strongest sword in the game; Pale Dim and Ogopogo, each protecting one of the two strongest ninja blades in the game; and some Lunar Dragons guarding some Ribbons.
Amid a healthy cast of lesser dragon enemies and bosses (as well as some friendly dragons, such as the wind drake Hiryu, and sea serpent Syldra), Final Fantasy V introduced the world to the supreme optional uber-boss pair, Omega the Heartless and Shinryu the Dragon Lord. This wasn't the first case of optional uber-bosses (usually hiding in the final dungeon and protecting powerful weapons), nor was it the last, but something about the matchup makes it seem like the perfect model for all the other games. Omega's prototype was almost certainly WarMech from the first game (who wasn't even a boss, or guarding a powerful weapon, or even in the final dungeon, but still every bit as intimidating), and was itself most likely the prototype for the Weapons of the later games (even the organic ones, like Atma/Ultima Weapon from FFVI). Shinryu, on the other hand, is a little bit harder to trace. Its water-based attack hints at Ogopogo from FFIV, and it may be some sort of evolution of Tiamat as the "dragon boss that's tougher than all the other normal dragons", but here in FFV Shinryu tends to stand out as being an uber-dragon with no real competition. Unfortunately, Shinryu's FFVI counterpart, the Czar Dragon, didn't make it into the final game (though it was resurrected as the Kaiser Dragon in a later version).
Speaking of Final Fantasy VI, the sixth game in the series makes up for its lack of Leviathan (in favor of a giant whale summon?) by tossing in Eight Legendary Dragons, all of which must be defeated to unlock the most powerful summon and spell in the game. The very idea of it is way cool.
Enjoy the Dragon sprites I have collected on this page, from the first six Final Fantasy adventures! (And check out VideoGameSprites.net for more sprites!)
FF1 | FF2 | FF3 | FF4 | FF5 | FF6
 Tiamat |
 Frost Dragon (Blizzard) |
 Red Dragon (Blaze) |
 Zombie Dragon |
 Gas Dragon (Poison Gas) |
 Blue Dragon (Thunder) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Hydra |
 Red Hydra (Cremate) |
 Wyvern |
 Wyrm |
 T Rex |
 Tyro |
 White Dragon |
 Green Dragon |
 Blue Dragon |
 Red Dragon |
|---|---|---|---|
 Sea Snake |
 Tiamat |
 Sea Dragon |
|
 Green Dragon |
 Yellow Dragon |
 Red Dragon |
 Terrible Dragon |
|---|
 Pyralis |
 Vulcan |
 Salamander |
|---|
 Wyvern |
 Peryton |
 Drake |
 Pterodactyl |
 Nepto Dragon |
 Sea Serpent |
|---|
 Two-Headed Dragon |
 Zombie Dragon |
 Oceanus |
|---|---|---|
 Twin Dragon |
 Bone Dragon |
 Yormungand |
 Dragon |
 Bahamut |
 Leviathan |
|---|
 Dark Dragon |
  Leviathan |
  Ogopogo (Tidaliathan) |
 Pale Dim (White Dragon) |
|---|
  Bahamut |
  Wyvern (Dark Bahamut) |
|---|
 Blue Dragon |
 Mech Dragon (Dragon Machine) |
 Red Dragon |
|---|
 Hydra |
 Green Dragon |
 Mist Dragon |
 Yellow Dragon |
 Twin Snake |
|---|
 Shadow Dragon |
 Clapper (Thunder Dragon) |
 Dinozombie (Dragon Fossil) |
 Bone Dragon |
 Lunasaur (Lunar Dragon) |
 Ging-Ryu (Silver Dragon) |
 King-Ryu (Gold Dragon) |
|---|
 Archeoavis |
 CrystalDragon |
 Bahamut |
 Shinryu |
 Jura Avis |
|---|
 BlueDragon |
 Lopros |
 Wyvern |
 Wyrm |
 AvisDragon |
|---|
 YellowDrgn |
 Leviathan |
 Syldra |
 Hyudora |
|---|
 Isteritos |
 Python |
 Aspis |
 Magic Drgn |
 Mithril Drgn |
 White Snake |
 WereSnake |
 Mini Dragon |
|---|
 Great Drgn |
 Archeosaur |
 Zombie Dragon |
 ShieldDrgn |
 Red Dragon |
|---|
 Doom Dragon (L54) |
 Blue Dragon (L65) |
 Czar Dragon (L83) |
 Kaiser Dragon (L97) |
|---|
 Dragon (L29) |
 Red Dragon (L67) |
 White Dragon (L71) |
|---|
 Zombone (L21) |
 Fossil Fang (L20) |
 Bahamut |
 Black Dragon (L26) |
 Skull Dragon (L62) |
|---|
 Wirey Dragon (L26) |
 Wyvern (L18) |
 Vectaur (L59) |
 Mesosaur (L26) |
 Ice Dragon (L74) |
 Pterodon (L12) |
 Storm Dragon (L74) |
|---|
 Tyranosaur (L57) |
 Allosaurus (L38) |
 Terrato (Midgard Serpent) |
 Dirt Dragon (L53) |
 Chaos Dragon (L44) |
|---|
 Brontaur (L50) |
 Brachosaur (L77) |
 Gold Dragon (L62) |
|---|
Choose your Final Fantasy:
I / II / III / IV (II US) / V / VI (III US) / VII / VIII / IX / X / XI
Pokémon | Dragons
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