Favorite Final Fantasies

[Kim]

I've just been thinking about Final Fantasy as a franchise, and thought it might be fun to discuss which ones are our favorite and why. (Also I'm drunk) Now, I might dislike XIII, and Blues dislikes XII, but this thread isn't really for talking smack on the ones other people like, but for talking about our favorites. First off, from me, a list...

1. XII
2. X
3. VI
4. IX
5. VII
6. XIII
7. IV
8. I (On PSX on Easy)
9. VIII
10. II

III and V I haven't played enough to categorize, and I don't consider XIV and XI the same kinda game so they aren't in the list.

XII has a tower dungeon that can go fuck itself, and a few unnecessary parts, and Vaan and Penelo should have been replaced with Larsa. At least replace Penelo with Larsa if nothing else. Other than that it's a good game. Just very different in a lot of ways from what people expected. Still a solid story, and some very likeable characters. It really is my favorite, which is why I'm so comfortable criticizing it. Because I know it's still great in spite of all these flaws it's easy to say "Here's how it could have been even better."

X is interesting. Some awful character designs, the opening Zanarkand bit needs to be at least an hour and a half longer so we can give a fuck later on and to foreshadow stuff, and they need new voice actors and to ditch Tidus' narration. Oh, and the minigames are ass. These are some pretty huge detractors, but if it weren't for them X would easily be one of the best jRPGs I've ever played. Hell, To Zanarkand is THE best FF song. It's interesting to see how much potential it has and how much it fails to live up to it in some respects, but in spite of all that it's still really damn good.

VI is VI. It kicks ass and doesn't afraid of anything. It's just not as dear to me as it is to others because I've got no nostalgia for it. Still a great game though.

[Krylo]

1/2. XII & VI
3. IX
4. X
5. IV
6. VII
7. XIII
8. X-2
9/10. I and VIII

I never actually played II, III, or V.

I put VI and XII as a tie for first, because it's really hard for me to decide which I like best. They're both war stories, they both have some of my favorite characters, they're both just overall fun to play, etc. I'm tempted to give six the edge, but I'm not sure how much of that is nostalgia talking.

XI rates high because Zidane is the best protagonist. The best.

And I'm quite fond of most of the rest of them. Only my tie for last place includes the two I actively dislike. I even found enough to enjoy in XIII that I don't regret buying it.

[Kim]

I don't know why, but I kind of like I in that old school "fuck you" kinda way. Obviously the PSX version is necessary to make it bearable, but yeah.

[Krylo]

Well I never played the PSX version. I just have the old cartridge, and I've never made it very far... because every time I start playing, I fall asleep in every other random battle.

I loved it tons as a kid, though.

[greed]

Here's mine

1. XII
2. IX
3. X
4. VII
5. VI
6. IV
7. VIII
8. V
9. III
10. I
11/12. II and XIII

1-4 on the list are head and shoulders above the rest, while II and XIII are by far the worst as far as I'm concerned.

[IHateMakingNames]

1. VII
2. X-2
3. IX
4. XII
5. VI
6. X
7. VIII
8. V
9. IV
10. I

Never played II, III, or XIII (Though I imagine XIII would be top 4 once I get around to it).

VII is the game I've gone back to play again the most. The Midgar section is my favorite part of any FF, I like most the characters, fun enough to play, and probably some nostalgia.

X-2 has the best battle system by far. I'm fine with the story and don't care that they do magical girl transformations.

IX has my favorite overall story telling, setting, and mood. As a story, the most fun. No stupid leveling gimmicks either.

XII has the most interesting story.

After those four it's mostly minor preferences making the difference, between enjoyment if I played now and character/story.


The list would look slightly different if it was just "Which game I would go play again" (7/10-2/9, 6/10/8, 12/5/4, 1).

[Jagos]

1) VI
2) VII
3) IX
4) X

That's actually all I've finished. I just still like the idea of Sabin body slamming a train.

[CelesJessa]

1. VI
2. IX
3. X
4. XII
5. IV
6. V
7. VII
8. VIII
9. I
?. X-2

The rest go under the category of "didn't play enough to judge"

FF6 is obviously my favorite, and it might be nostalgia talking but I still have fun replaying it, even now. I loved the characters and the world and the music. Same reasons go for 9.

I just really liked X's story.

FF7 was amusing enough to finish, and I enjoyed it while I played it. FF8 I finished but it was just... not good. The combat system was a mess.

I didn't really know where to put I really, I've tried replaying it before but just... can't. I never did the easy PS1 one though.

X-2 gets a question mark because I have a love-hatred for it. I enjoyed the battle system and I really kind of liked their crazy costumes. The story... not so much, especially after how much I liked X's.

[Gregness]

I've only ever actually played VI through to completion (multiple times, even). I played through a good chunk of VIII, but my friends disks were scratched causing the game to crash in the middle of a cutscene when I hadn't saved in fucking FOREVER. I was too disheartened by that to try to pick it up again before my friend let another mutual friend borrow it and it got lost in loaner hell.

Which is really too bad because I actually liked the game rather well. Recently, I've been reading the Altimate rewrite (fanfic/LP of FFVIII from the RPG.net forums) and it's given me a new appreciation for exactly how much damn promise the game had and how infuriatingly far short they fell of realizing it.

I played a bit of VII and some others, but I've been a poor college student for so long that I think the last time I had a current gen console system was back when the N64 was the hip shit.

Anyways, my list (such as it is):

1. VI ( flat out: best overall musical score of any game i've EVER played)
2. VIII (dumb,dumb execution aside, I'm a sucker for potential.)
3. VII (dunno, just didn't really captivate me.)
4-blah: the rest

[Flarecobra]

1: VI -To me, just the best overall.
2: IV -Great characters, probably the best normal fight music out of them all, and great story.
3: X - Great music, not too bad a story. Tidus needs to shut his piehole. And Jecht was kinda interesting. I'd be curious to see something detailing HIS trek through Spira.
4: V - Fun Bosses, great job with the job system, and you get Gilgy, an evil tree, and a talking turtle for kicks.
5: VII- The first one I've ever played. Good music, interesting world. Some confusing moments though. Never understood all the Yuffie-hate.
6: X-2- Just could not take this one seriously. Interesting costumes and good music though.
7: III- Have not finished sadly, but kinda fun. (Did not finish due to losing the save.)
8: I - The first one. Buggy, but can be quite fun.
9: VIII - Interesting weapons. But I grew discuraged by the story.
10: XII- Just kinda got bored of it.
11: XIII- 360 bricked not too long after the fight with the Shiva twins. But come on, baby chocobo!
12: II- Hate the leveling system... though good for customizion... but just not for me.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Mes:
1) 6
2) 4
3) 10
4) 5
5) 7
6) 8
That all I played through enough.
6 is 6, it been said enough. 4 is similar to 6, I like the characters, I even like the wacky story. I like 4's music
10 is a throughly awful awful game but the combat system is the best one by that I've played by far so lots of points for that.
I just really like the job system in 5, I like the customisation. Is pretty hard and only final fantasy game where i've reallly had to grind properly which is ass.
7 was good and bad, materia was too fiddly for me but I liked the scope of the game, it was really like travelling a world (unlike later ones which scaled this back unfortunately) and I liked the central story of Cloud trying to find his identity- though then Sephiroth came along and fugged it up.
8 loses points because the very absolute first battle I fought with 8 was the mofo T-rex in the Gardens which is hard enough to beat later in the game let alone as your absolute first battle with no skills and no idea how the combat system works. Pretty disheartening to get absolutely destroyed in your first battle (over and over again cause i thought I was missing something obvious. Also the plot was nonsense, characters annoying and the junction system could have been interesting if tactical but instead was just a few obvious choices to put on your stats and leave there.

[Amake]

On my list 6 is first, and then 9, then nothing, then nothing, then nothing, then maybe 7.

I freely admit it's the nostalgia that makes 6 great to me. It was the third RPG I played after Shadowrun and Link to the Past, which in that order held the titles of "best game I ever played".

It's very bare-bones, with just a couple of spites 32 pixels tall to convey emotion and body language and a blind idiot working to translate the strict number of dialogue windows allowed in the 3 megabyte memory to convey character and plot, and you may think this allows only the shallowest and most clichéd archetypal story, especially with the dozens of character competing for the spotlight.

But those things allowed me to fill the template with details of my own, at an age where I was not aware of what I was doing or even had imagined myself as a creative person. So I unconsciously turned it into a story very near to my heart. Such as: Every time I pulled out a Tent I saw my party, which usually included Terra and Locke, making camp and putting their feet up and building a fire and cooking up the unusual meats and vegetables of the land after a long day's roaming and sojourning, maybe telling stories as they watched the sunset and listened to the strangely melodic, wonderful midi birdsong in the trees. Oh, they definitely told stories, to pass the time, to enjoy themselves and to try to get to know each other, to somehow make sense of the world they had been thrust into where they've been forced to rely on each other to survive, facing death together on an hourly basis.

And that's just the quiet and aimless segments of the story.

[Specterbane]

1) VII
2) VI
3) VIII
4) IX
5) IV
6) V
7) XII
8) X

VII is not the best of the final fantasies, but to me it's what got me back into gaming and RPGs after missing a console generation (SNES-Genesis wars) so it'll always have a high place for me.

VI is arguably the best of them, but the pacing has always struck me as...odd. Maybe I just had a little more trouble following it my first time than the others though.

VIII & IX (in that order in fact) are the games I've probably come back to the most of all of them, and yet only beaten once. I really enjoy them, but I guess I just get worn down on them eventually; which says a lot since I usually found myself enjoying grinding levels in RPGs.

XII is the last one I'll comment on from my list because it's a very different game compared to the other FFs. It's very fun in it's own ways, but I found myself wondering "Ok, when is this game going to end." and that's not a good thing.

[Kerensky287]

1. IX
2. XIII
3. VI
Then the others I've played.

9 is the best because it just does so much right. The story and most of the characters are outstanding, the music is fantastic, and aside from the minigames (FUCK tetra master) I don't think there was a single part of the game I didn't like.

13 gets a lot of hate and I can understand why - Vanille is useless, most of the monster designs just look silly, the story makes no sense, and most of the dialog is cringeworthy. But from a gameplay perspective, it stands tall above EVERY other game in the series. The battles actually involve some strategy other than "Mash attack, heal when dying, spam limit breaks." The paradigm shifts forced you to build a strategy on the fly, but still plan ahead so you had the right options available. If 9 had 13's combat, I don't know if I would ever stop playing. Ever.

6 is like 9, except without the awesome skill system and (by the end of my playthrough) without any reason to do anything but attack and/or spam ultima. Gameplay is my main focus when it comes to games, naturally, and while 6 was good everywhere ELSE, I prefer games that you can't just shut down and sleep your way through.


I haven't played 10 ever, and I haven't played enough of 12 to give a fair opinion, but from the sound of it they'd be in my top 5 for certain.

[BloodyMage]

I agree with the above, IX was my favourite. I just found it a thoroughly enjoyable game on all aspects and I even enjoyed tetra master.

The rest are all middle ground, as in they have some stuff I liked and some that I didn't, although I'd probably personally rank I and X slightly higher than the rest.The game that certainly comes last is VII though. I wasn't sad when Aeris died, which I imagine was the intention, just incredibly pissed that they took away a great character that was really useful for healing and magic. Cloud took too long to recover and move the plot along, and it felt like the whole Cloud/Tifa thing got shoved in my face a lot more than Titus/Yuna ever did. Not that it didn't have some good parts and I kinda liked the materia, but I just really didn't enjoy it as much as the other games.

[Ryong]

1)XII - I really liked the characters, the mark system, the plot and, well, everything looked nice.
2)IX - This is actually the first FF I finished. The characters are great and I liked the "learn abilities from your equips" system.
3)V - Class-changing! Ability combos! Gilgamesh! Galuf doesn't understand the concept of hitpoints!
4)X - I'm not really sure why exactly, I just liked it. Hated the sidequests to unlock the full power on the celestial weapons. And the sidequests to get said weapons in the first place.
5)VIII - Selphie. That's it.
6)I - I played the GBA remake, but it was nice to see how the series started.
7)VII - Goddamn plot bullshit everywhere, yay golden saucer minigames. Also, fucking golden chocobo.
8)III - Played the DS remake. Goddamn crazy difficulty. Nice to see what would become FFV's class system.
9)VI - I'm not exactly sure, I just never was a fan of it.
10)IV - I like picking my party. Aside from that, it's the same as VI, I'm not sure what I didn't like in it.
11)II - Stupid leveling system. I'd like to know the game's story, but the gameplay is just too terrible.

[bluestarultor]

1. IX
2. X
3. VII
4. VIII
5/6. V & VI
7. XIII & X-2 (full tie)
8. III
9. XII
10. IV
11/12. I & II


I have to say I think IX is the best of the series. It has great characters, a great story, and is really a great homage to the series.

X is quite good. The voice doesn't annoy me nearly as much as the Sphere Grid. I've been grinding to no end with that for more hours than I'd like to admit on my way to Home (meaning Yuna doesn't benefit and Tidus now has Revive when she doesn't).

VII was my first and it's still a great game. The graphics have aged poorly, but I still appreciate the story, maybe even more now that I'm older, and the battle system is rock solid.

VIII I just happen to like despite its flaws. I only like about half the cast, but battle is good and keeping me involved with the Trigger thing is a plus. I've never gone out of my way to not level to break the game. Not perfect, but definitely worth my time.

V and VI are a tough choice. I love the light tone and class system of V, and VI is functionally pretty good, but gets dragged down because I just hate Terra and don't feel much for most of the rest of the cast, Figaro brothers excluded. If pressed, I guess I'd take V over VI, but only if pressed. VI has some great merits that just get dragged down by Terra and a few other things.

XIII is one I really like, but in some cases, it doesn't seem to like me much. I'm in the habit of maxing out Crystarium trees as much as possible, but Sazh and Vanille really get shafted in the Sunleth Waterscape between their abilities at the time and the enemies they're served. Directly after that, Lightning and Hope get completely shafted in the enemy department and I'm currently resetting the game every minute or so so all the grunts respawn so I can try to grind on their paltry asses to make the damn hover-cycle battle easier, since it's apt to kill me in pretty much one hit with its "FUCK YOU" ray.

X-2 is one I love the main gameplay of (best battle system of the series, bar none), and I can dig the story, but I've never advanced far due to rage over the Besaid Gunner's Gauntlet, which I'm sure I've expounded on before. For some reason I can't just not do it, but the mechanics of it make me want to snap my controller.

My current workable obsession (been trying to get VIIPC running again) is FF3j, which has a great fan translation. It's not that I don't have the DS remake sitting feet away from me at moment of writing, but I just like the NES version better. FF3j is easily the most impressive game I've seen from a system that old. The music for the most part sounds better in chip form than in the DS' crappy MIDI, I squeed when an enemy actually became my guest party member for story purposes (as a shadow on the ground) to follow me in secret to steal the Ice Horns, combat works great, and did I mention the music is fucking awesome!? We're talking Mega Man levels of greatness, here! It even uses the DPCM channel! The only things really holding it back so far is how long it takes you to get more Jobs and the way the World Map is handled. Plus the fact that I'd prefer it to be on a real screen with a real controller. But for an NES game, absolutely fantastic, even unmatched, and for a game in general, pretty darn good.

XII is one that I really do want to like, but I just can't get into it. The music is probably the best in the series, the world is well-done, the weapon system puts to shame every other weapon system in any game ever made on Earth, the graphics are nice, and I have to admit I'm hating Vaan a little bit less on the game's second chance. It's just that so far the cast (minus Larsa) largely has failed to grab me (in particular, I want to drown Balthier's smug British face in a puddle of mud every time he opens his yap), battle goes way too slow, the story goes way too slow, the graphics are often just too tiny when it comes to buttons and stuff, and the screen itself offers you a choice between the whole thing being blurred and slowly straining your eyes or being very sharp and flickering and immediately stabbing your eyes. There is a good game buried in there that I'd like to get to, but I just never manage.

IV is... okay. It's not really great, but it's not bad. It's just that kind of good where it's good, but not really special.

I is pretty clearly a first draft. It has tons of bugs, spells you'll never need, etc. Is it bad? Well, no, but it shows its age in ways FF3 just doesn't. It plays very much like an NES game and really has nothing to stand out compared to the rest of the series. II has lots of good ideas that just weren't implemented well. Many of those ideas were used in FF3 and later games, even outside the series.



This isn't to say that I dislike most of the series in any way. Up until FF12, the spacing is pretty narrow and could easily be rearranged based on my mood.

[Krylo]

5/6. V & VI
[...]
10. VI
[...]
V and VI are a tough choice. I love the light tone and class system of V, and VI is functionally pretty good, but gets dragged down because I just hate Terra and don't feel much for most of the rest of the cast, Figaro brothers excluded. If pressed, I guess I'd take V over VI, but only if pressed. VI has some great merits that just get dragged down by Terra and a few other things.
[...]
VI is... okay. It's not really great, but it's not bad. It's just that kind of good where it's good, but not really special.

:confused:

[Chocobo]

Here are my top 5:

1. Final Fantasy IV
2. Final Fantasy I
3. Final Fantasy VII
4. Final Fantasy III
5. Final Fantasy II

I haven't played enough of the rest to make a solid opinion


Final Fantasy IV: This is my favorite out of them so far. The plot is simple, but it does have some decent plot twists here and there, the character interactions are interesting (for the time), and I'm a sucker for 16-bit games period. The customization is pretty much non-existant, which is lame, but I still can't help but love this game.

Final Fantasy I: Yeah, it's pretty grindy (mainly towards the beginning) but I can't help but love the DnD-feel it had. Not to mention, this was the first one I've played.

Final Fantasy VII: I liked the materia system, a system like that was needed to fit the revolving door of protagonists it had. The plot was goofy at points, the dialogue can get downright wonky, and the graphics look like LEGO bricks, but that gave it a certain charm.

Final Fantasy III: I always found this game harder than FF1, but everyone seems to get FF1 more slack about it. Either way, the job system was really fun, and it still had that DnD-feel that FF1 had.

Final Fantasy II: I'm talking about the GBA version for this game. The GBA version is actually fun, compared to the NES/PS1 versions. They fixed the glitches, and it doesn't take near as long to grind.

[Fenris]

@krylo I'm willing to bet he meant IV for #10.

[Krylo]

That's my guess as well, but he wrote VI twice--both in his explanation for tenth place and in the actual list--so.

[bluestarultor]

That's my guess as well, but he wrote VI twice--both in his explanation for tenth place and in the actual list--so.

At least I'm consistent? XD

Yeah, #10 is FF4, but my I key's been acting up, along with a few others, so I've been making a lot more typos than usual and going back to fix them.


Edit: Just attempted to blow it out with a can of air, then resorted to the vacuum cleaner when the can froze, then more air. I think I have a whole cat under my keys somehow because there's STILL fur in there.

[Drownball-Champ]

1) FFIX (Love the characters, story, and Chocobo Hot n Cold)
2) FFXII (Love the battle system and the hunts)
^^ This two constantly switch places, I can't decide which I like more ^^
3) FFVIII (Like the story, characters, Triple Triad, and the GFs)
4) FFX (Like Blitzball, the story, and the aeons)
5) FFX-2 (Like the battle system, Real Emotion, 1000 Words, and the dress spheres)
6) FFVII (Like the materia system, how easy it is to get Sources, and chocobo racing)
7) FFVI (Like how awesome Setzer and his dice are, also liked that the villain succeeds in destroying almost all of man-kind
7) FFXIII (Liked the battle system and Sazh)
9) FFIV (Story is ok, gave us the "spoony bard")
10) FFV
11) FFIII
12) FF

Can't judge 2, I haven't played it.

[Aldurin]

I've playing 13 and 1 for iPhone. I like FF1 but FF13 was not a good way to enter the series for me (after I beat the final boss I was like "fuck this" and played FPS games for weeks after that).

I will probably go for Versus XIII though.

[Magus]

1. FFT
2. FFV
3. FFIX
4. FFVI
5. FFXII
6. FFIV

Everything else is below that, not in any particular order.

I probably shouldn't bother bringing up Final Fantasy Tactics since it is not really part of the traditional series and form of the games (although since they've now integrated MMOs into the main series maybe it's totally fine to bring up Tactics). But between Matsuno's amazing story and the massive amount of customization that is allowed in the game, despite being buggy or suffering from a slightly below-quality translation at points, the Final Fantasy game I've devoted over 300 hours to if you added up all my playthroughs and so on would be Final Fantasy Tactics. I think it is totally great and wonderful and wish they'd make a real follow-up to it.

Final Fantasy V is my favorite of the regular, numbered series. Like Smarty mentioned, it has a lot of customization with different job classes and various strategies you can put into place, but it's very fast-paced like the rest of the numbered series and I think the way it was put together is simply the funnest. If I weren't to include FFT, FFV would be at the top of my list, and really in a way they share the #1 slot. I also thought the plot was pretty interesting when you start finding out things from the backstory and the real purpose of the crystals and the nature of the world, and also that this game had the funnest dungeons and places that you visit, in my opinion.

FFVI has been talked about enough, if you've played it you know it's pretty great.

FFXII had another Matsuno plot and it reminded me of FFT quite a bit. The battle system was pretty neat and a nice change of pace, even if it got monotonous after a while. I have to agree that Vaan was kind of a pointless main character, but at least unlike Tidus (who is also totally pointless) he wasn't really annoying and all the other characters (besides Penelo, I mean) were nicely fleshed out and likeable.

FFIV is fine. It's not the best game, but it's not bad. It seems like a very middle-of-the-road game in the development of the series, since it's the first to really start fleshing the characters out and introducing the Job system into the game (I'd like to remind everyone that FFIII did a really terrible job with Jobs in my opinion, the remake made them seem quite different but in the original they just seemed so pointless for the most part).

All the other games kind of mesh together for me. I suppose I like the original Final Fantasy (or at least the Origins remake which is the best version currently available...Dawn of Souls dumbed everything down horribly) more than any of the other ones, including VII or X. I'd rather screw around on the original Final Fantasy than mess around with those ones again. I tried playing FFVII recently and just...blah. I can't take it anymore. And I never could take FFX.

[McTahr]

For 5-14, the reason in parentheses is the "flaw" in the game that actively distracted me from enjoying it. Games grouped together are rough ties that vary with mood.

1-2.) FFVI, no question, FFT.
3-4.) FFVIII, FFVII, both had feasible ultimate goals (drop the weapons), quirky character development, mostly not-shitty characters, and a storyline I cared enough to read through, while still having minor flaws that don't actively irritate me.
5-14.) FFXII (Vaan and Penelo. Especially Vaan.), FFX (Voice acting), FFV (Storyline didn't really perk my attention), FFIV (The entire first couple hours really.), FFIII (Characters suffer from FFI-itis), FFI (No character development = FFI-itis), FF4HoL (Forced targeting system), FFTA & FFTA2 (Higher expectations because of FFT)
15-16.) FFIX, just did not like it, FFII, same-ish. Didn't like the system either.
17-21.) FFAdventure, FFLegends I, FFLegends II, FFLegends III. Adventure was if they gave Zelda games a needless stats system with poor execution. Legends series were bland RPG trawls and FUCK weapon decay.
22-23.) FFXIV, FFXI, poorly done MMOs. XI is a slow, occasionally suicidal tromp through the mud. XIV spends more time fighting with menus than monsters.
24-25.) FFXIII, FFMQ, No. Just no.

99999.) FFX-2. Almost forgot this one. Just wait for other games to be made, they'll fill out the list.

[Solid Snake]

Just rating the numeric Final Fantasies, avoiding the whole FFT debate for now (I probably did not like FFT as much as you did, so it's a good thing that we'll avoid it):

Right now I'd rank 'em

1: VII
2: IX
3: V
4: X
5: VI
6: XII
7: I
8: VIII
9: IV
10: X-2

I haven't played II, III, XI or XIII enough to judge them. Based on what little I've played of XIII, it seems like it could very well actively compete with VIII, IV and X-2 for those bottom spots. I'll have to find the motivation to learn whether or not that statement remains accurate later in the game.

VII was awesome, was not my first Final Fantasy, and yet is continuously the one I return to as a defining point for my (former) adoration of the series. Yeah, it's a fundamentally flawed game in some respects, but I really enjoyed its narrative before its "sequels" managed to bungle them up. I really loved the Shinra elements in particular (moreso than the Sephiroth and Jenova elements). The pacing was brilliant, with first eight hours or so you spend in Midgar and how the game suddenly opens up and unexpectedly presents you an entire world to explore. I also liked most (albeit not all) the characters. I think about the only significant characters I actively disliked were Cait Sith and Vincent Valentine.

X used to be my second favorite FF, but then X-2 happened, and ever since then X has been on a slippery slope with me, gradually tumbling down the ranks. For some reason, X-2 has affected my opinion of X moreso than the VII compendium has affected my opinion of VII. I think that's because there was enough distance between VII and its "sequels" to ensure a lack of association, whereas X-2 was released in close enough temporal proximity with X to irrevocably damage it. Also, none of VII's "sequels" were really proper sequels.

IX, on the other hand, has slowly grown on me. I don't know why. Is it because its plot is somehow geared more for older or more experienced gamers? Because Zidane isn't such a drag to listen to, and thus replays of the game are less intolerable? Is it because the game's cartoony style enables the PS1-era graphics to feel like less of an overt limitation? Whereas other games stagnated upon further playthroughs, IX has really become better each time I've replayed it, which is probably why it is the only FF aside from VII that I've replayed more than once.

Yes, V is my favorite FF of the SNES era. I will proceed to attempt to dodge the tomatoes and other vegetables you will proceed to throw in my general direction.

On its own merits, X is a fine game, assuming you plug your ears in regards to most of the voice acting. It probably has what I'd identify as the most schizophrenic of the protagonist casts, with characters I really like (Auron, Tidus, Rikku...and yes, I did include Tidus in there) and characters I really dislike (Kimahri, Wakka, to a lesser extent Lulu.) I think Tidus is somewhat underrated as an FF protagonist, as I really appreciated how he matured (though as one of you noted, it would have been superior in the narrative if we spent more time in Tidus' Zanarkand first.) The final twist actually caught me genuinely by surprise, too.

I'll always believe that VI is overrated (and no, I won't touch that subject ever again,, I've learned my lesson), but I still do believe it's one of the better FFs in the series. I never felt it was bad, just didn't understand the over-the-top adulation. When it comes to SNES RPGs I'll always think far more highly of CT, to be honest. Still, FFVI does have a great ensemble cast and one of the series' better villains in Kefka. I do remember enjoying the World of Balance much more than the World of Ruin.

The first five games are all games I'd genuinely consider very good games, but by the time we get to XII on my list we're delving into games I feel more ambivalent about. I understand why others really like XII: it's a polished game, at least. My complaints are more subjective in nature, and deal with my own personal preferences. I prefer RPGs that concentrate more on character dynamics and less on socio-political machinations. Vaan was an utterly inconsequential protagonist. I didn't care much for the majority of the cast, aside from Balthier. The MMORPG style battle system sort of grated on me. The artistic style of the game's locations just never captivated me in a way like FFVII or FFIX did.
But objectively speaking it's still undeniably a solid game, just not one that's meant for me. So I can't rate it too low.

FFI is FFI. I respect it for its value to the series as a whole and its influence on the gaming industry, but I don't particularly like playing it.

FFVIII is an altogether decent, if unspectacular, game that is hampered tremendously by the most unlikable protagonist in the history of unlikable protagonists. I know Cloud and Squall are often compared, but I don't find the two particularly comparable. I liked Cloud, and I empathized with his struggles, and at least he was going through some genuinely medically creepy shit influencing his memories and his personality, and once he sorted through his issues he became a much better person until Advent Children retconned that. Whereas Squall was just, like, the Eridan of Final Fantasy protagonists. I wanted to smack him. Almost as hard as I wanted to smack Eridan.

I'm not an IV fan, either. Although I haven't tried the DS version, and I may have liked IV more if I actually played it during the SNES era. I actually did play through a bit of VI with an SNES, but never did so with IV.

X-2 is an abomination that I refuse to acknowledge exists. I'm pretty sure dozens of posts I've made on the NPF forums have covered my strenuous objections to that piece of unadulterated, unfiltered crap.

[Kim]

Oh yeah I forgot about FFT. I'd rank that somewhere alongside XII and X. Not sure where relative them, though. The funny thing is my favorite aspects of it are the ones nobody else seems to like: The faux-Shakespearean accents and themes, and my least favorite parts of the game are the more Final Fantasy-esque elements because I think they felt out of place.

Of course, I've only played the War of the Lions version, so...

[McTahr]

Of course, I've only played the War of the Lions version, so...

Fuck yes. I really dug the retranslation of this. I bought it for the multiplayer, kept it for the words.

[RobinStarwing]

My turn

1. FFVI
2. FFX-2
3. FFX
4. FFIV
5. FFXII

I haven't played any of the others save for Revenant Wings a bit...

VI was my first and pretty much hooked me to the series in someway. I especially loved Terra (no secret I am a Terra Fanboy) and the Opera Scene was fun to play through. Great cast, music for it's time, and great story.

X-2...some think it's an abomination and others love it. I fall into the later but not for the story. This is a fan service game and it shows and it's meant to be fun. Finding the main quest is tricky and if you do something wrong, you don't get the good ending. I rate it higher than FF-X for difficulty as well.

X, this one was fun just for the theme music alone ("Otherworld") and yes, I have the first two Black Mages albums so I got both "Otherworld" and "Skies Above". Voice acting is blah though and the end boss was a big letdown (Jecht was harder).

IV, played this on the SNES and got the DS version. Probably one of the greatest power couples in FF history is in this game; Cecil and Rosa. It's moderate difficulty with a story that twists and turns with surprises and throws it's own at you for areas.

XII...haven't even finished this as the license grid is so freaking huge. You need to work carefully or you could screw what you are doing up. My only complaint is the politicalness of the story but it was made during the start of the Iraq War, The Sequel so SquareEnix can be forgiven that much. Battle system is easy to work through but hard to master and gambits are an interesting thing.

[Tev]

Yeah I was going to bitch about you all leaving out Final Fantasy Tactics but then Magus pulled you out of harms way.

Anyway, games with "Final Fantasy" in the title that I played and enjoyed:

1.) Final Fantasy Tactics
2.) Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions
3.) Final Fantasy Adventure (for the Game Boy and from what I'm told not a real Final Fantasy game but it's got Chocobos so screw you.)
4.) Final Fantasy X


And that's about it really.

[Azisien]

1. FFT - PSX or PSP version I don't care, though PSP version has multiplayer which is cool.

2. FFVII - the RPG that got me into RPGs. Love the battle system, love the opening part of the game. Also enjoyed Chocobo racing/breeding.

3. FFX - Pretty much just really enjoyed the battle system here. Blitzball meh.

4. FFIX - Loved battle system, loved Chocobo Hot and Cold mini-game far too much.

5. FFXIII - Because HAHAHA JUST KIDDING

And the rest, just a random jumble of memories. I played FFIV and FFVI about halfway through each but lost interest in both. Nothing particularly wrong with either, they just didn't hold my childhood attention. Never tried any of the others. Oh, wait, I tried FFIII on the DS, thought it was garbage though that may have been the port?

[RobinStarwing]

I played FFIV and FFVI about halfway through each but lost interest in both. Nothing particularly wrong with either, they just didn't hold my childhood attention.

What can I say? I was strange as a child and already reading college-level fiction in 7th and 8th Grade (Robert Jordan Wheel of Time series to be exact).

[Magus]

Yeah I was going to bitch about you all leaving out Final Fantasy Tactics but then Magus pulled you out of harms way.

Anyway, games with "Final Fantasy" in the title that I played and enjoyed:

1.) Final Fantasy Tactics
2.) Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions
3.) Final Fantasy Adventure (for the Game Boy and from what I'm told not a real Final Fantasy game but it's got Chocobos so screw you.)
4.) Final Fantasy X


And that's about it really.

Final Fantasy Adventure is actually the first Secret of Mana game. It was pretty good, I remember playing the original Game Boy version and then the updated Sword of Mana remake as well (which kind of sucked all the joy out of the original. It wasn't bad but the original was much more straightforward if I remember correctly, I don't think it had HP, it had lifebars, for example, and played more like Zelda. I may be totally misremembering it though, I just remember jumping off a waterfall to get away from Dark Lord, really).

So while it's not a Final Fantasy game it's a Secret of Mana game which is almost the same thing, really. Square RPG is Square RPG.

[Bifrost]

Every time I read something blasting Sword of Mana I feel all weird for liking it enough to make wacky theories about the plot threads and write fixfic for my favorite characters (read: the villains (because the heros were boring)). Maybe it's just that I never played the original as a kid and didn't have precious memories to murder.

ANYWAY IT'S TIME FOR FINAL FANTASY even though I haven't played many. So there is blather to make up for it.

1. FF3 (the DS version; the biggest flaw for me is the fact that in order to win the game you need to go through a huuuuge dungeon and fight six bosses in a row without saving, which is a total pain in the butt. All because test gamers in Japan thought that having one save point after the Crystal Tower made it too easy. No, Japan, that is not a reasonable level of difficulty. That's called "Artifical Difficulty" and it is a bad thing. But that's a pretty small flaw in an otherwise pretty awesome game. c: I genuinely liked the mains and their interactions, and I had a lot of fun playing with the class system (including an ALL MAGES ALL THE TIME run, you can guess how much fun that was). I just wish that more of the classes were actually, you know, usable. Or obtainable if you don't have a friend with the game.)
2. FF2 (GBA version; besides the obligitory HUSH YOU, I found the game to be really fun, if a bit too easy for my tastes in some areas and too spiteful in others, but what else do I expect from a game based on an NES game? Also I liked the Emperor. He was a fun villain, and refreshingly straightforward with his goals. The mains were kind of dull, though, and I got more attached to the temporary characters than the mains, which is kind of sad but at the same time I've started to expect that from games. I liked the bit added for the GBA version, at the very least; made the game a bit more interesting, even if it is one of the "spiteful" portions of the game.)
3. FF12: Revenant Wings (OH NOES A SPINOFF. Anyway, I really liked this game, even though at first I wanted to punch everyone not named Lyude (sorry if I misspelled this, I can't find the instruction manual), Cu Sith, or Balthier in the face. But eventually most of the cast grew on me and the plot points actually managed to stir emotional reactions in me. But between the battle AI's derp (why do you get stuck on things, vaan. why do you do this), the sheer amount of split-second micromanaging needed to win later battles, and the lack of any real replayability, I dropped it like a hot rock as soon as I beat the game with 100% completion.)
4. FF1 (GBA version again; kind of bland and pretty easy overall, although I admit to both abusing the Penisula of Powerleveling so that my mages would STOP DYING and brutally sodomizing my foes with the best weapon in the game as soon as I could get it. This is another case of not being terribly familiar with the source material, though, so I might put it higher on the scale if I manage to find the time to play the Virtual Console version. The music's nice but that's not really a surprise for a Final Fantasy game.)

[Tev]

Final Fantasy Adventure is actually the first Secret of Mana game. Blah blah blah blah blah blah.....

So while it's not a Final Fantasy game it's a Secret of Mana game which is almost the same thing, really. Square RPG is Square RPG.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y196/kramwartap/FFA_chocobo_story.png

[Kerensky287]

3. FF12: Revenant Wings (OH NOES A SPINOFF. Anyway, I really liked this game, even though at first I wanted to punch everyone not named Lyude (sorry if I misspelled this, I can't find the instruction manual), Cu Sith, or Balthier in the face. But eventually most of the cast grew on me and the plot points actually managed to stir emotional reactions in me. But between the battle AI's derp (why do you get stuck on things, vaan. why do you do this), the sheer amount of split-second micromanaging needed to win later battles, and the lack of any real replayability, I dropped it like a hot rock as soon as I beat the game with 100% completion.)

What I found was that a no-Yahri playthrough improved replay value by a ton. I kind of cheated by sticking healers with Penelo in every fight (which you kind of need if you don't want to spend hours on end grinding) but when all you have is human characters, the abilities become much more useful and I found myself having a lot more fun there.


And I do think FF2 gets a bit of a bad rep, if only because the Emperor is so great. Like, remember when Kefka turned out to be the power behind the throne in FF6? Well, in FF2, the Emperor was the power BEHIND the power behind the throne. He was also on the throne in the first place. Power sandwich. And hey, the game had some really great music, too.

[Flarecobra]

In Legend of Mana, wild black chocobos are random monsters and uncapturable, but it's possible to grab bird eggs from several locations, and these have a chance of hatching a tame yellow chocobo, a pet that would fight alongside the player. Moreover, if the player has a game save from Final Fantasy VIII on their memory card during the Monster Corral tutorial quest, the egg obtained during this quest will hatch a chocobo (rather than a Rabite).

From the FFWiki entry on the Chocobo.

[EVILNess]

Ranked top 5 as thusly in my mind:

1. Final Fantasy Tactics (Job system, Ramza is a not a whiny bitch, Story, world, and characters was aces)
2. Final Fantasy 9 (Solid Battle mechanics, every character was unique and useful in their own way, Generally more lighthearted and less angst-y, Ozma was a great hidden boss)
3. Final Fantasy 5 (Job system, Pirate who could be a ninja at the same time, lots of sidequests and hidden goodies, Gilgamesh, generally more lighthearted and less angst-y than next 3 games)
4. Final Fantasy 6 (Mecs and Mog)
5. Final Fantasy 4 GBA version (Not as easy as Hardtype, but harder than the SNES version, Colorful characters, Everyone was useful in their own way)

[bluestarultor]

And I do think FF2 gets a bit of a bad rep, if only because the Emperor is so great. Like, remember when Kefka turned out to be the power behind the throne in FF6? Well, in FF2, the Emperor was the power BEHIND the power behind the throne. He was also on the throne in the first place. Power sandwich. And hey, the game had some really great music, too.

FF2 has a surprisingly good story and cast for a first try, all told. It's really just the weapon and spell proficiency and stat system that drag it down. If magic were easier to cast and you could grind one weapon without it hitting a plateau until you improved other weapons (knives are basically useless and you'll need to start on them eventually), pretty much all my complaints would vanish. The game has a very good enemy balance in the PSOne version unless you're not supposed to go into an area (the game uses high-level enemies instead of walls), but the stat growth system makes it hard to really control where your characters go because A) it's totally determined by what actions they do and what happens TO them in battle, which you can only control half of and B) it doesn't go nearly fast enough to really be immediately useful. Spells are the worst of this because they need to be used a stupidly high number of times to level and your low starting MP severely limits your ability to cast unless you're grinding just outside a town.

Plus, not having a proper level system limits your ability to assess your party's strength.

Basically, the whole thing could have been mostly fixed by instating a normal level system and making spells cheaper. The rest could pretty well stand despite being a bit annoying at times.

Also, quick tip: equipping shields in such a way as to make your character "attack" with them greatly increases your chance of blocking, so it basically is like having a Guard command.

[Kerensky287]

Spells are the worst of this because they need to be used a stupidly high number of times to level and your low starting MP severely limits your ability to cast unless you're grinding just outside a town.

The worst part of this is that there are some spells that don't actually improve at all when you level them up, so stuff like Esuna just arbitrarily becomes twice as difficult to cast after using it a certain number of times. Not fun.

[Nique]

Final Fantasy VIII is still my all-time numbah-one favorite.

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