Gaming

I have played and enjoyed every single Final Fantasy game. Even XIII has some great stuff going for it. The series strong suit is that it's never stale. Each game is a fresh, new take on a somewhat familiar net of design philosophies.

My favourite is XII. I love its job and gambit system, as well as the world design and music. IX comes just a tiny bit short, then V, probably.

I'm the weirdo that thinks FF8 was the best one. Squall actually grew as a character, matured from an angsty emo teen into an adult who assassinates authoritarian leaders (or at least tries to)... And don't forget that Rinoa launches her dog like a wrist-mounted crossbow, as an attack. Best FF game.

• 1 - ...I respect the historical importance of this game.
• 2 - Actually, dual-wielding shields and attacking yourself to grind evasion is peak game design.
• 3 - Beta for FF5. Shame about that final dungeon.
• 4 - First game that actually holds up.
• 5 - Peak.
• 6 - I liked this game up until I found out that I was supposed to be grinding three distinct parties the whole time.
• 7 - I went into this expecting the first 3D installment to be another example of historically important but poorly aged. Was pleasantly surprised by how well it holds up.
• 8 - I went into this knowing it's the weird one. I was the sicko that liked 2, but I still couldn't get through it.
• 9 - Bought it alongside 8, when I dropped 8 I never got around to this. I will eventually... maybe...
• 10 - Perfects the classic formula while still feeling sufficiently modernized. Uh, for some definition of modern...
• 12 - Hated hated hated the combat. Painfully tedious to take manual control, automation is too primitive. And I don't want to automate the game away, I want to play it!

Tactics is my favorite by far, possibly because of how grounded its story feels compared to most other Final Fantasy. The tactical combat is also amazing, unlocking the jobs from playing and leveling up different combos instead of at set points of the story (FF3, FF5) was very engaging. There was a lot to discover and teen me didn't access GameFaqs often back then.

Anyday now I'm going to spend "decades" playing just to get the child prince into his teen years. I'm 99% sure the texts of the game won't change, but it'll be funny nonetheless.

I don't like recent FF tendency of reducing the playable party to just one character. The whole beauty of JRPGs is that you can play around with your party, and XV and XVI don't have that, which is a shame. VII Remake, however, is great at combining action with the party management, I hope Square would choose this path for future FFs.

I've always liked FF. We had FF1 on the NES back when but the battery in it was dead so we had to the leave the console on. My brother got through it after a good number of afternoons.

I never got into it though. I like watching it. I remember the obsession around FFVII.

Then I picked up one of those SNES Mini things that came with... FFIV. That one got me. I wasn't surprised to find out that loads of people love that one in particular.

I am probably in an extreme minority here, but my favorite final fantasy game is... XIII. I remember being so hyped when it came out, the graphics on my PS3 were unreal. This was at a time in my life where I was unable to finish any big game due to limited attention span, but I played the first hours of that game a lot and really enjoyed it. Since then I've tried getting into VII, IX, XII and XIV, and all of them I bounced off of. However, trying XIII again years later on PC, it just feels so comfy. I don't need to think too hard were to go or what to do, just let the game guide me and enjoy the music and spectacle.

I've noticed lately that I absolutely love linear games: half-life, portal, uncharted... are all experiences I adored because of their simplicity. Just move forward! I feel that a lot of mainstream gaming has become about side objectives, open worlds and collecting 100% of collectibles, and it is honestly exhausting. If you have any linear game recommendations, please chime in :)!

I always wanted to play the one I saw my friend's older sister playing on her Xbox 360 when I was younger. The main character had pink hair and it looked really good for the generation of consoles. Not sure which one it was though

FF VII and FF VIII where the first two games I played in the series, but i was very young and didn't really know what I was doing. I think we had rented one game, and borrowed another. I really don't remember much about either game, but FF IX came out on ps1, and to this day it's my image of what FF means.

The unique worlds, characters, incredible (at the time and not bad for today) cutscene cinematic. It was the first game I discovered you can outpace yourself and wind up in a battle with a level 60 dragon when you're only level 13.

My brother really got into FF X and i remember watching him play. To this day, I hate Blitzball lol. We both sucked at it.

FF VII-2 for the psp was actually really cool. I don't remember much anymore but the story, gameplay, and music were all great. I would like to try replaying it!

I played a little of XIII and quite a few hours of XV. The games have really changed. Especially XV, some things have improved for the better but there's a lot of tropes and unfortunate stereotypes that could have been...removed.

Edit: Vivi is the best FF character! 😊

(For the most part, excepting those I haven't played the main questline end-to-end.)

SSSS: X
S: VII, XIV, XVI
A: XIII, XII, Tactics, FFTA, VIIR, VIIR-2
B: VI, IX, XIII-2, Type-0
C: VIII, IV, Crystal Chronicles, Dissidia, X-2, LR: XIII, Bravely Default
F: Crystal Chronicles S, the Android port of FFT

I love everything I've listed at C... for me, that just means "interesting ideas that I really love and hope they'll revisit, but that ultimately didn't land for me as a game in the form it was released in." And yes, Bravely Default is a Final Fantasy game imho.

[Sorry for continually editing this, the Markdown formatting keeps giving me issues.]

For context I played the first one on NES when it came out. I liked how the different games each felt imaginative and a little different yet familiar due to certain common themes. I liked the games where the battles felt more tactical, like X, XII, and of course Tactics. I really like the setting of Ivalice, couldn’t say why but the setting is just appealing. I don’t like the turn the series has taken lately. XVI was a shallow action game and an even shallower RPG with paper-thin characters acting out a superficial imitation of A Game Of Thrones. I was way more invested in the character arcs of the cast of characters in VI than in the forgettable cast of XVI.

I'm a real youngster here, so my first final fantasy game was 16, but I really loved it so I picked up 14 and 7 remake. I never really got into 14 because MMOs, but 7 was an absolute blast! I've got rebirth and 16 lined up, but lately I've been getting more and more into retro RPGs so I've been considering going back and playing some of the older titles. I've heard tons of good things about 6, but I wonder if anyone else has any recommendations?

What I love about the series is that there are so many varied entries that everyone can find their own favourite, consensus be dammed.

I'll always consider VI the absolute peak Final Fantasy - beautiful pixel art, Active Time Battles, SNES Mode 7, brilliant score, a fantastic story with a memorable villain and a large and varied ensemble cast of great characters... It has it all for me.

I also have to somewhat ashamedly admit that for whatever reason I actually have some fondness for XV. I've posted about it before but I have such a hard time succinctly putting my feelings about it into words, because it is by no means a good game. It's probably the biggest discrepancy I've experienced between the objective quality of a game and how much I enjoyed playing it. Whether it's the stellar fishing mini game or the random wholesome interactions between the gang and the overall bro trip vibe I don't know but there is something there. And the score is no Uematsu perhaps but I really enjoyed it and thought they did some wonderful leitmotif work.

Frankly fo my time, best gaming series ever. With a few exceptions each one stands alone as it's own story, but there are the ever present threads that in some cases turned into almost easter-egg items in a given game. Where are Biggs and Wedge going to show up this time? Can I get my hands on a choccobo? Hey Cid, thanks for the airship...

6 and 9 are huge fan favourites. I hated 6 enough to drop it, and while I did finish 9, man was it mediocre.

10, 13 and 7 are my favourites.

Something about the Blitzball players all being characters you could find in the world, some of whom would otherwise be unremarkable NPCs really burrowed into my brain with FFX. Something about the fact that you'd have relationships with characters in two different contexts where they would often play a wildly different role in each really made the world feel a little bit more alive than normal.

For some reason I struggle finishing the games (VII, X, XII, XIII), but I'm always drawn to them, as I find the worlds and designs rather appealing.

I also really like how they experiment with different mechanics from one game to another and always try something new.

I did finish XV, VIIR and XIV (excluding Endwalker and Dawntrail) and liked them a lot, with Shadowbringers as my favorite out of them.

I love them. FFIX was the reason I got a Playstation (2). To me, VI to X + Tactics were peak. I had a hard time finishing the older ones even though they were decent, but from VI forward it seems like they put a lot of thought into the characters.

I own FFXIII AND XIII-2 but didn't get more than 5 minutes in thanks to the battle system. One day I'll give them another try.

I really like the trope of a secret island in a corner of the world map.