Favorite final fantasy game and why?

Bravely Default is getting up there as one of my faves. It's basically a successor to Final Fantasy and reminds me of the older ones. :)

Final Fantasy X, likely going to replay it with the HD re-release coming out in NA.

The story was just really engrossing to me and despite my best intentions I ended up becoming invested in the characters, even though I disliked some initially I came to like the entire "party" in FFX by the end, which is more than I can say for most FF games. Typically there is always one or two party members I just absolutely can't stand, and in same games (FFXIII for example) ... it is the entire party. FFX was an exception though and so I was on board for the emotional roller coaster ride the story sends you through.

Honestly a large amount of that favoritism at this point may be nostalgia as well, I played FFX initially with my older sister back when I was still a youngling and have fond memories of late night Seymour fights.

ff13 and ff8 where the worst, all the rest are good

I'll name 3 of them.
Final Fantasy 3 for SNES, story, suplexing doom train and the music is the big reason I liked it, boss fights, cyans dream world which was cool, kefkas laugh and morph and esper world.

Final Fantasy 7, Music two thumbs up, the way the game started you out in action, golden saucer, chocobo raising and racing the weapons which were the bosses, sephiroth and his epic music.

Final Fantasy tactics lion war, wish there was a second half to the Lion war it was really great and there should be a second one great story music and plot twist.

Taking into account each game for its time I think for me 1,4,6,7,8,9 and 10 are all tied. For each I loved something else about it. Played them all when I was young and they all hold a strong nostalgia which made me play this game. All of them have beautiful music and fun worlds for me.

FF1, I played this 100 times with my dad growing up, I will never forget music and grinding his characters for him :d

FF4, Golbez, nuff said
FF6, Godamn I loved the story soooo much. Cyan was a true knight:p
FF7, spikey haired, giant sword wielding character was introduced with an epic story and music made me slow motion clap for the good days of SQUARE.
FF8, I loved the story like mad, most underated FF I think.
FF9, this game had so much unique charm and sense of adventure for me, felt like going back to FF1 days :)
FF10, Amazing story, strong nostalgia for me.

The rest were good, but never did what these titles I chose did for me:)
Mystic Quest was pretty awesome, though it did not have any relation:p

Top of the Ranks is obviously FF7
It`s sidestory about the planetlife transfers so good to our real world, and well, the game was the reason to get me a PS (after SNES, at this time PC Gaming seemed superior to me)

Next off, FF9 - it hast a beautiful style and adorable Characters. It´s story got a good twist, and it got cool sidejobs, like the Chocobo Treasure hunt, which gets you cool stuff for your progress.

Then, there comes FF12, because of it´s MMO-Like Gamestyle, and a very cool Balthier ^^
But some massive drawbacks in the sidequests... really, kill of like a 10.000 of the same monster, to get some drops which transforms to your ultimate weapon at the store, where you have absolutely no clue WHAT to sell there to obtain it without some Guidebook**... and have to kill of most of the powerful monsters "by hand" to obtain some loot, just to get a weapon which is of no use anymore because you already killed the big one.

** I hate like modern games, where you either are putted on a magical-tutorial-leash, or left behind with absolutely NO Clue, and missing halft of the awesome stuff, just cause they hid it so good, no one ever discoveres without the Helper-Books.
I like the Zelda approach, where they hint you "there might be something usefull hidden there", and leave breadcrumbs which may lead you to something nice =)

I could write an entire essay on why I adore FFXI to pieces (barring the reasons why I eventually hang it up on a fairly good note) but I'll try to keep it brief. While it's a tie between 4 and 6 for best offline title (I lean more towards 6 if nothing else because of unbridled magnificence of Kefka) 11 stands out as not only my favorite FF, but quite possibly my favorite game ever - right up there with Mega Man 2 (the game that got into gaming)


No other game has given me so many memories (good and bad) or as much value - I subbed to XI for a solid 9 years and while I had more than my share of gripes with it and Tanaka over those years, I remained loyal because I believe Tanaka was absolutely 100% right when he said 11 more than any other entry embodies the series as a whole. CoP, ToAu and WotG were some of the best story telling SE's ever done. Vana'diel is just such a huge and amazing world that just oozes lore, and my only regret is that we'll likely never see it's full splendor. While there never was any official world map released, we know from the in-game lore that there are still entire continent that we haven't yet seen, including the far east that IIRC, Aht Urghan is at war with (Tenzen's homeland). I would love SE to pieces if they would ever release another game set in Vana'diel that was offline and in HD. It baffles me that Spira has gotten 2 games (and they're considering a 3rd) and Nova Crystalis has gotten 3, yet Vana'diel - they're most successful ever - was never experienced by many fans of the series who either held no interest in MMOs or simply didn't want to subscribe, and that sucks.


Part of it was also it being my first real MMO that I paid for, but XI just managed to hold my attention in a way that so far, XIV hasn't. 1.23 started to, but ARR is losing me lately. I don't know if SE can ever recapture the magic that XI once was (my friends who still play say the recent patches have made a big difference) nor do I want XIV to turn into and XI, but I would ever so love to see something of that caliber again. XIV just doesn't meet the standards XI set (to me). The only other game to have a job system as satisfying as XI's was Tactics, and possibly 5.

Oh thats hard...very hard choice to make since VII, VIII, X and XIII keep switching on the No.1 spot for me.
But I'll settle for my reasons for liking each of them.

FFVII My first FF game, the first game that came with my original PS1. First game to make me cry and care for its characters, It'll always have a special place in my heart for that.
FFVIII the second FF game I played, loved the story and the world. Also that intro FMV is possibly one of the best so far even after all these years. Great musical score as well.
FFX The second game to make me cry, kinda sad when your 17 y/o at that point lol. Loved the world, the characters, the story and again that musical score was great.
FFXIII Lightning is probably my fave lead character for that reason alone XIII could be No.1 (also Snow's kinda fit hehe ;) )
But again I loved the story, the characters (and the acting for them), thought the Lore/world was nicely crafted and the graphical quality fantastic (yet XIII-2 and LR seems kinda unimpressive by comparison).

I've played IX, X-2, XII and XIII-2 but I have problems with those games after so long.
X-2 I hated from the start and still do, seems like 13 y/o "pleasure time" material more then a game.
As for the others its the storylines that let them down, the game mechanics were solid but sadly story was lacking in places for me.

7

Only reason being nostalgia.

Mine would be:

IX- Still my favorite by far, love the setting, and all the characters
XIII series- Anxiously awaiting my XIII-3 collectors edition. Loved the story although was a little hard to get into at first, it definitely proved to be a great FF game if people gave it a chance and sat through it.
VII- Obvious choice here. Although Loved VII and played through it a million and 2 times. Unlike others I dont think its the best, but definitely a great game.
X- I enjoyed X and im looking forward to the HD remaster, could care less about X-2 though, I didnt like that game at all.

Tactics, nothing else really needs to be said it was the greatest game ever.

Being a huge FF fan, I liked all of them but absolute favorites/standouts

VII: First game I got for the PS1, was so immersed in the story even when I was around 10 years old. Parts of the story freaked me out back then. Oh those sleepless nights when I was a kid.
VI: Story as well one of the best villains ever in the FF series imo, Kefka

FF7 > FF6 > FF10 > FF11 > FF8 > FF12>FF5 > FF1-4 > FF13 > FF13-2 > FF14 > FF14ARR - Last being the least fav.

I did not play FF9 ; ;

I like to say i like the fighting system from FF13, but that is about it.

FF IX is for sure my favorite one. I loved every single character, the story, combat, etc etc. I think i played it to 99.9% (cba to get excalibur II to do 100%) for over 20x by now. Zidane is (and always will be) my favorite FF hero, also i love his type of weapons (like Butterfly Dagger, The ogre, exploda, angel bless, masamune, ultima weapon, etc etc), which i would also love to see on FFXIV ARR (the weapon type, NOT the char... please dont ruin zidane to me by bringing him into the game in a fate <.<).
Very close to IX is the X. Smexy Yuna and her Aeons (yes! best! Summon! System! EVER!) were a must in my party (although people continue to say she is not part of the best party for X, which... I DONT CARE! I LOVE IT!) and i was so happy when X-2 came out to see the end of the story... only to have my biggest FF disappointment. I felt like dying after a almost perfect game... they came with... THAT.

OFC i also played VI, VII, VIII, XII, and they had some cool features, and some nice characters, but... those two are still my favorite ones by FAR.

My personal list not including MMOs
9 > 7 > 8 > 6 > 13 > 4 > 10 > 2 > 5 > 1 > 3 > 12

Note, I enjoyed them all in one way or another, but I hate worlds that are too open in RPG's. They make me nervous for whatever reason, MMO's being the exception because you play with real people. Anyway, 9 is my favorite, after long debate, because it just does so many things right.

For me it was Final Fantasy 7. I remember a young me first playing it on my older brothers computer. I cleared the first mako reactor and when I fought the boss was so captivated that I didn't bother to read the fact it would counter attack at certain stages. I thought "This game is so fun and hard". Years later I replayed the game and face palmed at my younger self's inability to follow basic strategies. Back then its graphics were great. Its one of those things growing up around that time as things advanced so fast. captivated by even its basic polygon characters. My second is FF9, the old medieval style was very fun and I would love for FF to return to that type of fantasy. I also liked how unique each characters move sets were.

VIII: It's super dumb and can be broken pretty much from the word go.

the only one i've beaten 10 its fun to me :D

FF8 > FF6 > FF10 > FF9 > ARR > FF1 > FF4 > FF13

8 is only higher than 6 because it was my entry to the series, 13 is lowest because of the almost non-existent party mechanics. 8's Junction system was wonderfully, beautifully broken and it had Triple Triad.

Nothing and no-one however comes close to the villainous perfection that is Kefka Palazzo.

FF 9 for me. Nothing like the first FF I picked up. And I'm glad many picked FF 9 in this thread.

Cleyra....I longed to live there...

It blows my mind how many people list FF9 as their fav. I'm gonna have to go back and play it again. It just didn't do much for me the first time around. Maybe I just wasn't ready for the main character to have a tail.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hycinthus

The medieval setting, music, characters, and especially the towns in FF9 made it my favorite.

---

See I've always been more attracted to the "steampunk, cusp of the industrial revolution" type of settings. Which is probably why I like FF6 so much. And Bioshock lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kimikryo

I just LOVED FFVI, I never finished it. 1) The game where I rented it from had a broken battery and turning of snes would wipe saves 2)PS1 Memoerycard died, all backups died too, all my FF savestates were on them

---

I had a similar issue where I had to make sure that I rented the exact same cartridge from blockbuster and pray no one screwed up my save game during the week. Man, kids these days will never appreciate these kind of problems!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NyneAlexander

It blows my mind how many people list FF9 as their fav. I'm gonna have to go back and play it again. It just didn't do much for me the first time around. Maybe I just wasn't ready for the main character to have a tail.

---

The medieval setting, music, characters, and especially the towns in FF9 made it my favorite.

Bravely Default because it has... wait...

WAHT?

In my oppinion, FF6, FF8, FF9, and FFT (psx)

I'll tell you why-

FF6 has an amazing story, great characters, and a sweet world full of secrets (you could be just flying everywhere, exploring, finding secrets, NEW ALLIES, and all.
It also has the must successfull villian in all the FF series- Kefka managed to destroy and rule the world. Words are not enough to describe how interesting and amazing this character is. you get to think he's dumb and..a clown, as you see him, but, the reality is that he's an evil genius, capable of making plans like no other.

FF8 had also an amazing story.
While the 6th had a dark-fantasy story, this one has a love theme.
Its so well made, the feelings are so well interpreted and pure...that you actually dont mind its a, again, love story (im pretty sure you get me...well, i hope)

FF9 was to me, the pure essence of "final fantasy" the truthfully, real one (this is all my opinion, so dont bash me if you dont agree)
If you had to look for one game within the series, that could represent the true essence of FF, it would be this one. Yes i have to mention it again.

Fantasy characters. A World with endless possibilities. Music made by the gods. What else do you need? there's a huge world to explore, a SHI*LOAD if secrets! even secret melodies, lol..

Last but not least, we have FFT.

This, in my oppinion, is the best in the saga.
"lol why?" well...Let me tell you, sir.

While ff6 has the best story, fft has the darkest- and most unique one between the other titles.
You could recruit so many unique characters, through story or side quests. Each with unique abilities.
You could also recruit "neutral" players, put some name on them, and raise them to have one of the ..30? i dont know. MANY jobs (i remember creating my friends and myself, raising jobs, going on with the adventure...man, so many memories. FCKING SAMURAI WITH BLADE GRASP AND TWO HANDS)

Anyways...those are my favs. I would really reccomend you to play fft if you havent. you wont regret it!

I just LOVED FFVI, I never finished it. 1) The game where I rented it from had a broken battery and turning of snes would wipe saves 2)PS1 Memoerycard died, all backups died too, all my FF savestates were on them

Not enough signs to mention all but the best for me: You had so many many possibilities to delve into the past of every character.

FFIV (same as IV for SNES =.=) The way ceceil goes from dark to light just was awesome.

FFIX I did not like Zidane much. But Dagger and Eiko were such loveable characters when you got to know more of them. Alexander was awesome.

always confuse FFII and IV as being in the same world as IX.... ? If you remember, the guy that steers the "ship" (that eye in the sky) says something alike from "I failed already once in conquering this world, not this time" and guess what. he has a striking resemblance to the a garlemand higher up mentioned on the ffixv page


I kinda feel I stopped making any sense throughout, I am sorry for that.

I've played 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13

FF7 was the first game in the series I played as a young one, it will always be the one I compare the other games to. 7 and 10 I think (9 being close) had the most compelling story IMO, one's that actually brought out emotions. I put an ungodly amount of hours into 12 but mainly because I liked the battle system and there was so many things to do, the story was OK but a little scatterbrained.

XI > Tactics > VII > VIII > X

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NyneAlexander

It blows my mind how many people list FF9 as their fav.

---

There's a pretty definitive split in the FF games: Industrial (6, 7, 8, 12ish, 13ish) and more fantasy, medieval (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10). As you can see, though, there was a 4 game gap between the last medieval game (6-9). This provokes a strong feeling of nostalgia for that type of game, but with a newer coat of paint. 9 responded strongly to this, with a very "classic" feel, that didn't take itself near as seriously as some of its previous entries. Not to mention Vivi is one of the greatest characters of any FF game ever. He is the most tragic hero of the game.

The Best:

• FFVI - arguably the pinnacle of the FF series.
• FFXII (intl Zodiac) - A work of art... The story is deep and full of subtlety. Character development (Ashe especially) is superb. As with all fine art, it requires the audience to be invested in it.
• FFIX - A charming, and nostalgic game that brings the series back to simpler (and some say better) times.
• FF Tactics - The best FF games happen in Ivalice ^^
• Bravely Default - SE has a fantastic new "FF" franchise on their hands. I hope to see it on the next-gen consoles at some point.

The Great:

• FFI - Who can forget the game that started it all? The time-paradox story was a great twist at the end of the game. Pick up one of the remakes if you haven't played it yet.
• FFIV - fantastic storyline, great characters.. 3D remake is superb.
• FFXI - As a MMO, it has the luxury of having the most fleshed out world of any FF game to date. It deserves an offline sequel for those who've never experienced Vana'diel.
• FF Type-0 - When are we going to get an english release of this one?

The Good:

• FFV - The job system really came into it's prime in this game
• FFVII - the first foray of FF into 3d. Good characters, a great villain, and a gripping story.
• FFVIII - A beautiful game, and has one of the best ending sequences in the series. Also Triple-Triad :D
• FFXIV:ARR - As we all know, this game has huge potential, the future will determine if that potential is actualized.
• FFIII - Creating 3D update to this game was a great move by SE. A solid classic.
• FFX-2 - A surprisingly fun game despite it's campiness. The job (dress-sphere) system has a good amount of depth.
• FFXIII-2 - Like FFX-2, it surpasses its prequel in gameplay and freedom of exploration.
• FF Dissidia - Nicely built, and fun to play... Hopefully we'll see a sequel brought to the big screen at some point with next-gen graphics.

The Mediocre (or worse):

• FFX - Suffers from being too linear. Bad voice acting, dialogue and some annoying characters end up marring an otherwise decent game.
• FFXIII - Linear to the point of absurdity. The story is convoluted as well. A classic case of 'style over substance.'
• FFII - The game's systems were fundamentally flawed, the story and characters are forgettable as well - arguably the worst of the series.

VIII. Loved everything about it. The characters, world, story, music, battle system and triple triad. I'm man enough to admit a lot of it is probably nostalgia, but i'm fine with that.

If we're not including MMO's (XI will probably be my favorite for a very long time regardless for so many reasons) then it's really a tough call. Honestly I'm not sure I can really pick out a favorite, as each game has its own merits (excluding the 1st NES games as while we have to respect them, they weren't anything too memorable).

4) The first in the series to really emphasis individual characters and drama. Also the only game to have 5 party members (Not counting after years which was 14-year old fangirl garbage)
5) Really took 3's job system and just ran with it - the GBA remake was fantastic including the new jobs. I don't think I ever got around to unlocking Necromancer. Also gave us Gilgamesh!
6) Biggest cast of any FF, the single greatest villain of all time (Kefka) and also one of the saddest, most compelling plots SE's ever written. 6 was the height of the SNES era of RPGs.
7) Overrated imo, but still a solid experience (and my 1st FF game) with a memorable cast and story, even if it was in a lot of ways just FF6 with a smaller cast. We haven't really had a game since with so many mini-games in either.
8) Highly underrated. Yeah, it's a romance so that probably but a lot of people off but Squall's one of my favorites for actually showing real character growth. Everyone just labels him as "emo", but you'd be pretty messed up too if you grew up in an orphanage and then one day your only remaining family just up and vanished. Story was a bit whacky though (time compression? really?) and the battle system was too easily abused. Summons were also stupidly long (cool, but dear lord Eden took ages).
9) The embodiment of Nostalgia. There are too many references in the game to count and I love 9 for it. Any serious fan of the series has to own 9 in their collection, 'nuff said.
10) The 1st entry with voice acting and another pretty memorable cast. Sphere Grid system was pretty cool and I loved that you could see the exact turn order in battle.


Not including X-2, or any of the 13's as they're not awful but not that great either. 12 was rather mediocre as well, the story falling apart around the halfway point (I love Balthier but even he couldn't save that game) and the way they implemented gambits (having to find or buy them) was dumb. Not even going to touch on why the license board was the dumbest idea ever.


Tactics and Crisis Core are both f'ing amazing games and if you have a PSP or Vita you should get them (I'm not sure if CC is available digitally or not, it may still be a PSP only game but it's absolutely worth getting and shows Cloud for the loser he really is. Zack FTW, and Sephiroth was far better as a Hero than a villain.) Dirge of Cerberus was another atrocity that should never have gotten the green light.

Keeping simple (hopefully):

1. FF11 - Story, Class System, Battle System, Life Long Friends, and Notorious Monsters.
2. FFT - Story, Class System, Battle System, and Beowulf!
3. FF6 - Story, Characters, and Best Villain.
4. FF7 - Story, Characters, Gold Saucer, Love Triangles, and Materia System.
5. FF? - Tied between 4, 5, 8, 9, and 12.


Great question, thanks for asking. =)

Looking at Bravely Default.

I liked FF Adventure, which morphed into the World of Mana series... for which I love Secret of Mana... I also loved Part 2 that was the JP oknly version with the kids growing up and choosing class paths.

I'm pretty sure there's thread like this in the past, which got removed because something like not related to XIV or something.

Anyways...

My main fave is always be FF6. Think the majority who vote FF6 here already said the greatness of that game. My only remark is that FF6 could be considered the "Lord of the Ring" version of FF in term of scale. Remaking this even faithfully will take very huge resource. (I'm excluding that recent smartphone remake, since it's just updating to higher artwork)

And my next fave is FF9, only because the game was meant to capture elements from past FF games which then mixed wonderfully into beautiful brand new story.

And don't get me wrong, I like majority of FF main series. I do regretted that I haven't tasted XIII at all simply because I don't have PS3 and even if I did, wouldn't have the time to play offline games since online drained so much of my energy.

But for my own personal taste, FF7 would be the bottom of the list. Why? FF7 in my own term, is a spoiled child. The spinoffs created after that feels like forced idea that I felt doesn't really do justice to the main stories. And this game is actually the reason why later FF series would spawn their own spinoffs, and even old one like FF4 got similar treatment too. While FF7 itself not really the true pioneer, (since there's old series that also got their own spinoff, namely FF5 which has it's own OVA series that flopped bad) the actual success of FF7 spinoff does sparks future series getting sequels.

Personally, VIII. I was in a military school back then and I was a whiny, emo little brat (lol), so the game and Squall really resonated with me. The world was what I wished my one was like, Squall was a character that I could identify with, and Rinoa was my video game crush.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BobbinT

FF7 would be the bottom of the list. Why? FF7 in my own term, is a spoiled child. The spinoffs created after that feels like forced idea that I felt doesn't really do justice to the main stories. And this game is actually the reason why later FF series would spawn their own spinoff

---

Which has nothing to do with the original game itself. Spinoffs were made because of how popular the game was. It was so popular because it was so awesome.

I liked FF8 the best for one simple reason: It's the only one I was able to get my friends to play as well. I was in high school when it came out, and we wasted an entire winter playing that game over and over again. We would take turns, trading only when someone died. Oh the memories.

And triple triad. I loved that game! I would scour the whole world looking for npc's to challenge!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Black91CRX

Which has nothing to do with the original game itself. Spinoffs were made because of how popular the game was. It was so popular because it was so awesome.

---

Haha... more like the timing when FF7 was introduced. If you check the history on how FF7 was created, it was from attempt of creating polygonal version of FF6 and trying to work on Nintendo 64 which has very limited capabilities. Then PS1 came with CD as media storage. SE saw this as huge opportunities to pour many creativity into it without space limitation. And FF7 was born.

And maybe it's just me, but FF7 story itself at the time wasn't really as interesting as the old series does. The tragic demise of Aerith? Think what Cyan in FF6 suffers are far worst than that. Or in that FF2 where we see many sacrifices made by some heroes. And Sephiroth? He doesn't even came close as what Kefka does.

But for people who never tasted older series when 7 came out, then yes, it does have quite amazing storytelling of it's own. But in my own opinion, even the later series like FF8 & FF9 have better content overall than FF7 itself. Unfortunately, I taste my early RPG games with combination of FF6 & Chrono Trigger which already has awesome story that's not even any FF series up to date can beat. And those 2 games kinda set my expectation too high. lol

Final Fantasy Tactics always has been and always will be my favorite FF game.

The lore, the story, the characters, the job system, etc. That game was just great.

I'm surprised so many are sticking with the mainline titles so much.

I thought FFVII was my favorite. Then I played "Crisis Core".

Zack, Aerith, Cissnei, Angeal, Genesis, Sephiroth... I must consider this "little" PSP game, my favorite story.

Time for more squats!