What was your first Final Fantasy and what did you think of it?

XIV is my first and only FF. I've been playing MMOs since EQ1 and over the decades have done most of them, swapping between them to stop burnout.

This one, a dear friend in Norway was into, and convinced me to come in with the preorder on ARR. My initial thoughts were "It's beautiful, but I hate the Titan fight (@300ms) enough to quit" So I did, and went to Rift. Came back on and off, wasn't until year ago I was choosing an MMO for a new friend who'd never touched the genre i came back for good.

Final Fantasy IX. And it changed my gaming life. I started to play mostly JRPGs from that point forward.

My memories of that early in life are super hazy - I must have been roughly... 4? I feel like my earliest was Final Fantasy 4 (via Snes 2), but I'm not certain if I ever played it directly.

However! I can say with absolute certainty that I did play 6 (Snes 3) as I have the strongest memories of it, and it was what defined (and still kinda does define) "Final Fantasy" for me, in both how to tell fantasy stories in general as well as the aesthetics in anything that I feel the most nostalgia and love for.

7 was my first, which is unfortunate cause I was never really into it, I just had to like it cause I grew up with 2 older brothers who loved it. 8 left a much more lasting impression on me and will forever be my favorite in the series.

Final Fantasy X. If you want to get super techinical, I started with the first Kingdom Hearts, with X shortly thereafter (as a dumb kid at the time franchise crossovers were a foreign concept to me so I had no idea what Jiminy's journals were going off about Cloud from "FINAL FANTASY VEE AI AI" but I digress).
Basically that game really sparked my interest in drawing because I loved the art style and character designs, I never finished the game on my own (because again, dumb kid), but I always thought the world of Spira was really cool. X has my favorite interpretation of Summoners, and I wish FFXIV took a little more after that with its lore admittedly.

My mom got a copy of IX for me from a friend of hers, but I only had a PS2 with no PS1 memory card, so needless to say I never got really far.

To be frank, it's rather complicated for me.

In all probability, I probably rented and played an SNES Final Fantasy game (could easily have been FF4 or Mystic Quest)... but I don't really remember many details, so I'm not inclined to "count" it.

The first one I clearly recall playing was Final Fantasy IX... and in retrospect, the version was likely a bootleg version my cousin had for his PS1. I definitely didn't make it far, as I was just visiting briefly at the time. Neverthelss, that's probably what got me interested in the series in the first place and I dived into it a fair bit more since then.

Since there were no more SNES games on the market and I didn't have a PS1 (only had a Nintendo 64 at the time), I turned to emulation to try out the various classic FF titles using emulation; the first game I recall playing start-to-finish was FF4, and that made for a great introduction to the series. I followed up by making my way through FF6 to completion, and I did try FF5 but didn't finish it (still haven't, I had a bad habit of not actually finishing games, even ones I like). I did dabble in the NES games as well, probably made it furthest in FF3 before dropping it.

In retrospect, I also picked up the PC ports of FF7 and FF8... and while I got a great way through FF7 in particular, I never quite got around to finishing it. FF8... eh, didn't make it that far.

By the time the PS2 era rolled around, I was able to get my own console and games, so I definitely started picking up many of the GBA ports (though the only one I actually finished was the FF1 port). I picked up FF10 as well, and completed that one plus a good amount of the side content. FF12, FF13, and FF15 were all picked up... but not really finished. Oddly enough, I did make it all the way through to FF13-2's conclusion for some reason. Somewhere down the line I also picked up and tried FF11, but I don't think I made it very far into that game at all.

And of course, I picked up FFXIV and have stayed largely up-to-date on it ever since HW. I tried it during ARR, but didn't stay around too much as I was playing WoW more at the time; when the game started to go south, I leaned more and more into FFXIV and it has only gotten better since.

Anyhow, at this stage I have at least tried (and in some capacity, own a version of) every main series Final Fantasy game. Not the best at actually finishing them (but that goes for all games), though I think I'd probably make it all the way through if I ever took a deep dive into any of them again.

FF7, but it didn't leave much of an impression due to the fact that I was playing it with my dad. And by playing it I more mean I watched him play it and he occasionally let me take the controller when he felt I wasn't going to completely get him killed. It was pretty and it left at least enough of an impression for me to go back and play it myself years later. But the biggest memory I have from it is how upset I was when my dad beat the game without me because it was a school night.

FF8 was my first game and I thought it was the coolest shit ever.

Then on replaying as an adult...yikes! What a disaster! And it may or may not have costed us Xenogears disc 2 of which I will be forever salt.

On the plus side it was the hook that got me into FF of which VI, VII and IX are all incredible games, and XII I also appreciate for what they end up coming with despite all the production problems.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lauront

XII had a very well fleshed out world with nuanced politics and I liked how they handled the Occuria and Venat, plus with Sakimoto as a composer its music was a refreshing change at the time. As much as I like Uematsu's work, XII had very distinctive themes setting it apart from the other FFs.

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Yeah pretty much this, though I'd like to add the localization and voice acting in XII was
https://media.tenor.com/images/eb57c...d536/tenor.gif

In fact from time to time I go back and rewatch the Ashe meets Occuria scene and think "why can't more games be written like this???"

First FF I could actually remember was FFIV on SNES (back when they marketed it as FFII in NA), which I watched my brother play. The first one I played on my own was FFVI (III in NA at the time). I thought it was amazing and still hold it as a favourite of the main numbered series, only difference now is that it has to share the top favourite spot with XIV. =3=

My first Final Fantasy was FFXIV. I think my playtime speaks for itself of what I think of it.