Where did you hear about Final Fantasy from?

[Gemina]

The very, very first time I heard about FF was when I was around 11-12 years old and a friend of mine was super excited to get the original FF for the NES for his birthday and would not stop talking about it. I didn't pay much mind to it because at the time, I was all about Ninja Gaiden II. After he finished it, he let me borrow it and thinking it was similar to Zelda, it collected dust until prickly fingers on the back of my neck beckoned me to give it a go. I was RPG hooked from there on out.

Fast forward several years, and a high school friend of mine asked me if I've ever played FF when we were talking about RPG games. He was referring to FFIII (FFVI) on the SNES, and I told him I played the original a long time ago. He let me borrow his copy and I got totally absorbed, and even went to a used game store to get my own copy when I knew I didn't want to put hours of game time in, only to have to return the game that was not mine. I also picked up FFII (FFIV), and talk about finding a golden egg.

I can't believe the amount of history I have with this franchise. FAR more than any other out there.

[Ilenya]

If memory serves, a (sort of) friend of my sisters ended up staying at our house for a while, letting us use his Playstation, and he had FFVII and FFVIII. I got to play FFVII (Somehow...Never figured out why my parents ever allowed it), and...Got hooked.

[Keddera_StormMoon]

My very first turned-based game was actually Dragonwarrior which was published by Enix back in the day as Dragon Quest. I enjoyed it very much. I discovered I loved turn-based combat so it was no surprise that when I spotted NES Final Fantasy 2 on the shelves at the store I rented from, I picked it up and gave it a try.

Oh my god did it put it's hooks deep in my soul. It was the first time a game ever told a story that left me a little misty-eyed.

So it was no surprise I went back to play the first one and the 3rd one. I picked up the franchise again at VII on my Playstation, and played most of the way through VIII on my PC. And I played the heck out of Final Fantasy Tactics on my Playstation.

Then MMO's grabbed me and I never played another JRPG for awhile. Final Fantasy XI came out, but the idea of beign able to have several class abilities on one character is a huge turnoff to me, so I ignored it. I ignored XIV's initial release and relaunch for the same reasons.

However, wife and I desperately wanted another MMO. We tried BDO and we initially loved it, but it's lack of PvE server just killed the fun for me (I'm just not a fan of surprise PvP. Not knocking it, it's just not my cup of tea). So I started researching what was out there.

Two days of research between calls at work and I kept noticing FFXIV was coming up as a good MMO. I decided "Screw it, I love that universe, maybe I should give their system a chance".

Seven Hells.... I so wish I had given it a chance sooner. Because when this game booted up for the first time and I heard that old familiar scaling music that played on my NES decades ago, I broke down and cried. I did not realize how badly I missed this world.

So here I am, happily racing chocobos again and letting the game's musical scores turn me into an emotional mess. It's like I've come home after a long journey to find myself.

[Lunalepsy]

TV ads! This was like... 9-10 yrs ago! @.@

[Bracken]

Glad to see new people in the franchise, makes me feel like I haven't wasted my life with it.

Personally FF7 was what got me into it. Got it for my 16th birthday. Played the start and was like WTF is this. Put it away and came back to it about a month later. After I completed it I was hooked.

Now being 38 I have tattoos of final fantasy, each room has some sort of chocobo, play arts Kai or ornament. Moogle.

Basically FF is life.

[EdwinLi]

FFVIII is my first FF game that introduced me to the series which is partly why I have a strong love for Gunblade Job.

[Odd]

I’ve been playing FF games for as long as I can remember. I think 3 was the first one I played when I was very young. I could barely read, so didn’t understand the story. But I was able to figure out what most skills did, and I remember my uncle being very surprised at how good I was at the game for someone who couldn’t read yet. He still talks about it, and that was over 30 years ago.

But I truly don’t remember when I first heard of it. It’s one of those things that has just always been there.

[Yurenai]

I've been playing Final Fantasy since the original on Nintendo, back before internet and you had to figure everything out on your own. I've played near everything with the Square logo ever since!

Also played XI off and on for a while, and while I adore that game there are definitely some things I don't miss (paper dolls, PS2 limitations, fighting starter enemies the entire game...)

Some of the greatest RPGs ever made tout the Final Fantasy logo. I also like Chrono Trigger ~_~

[Lilseph]

Final Fantasy as a whole franchise or Final Fantasy XIV specifically? First time I played Final Fantasy was in the 90's. I saw this NES cartridge saying "Final Fantasy" and it didn't look like any other NES game I used to play. You know, the Mario games, Looney Tunes, Contra, Wonder Boy and others. So I gave it a shot, played it, suffered through it but I was in love with this concept of progression that not many games had a the time. Exploration, leveling, getting gear, magic, party customization... an actual story? It blew my mind. That was the begining of my journey in the RPG world and as fanboy of Squaresoft at the time, specifically. (The game started, you read "Squaresoft" and you knew you'd get good quality content).

Knowing about XIV was consequence of my already devoted life to the genre and the whole franchise.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

I saw someone playing Final Fantasy IX when I was a kid and couldn't fathom the notion that Kuja wasn't a girl. I remember then going through Cleyra, the Garnet rescue, and Memoria.

Ultimately, though, visiting some people who had Final Fantasy X when I was in middle school prompted me to get X, X-2, and IX, the latter becoming my most played game. From there, I branched out and played I, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, and XIV, as well as some side games.