Best Final Fantasy

[jazo]

copy pasting my reason on a similar reddit post
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only numeral, and only the ones I finished FFXI, FFV, FFVI, FFXIV, FFI, Tifa's Boobs, Lulu's Boobs, FFIX, FFVIII, FFXIII ***

*** Disclaimer, everything, even the ones I haven't finished are better than this one



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Hehe, seems like my ranking was not well received, here are my reasons

(see 7th,8th,and 9th places as a kinda tied)

To explain my PERSONAL ranking

FFXI, This is my favorite as it captures the things that I feel (like) a FF game has to have, job system, creatures, summons, expanding and explorable world, Medieval high fantasy theme, multiple stories great lore. Of course its not at all perfect, and the time it took you to progress was too much and that impacted your interest in enjoying the story, then again, you should review something according to its time, and we are talking about a game that released when people still had 56k internet, but as an online game, it kept getting friendlier and better, all things said, this game got me the fondest memories and sense of achievement that, at me at that time, justified the "I did nothing, just waiting" days (tho chatting with friends at that times helped)

FFV was that thing I liked in a FF game as offline experience, with great characters a simple, entertaining, happy, emotional adventure story and a job and battle system that you enjoyed playing around with, as it was in FFI you could try the craziest team builds and see if you could make it to the end, basically FFV felt like a FFI for its generation more flexible and with more options

FFVI is the one I will not be surprised in the least when someone puts it at the top, is obvious its a masterpiece, if someone does not have it at the top (like me) is just for personal reasons, It baffles me why there is no more merch, remakes and such of this game (I WANT A CELES ACTION FIGURE DAMMIT!!), and from an industry point of view I see why VII is more popular, but in context and as a game, VI is better, it came after some time of the console had released, with devs more familiar of the tools and resources it was basically the most the console could deliver. The cast of characters, the memorable moments, all the praise it receives is well founded, is not my top just because to me it felt like the gameplay was in the way of seeing more of the story, tho the in-battle plot development were awesome

FFXIV is the one I play today, and is fun, is beautiful, the story... is there, entertaining, the challenge is not as the one in XI that having A job at cap was an achievement, XIV lets you experiment more with the time you have, I have evaded the endgame grindings in favor of trying other jobs (as of this post only Bard left to take to 50), it has all the elements that made XI a FF, us lower just because is newer and till lacks some fixes, but for a FF and MMO of these days, is greatly executed and I am eager to see it grow (hopefully faster) like XI grew.

FFI, it would be lying saying I played on NES, nah, I was busy finishing SMB3 but when it released on GBA I played and it was a breath of fresh air, since FF somehow went all futuristic/real world-ish with its visual design getting back to the fantasy roots was nice, by the time I played I knew the story behind the franchise and all, so I was amazed by all the stuff that was packed as a start of the franchise.

FFVII, a little over--- hyped, not overrated mind you, its a great game, a milestone, the characters became icons and is the cash cow of SE because they know people will never get tired of it, but as game? its ok, the graphics are so dated, in fact, I think the PS1 generation of FFs NEED a remake (VII, VIII and IX) as much as I am against being a graphic monger, its distracting to see polygons of that era, 16 bit game age better. I liked a lot and I admit I played to see Tifa (I was 14 iirc, so puberty), but I wont play it again (there's enough Tifa's fanart around to fill the disks of the game in only image many times)

FFX, is a great game too, enjoyed the game core and the ps2 graphics age better, but its down here because I really don't like the artstyle, the visual design, is not good, sure I liked to see more colors, but... the clashing contrast, the beach-sh style, not on my tastes, that clash on technology/nature was not well done either, dunno, somethings felt off, the visual design of Lulu and Auron (as much as I like Lulu darky look) feels out of place. Again, just my taste as an amateur graphic artist

FFIX, great game, great music, classic gameplay, simple story all the stuff I like, is this low because the chibi-not-so-chibi design of characters are a little creepy, again, just artist tastes, and as VII this need a remake, is all great, just it doesn't age well

FFVIII, is a good game, it uses a little less of the FF lore as it feel pasted, but, the dual story? nice, the battle system? clunky but interesting, the characters? different, felt like an anime (take it as positive of negative as you want, for me depends on mood)

FFXIII, I pointed a lot of cons of the games I listed, but everything else is great, memorable, iconic and all, even the ones I wont play again till SE stop hating money and remake them. Now... XIII is not a bad game, I know some people could like it, It look great as is past gen, I know a lot of time and effort was invested, I even didn't mind the linearity of it, as an adult I don't have lots of time to play all the time, and seeing that HUGE adamantoises roam is a very satisfying moment and is something that would be very difficult to achieve in past consoles (and I am waiting some enemies of that size to appear in FFXIV)... BUT... The characters, their motivations, the plot, the visual design... I don't like it. It felt like a generic anime plot, with tropes overly used, and SE just don't let Lightning go away... dunno, maybe if the story and characters where when I was... 16, I would like them (as I liked FFVIII ones at that time) but now I am a veteran geek/otaku/gamer/kinda-artist and software developer, so I know a lot of effort where there, but I was not the target market anymore

[dragonflie]

Would be nice if we can say which one we've played and make a list out of that, rank 10 and under are mostly games I've never played.

Also, for the Rank the Protagonist, FF12 is fairly subjective, since Vaan wasn't originally the protag, but Bash however they switched to him to appeal to their JP base more. Though I feel Ashe is more of the main protagonist along with Balthier by the end of it.

And for villains, I didn't exactly play FF11, but I don't think Shantotto was ever a villain from what I read around. But you should add Doctor Cid for FF12 villain though, now that was a great villain, also Vayne.

[AskaRay]

Though I feel Ashe is more of the main protagonist along with Balthier by the end of it.

This is what I keep telling people but no one will believe me.....

[Balipu]

This is what I keep telling people but no one will believe me.....

I believe you. It's just...Vaan is the point of view character.

[MageBlack]

Well, I filled out the survey, sorta. I didnt understand what one of the questions was, "Fight (If any)" or something like that. and I really didnt like the format. Should have been a tick box, Select for favorite 5 (or whatever) in order of preference. This numbering the entire list thing was kinda dumb. I did the first few then just left the rest, mostly cause they didnt rank to me and I wasnt about to shuffle them just to fill it out. While KH and BD are kind of off shoots of the FF series in a small way, I wouldnt qualify them as a FF title. Even Tactics and Crisis Core are kinda pushing it (although I'm glad they were there, I liked them both a lot). but by the same token, some were missing if you are going to have those in there. No Chocobo Dungeon, Theatrythm, etc.

Anyway, those were just nitpicky things, you can ignore me if you like. Thought I would provide some feedback in case you decide to do something like this again. Personally, i would have made it for the main ones specifically, no sequels or spinoffs, then do a separate survey that is for the extras and spinoffs. Especially when doing such a broad sweep, it helps to keep your options down, the list for the girls was ridiculously long, i kinda did my top three and then said fuckit. lol.

[CrystalRainbow]

To many options. to rank everything. My data near the end is really bad.

Also there needs to be a N/A as Basiclly all the non numbers games I haven't played. Or kingdom hearts.

[Elim]

Too much work to number them for every question. I gave up (aka got too lazy) by the third one. I also did not play all the FF titles.

Best FF is FF9, followed by FF10 then FF14 IMO. However when it comes to story FF14 is the lowest number. I don't enjoy the story at all. Way too wordy - they sometimes have one or two paragraphs for something that could be summed up in a short sentence. Just not my style. Never will be. I will forever esc through all the cutscenes.

[Balipu]

I know it is hard to rank them all but it is necessary. I'll give you an example from the current results. (I will next reveal the standings at 100 responses)

Combat. The winner is Final Fantasy VII as it gets consistently higher scores. However only 4.63 % think that it actually has the best combat. Compared to the 9.30 % for IX (third place overall). Tactics also has 9.30 percent of the votes, yet it is the 22nd on the list.

[MageBlack]

I know it is hard to rank them all but it is necessary. I'll give you an example from the current results. (I will next reveal the standings at 100 responses)

Combat. The winner is Final Fantasy VII as it gets consistently higher scores. However only 4.63 % think that it actually has the best combat. Compared to the 9.30 % for IX (third place overall). Tactics also has 9.30 percent of the votes, yet it is the 22nd on the list.

Couldnt the results be acquired through a "Pick 5 favorites in order of preference" instead of "Rank all 28 of these options in the order of preference"? I would wonder if your results might be skewed a bit because of people like myself who only ranked a few then left the rest in whatever order they fell in. Or do you only really pay attention to the top 5 results anyway? I just feel the way you did it was a little overwhelming for choices, some of which werent well labeled (Sure I remember most of the Characters and what FF they were from but the Cid list was one I would have had to outsource, instead i skipped it altogether, skewing your results.)

You commented that even though Tactics is far down the list people still picked it and its among the top. Again, its only around the top because people like me went through and picked it but still only picked like the first 5 or so we liked then left the rest. Now i'm no survey expert or good at data collection and interpretation but as a survey form filler outer, you gotta take pity on us man...

[Balipu]

I would wonder if your results might be skewed a bit because of people like myself who only ranked a few then left the rest in whatever order they fell in.
That's a possibility. It would have been nice to ask at the beginning which of the 28 you actually played and only ask about those, but I don't hace acess to that kind of tech.
Or do you only really pay attention to the top 5 results anyway?
Nah, I check them all. I just don't go over them all. But if you want I'll give out the full list next time.
I just feel the way you did it was a little overwhelming for choices, some of which werent well labeled
I thought hard about that one but when you have to type in Final Fantasy random roman numeral for the 300th time you get lazy.

If it's any solace to you, me torturing all of you is not senseless as the results are pretty interesting.