Fighting Fantasy.
December 18, 2022 7:34 AM Subscribe
Ranking Every Mainline Final Fantasy Game [Game Informer] “Final Fantasy is a staple in JRPGs and video games as a whole. It might have more entries in it than any other series out there and it won’t be slowing down anytime soon. On top of that, thanks to its anthology-like nature, if one Final Fantasy game doesn’t click for you, there’s a good chance another one will. As a result, ranking the Final Fantasy series can be highly contentious. Everyone has a lot of love for the first entry they played, and then there are heavy hitters like Final Fantasy X and VII, too. However, the staff here at Game Informer did the seemingly impossible: we ranked all 19 mainline numbered Final Fantasy games, including their direct sequels, from worst to best.”
• Which FINAL FANTASY game should I play first? [Square Enix]
• Which FINAL FANTASY game should I play first? [Square Enix]
““Which FINAL FANTASY game should I start with?” It’s one of the most common questions we see from people yet to dive into the series, and a hotly debated topic online - ask five fans and you’re likely to get five different answers. The actual ‘correct’ answer, of course, is… any of them. After all, almost every game in the series acts as a standalone adventure with its own distinct world, characters and even gameplay mechanics. There really isn’t a wrong or right place to start. But we also realize that’s not particularly helpful for new players, who have a lot of options available - particularly with re-releases and new FINAL FANTASY pixel remaster series. So to lend a hand, we’ll run through the mainline FINAL FANTASY games that are available and give you a sense of what to expect from each adventure. Then, you can simply choose the game that most appeals most to you - we’re confident that whichever you pick, you’ll have a good time.”• Which Is The Best Final Fantasy? All of Them! [Kotaku]
“When people talk Japanese roleplaying games, there's one question that comes up quite a bit: Which is the best Final Fantasy Plenty of JRPG fans have wasted hours debating this question, each making his or her own case for which of Square Enix's ubiquitous roleplaying games is the cream of the crop. It's a stale conversation that always comes down to a matter of personal opinion. No matter how reasoned or passionate your argument, you're never going to convince people to change their minds about their favorite games. And what would even be the point? There's no objective answer, and there doesn't need to be. Plus, there's already plenty of negativity in the video game community. We should all try being a little more positive. So in this week's issue of Random Encounters, we're going to do something a little unique. We're going to make a case for all the Final Fantasys. Need a quick argument? Want to stir the pot a little?”
My least favorite thing in FF is how terrible the S/NES-era 3D remakes are—and those are all that are available on modern platforms.
Ask and ye shall receive: Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection Launches On Switch Spring 2023.
posted by Fizz at 8:20 AM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Ask and ye shall receive: Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection Launches On Switch Spring 2023.
“Square Enix has now officially announced the release of the Final Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster Collection for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. It'll be arriving in Spring 2023. This collection will include Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V, and Final Fantasy VI. These remasters will also be made available individually, or you can purchase them in a bundle.”These were released on Steam/PC last year and there was some criticism regarding the way they were released/remastered. Despite the tiny text, I am glad that they're being made available for a larger audience on more modern machines.
posted by Fizz at 8:20 AM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yeah, the Pixel Remaster version of FF1 is pretty close and they didn't fuck up the character models, and I am old and grudgingly accept that turning up the XP curve and making it play a little faster is probably for the best. Plus it is a novelty to have all of the spells do something, even if they still aren't useful enough to hugely change my playstyle.
posted by restless_nomad at 8:23 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad at 8:23 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also, no discussion of FF is complete without linking to this, you're welcome.
But seriously, the best FF is VII, right? We all agree on this, no?
posted by Fizz at 8:27 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
But seriously, the best FF is VII, right? We all agree on this, no?
posted by Fizz at 8:27 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
No.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:44 AM on December 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:44 AM on December 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
Not even a little bit.
posted by curious nu at 8:46 AM on December 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by curious nu at 8:46 AM on December 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
for me 4 > 5 > 1 > 6 > 3 > 2; don't care about any of the others
posted by glonous keming at 8:49 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 8:49 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Dragon Quest VIII is the best Final Fantasy.
Okay, that was just mean.
FF XII is the best, because of the gambits making it probably the least boring to actually play. Also Bathazar, Fran and Lightning are all outstanding characters.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:50 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Okay, that was just mean.
FF XII is the best, because of the gambits making it probably the least boring to actually play. Also Bathazar, Fran and Lightning are all outstanding characters.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:50 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
The problem with ranking any FF game is that they all have their unique idiosyncrasies and experiments which make those games their own games. All of them have rough edges and constraints. Beyond that there's FF that excels in gameplay (IV, V, VI, VII(R), IX), FF that excels in story (VI, VII, X, XIV), and FF games that just want to push the formula to new places (VIII, XI, XII, XIII, XV) even if they don't always succeed. In the mainline FF series alone there's probably three or four genres mixed up in there. It's basically saying "how well can you climb a tree" and putting a fish, a monkey, and a hippo up against each other.
We're probably in a new golden age of FF with the series basically being off its game since X. XII was a single player MMO wannabe. XIII was an interesting deviation which I adored but still bounced off too many people, and then XIV 1.0 being a complete shit show. But now we have XIV hitting it out of the park on story with Shadowbringers and Endwalker, along with FF7R putting on a masterclass in bringing the ATB gameplay formula properly into an action RPG world. If this keeps up we're going to have a whole lot of great FF games to come.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:00 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
We're probably in a new golden age of FF with the series basically being off its game since X. XII was a single player MMO wannabe. XIII was an interesting deviation which I adored but still bounced off too many people, and then XIV 1.0 being a complete shit show. But now we have XIV hitting it out of the park on story with Shadowbringers and Endwalker, along with FF7R putting on a masterclass in bringing the ATB gameplay formula properly into an action RPG world. If this keeps up we're going to have a whole lot of great FF games to come.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:00 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
But seriously, the best FF is VII, right? We all agree on this, no?
I admire your optimism, but opinions on the best FF are - at best - divided.
That said, as someone who doesn't rank FFVII at the top, and who didn't particular enjoy it in the first place, I found the FFVII Remake (part I) to be really good!
posted by Zargon X at 9:05 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
I admire your optimism, but opinions on the best FF are - at best - divided.
That said, as someone who doesn't rank FFVII at the top, and who didn't particular enjoy it in the first place, I found the FFVII Remake (part I) to be really good!
posted by Zargon X at 9:05 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
(I know they aren't mainline, but criminal to not shoutout original Crystal Chronicles on Gamecube, and 4 Heroes of Light on DS)
XI and XIV (the online options) are interesting to try and consider in all of this.
XI was a hot mess for a lot of its life, and you still have to jump through serious hoops to play it solo, but it also has a kind of perfect MUD gameplay going on that, as an elder/geriatric/eldritch millennial, gets some deep hooks into my brain. I put together playlists for Gustaberg -> Ronfaure and back for jogging to. Also the PlayOnline viewer! Such a product of its time and country of origin but so, so satisfying to login to. I kept copies of the soundtrack MP3s, I find myself humming them sometimes and its been almost 10 years since I last played. (why yes, I also love the Wii/Wii U menu music, leave me alone)
XIV... I'd probably still be playing but the regressiveness in the character/armor design isn't something I can hand-wave anymore. It just sucks, and it's so disappointing. One of my favorite parts of FF is its, I don't know what to call it, maybe unique aesthetic culture, I guess.. the monster and character designs, summons, some of the settings/environments, when and how it does its magitek iterations.. and I want to be able to explore that without having to shut off the part of my brain that screams at misogyny. But that's not worth the trade-off.
Spira has a special place in my heart - the variations on the musical themes in X are so, so satisfying - but I'm not sure I'll ever revisit them at this point.
Rankings for suckers, and anyway, FF I would knock them all down.
posted by curious nu at 9:06 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
XI and XIV (the online options) are interesting to try and consider in all of this.
XI was a hot mess for a lot of its life, and you still have to jump through serious hoops to play it solo, but it also has a kind of perfect MUD gameplay going on that, as an elder/geriatric/eldritch millennial, gets some deep hooks into my brain. I put together playlists for Gustaberg -> Ronfaure and back for jogging to. Also the PlayOnline viewer! Such a product of its time and country of origin but so, so satisfying to login to. I kept copies of the soundtrack MP3s, I find myself humming them sometimes and its been almost 10 years since I last played. (why yes, I also love the Wii/Wii U menu music, leave me alone)
XIV... I'd probably still be playing but the regressiveness in the character/armor design isn't something I can hand-wave anymore. It just sucks, and it's so disappointing. One of my favorite parts of FF is its, I don't know what to call it, maybe unique aesthetic culture, I guess.. the monster and character designs, summons, some of the settings/environments, when and how it does its magitek iterations.. and I want to be able to explore that without having to shut off the part of my brain that screams at misogyny. But that's not worth the trade-off.
Spira has a special place in my heart - the variations on the musical themes in X are so, so satisfying - but I'm not sure I'll ever revisit them at this point.
Rankings for suckers, and anyway, FF I would knock them all down.
posted by curious nu at 9:06 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
(also thank you for a Final Fantasy post on a US-Sunday, I'm barely seeing my family this holiday for Reasons, so getting to argue about a foundational video game franchise/empire while I drink more coffee is pretty damn great)
posted by curious nu at 9:10 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by curious nu at 9:10 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
(just TYPING "Final Fantasy" sends me back to pouring over it in Nintendo Power, buying the cart from Toys R Us, leafing through that giant instruction booklet/intro strategy guide.. I get the love folks have for others, but there's absolutely nothing that can match the experience of FF I for me)
posted by curious nu at 9:12 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by curious nu at 9:12 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Final Fantasy X can go straight to the bottom of the list, all the way to Hell. You may ask, “But why all this vitriol?”
To which I reply, “Blitzball!!”
Fuck that entire garbage meta-game.
posted by Fizz at 9:14 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
To which I reply, “Blitzball!!”
Fuck that entire garbage meta-game.
posted by Fizz at 9:14 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
But blitzball is freakin' awesome! I legit would've paid money for a separate blitzball game. I love fictional sports in a way I can't get into real ones.
Am.. am I on the bench?!
posted by curious nu at 9:17 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Am.. am I on the bench?!
posted by curious nu at 9:17 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think I just really hated how much blitzball disrupted the story of FFX. I mean, I realize that FFX is on the rails, so its not like there's any open-world that I'm missing but it just really disrupted the pacing of that game and my being invested in the story.
I do love that skill tree from FFX though, give me more of that.
posted by Fizz at 9:22 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
I do love that skill tree from FFX though, give me more of that.
posted by Fizz at 9:22 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Everyone has a lot of love for the first entry they played
Not everyone. My first Final Fantasy was XIII. Honestly it's amazing Square Enix convinced me to keep playing the series at all after that.
Also I know people like it for reasons I will never understand, but putting XV above X-2 is a war crime in my book. XV can go all the way to hell. ALL THE WAY. Gimme that Real Emotion instead.
posted by chrominance at 9:26 AM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Not everyone. My first Final Fantasy was XIII. Honestly it's amazing Square Enix convinced me to keep playing the series at all after that.
Also I know people like it for reasons I will never understand, but putting XV above X-2 is a war crime in my book. XV can go all the way to hell. ALL THE WAY. Gimme that Real Emotion instead.
posted by chrominance at 9:26 AM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Like seriously:
XV's frenetic combat system and gorgeous environments would undoubtedly influence future Final Fantasy projects.
I played through the Leviathan fight, possibly the worst boss fight I've ever fought in a video game, so I have to ask: is the above comment a THREAT?
posted by chrominance at 9:28 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
XV's frenetic combat system and gorgeous environments would undoubtedly influence future Final Fantasy projects.
I played through the Leviathan fight, possibly the worst boss fight I've ever fought in a video game, so I have to ask: is the above comment a THREAT?
posted by chrominance at 9:28 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think I have to make the case with the ones I replayed the most which would be Final Fantasies VIII, IX, and X. I never was much for MMORPGs, so I never played XI and XIV.
I still played XII and XIII, but I probably won't replay them anytime soon. I couldn't get into their games anymore after Hironobu Sakaguchi left and they merged with Enix. I think I got older and set in my ways, but I'll still give their new mainline Final Fantasy games a chance. I'll eventually get to XV when I buy a PlayStation 4, and VII-R when they're completely done.
I would like to honorably mention FANTASIAN (Invidious, YouTube), though. Sakaguchi was inspired to make it after replaying Final Fantasy VI, and it's probably Nobuo Uematsu's last full score. I loved it. Seriously need to go through Mistwalker's catalog.
please sqeenix make a kart racer you have no dignity left (Invidious, YouTube)
posted by chinesefood at 9:31 AM on December 18, 2022
I still played XII and XIII, but I probably won't replay them anytime soon. I couldn't get into their games anymore after Hironobu Sakaguchi left and they merged with Enix. I think I got older and set in my ways, but I'll still give their new mainline Final Fantasy games a chance. I'll eventually get to XV when I buy a PlayStation 4, and VII-R when they're completely done.
I would like to honorably mention FANTASIAN (Invidious, YouTube), though. Sakaguchi was inspired to make it after replaying Final Fantasy VI, and it's probably Nobuo Uematsu's last full score. I loved it. Seriously need to go through Mistwalker's catalog.
please sqeenix make a kart racer you have no dignity left (Invidious, YouTube)
posted by chinesefood at 9:31 AM on December 18, 2022
8 is my favorite. I started playing through it again recently. I kind of love the strange and nonsensical magic system. And I hadn't played it in a while, so it took me some 10 hours to remember to just put enemies to sleep to draw up my spell count, then I don't have to waste my time doing it a little bit each battle. I like X-2 to an unreasonable degree -- I thought the dressphere system was pretty great. I haven't played V or IX -- I really should; I've heard lots of good things about both of them. Haven't played XIII, either, but V and IX are higher priorities. All that aside, in my opinion VI is the best of the ones I've played, even though it isn't my favorite one.
I do like VII and have returned to it several times. However, one of the most notable moments -- Aerith's death -- just didn't grab me; I had played through Phantasy Star IV shortly before the first time I went through FFVII and found Alys' death more impactful. I don't remember how much of that feeling was based purely on utility -- Alys is essentially the backbone of the party at the time she's killed.
Couldn't stand the combat in XII. Couldn't stand .. er .. most things in XV. The Coleman product placement was utterly bizarre. For the MMO's, I played a good bit of XI and thought it was okay -- I'm not much for MMOs. I don't really have any interest in XIV.
I do have to get back to my most recent X run. I started it to specifically force myself to enjoy and get good at atDrownball Blitzball. I don't know why.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 9:33 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I do like VII and have returned to it several times. However, one of the most notable moments -- Aerith's death -- just didn't grab me; I had played through Phantasy Star IV shortly before the first time I went through FFVII and found Alys' death more impactful. I don't remember how much of that feeling was based purely on utility -- Alys is essentially the backbone of the party at the time she's killed.
Couldn't stand the combat in XII. Couldn't stand .. er .. most things in XV. The Coleman product placement was utterly bizarre. For the MMO's, I played a good bit of XI and thought it was okay -- I'm not much for MMOs. I don't really have any interest in XIV.
I do have to get back to my most recent X run. I started it to specifically force myself to enjoy and get good at at
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 9:33 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
For those of us who don't have access to the latest-and-greatest Final Fantasy games, because we only have a Nintendo Switch, any recommendations on what to play on there that scratch the FF itch?
(FFVI was the best one, and then X, and then XII, and then IV, though)
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 9:34 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
(FFVI was the best one, and then X, and then XII, and then IV, though)
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 9:34 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Glad the article arrived at the correct decision that FFVI is the best Final Fantasy. I mean, I haven't played any of the more recent ones since VII, but VI is still definitely the best.
posted by biogeo at 9:35 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 9:35 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
I have difficulty picking FFX back up because of the tedium required to get xp for entire party each fight. Maybe that's not required, but 3-member parties that require regular changing of members mid-fight gets a bit too menu-battler for me, but that's just preference.
FFVI is my favorite, but nostalgia. I played IV first, and still think VI is tops. Gonna opine.
I really really just ship FFVI's narratives of strong, conflicted women. No other FF characters have grabbed me like Terra and Celes. And the explorations of how they were each controlled or manipulated, and their respective paths to healing and/or redemption. And Kefka! A world that ends! And then collecting themselves as tragedies continue and they work together to overcome the evil of their time knowing there is no return to the before.
Every character centered and developed in both worlds, and with unique skills that can completely change how battles play out. Play your way parties coupled with 10-15 member excursions.
And Shadow. You gotta wait for shadow!
posted by CPAnarchist at 9:44 AM on December 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
FFVI is my favorite, but nostalgia. I played IV first, and still think VI is tops. Gonna opine.
I really really just ship FFVI's narratives of strong, conflicted women. No other FF characters have grabbed me like Terra and Celes. And the explorations of how they were each controlled or manipulated, and their respective paths to healing and/or redemption. And Kefka! A world that ends! And then collecting themselves as tragedies continue and they work together to overcome the evil of their time knowing there is no return to the before.
Every character centered and developed in both worlds, and with unique skills that can completely change how battles play out. Play your way parties coupled with 10-15 member excursions.
And Shadow. You gotta wait for shadow!
posted by CPAnarchist at 9:44 AM on December 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
I've only played 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12. I liked all of them enough that I can't say any were bad, but I'd put 8 and 9 at the bottom of the five that I've played. It's probably an obvious thing to say, but with a series like FF where everything generally "works" and games are super-flawed, your own personal ranking probably just comes down to your aesthetics about what mechanics and story elements work for you. For me:
Story: 10 > 7 >12 > 8 > 9, with wide gap between 12 and 8 there. Generally with games as long as FF, you have who you think the big bad is, but somewhere along the line you find out there's actually a much bigger bad. That transition made sense to me in 7 and 10, wasn't really any big deal in 12 (the big bad at the end is exactly who you thought it was for the whole game, just with some additional abilities), and with 8 and 9 the bigger bad came in out of nowhere towards the end and I had no idea who they were. I still have very little idea of what was happening at the end of 9. But 10, where you discover the entire world's religion is basically a sham and you destroy it? Sign me up.
Mechanics: I like 10 and 12 where you can switch out characters mid-battle, and the game plays on that a bit where different enemies in different areas might be better fought by characters with different abilities (moreso in 12). I also like 12 where battles aren't random, you can see the enemies running around (usually), and that gets enhanced by the battle chain concept where if you string together a bunch of wins against enemies of the same type your rewards increase. I also like 10 and 12 where character roles aren't really predetermined, although that's more open in 12. I do remember being really happy when I got to the point in 10 where a character got all the way through their portion of the sphere grid and could go off and be whatever I wanted them to be instead of being locked in as a white mage the whole game, but it still had different weapons/armor for different characters where you couldn't really cross that line. In 12, if you want your entire party wielding katana, you can do that.
Side quests: 7 is mostly about chocobo racing, which, fine. I hated the card game in 8. I have no recollection of the side quests in 9 aside from having a chocobo peck around in certain areas to find things. I liked blitzball in 10 better than the card game, but only played it enough to get the ultimate weapon available from it. In 12, the main side quest is the hunt thing, which seems more in line with the general purpose of the game, but if you were looking for something to do in the game other than kill monsters, it's probably disappointing.
I also like in 12 that enemies drop random things rather than money, and you have to sell the random things to get money, and sometimes those random things can get turned into interesting things that you can buy. I don't know if FF or Star Ocean came up with that one first, though.
posted by LionIndex at 9:50 AM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Story: 10 > 7 >12 > 8 > 9, with wide gap between 12 and 8 there. Generally with games as long as FF, you have who you think the big bad is, but somewhere along the line you find out there's actually a much bigger bad. That transition made sense to me in 7 and 10, wasn't really any big deal in 12 (the big bad at the end is exactly who you thought it was for the whole game, just with some additional abilities), and with 8 and 9 the bigger bad came in out of nowhere towards the end and I had no idea who they were. I still have very little idea of what was happening at the end of 9. But 10, where you discover the entire world's religion is basically a sham and you destroy it? Sign me up.
Mechanics: I like 10 and 12 where you can switch out characters mid-battle, and the game plays on that a bit where different enemies in different areas might be better fought by characters with different abilities (moreso in 12). I also like 12 where battles aren't random, you can see the enemies running around (usually), and that gets enhanced by the battle chain concept where if you string together a bunch of wins against enemies of the same type your rewards increase. I also like 10 and 12 where character roles aren't really predetermined, although that's more open in 12. I do remember being really happy when I got to the point in 10 where a character got all the way through their portion of the sphere grid and could go off and be whatever I wanted them to be instead of being locked in as a white mage the whole game, but it still had different weapons/armor for different characters where you couldn't really cross that line. In 12, if you want your entire party wielding katana, you can do that.
Side quests: 7 is mostly about chocobo racing, which, fine. I hated the card game in 8. I have no recollection of the side quests in 9 aside from having a chocobo peck around in certain areas to find things. I liked blitzball in 10 better than the card game, but only played it enough to get the ultimate weapon available from it. In 12, the main side quest is the hunt thing, which seems more in line with the general purpose of the game, but if you were looking for something to do in the game other than kill monsters, it's probably disappointing.
I also like in 12 that enemies drop random things rather than money, and you have to sell the random things to get money, and sometimes those random things can get turned into interesting things that you can buy. I don't know if FF or Star Ocean came up with that one first, though.
posted by LionIndex at 9:50 AM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
but with a series like FF where everything generally "works" and games are super-flawed
Missed the edit window - aren't super-flawed
posted by LionIndex at 10:02 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Missed the edit window - aren't super-flawed
posted by LionIndex at 10:02 AM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think I just really hated how much blitzball disrupted the story of FFX. I mean, I realize that FFX is on the rails, so its not like there's any open-world that I'm missing but it just really disrupted the pacing of that game and my being invested in the story.
I kind of liked blitzball and the managing the team, but you're not wrong. Wakka can go straight to the farplane, though.
I think I actually enjoyed X-2 more than X, but it's hard to imagine playing it without having done X first.
posted by rodlymight at 10:03 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I kind of liked blitzball and the managing the team, but you're not wrong. Wakka can go straight to the farplane, though.
I think I actually enjoyed X-2 more than X, but it's hard to imagine playing it without having done X first.
posted by rodlymight at 10:03 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I get that they didn't include Final fantasy tactics in 'the mainline ' but, geez. Not a single honorable mention is painful.
6 is the best though, so that's good.
posted by Jacen at 10:03 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
6 is the best though, so that's good.
posted by Jacen at 10:03 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Bold move to give the 2nd place slot to a game whose most ardent defenders will admit "sure the first 60 or 70 hours aren't very good, but it gets really good after that!"
posted by firechicago at 10:29 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by firechicago at 10:29 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Bold move to give the 2nd place slot to a game whose most ardent defenders will admit "sure the first 60 or 70 hours aren't very good, but it gets really good after that!"
While there's some bit of grind to get to the end-game content that people always gush about with FFXIV, I still think it deserves the #2 spot. The fact that this game came back from the dead, that they've also gone back and added so many quality-of-life improvements to help newcomers get to the good stuff as quickly as possible, its quite the success story. And the game is still holding up great.
posted by Fizz at 10:48 AM on December 18, 2022
While there's some bit of grind to get to the end-game content that people always gush about with FFXIV, I still think it deserves the #2 spot. The fact that this game came back from the dead, that they've also gone back and added so many quality-of-life improvements to help newcomers get to the good stuff as quickly as possible, its quite the success story. And the game is still holding up great.
posted by Fizz at 10:48 AM on December 18, 2022
Honestly I started playing FFXIV a couple years ago - before the current polish pass, even - and by "not very good" people mostly mean "much less good than the first expansion" but it's still probably my favorite MMO story ever, and honestly I like almost every system better than any other MMO. It's a really good MMO, and a pretty damn good Final Fantasy.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:58 AM on December 18, 2022
posted by restless_nomad at 10:58 AM on December 18, 2022
I think XV is the best one. It is such a cohesive vision and the way that it shifts your perspective on the roadtrip as it goes is fantastic. The characters also felt very alive, more so than any other FF. So many unique barks, banter, and personality shines through. The only game I've seen do it better was that Guardians of the Galaxy one. The payoff with the photography stuff was also...wow. I saw it coming and it still made me cry. Those manipulative evil geniuses. That was something that only works in a video game.
I think the rushed second half really hurt it, especially the timeskip. The combat does get a repetitive as well, although you can cheese it pretty easily by the time you get bored of it. Not that I've ever played an rpg where I wasn't bored of the combat by hour 20.
I have opinions on the others, but I'll save you my mini review of each. I just think too many people slept on XV. It is really it's own beast in FF series with a unique vision that I think it got so close to nailing.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:13 AM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think the rushed second half really hurt it, especially the timeskip. The combat does get a repetitive as well, although you can cheese it pretty easily by the time you get bored of it. Not that I've ever played an rpg where I wasn't bored of the combat by hour 20.
I have opinions on the others, but I'll save you my mini review of each. I just think too many people slept on XV. It is really it's own beast in FF series with a unique vision that I think it got so close to nailing.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:13 AM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
The only Final Fantasies I have ever enjoyed enough to finish are Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger. Admittedly I have never played any of the 3D Final Fantasies but I had a go at the one this list ranks as “the best” (which I think was also considered one of the Best Ones at the time I tried it) and I bounced off of it super hard. Maybe I tried some of the other 2d Final Fantasies, I can’t remember.
There is a cold snap coming up around Christmas while my SO is away for family and I know I will not want to leave the couch and I am tempted to get a big dumb video game to occupy myself and this post almost makes me want to try whichever Final Fantasy is available on the PS4 and supposedly “the best” but I am pretty sure I’d do a lot better to find a sprawling action game, I have Persona 5 still sitting there abandoned a couple years back on what’s probably the last dungeon if I want to subject myself to JRPGs.
posted by egypturnash at 11:16 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
There is a cold snap coming up around Christmas while my SO is away for family and I know I will not want to leave the couch and I am tempted to get a big dumb video game to occupy myself and this post almost makes me want to try whichever Final Fantasy is available on the PS4 and supposedly “the best” but I am pretty sure I’d do a lot better to find a sprawling action game, I have Persona 5 still sitting there abandoned a couple years back on what’s probably the last dungeon if I want to subject myself to JRPGs.
posted by egypturnash at 11:16 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don't know much about FF, but I have heard that FFXVI (i think?) has a free demo that goes up to level 60, or something like that. It was spammed so much and enough people got into it that new content was released and immediately unplayable because the server load was only handling like 10% of the requested slots, or something.
posted by hippybear at 11:18 AM on December 18, 2022
posted by hippybear at 11:18 AM on December 18, 2022
Play your way parties coupled with 10-15 member excursions. [in FF6]
I feel like those sequences were the pinnacle of old-school JRPGs - except that if done poorly, they can be so long and tedious and it's so important you don't get your original party wrong. Has Square or any other JRPG done this since?
I haven't beat a Final Fantasy since 7 though, and I've played 8, 9, 10, 10-2 , 12, and 14 (in addition to 1, 3, 4, 6, Tactics, Tactics Advance, Tactics Advance A2, and Mystic Quest). I've been too spoiled by the Persona series though. The "new old school" JRPGs seem to have much of the drudgery but not much of the delight - Octopath Traveler and the Bravely series just feel like work.
posted by meowzilla at 11:30 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
I feel like those sequences were the pinnacle of old-school JRPGs - except that if done poorly, they can be so long and tedious and it's so important you don't get your original party wrong. Has Square or any other JRPG done this since?
I haven't beat a Final Fantasy since 7 though, and I've played 8, 9, 10, 10-2 , 12, and 14 (in addition to 1, 3, 4, 6, Tactics, Tactics Advance, Tactics Advance A2, and Mystic Quest). I've been too spoiled by the Persona series though. The "new old school" JRPGs seem to have much of the drudgery but not much of the delight - Octopath Traveler and the Bravely series just feel like work.
posted by meowzilla at 11:30 AM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
The only Final Fantasy I played was FF Legend on my Gameboy, in glorious low res black and white. It was my very favorite game on that machine. Ironically enough, it has no real connection to the rest of the series according to Wikipedia.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 11:35 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 11:35 AM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
If we're going off of the mainline titles, Tactics was great, Chrystal Chronicles too. Arguably the Game Boy titles released in the US under the Final Fantasy banner don't really count, since the Legends games were really SaGa and Adventure was really Sword of Mana, but I've got a soft spot for all of those. FF Legends III and FF Adventure are both particularly good. The music for FF Adventure is especially remarkable considering the limitations of the Game Boy hardware.
posted by biogeo at 12:02 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 12:02 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think having skills be selectable (and to a different extent, the job system) became an impediment to the series as I grew older and adopted more of a casual approach to the FF series. Because the real gameplay becomes "plan out all your characters' growth for the endgame" instead of choosing whatever looks reasonable at first glance. And that's how I get a whole team of mediocre do-everything characters (Red Mages) who all have the Cure spell but no one has the Life spell, then I get soundly beaten by a boss in the middle of the game. Instead of just remembering, "just bring Aerith, she's a healer."
posted by meowzilla at 12:02 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by meowzilla at 12:02 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Reading in the comments that Tactics was not included (not being a mainline game) tells me I don't need to read this list! The game is masterpiece and probably tied with Cold Steel 3 and the original Final Fantasy 7 as my favourite JRPGs.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 12:18 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 12:18 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
[FF6 Spoiler]
Final Fantasy IV is a sentimental favorite of mine, but Final Fantasy VI does something that separates it not only from the other games in the anthology, but gaming in general, in that the creators choose to have the villain actually succeed with their evil plan. That's something that I would like to see in more "save the world" narratives.
posted by dances with hamsters at 12:32 PM on December 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
Final Fantasy IV is a sentimental favorite of mine, but Final Fantasy VI does something that separates it not only from the other games in the anthology, but gaming in general, in that the creators choose to have the villain actually succeed with their evil plan. That's something that I would like to see in more "save the world" narratives.
posted by dances with hamsters at 12:32 PM on December 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
FFVII is the best, because if it wasn't for that game and its fandom, I wouldn't have met my husband of fifteen (going on ???) years.
*mic drop*
posted by May Kasahara at 12:35 PM on December 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
*mic drop*
posted by May Kasahara at 12:35 PM on December 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
if it wasn't for that game and its fandom, I wouldn't have met my husband of fifteen (going on ???) years.
Wait, did you marry one of those body pillows with a FF character printed on them that are popular in Japan?
posted by hippybear at 12:58 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wait, did you marry one of those body pillows with a FF character printed on them that are popular in Japan?
posted by hippybear at 12:58 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
My Personal Rankings:
1. Tactics, with the original weird English translation that truly added to the metanarrative of trying to piece together the hushed-up truth behind an ancient and well-known Historical Saga.
2-20 or whatever: Other games that are fine to very good but aren't in the same league as FFT.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:11 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
1. Tactics, with the original weird English translation that truly added to the metanarrative of trying to piece together the hushed-up truth behind an ancient and well-known Historical Saga.
2-20 or whatever: Other games that are fine to very good but aren't in the same league as FFT.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:11 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wait, did you marry one of those body pillows with a FF character printed on them that are popular in Japan?
No, this guy, who's also the reason why I'm on MetaFilter.
Also, did not expect that sort of reply from you, hippybear D:
posted by May Kasahara at 1:22 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
No, this guy, who's also the reason why I'm on MetaFilter.
Also, did not expect that sort of reply from you, hippybear D:
posted by May Kasahara at 1:22 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
I tried playing the remake/re-interpretation of FFVII about a year or so ago. I never played the original FFVII. But the remake got great reviews, so I spent a good chunk of change on it. I just could NOT grasp the combat in that game at all. Something like queueing up moves, semi-pausing, then going from character to character—all in real time—was just incomprehensible to me. Sure I could win fights in Easy mode. But you could win fights in Easy mode by doing almost anything. It didn't require having to learn the system at all.
I turned it up to Normal difficulty. Regular enemies I could get. But even mini-bosses just destroyed me as I just could not begin to understand the way combat worked in that game. And I'm a person who enjoys Souls games for example, so I'm a pretty decent gamer. Confusing as hell, with no decent tutorials. I even restarted to really, really pay attention to the tutorials. Ugh.
Plus, everything non-combat was just a grinding bore. I remember going on a quest where we went to someone's house to eat pizza (apparently it's considered really funny that a character likes to eat a lot?) and it was like 45 minutes of guided button presses just to get through the pizza eating sequence. And I remember a puzzle sequence on catwalks above some big factory, where every catwalk looked exactly alike, rendered against a massively detailed background that made it all seem even more alike. I wandered around that area frustrated for an hour trying to figure it out. Just dull and bad game design.
I cannot understand the great reviews for that game outside of nostalgia bait.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:25 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I turned it up to Normal difficulty. Regular enemies I could get. But even mini-bosses just destroyed me as I just could not begin to understand the way combat worked in that game. And I'm a person who enjoys Souls games for example, so I'm a pretty decent gamer. Confusing as hell, with no decent tutorials. I even restarted to really, really pay attention to the tutorials. Ugh.
Plus, everything non-combat was just a grinding bore. I remember going on a quest where we went to someone's house to eat pizza (apparently it's considered really funny that a character likes to eat a lot?) and it was like 45 minutes of guided button presses just to get through the pizza eating sequence. And I remember a puzzle sequence on catwalks above some big factory, where every catwalk looked exactly alike, rendered against a massively detailed background that made it all seem even more alike. I wandered around that area frustrated for an hour trying to figure it out. Just dull and bad game design.
I cannot understand the great reviews for that game outside of nostalgia bait.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:25 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Also, did not expect that sort of reply from you, hippybear D:
I move in some strange circles and some people are strange. Also, it's a joke, and I'm pretty sure you knew that.
posted by hippybear at 1:52 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I move in some strange circles and some people are strange. Also, it's a joke, and I'm pretty sure you knew that.
posted by hippybear at 1:52 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
As long as VI is #1, the list is at least fundamentally correct.
By the way, if you're looking for a new 16-bit RPG to play, Chained Echoes is awesome.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:01 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
By the way, if you're looking for a new 16-bit RPG to play, Chained Echoes is awesome.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:01 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
If you want to play a recent game in the classic Square style, that some people regard as a predecessor to Chrono Trigger, there was a recent remake of Live-A-Live which is terrific, that was given the Octopath Traveler style of 2D pixel art in a 3D world. It's got nine scenarios, you choose the order you play through the first seven, and every one is completely different from the others (except the last two are in the same world).
Prehistory is told completely without words, and is a comedy and generally traditional JRPG. Imperial China is one where you don't start out playing the main character, but instead it's your job to choose who that character is and build them up and enable them to be awesome. Feudal Japan is a terrifically complex explorable castle with all kinds of subquest and cool things to discover. The Old West is a short timed quest and logic puzzle, that only contains three fights. Present Day is a sequence of boss fights, presented in a kind of Street Fighter style. Near Future is a kind of traditional JRPG story. Distant Future is an Alien-styled horror story, and only has _one_ important fight (there's other combat in a mini game if you want to play it). The Middle Ages chapter looks the most traditional, but ties together the other chapters, then in the final chapter you get to bring the main characters from the other chapters together and use them as your party, some of them able to earn experience points and gain levels for the first time in play.
It's really a nice thing to experience, please have a look at it if you haven't yet, there's a playable demo!
posted by JHarris at 3:00 PM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Prehistory is told completely without words, and is a comedy and generally traditional JRPG. Imperial China is one where you don't start out playing the main character, but instead it's your job to choose who that character is and build them up and enable them to be awesome. Feudal Japan is a terrifically complex explorable castle with all kinds of subquest and cool things to discover. The Old West is a short timed quest and logic puzzle, that only contains three fights. Present Day is a sequence of boss fights, presented in a kind of Street Fighter style. Near Future is a kind of traditional JRPG story. Distant Future is an Alien-styled horror story, and only has _one_ important fight (there's other combat in a mini game if you want to play it). The Middle Ages chapter looks the most traditional, but ties together the other chapters, then in the final chapter you get to bring the main characters from the other chapters together and use them as your party, some of them able to earn experience points and gain levels for the first time in play.
It's really a nice thing to experience, please have a look at it if you haven't yet, there's a playable demo!
posted by JHarris at 3:00 PM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
I could disagree with that list more, but not by much. That said, my favorite is FFIX, and not just because of Vivi, so according to almost everyone else I am the very very wrong one.
posted by Mizu at 3:07 PM on December 18, 2022
posted by Mizu at 3:07 PM on December 18, 2022
I move in some strange circles and some people are strange. Also, it's a joke, and I'm pretty sure you knew that.
Yeah, no worries. I help curate a Japanese collectibles database, so I'm amused/horrified by sexy hugging pillows and the like on a regular basis. Pretty sure there's no official Final Fantasy ones, though.
posted by May Kasahara at 4:03 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yeah, no worries. I help curate a Japanese collectibles database, so I'm amused/horrified by sexy hugging pillows and the like on a regular basis. Pretty sure there's no official Final Fantasy ones, though.
posted by May Kasahara at 4:03 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I admittedly haven't played XI and probably never will at this point, but after Endwalker's release, I've settled on FFXIV as The Best One. The best story (so few of them can even claim to have a clear beginning, middle and end, let alone thematic consistency or a coherent point of view), the best villain, in Emet-Selch, and, fuck it: the best soundtrack. Uematsu's done some amazing work in the past, and while his contribution to 14, Answers, is not among his best, it gets reused in Endwalker in an absolutely devastating way. Mechanically, it manages to take much of the sting out of MMOs - it's a single (very long) story, with no grinding or having to collect ten bear asses that inexplicably drop 50% of the time, and while there's lots of group content, the community has been trained to be welcoming and excited for you to see what's coming, especially if you're in one of the dungeons where Shit Goes Down immediately after. It doesn't try to take over your life through grindable systems - once you get to the end of the story, there's some hard modes if you want (or the true end-game, housing) but it's perfectly content to have you just come back in a year when the next couple bits of story have been added.
It's one of the reasons I'm so excited for 16 - it shares a lot of the creative team, with a producer that knows how to actually ship a complete game.
I remember going on a quest where we went to someone's house to eat pizza (apparently it's considered really funny that a character likes to eat a lot?) and it was like 45 minutes of guided button presses just to get through the pizza eating sequence.
I was like "I don't remember this at all" and then discovered this was part of the PS5 bonus chapter. This may be why you weren't seeing any tutorials, but then I assume you also tried the main game at some point and I'm not going to pretend that the main game explains its mechanics very well. It is very easy to miss how the stagger system works.
That said, my favorite is FFIX, and not just because of Vivi, so according to almost everyone else I am the very very wrong one.
9 was my favourite before 14. 9 has a lot to recommend it! Its plot mostly makes sense, it's got appealing characters, some great moments, and it's got some interesting mechanics and neat minigames.
posted by Merus at 4:04 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
It's one of the reasons I'm so excited for 16 - it shares a lot of the creative team, with a producer that knows how to actually ship a complete game.
I remember going on a quest where we went to someone's house to eat pizza (apparently it's considered really funny that a character likes to eat a lot?) and it was like 45 minutes of guided button presses just to get through the pizza eating sequence.
I was like "I don't remember this at all" and then discovered this was part of the PS5 bonus chapter. This may be why you weren't seeing any tutorials, but then I assume you also tried the main game at some point and I'm not going to pretend that the main game explains its mechanics very well. It is very easy to miss how the stagger system works.
That said, my favorite is FFIX, and not just because of Vivi, so according to almost everyone else I am the very very wrong one.
9 was my favourite before 14. 9 has a lot to recommend it! Its plot mostly makes sense, it's got appealing characters, some great moments, and it's got some interesting mechanics and neat minigames.
posted by Merus at 4:04 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
the Pixel Remaster version of FF1 is pretty close and they didn't fuck up the character models, and I am old and grudgingly accept that turning up the XP curve and making it play a little faster
Farming Ogres for spell upgrades did get old; but FF1 was kind of a different game than the rest -- there were no pre-written characters, just classes. (Which I preferred in a RPG, and so didn't play any of the sequels for years.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:17 PM on December 18, 2022
Farming Ogres for spell upgrades did get old; but FF1 was kind of a different game than the rest -- there were no pre-written characters, just classes. (Which I preferred in a RPG, and so didn't play any of the sequels for years.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:17 PM on December 18, 2022
Of the first seven FFs, I have played five of them (never got around to JP 2 or 3). As a Tactics fan, I rank 5 much higher, but as long as 1-4-5-6 are above 7 on the list, I'm happy.
(I might be the one person who bought Tobal No. 1 to play Tobal No. 1 instead of for the packed-in FF7 demo.)
posted by delfin at 4:28 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
(I might be the one person who bought Tobal No. 1 to play Tobal No. 1 instead of for the packed-in FF7 demo.)
posted by delfin at 4:28 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I’m a huge fan of XII because the world building makes it feel like a place that could really exist—Ivalice is a continent, not a planet; you meet other people in the field hunting for their own reasons; the national intrigue stuff feels real in a way that the Empire in VI, say, does not. And the Star Wars vibe of different species getting by, along with big blue sky airship battles, helps a lot with a sense of place.
(I know it’s almost certainly not, but I like to think that one battle in Andor is a bit of a shout back.)
But man, I’ll always love VI. They were able to pull off some incredible story telling with sprites and Mode 7 graphics. I still get the opera song stuck in my head on a regular basis.
posted by thecaddy at 4:51 PM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
(I know it’s almost certainly not, but I like to think that one battle in Andor is a bit of a shout back.)
But man, I’ll always love VI. They were able to pull off some incredible story telling with sprites and Mode 7 graphics. I still get the opera song stuck in my head on a regular basis.
posted by thecaddy at 4:51 PM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Having only played I and II before life interrupted my ability to sit in front of a console for hours, all I can say is that I'm old.
posted by Ickster at 5:23 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Ickster at 5:23 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
It seems like these rating articles appear on the internet once every few years. I have to assume as their audience ages that eventually they'll fall out of fashion, in fact I'm a bit surprised they haven't already. The people who were in their teens when the 16-bit Final Fantasy games came out are in their 40s now.
I miss the era when these games, and even individual characters, would get their individual fan sites. Remember 8-Bit Theater, which parodied FF1? I actually don't much, it wasn't my scene, but a lot of people were fond of it.
posted by JHarris at 5:26 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I miss the era when these games, and even individual characters, would get their individual fan sites. Remember 8-Bit Theater, which parodied FF1? I actually don't much, it wasn't my scene, but a lot of people were fond of it.
posted by JHarris at 5:26 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I owned and played Final Fantasy II (IV) on original hardware back when it was released. I didn't get to play Final Fantasy III (VI) until a decade later and on an emulator.
FF6 is without question the best, but for me personally FF4 had the bigger impact because it had the previously unparalleled story, the soundtrack, and the epic scope. No other game at the time could compare, and certainly not the Dragon Warrior games we had up until that point. FF4 was maybe the first video game that I ever devoted significant amounts of headspace to imagining what a movie version of it would be like with a full orchestral score.
Also, FF6 doesn't really have any moments like the one towards the end of FF4 when the giant mech emerges and literally everyone who's ever been a member of your party arrives with all the world's airships/tanks to do one final battle for the fate of the planet was the most awesome thing ever when I was 11.
If FF6 is Empire Strikes Back, FF4 is A New Hope. You couldn't expect to pull off the "sadistic psychopathic villain actually succeeds in setting the world on fire" story if you hadn't already done the traditional "big damn heroes save the day" one first, and FF4 is that trial run of the new 16-bit medium.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:43 PM on December 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
FF6 is without question the best, but for me personally FF4 had the bigger impact because it had the previously unparalleled story, the soundtrack, and the epic scope. No other game at the time could compare, and certainly not the Dragon Warrior games we had up until that point. FF4 was maybe the first video game that I ever devoted significant amounts of headspace to imagining what a movie version of it would be like with a full orchestral score.
Also, FF6 doesn't really have any moments like the one towards the end of FF4 when the giant mech emerges and literally everyone who's ever been a member of your party arrives with all the world's airships/tanks to do one final battle for the fate of the planet was the most awesome thing ever when I was 11.
If FF6 is Empire Strikes Back, FF4 is A New Hope. You couldn't expect to pull off the "sadistic psychopathic villain actually succeeds in setting the world on fire" story if you hadn't already done the traditional "big damn heroes save the day" one first, and FF4 is that trial run of the new 16-bit medium.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:43 PM on December 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
I also really like how the first half of FF6 is focused on Terra's journey of self-discovery and after [spoiler] the second half is suddenly Celes' story. It really adds an additional layer to what happens almost as if the game has suddenly decided that a broken world needs a broken protagonist. Terra was the innocent "chosen one" who would be a bridge between worlds, and when that becomes impossible Celes--the sometimes antagonist and product of the same twisted program that created Kefka--becomes the one who has to pick up all the pieces.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:11 PM on December 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:11 PM on December 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
Which ones have I finished? 4, 6, 7, 10, 7 Remake. Got all my characters to level 99 in 2(US), but that had more to me being 12 than some inherent quality to the game. Poked at various others to no great effect. Loved the art for 9. 8 was not for me, but I could understand how that might make it for someone who isn't me.
If I had to pick a favourite it'd be 7 Remake, but I can also imagine a 3 Remake that would absolutely blow my middle-aged mind. Should probably let an established indie dev take a crack at that one instead of the sclerotic mass that is Square-Enix, though, assuming I'm still calling the shots.
posted by rhooke at 7:25 PM on December 18, 2022
If I had to pick a favourite it'd be 7 Remake, but I can also imagine a 3 Remake that would absolutely blow my middle-aged mind. Should probably let an established indie dev take a crack at that one instead of the sclerotic mass that is Square-Enix, though, assuming I'm still calling the shots.
posted by rhooke at 7:25 PM on December 18, 2022
My SNES cart of FFVI has degraded to the point where it can no longer reliably support save files, so it's frustratingly unplayable. Devastating. I used to play it through every few years since childhood. I certainly consider it the best FF game, by a huge margin.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 7:45 PM on December 18, 2022
posted by mrjohnmuller at 7:45 PM on December 18, 2022
You spoony bard!
I think I played all of I through VI, half an hour of the basically-unplayable PC port of VII, and then nothing else. Oh, actually, I played the Gameboy Advance Tactics on an emulator at some point and remember basically nothing from it, so it must have been good?
I actually replayed VI not sooooo long ago (during the Really Long part of the pandemic, IIRC). The opera scene is still a banger.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:55 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think I played all of I through VI, half an hour of the basically-unplayable PC port of VII, and then nothing else. Oh, actually, I played the Gameboy Advance Tactics on an emulator at some point and remember basically nothing from it, so it must have been good?
I actually replayed VI not sooooo long ago (during the Really Long part of the pandemic, IIRC). The opera scene is still a banger.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:55 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Something I learned this year about Final Fantasy VI (h/t Christine Love):
25 Years Since The Release Of Final Fantasy VI – Looking Back At The Passionposted by chinesefood at 7:57 PM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
It was a shocking development when the world was destroyed, and you continued traveling through the World of Ruin afterward.
(Sakaguchi) Actually we didn’t initially plan to make the World of Ruin at all.
(Kitase) We originally planned for the party to save the world and defeat Kefka just as things were looking grim and the world was about to be destroyed. Then we started talking about reworking that.
(Sakaguchi) The game was coming along more smoothly than we expected, so we were able to free up some time in our schedule before the release date and implement that.
Played 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12 and it's 7 all the way man, mainly because of the story's themes... There's a mishmash quality to the writing that ends up working unexpectedly well for fans to fill in the gaps and I really like that kind of thing, it ends up richer by way of collaborative storytelling. Also the grief, small planet in a large cosmos, depression and other mental illness, etc themes are all really resonant but what I like most are the anti-capitalist / environmental themes that only get MORE resonant with time. Imagine having the biggest RPG budget EVER at the time and using it to have a large team make an anti-corporate messaged video game? No way modern Square Enix, a corporate behemoth, can make a game like that anymore. Really lightning in a bottle with that one.
Remake is uniquely awful because it undermines exactly the themes that made 7 good in the first place... Take a story about grief and make it so none of the major characters die, about some nobody protagonist and make it about Fate, about being so angry about the destruction of the Planet that the protagonists are eco-terrorists and make sure they don't want to actually hurt anyone. No thanks.
After that I'd say I liked both 8 and 9 a lot, but too much grinding in their mechanics. I thought 12 was the most fun to play. How much you like 10 will depend a lot on how much you like the central romance but the twist at the end is really good and memorable.
posted by subdee at 3:25 AM on December 19, 2022
Remake is uniquely awful because it undermines exactly the themes that made 7 good in the first place... Take a story about grief and make it so none of the major characters die, about some nobody protagonist and make it about Fate, about being so angry about the destruction of the Planet that the protagonists are eco-terrorists and make sure they don't want to actually hurt anyone. No thanks.
After that I'd say I liked both 8 and 9 a lot, but too much grinding in their mechanics. I thought 12 was the most fun to play. How much you like 10 will depend a lot on how much you like the central romance but the twist at the end is really good and memorable.
posted by subdee at 3:25 AM on December 19, 2022
Remember 8-Bit Theater, which parodied FF1? I actually don't much, it wasn't my scene, but a lot of people were fond of it.
I really enjoyed RPGWorld which was a webcomic pastiche of FF7. I stopped reading it shortly after the comic had the villain commit an Aerith-style death to a character I kind of liked (while dangling the obligate side-quest that maybe..maybe...MAYBE could revive her) and after that the updates started getting more and more infrequent and random.
I think you're right that the group of people creating that kind of content have aged out of this genre and the cohort that previously did things like RPGWorld and 8Bit Theater have grown up and gotten real adult jobs that take up most of their time.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:26 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I really enjoyed RPGWorld which was a webcomic pastiche of FF7. I stopped reading it shortly after the comic had the villain commit an Aerith-style death to a character I kind of liked (while dangling the obligate side-quest that maybe..maybe...MAYBE could revive her) and after that the updates started getting more and more infrequent and random.
I think you're right that the group of people creating that kind of content have aged out of this genre and the cohort that previously did things like RPGWorld and 8Bit Theater have grown up and gotten real adult jobs that take up most of their time.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:26 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
You spoony bard!
As silly as it is in retrospect given the hokey dialogue and pixel art, I always found Tellah's sudden casting of METEO(r) in his vengefully shortsighted fight against Golbez to be some quality capital-D Drama. The spell had been sitting all greyed-out on the mantelpiece of available magic the whole time, and then he did it, regardless of the cost.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:31 AM on December 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
As silly as it is in retrospect given the hokey dialogue and pixel art, I always found Tellah's sudden casting of METEO(r) in his vengefully shortsighted fight against Golbez to be some quality capital-D Drama. The spell had been sitting all greyed-out on the mantelpiece of available magic the whole time, and then he did it, regardless of the cost.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:31 AM on December 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
RonButNotStupid, the creator of RPGWorld, "Ian J.," is Ian Jones-Quartey, who went on to direct on Venture Bros. and Steven Universe, and then created O.K. KO! He even did an episode of O.K. KO that wrapped up RPGWorld.
posted by JHarris at 5:39 AM on December 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 5:39 AM on December 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
Ian Jones-Quartey (sometimes with spouse Rebecca Sugar) also sometimes appears on the podcast What A Cartoon as a guest.
posted by JHarris at 5:40 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 5:40 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
WELL THEN.
Wow.
I didn't know that.
I guess I'll have to watch some OK K.O. And I don't think I would have ever made the connection if you hadn't pointed it out.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:40 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wow.
I didn't know that.
I guess I'll have to watch some OK K.O. And I don't think I would have ever made the connection if you hadn't pointed it out.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:40 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
FF 3/6 is the GOAT. I have devoted more mental energy to this game (setting, mechanics, story, characters, artwork, etc.) than any other. It is a masterpiece. Yoshitaka Amano's art and Nobuo Uematsu's music is timelessly beautiful and I still enjoy it weekly, 28 years later.
posted by _DB_ at 7:51 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by _DB_ at 7:51 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Everyone has their favorite, but IMO the original NES one is a really bad game. Like why, when the battles are so slow, do characters spend 50% of their time missing when they attack? What jerkoff programmed that hit rate? I generally love the later ones, but that one is held back by its terrible fighting mechanics.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:03 AM on December 19, 2022
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:03 AM on December 19, 2022
I wonder how many people played FF1 vs experienced it through the Nintendo Power Players Guide that all subscribers received. I never had the original cart, but I spent *hours* reading every inch of that players guide. From all appearances, FF1 was so much more sophisticated and expansive than the Dragon Warrior games we had, and it wouldn't be until much later when I tried playing the game via emulator that I realized how annoyingly unrefined it is. That visual delay when entering/exiting towns or displaying dialog boxes is almost enough to make the game unplayable.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:17 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:17 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
The original NES FF1 is horribly broken. A number of weapons that were supposed to be strong versus monster types don't actually work, the hit rates are all kinds of screwy, and there's generally a lot of bad programming and design in it. Not to mention that it (along with FFIII) are Exhibits A and B for Why Vancian Magic Sucks As A Mechanic.
And yet with all that jank, it was compelling.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:21 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
And yet with all that jank, it was compelling.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:21 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
That said, none of the bugs in FF1 really measure up to the flipped value comparison in SaGa/Final Fantasy Legend, which allowed the player to literally chainsaw God.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:27 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:27 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
I adore the first one but I imprinted on it when I was 7. I wouldn't actually recommend anyone try it on a ROM - the pixel remaster is a much better option, and even the earlier ports, although aesthetically much worse, are much more playable.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:10 AM on December 19, 2022
posted by restless_nomad at 10:10 AM on December 19, 2022
Vancian Magic
Didn’t know this had a name!
Yep. FF1 cribbed heavily from D&D (AD&D 1st Edition in particular - there are monster images in the 1e Monster Manual that were....let's say "borrowed") and part of that was taking the magic system, which was inspired by Jack Vance's books, hence the name.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:01 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Didn’t know this had a name!
Yep. FF1 cribbed heavily from D&D (AD&D 1st Edition in particular - there are monster images in the 1e Monster Manual that were....let's say "borrowed") and part of that was taking the magic system, which was inspired by Jack Vance's books, hence the name.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:01 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
The episode of OK KO that crosses over with RPGWorld is 129 A Hero's Fate.
Someone mentioned Final Fantasy's bugginess. I think that can be explained by the fact that the game program is largely the work of a single person, the legendary Apple II programmer Nasir Gebelli. Nasir also worked on Rad Racer, 3D Worldrunner, the other two 8-bit Final Fantasy games that never made it to the US, Final Fantasy IV and even Secret of Mana! It feels kind of like Square was riding on his shoulders around that period.
posted by JHarris at 2:35 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Someone mentioned Final Fantasy's bugginess. I think that can be explained by the fact that the game program is largely the work of a single person, the legendary Apple II programmer Nasir Gebelli. Nasir also worked on Rad Racer, 3D Worldrunner, the other two 8-bit Final Fantasy games that never made it to the US, Final Fantasy IV and even Secret of Mana! It feels kind of like Square was riding on his shoulders around that period.
posted by JHarris at 2:35 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also--Vancian magic is not necessarily a problem for classic D&D if adventures are designed around it. FF does not use Vancian magic: it uses a level-tiered magic point system inspired by D&D. Dungeons & Dragons requires a player decide which specific spells a magic user will have available for the coming day. There's a boatload of specialized utility spells that are only useful if a magic user anticipates, upon resting, that they will be useful. Like, the Cleric spell Slow Poison is very useful if the character expects one of the party members to be poisoned, and absolutely useless in any other circumstance. That means a character has to make an educated guess about whether to use up one of their precious spell slots for Slow Poison, which means, the DM or adventure has to give them some hint that it might be necessary. Without that information, the spell could even be considered worse than useless: its existence implies uses that may never come up, but are very important to have if they do, so attentive players will always take it even though at low levels they have very few spell slots.
Final Fantasy doesn't have any of that: characters can decide what spell to cast at the point of casting. It also doesn't have spells like Slow Poison.
posted by JHarris at 2:50 PM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Final Fantasy doesn't have any of that: characters can decide what spell to cast at the point of casting. It also doesn't have spells like Slow Poison.
posted by JHarris at 2:50 PM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Aaah--a better link for info on the crossover episode of OK KO is this, it was actually the 34th episode of the first season.
posted by JHarris at 2:55 PM on December 19, 2022
posted by JHarris at 2:55 PM on December 19, 2022
The original NES FF1 is horribly broken.
I never realized this; but it does make sense in retrospect.
Also, I know it's outside of the continuity being discussed here, but FFXIV is a pretty good MMO with a lot of socializing that offers a huge proportion of the content from previous expansions for free. They call it a trial, but you can pretty much just play free forever and enjoy most of the theme park aspects of the game and world. Worth a look if you think you might enjoy it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:27 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
I never realized this; but it does make sense in retrospect.
Also, I know it's outside of the continuity being discussed here, but FFXIV is a pretty good MMO with a lot of socializing that offers a huge proportion of the content from previous expansions for free. They call it a trial, but you can pretty much just play free forever and enjoy most of the theme park aspects of the game and world. Worth a look if you think you might enjoy it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:27 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Final Fantasy doesn't have any of that: characters can decide what spell to cast at the point of casting. It also doesn't have spells like Slow Poison.
Antidote has always been a staple of FF games, as well as the full-spectrum Esuna (which is why "I Can't Esuna Stupid" is pretty much the healer's motto in FFXIV.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:36 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Antidote has always been a staple of FF games, as well as the full-spectrum Esuna (which is why "I Can't Esuna Stupid" is pretty much the healer's motto in FFXIV.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:36 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yeah, it's not broken as in "unplayable", it's broken in that a lot of the combat is just... not as designed, and the probably most-impactful bug is a sword appearing a tier too low in the shop, which makes it a logical place to grind a tedious amount of time and then makes the subsequent dungeon weird. (It really should be the dungeon where you get the hang of magic, and instead you can just alternate running away and murdalizing things with your Silver Sword(s).) But everything pretty much works, and no one had expectations for smooth leveling curves back in... '87 or '90, depending.
Until pretty recently I had only played it, FFIV (which is indeed great), and the non-main-sequence and kinda trivial Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Now I've played through II and have a perfectionist run going on III, which will kill me, and XIV, which I quite enjoy. Someday I'll work through the rest of them!
posted by restless_nomad at 3:37 PM on December 19, 2022
Until pretty recently I had only played it, FFIV (which is indeed great), and the non-main-sequence and kinda trivial Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Now I've played through II and have a perfectionist run going on III, which will kill me, and XIV, which I quite enjoy. Someday I'll work through the rest of them!
posted by restless_nomad at 3:37 PM on December 19, 2022
(Oh, they do include FFXIV, and at #2; I didn't think the MMOs were considered 'mainline' games.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:37 PM on December 19, 2022
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:37 PM on December 19, 2022
(Oh, they do include FFXIV, and at #2; I didn't think the MMOs were considered 'mainline' games.)
I think opinion on that started to change around Shadowbringers, when XIV's story was complete enough, and good enough, that comparing it to the offline games made sense.
posted by Merus at 3:50 PM on December 19, 2022
I think opinion on that started to change around Shadowbringers, when XIV's story was complete enough, and good enough, that comparing it to the offline games made sense.
posted by Merus at 3:50 PM on December 19, 2022
Antidote has always been a staple of FF games, as well as the full-spectrum Esuna
Yes, but it works entirely differently. Classic D&D poison isn't the slow drain of HP that it is in most JRPGs, but instead kills a character outright, but you can kind of "undo" that death if you can immediately cast Slow Poison. That's how it was implemented in the Gold Box games, which confused me when I played them. "Wait, the snake killed the character instantly?! When am I supposed to cast Slow Poison?" It wasn't until later that I found out I was supposed to cast it on the "dead" character. Even so, if you don't have Slow Poison memorized at that moment the character is done for anyway.
posted by JHarris at 7:20 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Yes, but it works entirely differently. Classic D&D poison isn't the slow drain of HP that it is in most JRPGs, but instead kills a character outright, but you can kind of "undo" that death if you can immediately cast Slow Poison. That's how it was implemented in the Gold Box games, which confused me when I played them. "Wait, the snake killed the character instantly?! When am I supposed to cast Slow Poison?" It wasn't until later that I found out I was supposed to cast it on the "dead" character. Even so, if you don't have Slow Poison memorized at that moment the character is done for anyway.
posted by JHarris at 7:20 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
. Without that information, the spell could even be considered worse than useless: its existence implies uses that may never come up, but are very important to have if they do, so attentive players will always take it even though at low levels they have very few spell slots.
I've definitely done that the times I've tried to take up D&D. And I've also stressed over the existential question of "what if spell X is needed for the quest and no one in the party has it?" (Thanks again JHarris for pointing me to the Quantum Goblin problem in an earlier thread).
Another thing I've noticed abut D&D (coming from a JRPG background) is I don't feel like leveling-up happens fast enough. Maybe it's practical limitation of playing in person or a preference for longer stories over multiple campaigns, but I've never felt comfortable with how slowly D&D characters "evolve". The feedback loop of PCs interacting with their environment and gaining abilities to better function in that environment just feels too slow or sometimes nonexistent. In games like FF, the characters who exit a dungeon are often not the same as they were when they went in--the experience they've gained has lead to new spells, new weapons, new armor, and new abilities.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:37 AM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've definitely done that the times I've tried to take up D&D. And I've also stressed over the existential question of "what if spell X is needed for the quest and no one in the party has it?" (Thanks again JHarris for pointing me to the Quantum Goblin problem in an earlier thread).
Another thing I've noticed abut D&D (coming from a JRPG background) is I don't feel like leveling-up happens fast enough. Maybe it's practical limitation of playing in person or a preference for longer stories over multiple campaigns, but I've never felt comfortable with how slowly D&D characters "evolve". The feedback loop of PCs interacting with their environment and gaining abilities to better function in that environment just feels too slow or sometimes nonexistent. In games like FF, the characters who exit a dungeon are often not the same as they were when they went in--the experience they've gained has lead to new spells, new weapons, new armor, and new abilities.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:37 AM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have come around to the opposite opinion, that characters advance too quickly these days. I've said elsewhere that 5E seems desperate to get characters out of the Really Fragile zone. Level 2 only needs 300 XP to reach, and Level needs 900 XP. Of course the difficulty of gaining experience points is diff,erent between 5th edition and previous versions, but it's not that great a difference really.
On the other hand, something that's good about 5th edition, again in my opinion, is bounded accuracy, which has the effect of making lower levels slightly more viable, or at least, not as utterly hopeless. (They're still pretty weak though.)
posted by JHarris at 9:05 PM on December 22, 2022
On the other hand, something that's good about 5th edition, again in my opinion, is bounded accuracy, which has the effect of making lower levels slightly more viable, or at least, not as utterly hopeless. (They're still pretty weak though.)
posted by JHarris at 9:05 PM on December 22, 2022
CRPGified 2nd Ed. is forever etched into my brain.
The Storyteller games (White Wolf WoD) did a pretty decent job with character advancement (and magic systems, with the ironic exception of Mage, which is next to impossible to run without everything going off the rails).
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:56 AM on December 23, 2022
The Storyteller games (White Wolf WoD) did a pretty decent job with character advancement (and magic systems, with the ironic exception of Mage, which is next to impossible to run without everything going off the rails).
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:56 AM on December 23, 2022
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Personally, Final Fantasy 8 will always be my favorite in the series. It's weirdly un-dated: its mechanics are so fucking screwy that they survived the evolution of video-game grinds weirdly well. It's still fucking screwy, but it's no more or less screwy than it was 25 years ago.
My least favorite thing in FF is how terrible the S/NES-era 3D remakes are—and those are all that are available on modern platforms. They're hideously ugly, they completely ruin the music, and they somehow made the gameplay even worse. It's a travesty. No respect for the classics!
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 8:11 AM on December 18, 2022 [5 favorites]