Best Final Fantasy Game?

[Chris the great]

well, im playing V at the moment, and its not exactly gripping me. im thinking i'll replay 6, try and not let you know who die this time, and get better items. still, i kicked one of the three penultimate bosses asses so eaisly with my main team. i took less then 200 hp damage off what was ment to be a challenge.

 

i hope V improves, without a decent story FF gets boring.

[Zell]

I've been meaning to play FF8 one day, but I'm a bit busy replaying FF9 right now .

But FF8 has definetely sparked my interest after hearing the mixed reactions.

 

It's definately the best one. People who didn't like it never got past the first or second disc, so their opinion is hardly adequate. Stick with it and you'll see it's brilliance.

[Ant-Shimmin]

FF8 Is Sex in a game

[Shorty]

It's definately the best one. People who didn't like it never got past the first or second disc, so their opinion is hardly adequate. Stick with it and you'll see it's brilliance.

To be honest if it takes getting past the second disk to enjoy it, that's already a huge flaw in my opinion :/

 

Personally VII is my favourite, it grabbed me right from the start. I think a lot of people have let it fall from their favourite FF game simply because it's over popular, rather than judging it solely on the game experience. VI is nowhere near as good as some of the other snes rpgs of its era, Children of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Tales of Phantasia....

[Pit-Jr]

VI is nowhere near as good as some of the other snes rpgs of its era, Children of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Tales of Phantasia....

 

Its not really fair to lump those games together. VI is Final Fantasy through and through. The other games are equally awesome in their own way.

[Anolis E]

 

-FF6: Very good. I never completed it since I let one of my characters die (you probably know who it is if you played) and then lost interest. Still a good game, loved the boss themes.

 

The same thing happened to me. I was close to finishing the game when I discovered the character in question wouldn't be coming back. I simply restarted the whole game, this time planning not to let said character die, but I never managed to get to the final dungeon again (lost interest).

[killer kirby]

I went back to playing FF VI on the GBA. Man I love this game.

[Tales]

Since your asking!

 

First, it's all my opinion. Second, I add the rating I have given them on IGN. I never rate games below five(I have yet to play such a horrible game and I don't really like to use such a grand scale), I rate them based on how much fun I have had with them and they do not need to be perfect to get 10.

 

 

Final Fantasy III [DS] - 9.0

Awesome graphics. Old-school but still, it was a lot of fun. I liked the job system. And I liked the difficulty, I actually had to level up before the final boss.

 

Final Fantasy IV Advance - 8.0

I never liked the story.

Don't remember the names. Character #1 dies. Character 1# comes back to life! Character #2 dies. Character 2# comes back to life! Character #3 dies. Character #3 comes back to life. Nearly every character died and came back to life.

Ridiculous. No job system of any kind either. But overall an enjoyable game.

 

Final Fantasy V Advance - 7.0

Poor story. The job system isn't that great. I liked it better in FFIII. Frustratingly difficult at the end. I never finished it.

 

Final Fantasy IV Advance - 9.0

The story isn't as great as a lot people claim it to be, but it is better than the other two SNES/GBA games. The esper/magic system was awesome. And I enjoyed the part where I had to collect my allies.

 

Final Fantasy VII - 7.0

The graphics are poor. Good for its time, but I never liked it. FFVIII and FFIX really improved compared to this. The story never interested me. The whole Sephiroth/Cloud past and Turks/Sindra or whatever it's called bored me to death. It annoyed me a lot that the game never told me where to go. I wasted five-six hours in China town before a friend told me I wasn't supposed to be there. I had to check Gamefaqs several times. I don't know if the game pretended to be non-linerar, if so, this is not how it's supposed be. I sold it and have no intention of buying it again.

 

Final Fantasy VIII - 8.0

A friend of me borrowed FFIX and hated it. Why? Because it had animals in it. Ironically he loves Star Ocean 3. So when I borrowed it, I kind of had decided not to like it. At least I was very pessimistic. So I played it for three hours than returned it. My main complaint was that is was too similar to real life and too little fantasy. When I bought it some years later, my opion hadn't changed. I don't want to play Call of Duty, but FF. Aside from the too realistic world and a handful of annoying characters, including Squall, it was pretty decent. The story is good in the first two discs, same with the battle system. After that, the story became uninteresting and the battles tedious and lengthy. I liked the junction and GF system. I can't understand why people think it's difficult. The card game sucks. I enjoyed the draw system. I wasted hours on drawing 100 cures and aerogos and so on. It pissed me off when I discovered that a character could only hold a limited amount of magic, so I got some serious management problems for the rest of the game.

 

Final Fantasy IX - 9.0

I liked the style of the graphics. It was more cheerful kind of. The characters are awesome. The FMVs are much better and fast-paced than the FMVs in the other two PS1 games. The weapon customatizon is quite enjoyable. I loved the card battle, except when I lost all my precious rare cards.

 

Final Fantasy X - 10

The story is very good. One my favourite FF story. I liked the religious tone. The Sphere Grid is great. I used 80-90 hours to master it completly and get max stats on every character. So I had a lot of fun with it. I never liked the mini-game(don't remember the name)

 

Final Fantasy X-2 - 9.0

A lot of people hate this, but I like it a lot. The story isn't very good, but the battle system is one of the best in the series. It's a lot more dynamic and fun. And the dress sphere/ability thing is great too. I had a lot of fun going for 100%. I even liked Yuna's song in the beginning of the game :P

 

Final Fantasy XII - 10

The story starts great. The intro where the old man talks about the past is epic. It got uninteresting at the end of the game, but then I really didn't care about anything else than the awesome graphics and battle system. The mobs were quite challenging and I died a numerous times. Both a good and a bad thing. I bought the limited edition of Piggyback's guide to complete it 100%. Unfortunatly I lost the file after 100 hours of play time(I still had an additional 140 hours on another memory card from previous playthroughs) so I never got that far.

 

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - 9.0

The story isn't anything to write home about, but the battle and job system is great. I liked how the game had so many interesting races. The law system is a bit annoying, but I learned how to manipulate it(the coward way)

 

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - 8.0

Poor battle system and story. I actually enjoyed beating the dungeons numerous times to get different trophies. I sold it, but I might buy it again if I find it cheap.

[Falcon_BlizZACK]

^ A bit generous with your points nay? But i agree with FFX and FFIX.

 

What made FFX Great:

Sphere Grid

Blitzball

Immerssive world

Seymour Guado

Aeons

Sin/Jecht

The unsent

Dream Zanarkand/ Yu yevon - real genious story

 

What made FFIX great:

Large and diverse world

Diverse creatures

Great character personalities

Music

Classical 'AP' system

[killer kirby]

haha it's amazing. while both of you like X and XII I hated it soooo much. After those games I knew Square were getting worst and worst. Well for me anyway XD

[Zell]

FFX was good, but it had it's flaws. It also wasn't the big step forward a lot of people hoped for.

[Tales]

^ A bit generous with your points nay? But i agree with FFX and FFIX.

 

What made FFX Great:

Sphere Grid

Blitzball

Immerssive world

Seymour Guado

Aeons

Sin/Jecht

The unsent

Dream Zanarkand/ Yu yevon - real genious story

 

What made FFIX great:

Large and diverse world

Diverse creatures

Great character personalities

Music

Classical 'AP' system

 

It for the most part reflects how much I enjoyed the games, not their quality.

 

FFIX intro music is one of my favourites.

 

killer kirby: I guess it obvious, but I think Square-Enix have gotten better. Although, it should be known that I started with X-2 and then went the opposite way compared to many others.

[Hellfire]

Just played VII, X and XII, so XII is my fave by far.

[Sheikah]

For me, FFVIII is definitely the best one. If any game is deserving of the term 'masterpiece', it is this one.

 

The characters have distinct personalities, and Squall has the most depth evident in a Final Fantasy character. Most of all- they were real. VIII being down-to-Earth like it was, the story centered on real themes such as romance, loneliness, rivalry and corruption. It was groundbreaking for its time, and still is.

 

A lot of the hatrid for the game seems to be either from the switch in style from the much overrated FFVII, or simply that the junctioning system was too difficult for people to make use of. While true, junctioning is not as straight forward as the clear cut materia system, it allows for a lot more flexibility. On top of this (given that I hate levelling up), it allowed you to max your characters stats in a few hours. No-encounters on the Islands from Heaven and Hell while drawing, as well as card modding let you rack up powerful magic for junctioning. I also think that the weapon upgrade system was rather well done, and was a nice change from cliche dungeons with mysteriously placed treasure chests.

 

I have replayed VIII numerous times simply because of the story and sidequests, which are some of the finest from the series. For me, VIII is far more playable in this day and age than VII. As shallow as it sounds, when playing VII the cow hooves for hands Cloud and 'tinny' sounding music tracks (although some were excellent) discourage me from carrying on.

 

A not too distant second would be IX. If VIII wins on everything else, IX at least excells in the environments. If we somewhat push aside Esthar from VIII, I think IX had some of the best drawn backgrounds creating wonderful atmospheres. Who can forget Cleyra, Alexandria or Treno when they first saw them? The music combined with this produced a very traditional game, with great characters and a solid weapon system.

 

After that, I'd probably go with VII; while overrated it still does have an excellent story (somewhat better than IX's), while missing the extra oomph in the characters. I didn't like Cloud's personality so much, as well as some of the characters. Kudos to the game for some awe-inspiring moments such as Aeris's death.

 

From there on, I'd say X closely followed by VI. X was a little too linear, yet pushed Final Fantasy to a new level. This wasn't necessarily a great thing - I missed the pre-drawn backgrounds, but welcomed the speech. Saying that though, I prefer the thought of games such as VIII having no voices, since I don't think anyone could have captured Squall too well. I did like the Sphere grid however; although it was somewhat easy to abuse and make characters who are scripted mages in the game do 99,999 physical damage. VI was fun for me quite a while ago, but I felt that the depth of the PS titles surpassed them. I still noticed that the characters were very developed however, and the gameplay was solid. I suppose it would be a game that I'd have loved more had I played it at the time, before the PS era.

 

I'll move onto XII, briefly. My my. I completed this quite a while back (US release date), and I wasn't too happy. At first it feels great as the gameplay is super. But after a while you begin to take the gameplay for granted, the license grid is soon mastered and you begin to see the game for what it is. The characters are heavily underdeveloped, and there is little dialogue had between your party. I'd say even as little as one tenth of that in FFX. I don't even recall members of the party, such as Basche and Penelo, even talking to each other! The game consists of going through repetetive dungeons to face a boss, after which you would be lucky to have a short party skit.

 

The majority of the story is dictated through a narrator with a text background; rather appalling for a Final Fantasy game in my opinion. Not just this, the story seems to be centered on politics and advancing armies, rather than your party being at the forefront of the plot. It just seemed more like a generic RPG than a Final Fantasy game to me. Saying that, as far as RPGs go, it is a good game. It's just not in the same league as the others.

 

Anyway that's a short summary of the games for me. I could go on, but then this would be even longer. I haven't really played much of the games before VI (apart from III for DS, which is on hold due to it not inspiring me to play it enough).

[killer kirby]

killer kirby: I guess it obvious, but I think Square-Enix have gotten better. Although, it should be known that I started with X-2 and then went the opposite way compared to many others.

lol, if your going backwards then it will just get better then better :P

 

I do hope Square can spark what I loved FF so much. I hope that they get rid of the whole teenager with gay cloths on saving the world.

Although XIII looks different I am not going to say anything until it comes out.

[Falcon_BlizZACK]

I like FF8 for its very 'Fantasy' like setting amongst others but I really despised the whole orphan thing...What are the odds of all characters in your party being orphaned together? Including an initial enemy.

 

Also perhaps the PSone wasn't the best machine to represent this game's visuals. It was too ugly in parts.

[Deathborn]

I struggle to choose between FFV, VI and VII.

 

I love the V mainly because of Galuf and the awesome job system. Even if the story is pretty classic, I find it really enjoyable. This game has a little something that make me love him (and I don't talk about Galuf).

 

FFVI also has pretty loveable characters (favourites: Gau and Cyan together for example) and the best villain ever created in videogame (on par with Ganondorf). The second part of the game is pure genius because most can be considered as sidequests (even if it must be really hard to finish the game without completing a good part).

 

What I mainly love in FFVII is the atmosphere (mad scientists FTW), the ecological theme,... The character are not the best, especially Sephiroth which is the most overrated character in videogame history, but still attaching. Game system is interesting.

 

On the other hand, FFVIII is easily the worst FF I played. Characters with an horrible design, as charismatic as oysters and having the same boring history. The plot is so amazing that I forgot nearly everything. Game system is boring. The best thing in the game is the card game which is really entertaining.

[Zell]

Funny, I thought the FFVIII cast was by far the best. And the story the most memorable. And the system to be the deepest and most well thought up.

[Tales]

I like FF8 for its very 'Fantasy' like setting amongst others but I really despised the whole orphan thing...What are the odds of all characters in your party being orphaned together? Including an initial enemy.

 

Also perhaps the PSone wasn't the best machine to represent this game's visuals. It was too ugly in parts.

 

Fantasy? In FFVIII? I don't think we have played the same game.....

 

killer kirby: More like getting worse and worse.

[Falcon_BlizZACK]

Fantasy? In FFVIII? I don't think we have played the same game.....

 

killer kirby: More like getting worse and worse.

 

I meant as in the locations and technologies...Stuff like that.

[Sheikah]

I meant as in the locations and technologies...Stuff like that.

 

I think of fantasy as more like IX...VIII seemed the most realistic and least fantasy of the lot. I loved it still, just like how I liked the opposite end of the spectrum with IX.

[Falcon_BlizZACK]

I think of fantasy as more like IX...VIII seemed the most realistic and least fantasy of the lot. I loved it still, just like how I liked the opposite end of the spectrum with IX.

 

For me, being realistic or ...uh...animal hyrbrids/other does not detract from the Fantasy. FF7 and FF10 are somewhat realistic but they still offer a world based on fantasy. So contraptions like Balamb Garden and weapons such as the Gunblade is fantasy enough for me.

[Sheikah]

There was a reprint of the VIII guide (Piggyback) and I bought it. I'm planning to go through VIII again with it, since they're really well done and in-depth. Also it's a bit of a collector's item.

[Falcon_BlizZACK]

There was a reprint of the VIII guide (Piggyback) and I bought it. I'm planning to go through VIII again with it, since they're really well done and in-depth. Also it's a bit of a collector's item.

 

Honestly, I wouldn't say FF8 is THAT bad. Its just that it came after FF7 and so it had to live up to a few expectations. I would love to play it again, but what makes this FF unapproachable for me is its visuals...I just have a bad memory of them; uggly jaggies and all - but I can easily get back into FF6.

 

Might get it myself...But those damn pirates on ebay are selling it for a small fortune.

[Sheikah]

Trust me if you can play FFVII with cow-hooves cloud and dodgy 3D models, you can handle this. While Squall's face can be a bit jaggy, it ultimately looks this way as they are going for a realistic approach rather than the anime style in say IX. Needless to say, nothing else looks jaggy (the backgrounds). Make sure you don't play it on PC or the reverse may well be correct. And the FMVs were groundbreaking...

 

I'll always remember the first time I saw Esthar...