The Best Final Fantasy?

[Vilge Duin]

I recently started a few months trying to get my girlfriend to play through the series to hopefully be done by the time XII comes out. We got up through to VI and are currently on VII, so I have some recent feelings on the game.

The first game in retrospect was horrible. Maybe I've grown used to a new set of standards for myself, but the game is pretty shitty. We HAD to resort to a guide because half the shit is just seemingly random. The more recent Dawn of Souls retranslation helped a little, but the original cart was all but horrible ("I, Garland, will knock you all down!" is still a great line though).

The second game is a fair bit better by adding on a decent storyline for the time and boosting up the graphics. But the game was frustrating because of the battle system. Being forced to attack certain party members was a pain in the ass.

The third is pretty good and will always be decent in my eyes if only for the creation of the job system. The story's nothing really to write home about but its servicable.

The fourth will always hold a special place for me because its the one I actually got because I knew how to read by then (my partial dislike of the first is because I couldn't read very well, if at all, when I first played it... just walked around with no clue getting killed by goblins.) Cecil and Kain are two of my favourite characters, if only for Kain's constant betrayal and Cecil's redemption. The love story between him and Rosa is also well established and not forced. You can believe they are lovers and don't need to have it rammed home. Actually all the characters were endearing and such. Palom and Porom sacrifice was a shock at the time... Ah, good memories. It isn't as "indepth" or has the best written dialogue but it still stands on its own as a good game. If they were to remake any of the older games this should be the first (VII does not fucking need to be remade).

The fifth game... meh, I don't know what to think. The story is banal shit that you could find from any horrible fantasy/sci-fi book. And the fact that the final boss is a fucking tree... Ugh. None of the characters were likable to me. Well everyone except Gilgemesh. He kicked ass. I however did like the job system the first time around. It was well worked out and fit quite well to the style of play, but everything else just seemed like "this is just to tide you folks over until the next one".

The sixth game... Was a masterpiece for its time (I'd still say Chrono Trigger eclisped it in almost all ways). But time hasn't been kind to it in my eyes. I had to whip out the game genie and cheat my way through just so she could see the storyline, because I found the battles to be so boring. But the story is class and ones of the best in the series. For such an ensamble cast everyone has quite a bit of added depth. Especially if you track them all down during the World of Ruin and delve deeper into their character stories. There really isn't much to say about it. The game also introduced quite a few story elements and gameplay stuff for...

The seventh game. Which, and I know I may get some flack, I swear was just an updated version of VI's story. From Kefka and Sephiroth's similarities (and yes they do have differences) to the juxtuposation of Locke/Rachel/Celes and Cloud/Aeris/Tifa. The limit breaks system was refined and taken from the previous game, just as well as the style of the world and such. Yes, I readily admit that a lot is quite different and changed, but a fair bit of the game just seems like they loved VI and decided to flesh it all out to what they truly wanted (thus the move to the Playstation for the CD rom medium). Just look at the final boss battles and such. Even the similarities in the relationships of Terra/Kefka and Cloud/Sephiroth. The main differences in my eyes are VI is more fantasy based while VII is more sci-fi based, but both are still steampunk. I almost view them seemingly as the same game sometimes (and I would actually buy it if Square tried to say VII was a direct sequal to VI set a few hundred years later when the world was healed).

But as for VII... itself. I don't know. I loved it when I first played it, but over time I've just grown a bit negative towards it. I think I'm a bit sick of seeing people constantly felating it as the best thing ever or the best Final Fantasy ever. It's not really the game itself, but everyone going on about how great it is has made me extra critical of it. Eh, it's a good game, but I think a lot of people are blinded by its supposed greatness.

The eighth was... Different. I think they were in over their heads, and tried to create a bigger game than VII because "bigger is better" afterall... It just came up flat in some areas and a lot of the story was dropped and picked up again. However I entirely disagree with Skumfrog on the GF thing. It was my favourite aspect actually. At first, yeah it seems like a cop out, but you realize a lot of the stuff the second time around. Very much like VII. VIII has its own depth that you have to delve through to understand it all, problem is, while VII is pretty straight forward, VIII can get rather... convoluted a bit. I still like the GF causing memory loss thing. Which was actually slightly refered to throughout the game. (especially when Irvine is supposed to kill Edea, but he can't, because he remembers since his school didn't use teh GFs). I think a lot of people give VIII a bad rap because they were expecting more of VII (and for some people VI). I didn't like it much at first, but after reflection and reading some things as well as playing again I picked up and appreciated a lot of things I didn't before.

IX was fucking great though, and so many people despise it. Ask a lot of those people though, what was their first Final Fantasy game and the answer will seemingly always be "VII". A lot of what makes IX great is that its a throwback to the ENTIRE series. Which is another problem I have with the so called "playstation generation". They mostly think the series started at VII and that's it. But IX was a perfect sendoff to the 'old' games before the new era was ushered in on the PS2. I thought it was a wonderful tale that was a pastiche of all the previous games. And I find that its greatness is only appreciated with the more of the older games you played. And for people who dislike the "final boss"... Necron, much like everything else was just another of those throwbacks. The third game was fucking horrible for that. The Cloud of Darkness came out of nowhere, and was right fucking hard too. Even with IV to a degree (to to a far lesser degree V), had a final boss that seemingly came from nowhere. Also Necron was actually mentioned and refered to a handful of times throughout the game. Yeah, only if you deliberately look and get the references, but he was still mentioned. The game was a nice whimsical fantasy tale of good versus evil, with some nice character development. But it's generally looked down upon by people expecting VII and/or VIII all over again, when they don't get the general purpose of the game.

And the tenth one, was just fantastic. I don't mind the voice acting nor do I have much of a problem with Tidus (who has some very good character growth over the course of the whole game). The sphere grid system was top notch and a fresh change as was the battle system itself. What they took out I had no problem with. Sure the game is linear, but so are most of the other ones (as are Japanese RPGs in the first place) and it gave the story more focus in my eyes. The lack of overworld map actually pleased me because I can't stand them most of the time. Overall really, X was just a good enjoyable entry in the series.

And of course there's the "other" Final Fantasy's. Or better yet, whatever Square tossed the name on. Mystic Quest was shit, as were the Chocobo Dungeons and especially Chocobo Racing. Tactics though was perfection for a strategy RPG. A perfectly deep and involving story, with a mature and serious tone, that was accompanied by a fantastic battle system and some great characters, with good replay value. It has perhaps the best tale told in a Final Fantasy game. And stuff like Ergheiz and such was shit too. Tactics Advance was a horrible piece of shit that I wished I didn't buy, such a disgrace to the original game. And I have yet to play through X-2 as it is sitting on my shelf still... I should get around too it eventually.

But all in all, the Final Fantasy series is growing long in the tooth and tiresome for me. A lot of the games share plot ideas that are too similar to others (IV, V, VI can seemingly be looked at as earlier versions of VII, VIII, IX). And I've grown disenfranchised with Square anyways. Too much milking of a good series. But the problem I mostly have is that the gameplay on all of them seemingly grows stale and dated rather quickly. There's only so much you can really do with the same style of play. But perhaps XII with its queer looking hero will be a fresh change. Who knows.

As for what you should play... See if you can blaze through them all. Or just go with which one you haven't played in awhile.

[Liam]

I'm assuming SNES, but so I am aware, which platform was 6 on?

[Vilge Duin]

6 was on the SNES as you thought. 1-3 were NES, 4-6 were SNES, 7-9 were PS, and X, X-2 (for lack of an original title) and 12 are on PS2.

Seems each system gets 3 before the series moves on.

[Visionary]

X, The storyline and characters are great and the battle system if the best i've seen. and it's the one final fantasy where leveling up can be made somewhat fun thanks to the sphere grid.

EDIT: 6 was also ported to PS1 i believe.

Edited June 27, 2006 by Visionary

[Liam]

Yeah, it was in either Chronicles or Anthology.

Was 6 one of the ones that was numbered differently depending on whether it was a Jap or an English version, or am I going mental?

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

I like 6 the best by far, granted I haven't played 1-3, 8 or 9. Best story, best characters, best setting, FF7 has a better magic/combat system, but being able to get every character every spell is pretty cool. And I miss the days where every character had a special ability that only they could do. Kefka may well be the biggest prick in the history of video games, and it had a Ninja and a Gambler. The Turks are almost as cool, but they're not Ninjas or Gamblers.

[Vilge Duin]

Yeah, it was in either Chronicles or Anthology.

Was 6 one of the ones that was numbered differently depending on whether it was a Jap or an English version, or am I going mental?

[ClaRK! Kent]

Liam - FF4 was released in the USA as FF2, and FF6 as FF3, because 2 and I believe 3 and 5 also weren't released in America. Or some combination of 1, 3, and 5 not getting released anyway, led to the numbering issues.

The job system deserves much love, I did dislike when it was cast aside so needlessly in some of the PSX incarnations for the 'catch-all' systems like materia. GFs, to an extent, I can understand - almost all of the characters are SeeD and so there can be a degree of uniformity and homogenity in the way they fight, but the thing with materia is just plain random. They have Ninjas, and soldiers, and gunners, and even a dragoon (debatable), but you can just mix up the jobs so the only individuality they have is Limit Breaks. This did make 'em concentrate somewhat harder on the stories of each character, mind, which is a good thing.

But still, the earlier games rule harder.

I wanna play FF4 now. I'm so never going to find a copy.

[Benji]

Final Fantasy VII is the best for a reason. But FF9 is my favourite.

[Bigal]

Final Fantasy VII is the best for a reason. But FF9 is my favourite.

[Benji]

Final Fantasy VII is the best for a reason. But FF9 is my favourite.

This is better

I quote that one far too much.

[Bigal]

Give me sites with FF7 cartoons. GO GO!

[Dingle]

The Final one, so it's over

[Bigal]

...I hate you even more now

[Dingle]

I'm not the one letting my Lost diary rot away :@

[Bigal]

Bah, I've told you; Episode 3 is giving me great difficulty.