Final Fantasy Fans

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Anyone else into these games? This was one of the first series of games I got really into as a kid...starting with FF7, this became my favorite series all-around. Playing the remake of 7 was one of the best times I had playing a game overall, and I can't wait for the next installment. I still haven't played the first three games, have kind of been saving them/avoiding them, but have played all the other non-online games in the main series. Ranking favorite to least favorite I tend to go something like 7, 8, 6, 10, 12, 4, 5, 9, 13, 15...some can be interchangeable especially 8, 6, 10, 12 are all incredibly good imo with 7 being the best by a good margin...of course helping keep them in their order involves playing various remastered and modded versions where applicable (I wouldn't enjoy the original 7 anymore, the graphics are way too dated, I had to play a PC modded version on my last play-through, similar for 8 and 9 although the only remasters available for consoles didn't bother HDifying the backgrounds, which was a major problem, of course 10 and 12 both have fantastic HD remasters, the old 2D titles stand up pretty well due to their inherent simplicity).

Yes. 6 is my favourite. I love its setting, and the structure and scope of the game. I don't really like the series anymore though. They became too long winded, convoluted and overly focused on spectacle for my liking. I don't mind having a lot of story, but if a game's going to spend ages in cutscenes it needs to have better writing. 12 was the last main series title I enjoyed, and to me it represented a new direction that would've been more interesting than the one it ultimately continued on.

I don't really play many JRPGs these days. Persona 5 was the most recent big budget JRPG I played that I enjoyed, though I stopped playing it before the end. I loved its style and I've always enjoyed its mix of different types of gameplay. The other was Baldr Sky this year, which had one of the best real time battle systems I've played, but the actual gameplay sections were about as sparse as a Xeno series game.

VI is an all-time classic and probably the overall favorite among fans (from what I gather). I agree they got worse after 12. XIII was a big step down imo, in terms of the gameplay being way too linear, the battle system too easy, and the storyline was mediocre, but I did enjoy the game anyway (and got through it pretty quickly). XV I didn't even finish, though I enjoyed it for half the game or so (and haven't played it in a couple years). The FF7 remake imo was really well done (in most ways), you might be into it if you liked 7. I was really glad to see them return to better gameplay and storyline together in the remake (FFXV battle system and open world was actually pretty cool, but the story wasn't there for me anyway).

Persona 5 I've heard is great. For some reason I can't get into the aesthetic based on what I've seen in reviews etc but I did love Persona 3 for PSP. I used to play it every night before bed and play the dungeon like crazy, and finally finished it after like 70 hours or something.

My other favorite JRPG was/is Xenogears. If they ever remade that I'd be a happy man, but I don't think it'll happen.

Xenogears is a game I never played. It didn't release here, and despite me being a gaming enthusiast who imported US models of the SNES and PS2 (to a PAL region), it was a game that I had been interested in but never got around to playing. I did however really like the Xenosaga games. They are incredibly flawed and uneven games, but were engaging and unique nonetheless. Since Xenoblade Chronicles the Xeno games have released to these regions, so having to import consoles and run them with power transformers and the particulars of their video setup is thankfully a thing for the past for me.

I'll concur that FFXIII is where the series lost me. The story and characters were godawful, and I could've forgiven that had they not been so obtrusive. It just kept going on and on with cutscenes. You'd finally gain control of your character only to walk through an empty corridor leading to another cutscene. And the battles were so simple in terms of input required from the player that they might as well have been another cutscene.

FFXIV I enjoyed a fair bit, but I don't really consider it to be a part of the Final Fantasy series. It's a really good WoW style MMO. Just too different to compare to anything in the series proper.

I liked Xenosaga 1, didn't play any other Xeno games (aside from Gears). I just remember FF13 being incredibly linear with easy battles, and boring plot. Yet I did find it addictive and still got caught up in the spectacle of it. After all, for its time, it was an extremely pretty game and I'd still be interested in seeing it remastered in HD. It was also cool to have a lead female protagonist with some edge to her (Lightning). It was a big step down from the other FFs, though. Felt like a watered down RPG-lite with too much focus on action, excessive linearity, and of course the silly storyline (and yeah the other characters aside from Lightning were pretty goofy). I heard FF14 started bad but turned out to be really good once they released updates or something. It looked cool from what I saw, but I don't usually bother with online RPGs after I decided that Diablo II was too addictive back in high school.

Final Fantasy XIV is probably the company's biggest success story since the original Final Fantasy game. It was terrible at launch, seemingly destined to be the largest flop since The Spirits Within. The game today isn't anything like what was released initially, and it's now the largest and most successful MMO since World of Warcraft. The game is the poster child for games poorly received at launch that went on to be successful, and it's largely because they didn't just improve the game, but remade it.

As for the Xeno series, I wouldn't recommend the Xenosaga series, but I would recommend Xenoblade Chronicles. The combat system reminds me of a mix of Final Fantasy XII's realtime system, but it's a bit simplified in that you don't have as much control over AI routines. The world you can explore is structured similarly to FFXII too; it's still a linear game but it's not a FFXIII style corridor.

FFX is my favorite game of all time, to this day the most unique and interesting world building I've seen in a game (I think it's based on Okinawan culture), best battle system for an RPG next to tactics, one of the few games that ever made me cry. It just it's all my buttons, nothing I've played has dethroned it. The rest of the series is hit or miss for me, I get why FF7 but I didn't care much for it, I was disappointed the rest of the games weren't like FFX, and I hated FF15 with a passion, so I've kind of given up on the series. I preferred Persona 5. The music from almost all these games are amazing though. I also consider Chrono Trigger to be an honorary Final Fantasy, it's one of my favorite games of all time.

Final Fantasy Tactics is my favorite game of all them, amazing story and I loved the tactical turn based battles on a map grid. I also liked 7,9,8,10, 12 Zodiac age, FF7 Remake, 6, 12, 2, 3, 4, X-2 in that order from most to least. I wasn't really into 15 but I completed it anyways, that game was all over the place. 13 was unplayable for me due to the garbage paragrim battle system. I don't like MMORPG's so I skipped 11 and 14 as well.

I loved Tactics. This was like my favorite after FF7 (at the time). I remember playing it when I was a kid and getting stuck on a certain late-game (one-on-one) battle. We had to take a vacation to Australia while I was still working on the game and I kept thinking about that battle the whole time while overseas. I thought I might have to restart the game to beat it (it took me a long time to figure out you should always have multiple saves in these JRPGs because sometimes you get stuck and can't go back to grind etc), but finally figured out a strategy that just barely allowed me to win. In those days as a kid my heart used to always get pumping when I was getting close to beating a hard boss (games were still pretty new and exciting to me). Still happens sometimes but not as often. Definitely one of my favorite storylines in a game; so epic, emotional, and with intense characters and so many twists, and at that age I interwove the FFT characters into my fantasy world quite a bit. I replayed it as a young adult and wrote a strategy guide (I used to write reviews and such for a game website when I was younger). Then I replayed it one final time as an adult. Around the same time, I played Parasite Eve (another gem of a SquareSoft game although it's much shorter and more flawed, I love the soundtrack and vibe of that one). I'd love for them to make a remake or remaster of Parasite Eve.

FFX is also a favorite of mine. It was my first PS2 game and I remember playing it on Christmas morning after I made a deal with my dad to split the cost of a PS2 for Christmas with me. Recently playing it in HD reminded me of how good the storyline was. I still resist how linear the game is but that's one of its few flaws. I actually logged the most hours into this of all the FFs, because I became fixated on blitzball in the endgame and went totally overboard playing that while listening to music. It has some of the best and most epic story parts of any FF game, up there with 7, Tactics, and 8. The first time I played it I struggled on Yunalesca a few times, and that epic speech from Auron and Yuna and the others got driven into my memory..."My father, I loved him...now, this is it, now is the time, your fate is in your hands, etc.," still moves me to hear parts of it in my head...classic game.

Call me crazy but I currently have FF7 Remake as up there at the top with 7. That game really moved me as well, it was just a huge nostalgia attack and I loved almost every minute of it. Only flaws were it was too drawn out imo...and I guess the battle system I found kind of annoying at times, and departures from the original were hit or miss at times...overall though I thought it was amazing. Not that graphics are everything, but the game is literally beautiful. I have high hopes for the rest of the FF7 remake series.

Chrono Trigger seems to be a great game. I never did beat it, got maybe 10-20 hours in. I got into playing it during a time I was really depressed and just got kind of lost at some part and didn't have the motivation to continue. However, I did love Chrono Cross and played it a couple of times.

In case you couldn't tell from the black mage, I love this series.
FF4 was the first one I played when I was quite young and I had never played anything like it. It made me reconsider what kinds of stories games could tell. I've played just about all of them, and I would agree that there was a notable drop starting with 13, although I would say that they've finally put out a new classic with the ff7 remake.
7 and 10 are the two best for me. Ranking the rest is too hard so here's a personal tier list:

S - 6, 7, 9, 10, (7R)
A - 1, 4, 5, 12
B - 8, 13-2, 15
C - 13LR
D - 2, 3, 13
Unplayed - 4AY, 10-2, 11, 14

This series and Pokemon helped make rpg's my favorite genre. I've also played a lot of Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Mother, and Fire Emblem. Chrono Trigger is another of my very favorites, and yeah it's basically just Final Fantasy. I've been meaning to play more of Phantasy Star, Xeno series, Breath of Fire, Shin Megami Tensei, and Tales, but I have such a massive backlog.

Thanks for sharing Roronoa!

I haven't beaten FFIX yet. My story with 9 is an interesting one. Basically, my family moved to Australia right around the time it was to be released in the US. After blazing through 7 and 8 and loving both, I was pretty excited for 9. Unfortunately it didn't come out at the same time in Australia.

My older brother brought me IX when he came to visit, since he had finished playing it. He told me that he had been disappointed in 9; although it was a really fun game, the ending had sucked, so it almost made the rest of the game a waste. Also, the copy he brought had a huge scratch on it making it unplayable. From then on I missed out on 9. I did rent it at one point, and played for maybe 2-3 hours and enjoyed it, but lost interest a bit.

Many years later (during the gap between release of XIII and XV) I decided to fire IX up again, and found I liked it enough to play for a while. I think I got about 20 hours in, and then just found it really hard to sit through the game with the graphics being what they were, and I was kind of so-so on the storyline. I got into it again recently with the HD remaster and am again kind of far in it. So I might end up playing it through to the end at some point.

I just finished FFXII: The Zodiac Age. I think based on that, I have to bring it up to about a tie with FFX. I initially played FFXII in college (right when it came out). Tbh I don't remember that much of the game from that play-through, it was very vague in my memory. All I can think of is that I was smoking so much pot at the time that this messed with my ability to remember. This recent time in Zodiac Age, I found much to love about the game, and the improvements offered by the remaster were enough to bring it up a level for me.

Never played: 4-AY, 1, 2, 3, 13-2, 13-LR
Played briefly: 10-2
Played halfway: 9, 15

For me I'd say the tiers are something like this:
Tier 1: 7, 7R, 8
Tier 2: 6, 10, 12
Tier 3: 4, 5, 9, 13, 15

I've liked all the main FF games I've played, I wouldn't say any of them have been bad. I also played and enjoyed FFVII: Crisis Core a couple times. I liked Tactics Advance but significantly less than the original Tactics. I sometimes don't finish games I start and have always been this way (I just get distracted, or get to a hard part and don't have the patience to work through it).

9 holds a special place in my heart but I can understand ppl not being crazy about it.
The story starts out a little slow in the first disc. And not everybody likes the return to a more cartoony art style after 7 and 8. I hadn't heard many ppl disliking the ending, although I can understand not liking the final boss, since it was foreshadowed

I'm old, I played FF1 when it came out in the states as a kid. There was virtually no story line: there are four elements that are bad, and a band of four warriors to stop those elements. The first boss is also the last boss...so very gimmicky in the story line. But always enjoyed equipping my characters and leveling them up. I played all the games from I-X, but stopped after X (that includes all the japanese only games, got an emulator and translations for them in the late '90's and completed them).