I may soon have a new favorite in the form of Dissidia. It brings together villians and heros from the different games to fight together against the others.

 

Sephiroth > all.

 

Favorite Characters

Locke
Setzer
Cloud
Celes

Heres a pretty funny review of FFVIII but don't bother with it you you don't like like long rambling nerd reviews in a slightly MST3k reminiscent style.
http://www.spoonyexperiment.com/games/FF8/

 

I'm probably going to be considered a faggot for saying this but... I really liked X-2. Yeah the massive amount of fluff and shit was present but I liked the gameplay and even the story.

With that said, VII and X were great so it's between these two.

 

I've played VI through XII and Tactics. VII and IX are the best.

VII just rewrote the book on how video games are supposed to be and thus, it will always hold a special place in my heart. The three moments that stand out the most are: (of course) Aeris' death, Sephiroth's introduction (tell me you didn't nut when he fucked that big ass dragon up while Cloud died with one hit) and the story of Red XIII's father. The music was epic, the story was epic, and I think it's the only game I've ever played that I was never bored with.

I like that IX was a fantasy game. It's easy to like Zidane as your main character and Kuja is the type of villain you want to fuck up the entire game. Best moments: Escaping the Evil Forest, Vivi vs. Black Waltz (and the ensuing trip into Lindblum), and Beatrix wtfpwning your party in Burmecia.

But they're pretty much all enjoyable.

 

The movie segments from those 2 parts are some of my favorites in the entire series. About the only thing that beats that is Aeris dieing in VII. The best scene in X is after you get out of Bevelle and its just Tidus and Yuna.

 

<Ignoring all posts besides for the first>

My all time favorite has to be FFVIII. It was my first RPG, and still holds a special place in my heart. The story was it's overall appeal, sure the gameplay was (and still is) good, but it can get boring after you've played the scenes a few times.

The only problem I had with it is that it gets too easy after you beat it once. The second time I played it I went from disk 1 to disk 3 within 4 hours. Then to the final boss (ultimica I believe) within an extra 3 hours. Thats not much game play even for a replay.

 

I've only played 7, 10, 10-2 and 12. 12 is boring, 10-2 was annoying.

Its between 7 and 10. 10 edges it cause I played it first and loved the sphere grid, the grpahics and the storyline.

 

I didn't even get that far. Got to the singing bit and gave it back to my friend (whom I'd borrowed it from). The one thing I can't stand in a game is one of the protagonists being a singer. Just a pet peeve of mine.

 

Same thing happened with me although my choice was to trade it in to GameStop...

 

7 and 4 were the best. The story in 4 was awesomely retro.

 

My rankings:

1) XII
2) VIII
3) VII
4) X
5) IX
6) X-2


Based on what I remember, since I played most of them ages ago, this was ranked in how much I enjoyed playing the games. I loved Final Fantasy VIII- good story, good main characters and great music. I remember spending hours upon hours upon hours on Final Fantasy VII. Taure's right- breeding that gold chocobo was just awesome. X-2 sucked. End of story. I will admit, though, that Final Fantasy XII ranks right at the top for me.

I see that a lot of people didn't like it here, but for me it a refreshing change from the other Final Fantasy's that I would devote hundreds of hours to. The new battle system, I loved. It added a whole new aspect to fighting other than the select-watch. Gambits, I found, were pretty interesting. Sure, they did mean that some of the normal battles became boring but once you started doing the Hunts, you'd have to react to every round yourself or you'd be killed.

The story, I found, was excellent. One of the best since FFVII. I loved it because there wasn't an uber bad guy trying to destroy the world. It was a whole lot more complicated than that, in shades of grey rather than black and white. Who's the true bad guy? Archadia, who invaded Dalmasca but are trying to break free of the manipulations and shackle of the Occuria? Or is it Ashe, who it seemed was going to become the latest pawn in the Occuria's playing board- right up until the very end. The whole concept was just cool. The sidequests on XII were pretty interesting as well, especially the hunts for Marks and Espers.

One of the only bad things I have to say about XII was the music. It sucked. Every single other Final Fantasy had a theme that has stuck with me. I still occasionally listen to them. XII doesn't.

 

I have to say VIII, closely followed by VII. VIII was the first one I played, so it will always hold a special place in my heart, and frankly I loved the ultra-realistic graphics and the world itself a lot more than I did VII. Junction system too, I was a large fan of that over Materia. Sound they got perfect, and the characters (Squall in particular) were explored in a depth that I had not seen before in an RPG. VIII was frankly a work of art.

VII *was* great though, mainly because they tied the gameplay mechanics into the story so well with Materia. They tried to with Junctioning in VIII too, but it didn't really work as well because at the end of the day GFs meant very little whereas Materia was everything in VII.

Next....probably X, though it would be XI if that counted. I enjoyed X, but I really felt they ruined it with the ending. Specifically tailoring it so that X-2 could be made was the worst thing they could have done, and X-2 itself doesn't even warrant a place in this list - it's not FF as far as I am concerned. I must say that this game is tainted for me because I was not and never have been a fan of the class system - I much prefer to mould my own characters like I could in VII and VIII than have to carry around certain characters as my mains because of their class.

Then XII I suppose, though this game really wasn't great. Great mechanics Gambits aside, awful story. It really showed that the project lead left halfway through development and the new one decided to make up Vaan and crowbar him into the game. No main character, a big anti-climactic finish, no real escalation to awesome that previous games had (like the fights leading up to Final Sephiroth, or Ultimecia's Castle) - the buildup to the final boss was very lacking, and an ending that left me saying "Is that it? That wasn't worth my time.". This one failed. The only good thing I have to say about the game was Cid.

Then IX, the biggest failure of the lot. Class system, "Learn your skills from weapons", cartoony characters, stupidity abounding throughout, and a sudden shift in the whole focus of the game right at the end when they decided for some silly reason Kuja wasn't really the final boss. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Both this and XII are the two FF games I never want to replay.

Realistically Square have not made a good FF game since VIII, and whilst VII and VIII will remain two legendary RPGs for all time in my book I have begun to lose faith with the company. They've either screwed the whole game up (IX), the ending up (X), or the entire concept of the plot and characters up (XII) since. Before I played XII I would have ended up getting a PS3 just for XIII - now I'm not so sure I want to play it at all when games like Lost Odyssey put the latest FF offering to shame.

 

The best Final Fantasy?

Chrono Trigger.

 

Nine is my overall favourite, but I thought VII was the best overall with badguys, world and shit, I just really enjoyed the storyline on nine. Although II and III are legend and beat XII hands down.

 

Tactics aside, I have never finished a Final Fantasy game. Ever. (and I've at least get more than 20% through them)

I should amend that.

All Square games.

The closest I ever got to beating a Square game (again, aside from tactics) was Chrono Trigger – I got to Lavos.

And I stopped playing. Yeah I know, I worked my butt off to get there and I don't even get to see the ending.

JRPGs in general just don't hold my attention. I don't know why. I just rarely finish them. Last one I did finish was Tales of Symphonia. And that was... a few years ago.

The new Tactics game for the DS is pretty good though. Way better than the shitty one they put out for the GBA. Not much better, but so far I like it.

The World Ends With You, though I only played five minutes of it, looked pretty different/interesting too. If you can endure the blatant bosnian-ish theme (I was alarmed by how rank it was with emo).

 

Thank you Midknight and Poytin! Until you guys said this I was reading along in the thread and starting to feel really fucking old!

Up until this game I'd never even heard of an RPG beyond the typical D&D leads to SAAATAN!!!!111 crap every kid during that time heard back then. Funny how all those horror stories always happened to a freind of a friend..

Final Fantasy showed me there were games that could entertain beyond the simple hand eye coordination required by most of the other games of the time...

Now which one was my favorite? I'll have to go with FFV, which I was only able to enjoy through the magic that is Emulation and Romhacking.

If you don't know WTF emulation has to do with anything, I highly suggest you start your googling now and rectify this grevious loss of entertainment in your life!

I'm still trying to make my way to the end of FFV though. I've played through FFI with a buddy during the summer when I was fifteen or so and made it to the end and I managed to get to the end of FFIV (FFII in English) but that's about it.

I bought a copy of FF7 when I still had my PSX but never really got into it much, the 3d graphics made me long for characters more like the ones I was used to in the SNES days. The cut-scenes, while cool for their time more or less just annoyed the heck out of me.

I preferred the old school style. Still do for most games I bother to play these days...

--bornagainpenguin

 

I voted pre-VI, First FF I played was the first one. Its closely followed by Tactics and VI.