Final Fantasy games worth playing?

[Atmos Duality]

The Best

-FF6
-FF Tactics

Those are the two best. Hands-down. Great characters, great gameplay mechanics, and the stories do what they need to do (though FF6's story is still pretty forgettable, the characters make up for it).

I don't need to spoil any more than that; the only major criticism I have is for FF Tactics; it can become very grindy at points due to the nature of the game, and at the same time, you really don't want to grind much if you can help it because the random encounters scale to your level, but the equipment in the shops scales to the story.

It can become very difficult, very quickly as a result.

Everything else:
-FF7 (a good psychological story, and excellent use of foreshadowing...but it's buried in a very generic "Save the World From Bad Guy's Armageddon" plot. It's overhyped to be sure, but don't let that dissuade you from playing it at least once. The gameplay is rather solid and more open-ended than most entries on this list, but it also began that trend in FF Games where the characters are all "blank slates" with few distinguishing gameplay mechanics. The elimination of "role", so to speak.)

-FF8 (Stars the man who launched a million Emos, Squall. The story is completely retarded, the characters are...well, kind of bland honestly. And in this case, they are even less distinguishable from each other since Junctioning makes up 99% of your character's effectiveness. Avoid it, unless you're morbidly curious. It does have VERY HIGH production values, but those alone do not make a good game.)

-FF9 (Stellar gameplay elements that reward the player for paying attention to detail. You can get through the entire game without grinding at all if you know how to plan around each new stage/segment. Your mileage may vary on the characters and plot. Many say it's the best FF plot with some of the absolute best characters; I didn't like it much and the main characters annoyed me, but I can see the appeal they may have for others).

-FFX
(Overhyped and, IMO wrongly beloved entry because of its high production values at the time. Strip away the shiny graphics and you'll find that this game is mostly shit.
The story is nonsensical garbage and the characters are INCREDIBLY annoying and/or completely fucking stupid either in design or action.

People loved this game primarily because of the high-end graphics and large voice-acting ensemble; and so at the time deluded themselves into thinking this was a good story, and thus a good game.

And this is an opinion I've had since I first played the game. The one thing I can say about the game is that the gameplay is OK..it's not nearly as good as most of the previous entries on this list, since again, all the characters largely end up the same anyway. Or they START the same if you played the International Version...as I did.
Pass on it. There are much better games in the series.)

-FF12
(Great world design populated by Terrible/Bland Characters, and a meaningless plot. Pretty good gameplay though, albeit, grindy at points.)

-FF13
(Hahahaha...no. IMO, this game fucking sucked. Some people love to ***** about plot-railroads, but this game takes that to a whole new level. Nothing I did felt like it mattered either in plot, or in combat, and it played like a dumbed down version of FFX. Swapping roles instead swapping characters...you can't fool me Squeenix.)

 

[DoctorObviously]

Okay. I've counted all the votes for the games which people say they like and I've come up with these results. Note: I didn't count: VII, VIII, X, X-2, XII (because I've either played them or because I've seen SpoonyOne's reviews) and XI, XIV because they are MMO's.

I 12 votes
II 10 votes
III 13 votes
IV 23 votes
V 14 votes
VI 25 votes
IX 31 votes
XIII 9 votes
XIII-2 3 votes

These votes also came in:

Tactics 10 votes

Chrono Trigger 1 vote

Grandia 1 vote

Dissidia series 2 votes

Tales of... series 1 vote

Shin Megami Tensei 1 vote

Persona 3 1 vote

Lost Odyssey 1 vote

 

[scorptatious]

Okay. I've counted all the votes for the games which people say they like and I've come up with these results. Note: I didn't count: VII, VIII, X, X-2, XII (because I've either played them or because I've seen SpoonyOne's reviews) and XI, XIV because they are MMO's.

I 12 votes
II 10 votes
III 13 votes
IV 23 votes
V 14 votes
VI 25 votes
IX 31 votes
XIII 9 votes
XIII-2 3 votes

Well, I guess that settles it. Off you tot and play Final Fantasy IX.

Once you've played it, you'll understand.

Honestly though, you don't want to keep this guy waiting do you?

Spoiler

I sound like such a fanboy through saying this but, Vivi is teh awesomesauce.

 

[Solo-Wing]

IX

Get IX.

Go out this minute and buy IX.

Seriously, Square re-released it on PSN a year or two ago. You can download IX and pay not very much monies for it at all.

...why are you reading this when you could be buying IX?

...have you bought IX yet? I really think you should. It's rather a good game.

Seriously though, stop reading this and go play Final Fantasy IX.

...played it yet? Good. Isn't it a wonderful game? Aren't you so glad that I suggested you go and buy Final Fantasy IX this instant?

God damn stole the words from me. IX is my favorite game of ALL TIME. I love my IX. I love to just drag out my PS2, plug it in and play IX start to finish in like 3-4 days. I have done this like 20 something times.

Do not think to much into it on your first playthrough. When you do your second then start to analyze stuff like how it is actually the darkest FF game ever. Death, Mortality, and Genocide are running themes in that game. It is masked by the cute artwork VERY well done characters. Plus you will fall in love with teh Vivi!

I got a few hints for playing the game. First steal like mad in the first fight in the game against the dude with the Dragon mask. He will have a mage Masher on him. Very helpful at the start. Second when you leave Lindblum DO NOT GO TO THE SWAMP YOU FIND. Trust me you do not want the party member you get there until you have to get... Him/Her. Quina is a completely OPTIONAL party member in Disk 1. DO NOT GET HIM/HER. Third the hardest boss in Disk one is Gizmaluk or however you spell that. At the start throw a tent or 2 at him until he is blinded. Trust me it will help you alot. And finally Steal from every boss. they normally have some kick ass shit.

 

[Wayneguard]

IV is my favorite followed closely by IX. For me, it's all about the characters and those two games had the characters I cared the most about. FFIX has the best setting of all the final fantasies as well imo. It's pretty much the perfect jrpg.

 

[darkonnis]

VII Incredible, you are correct. Nuff said.
VIII Hell, i enjoyed it
IX Meh, was ok, not brilliant
X Couldnt get into it
XIII The absolute, no holds barred, worst FF i have ever played.

The ocmpany went backwards, its like i know we'll start with a huge open world, characters you can choose to interact with... or not. Extra bosses, racing, random power ups, hidden cut scenes.... then as the series progresses, cut that out. Until we are left with nothing but a linear over emotionally clichéd story with no open world, no real character advancement, decision making or other customisation and hide behind corridors for levels and black fade screens for every area change. Not to mention the obligatory "boss" fight at the end of every section.
Played about 20 hours and turned it off without the intention of ever putting it back on again. A first for me, as i almost always give everything another go, just so my expectations cant get inthe way.

 

[nighthawk282]

You can't really go wrong with IX. X was my entry into the series, and still my personal favourite, but I think VI is probably the 'best' in the series. I also really enjoyed Tactics, but that's not for everyone.

And... Personally, I enjoyed XIII, and am currently enjoying XIII-2, but I wouldn't recommend those to anyone who isn't a fan of the series, since XIII was definitely 'love it or hate it,' and based on reviews for XIII-2, it seems like it will be a similar thing.

BUT, I will say they both kick X-2 in the teeth.

 

[Hobonicus]

FFIV. FFIV so much. I am a diehard VII fan, but IV is by far my favorite of their games.

I never say this, but I love your avatar.

Also, I haven't played IV but always meant to, do you know which remake is preferable?

 

[Fawful]

Ha ha, Final Fantasy fans and their opinions. Ugh, Here's the thing, aside from minor differences in setting and structure all the numbered Final Fantasy games are pretty much the same and it doesn't really matter which games you play. Seriously, just go do a bit of research on the games you've missed and see what appeals to you.

[sub]On a side note I'd recommend the Shin Megami Tensei series if you haven't played them already.[/sub]

Ha ha, yeah... no.

One of the greatest draws of the Final Fantasy series, and what keeps players coming back to the games time and time again, is the fact that each numbered instalment is so highly different from each other. Not just in terms of setting (which despite what you may claim are not merely minor differences), but differences in the gameplay and mechanics too.

Can you point me to where the Materia system exists in Final Fantasy IV?

Can you show me how to use Gambits in FFX?

Can you explain how the job system works in FFVIII?

While there are certainly recurring elements that appear throughout the games, Squaresoft/Squenix has always tried to make the effort to differentiate each instalment, whether through battle mechanics, art-style or how much freedom is offered to the player.

Look at Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy XIII, and tell me they are in any way identical to each other. One is a huge open world RPG with quasi-real time combat that takes place on the field map, the other is a linear corridor RPG with random battles that take place on a separate battle screen.

Sounds pretty different to me.

I just knew I was going to get crap for that post. Ok, last point first, The world map in Final Fantasy serves no purpose whatsoever. People ***** about the corridor level design of XIII, shouldn't matter. All (ok most) of the Final Fantasy games are linear to the point of railroading anyway. The only thing that the world map in the older games served was context. If you want to argue that context as being important, I can understand that, but these games were never open-ended and there's no real difference between fighting on the world and and screen-wipes aside from, again, the context for those actions. Speaking of which. There has never been any real depth to the combat in these games, at least from the ones I've played. The combat has been a case of both partys sitting on a damage roll and whoever has the biggest numbers win.

I could go on, but this is running a bit longer than I'd like already. My point was that for all the mechanical differences in these games you still do pretty much the same thing to the same effect across all of them. There's no truely different numbered FF game, and opinions for peoples favorite games comes down to relitively minor things compared to the rest of them. The person asking this was asking for the games we recommended. I gave my honest opinion: It doesn't really matter.I'm also baised towards SMT, sue me

 

[DJDarque]

FFIV. FFIV so much. I am a diehard VII fan, but IV is by far my favorite of their games.

I never say this, but I love your avatar.

Also, I haven't played IV but always meant to, do you know which remake is preferable?

Thank you.

I've only ever played the original PS version and The Complete Collection on PSP. I've heard the DS remake isn't that good, and knowing how most RPG sprites on DS are I'm inclined to preemptively agree. If you have a PSP I'd go with The Complete Collection. It comes with IV, IV: The After Years (originally a WiiWare game) and a new short game connecting the two. The artwork is updated and quite pretty as well, although it's really only seen in battle and with the enemy sprites.

 

[targren]

I bought FFIX when it first came out.

Then I bought the "official strategy guide" for FFIX.

Then I threw FFIX away in disgust at the "official strategy guide".

Not only is FFIX a total Guide Dang It [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt] but the guide didn't have ANY helpful information, instead being plastered with "see our website for these secrets" every single bastard page.

I'm never ever going to play FFIX again because of that ****.

God, I totally remember that crap. I never, ever bought another guide from BradyGames after that ripoff.

The game itself was pretty good but, for some reason, not very memorable. I strongly dislike FF VII, but at least I can remember why. I can't remember too much about IX.

Other than the fact that there's one part where they make the stupid @#$! card game a required to proceed, and it's at a point where you're trapped in a little area so you can't even effectively go grind better cards. THAT pissed me off

I've only ever played the original PS version [of FF IV]

I must protest your use of the word "original."

I don't know if the PSX or PSP version had it, but the GBA version had bonus dungeons which were quite fun post-game content.

 

[Miyam2]

I think that 13-2 is a fairly good game, but I really do hate 13. The fact that it gets good 20 hours in is just ridiculous.

 

[SovietSecrets]

6, 7, 8, 9, 10 are all my favorites. Nice little five in a row they had for me <3.

 

[Fawful]

SNIP

You're whole argument can basically be summed up as 'regardless of the differences in the games, the fact that the games share similarities means they're all fundamentally unoriginal' which I personally feel is a highly ignorant opinion. The exact same argument that you use against the Final Fantasy games, regardless of its justification or not, can be used against pretty much any established RPG series.

...snip

If you want to start a thread praising the virtues of SMT, fine. But this is a thread where the OP specifically asked which FF games he should start with. Bursting in and going "Pah, FF games are so shite. SMT is where it's at, bitches!" only serves to make you look somewhat conceited, as well as somewhat unaware of just how much variety makes up the FF series at large. This is, after all, a videogame series which includes RPGs, Beat Em Ups and Tactical Strategy Games among it's roster.

Okay, settle down, What you summed up my opinion as was not my point. If you go back and look carefully at my first post, my point was "FF fans opinions are stupid and they get FAR to defensive of them, go play whatever interests you." If I didn't make that clear in that post, thanks for proving my point. My point about railroading was in a story sense and that the world map didn't serve any pratical gameplay purpose. Read what I write before mouthing off to me about the game mechanics.

And yet again. I'm only talking about the core games here. Yes, I know that there is a huge variety in the off-shoots. Don't talk down to me.

Yes, I perfer the SMT series. Yes, you can accuse SMT of everything you listed. I never said anything other than I perfer SMT, on the side might I add. I Never said the FF games as a whole are shit. I only brought up a few points that frustrate me across the series as a whole. I could do that with SMT, but this tread isn't about SMT now, is it?

Actually, you know what I hate the most about Final Fantasy: It's fucking fanbase. I still remember a post I made on this site like a year ago when I said I'd like to see a KH or TWEWY charcter in Dissidia. I also got several novels worth of text thrown at me telling me in very close detail how wrong I was then. I might've actually considered myself a fan of this series if I didn't need to be compared to people who pull crap like this.

 

[AbstractStream]

Snip

I never said VII was perfect. I said it was ALMOST perfect.

You're right, my mistake. I shall still twitch though ^^