Final Fantasy's most difficult games

[DoctorObviously]

In your opinion and in a list, what we're the top difficult Final Fantasy games you have played? And, optional ofc, what we're in your opinion the toughest bosses in the series or games you have played? I'm asking because I'd like to buy all games (already have VII and VIII) and I'd play them in least difficult-most difficult order.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

Final Fantasy II is pretty unforgiving.
What makes it so difficult is that it has very few save checkpoints between quests that can take half an hour or more to get through.
I've died more times than I could count.

 

[Hazy]

IV was pretty damn difficult - even the DS remake is.
You'll get fucked up if you don't know what you're doing or don't manage items.

 

[Julianking93]

I've only played 7, 8, 10, 10-2, 12 and 13 but out of those, I'd say 13

 

[Snarky Username]

Probably II or III for me. I don't know, I've ever really looked at Final Fantasy games for their difficulty. Final Fantasy XIII has pretty hard battles, but you also regenerate all health after every battle.

 

[Snarky Username]

IV was pretty damn difficult - even the DS remake is.
You'll get fucked up if you don't know what you're doing or don't manage items.

I only played the the GBA version and the DS version, but I never thought the GBA version was that tough. The DS version kicked my ass though, mostly because of the incredibly cheap counterattack thing. I was afraid to melee attack almost anything because I thought it might counterattack with some unbelievably hard hitting attack that would kill me instantly or send a character to quarter health

 

[Snarky Username]

Accidentally quoted instead of editing

 

[Snarky Username]

Also VII could be hard at times

 

[Snarky Username]

Does Chrystal Chronicles count?

 

[Julianking93]

I've only played 7, 8, 10, 10-2, 12 and 13 but out of those, I'd say 13

FFXIII is difficult?
I've heard many users claiming the game is a cakewalk. Then again they hated the game.
Is it a suitable challenge?

Cakewalk? Dude, I may not be the best gamer ever, but I was able to beat Super Ghouls and Ghosts on its hardest difficulty without dying so I'd say I'm pretty good but some of the enemies in 13 killed me several times before I could even get a hit in.

 

[kurupt87]

Have played I, II, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2, XII and XIII.
I found II to be hardest and then XII, followed by I.
XIII was the easiest, with the rest being roughly even and in between these extremes.
Maybe XIII is (well it definately will be) harder when you do the top rank side quest bosses, but the story arc I found brain-deadeningly simple.

 

[Julianking93]

I've only played 7, 8, 10, 10-2, 12 and 13 but out of those, I'd say 13

FFXIII is difficult?
I've heard many users claiming the game is a cakewalk. Then again they hated the game.
Is it a suitable challenge?

Cakewalk? Dude, I may not be the best gamer ever, but I was able to beat Super Ghouls and Ghosts on its hardest difficulty without dying so I'd say I'm pretty good but some of the enemies in 13 killed me several times before I could even get a hit in.

Ouch...
But is it fair? Or does it remain the type where you have to grind for hours to beat larger enemies?

I'm only 15 hours in and I've had several instances of grinding enemies. At least you can bypass enemies if you wish, but often times, the bigger the enemy, the more you have to do the same thing over, and over, and over and over again until you stagger them and are able to actually do any damage.

It's fair (sometimes) but the battles can just drag on for forever

 

[Matt_LRR]

FF-VIII - But only because it was so painful to actually play/ sit through.

Heh. No doubt. That game was nigh on impossible to beat on account of how awful it was.

-m

 

[effilctar]

II was the first I actually completed, and no lie I found it really easy. That said, I had an unreal amount of difficulty beating Anima in FF10.

 

[Kiriona]

Well, I've only played a few of them, but I found I had the most trouble with XII. I cannot, for the life of me, kick the firehorse's ass. Or whatever that thing is. It's a little embarrassing, since it's the first boss...

 

[NoElixir]

It's not the grinding that is a key to winning battles, but your Paradigm strategy.

 

[Lullabye]

FF tactics had it's moments. They had a fight where I actually needed to whip out a piece of paper and do some math in order to win.

 

[Flour]

FF-VIII - But only because it was so painful to actually play/ sit through.

The game itself is extremely easy though. Complete a few SEED exams to get a decent rank, buy cottages with the SEED salary, learn the item>magic GF ability and junction the Curagas to the characters' health. Combined with level scaling, the game is extremely easy as long as you stay low level. Then there's the card that IIRC can be transformed in 100 Megalixirs(full heal).

On-Topic: One of the easiest games would be FF9, especially when Steiner gets his high-level(level 40+) abilities. Powerful weapons are fairly easy to craft, certain characters have passive abilities that boost damage against specific enemies and most characters can get a passive regen.(requires crystals so you can't select every passive but they're all powerful)

 

[kurupt87]

I'm only 15 hours in and I've had several instances of grinding enemies. At least you can bypass enemies if you wish, but often times, the bigger the enemy, the more you have to do the same thing over, and over, and over and over again until you stagger them and are able to actually do any damage.

It's fair (sometimes) but the battles can just drag on for forever

Crap...
I thought they'd fixed that...

There is no need for grinding unless you decide to do the side missions at end game. To even be able to do so during the first 15 hours you'd have to save, quit and reload to spawn more enemies, and you definitely do not need to. As to some battles dragging on, a big yes to this. You have to slog your way for 5 minutes or longer to stagger an enemy to have a minute or so to do good damage.

The trouble with the bosses and huge enemies is that they still have all their abilities while staggered and can't be controlled with launch/-aga magic launch. In other words, you won't be able to fully commit to nuking for the entire period, you'll still need to pop in a medic and sometimes even a full combat clinic (med-sen-med) after a boss's big attack. I wouldn't say it's hard, just a massive drag, and slows everything down.

The game is really polar, normal enemy battles last 10s of seconds max, while boss/huge creature battles can last ages if you're unlucky with enemy moves and timings.

One factor that definately makes boss fights harder is that for alot of them the game randomly* decides to change the party and paradigm make up for that fight, this completely and utterly fucks you. Any time it does this is an almost guaranteed wipe (I'm fairly certain I died every time the game did this to me). After the retry you can reassign the paradigms (but not the party, even when you can change party members the game decides who is in the boss fight) for the boss battle which sorts out the problem.

*Clarification - Whether the game will do it or not is not random, it will always do it for certain (alot) of boss battles. By random I mean, "why the fuck does it do it?"

 

[reg42]

I've only really played the new-school ones (7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13) and out of those I'd say 13, because it requires more strategy than the others.
10 was also pretty difficult.

People say the early games are hard, but from my experience they just make you do a fuck load of grinding.