Where to start: Final Fantasy

Hey guys, Just wondering if any of you have played the Final Fantasy series as I am looking to get into it. I've got a decent pc to play through some of the ones on steam and also a ps4 for the console exclusives. Anyway my question is what games should I start with, I've heard that VII was really good but I think I might just wait for the remaster to come out. Also X was supposed to be good and I just found out that there was a remaster of X and X-2 for the ps4, might pick it up soon. Thanks

i dont like any of the FF newer than IX

My favorite ones are

  • Final Fantasy IV
  • Final Fantasy VI
  • Final Fantasy XII

All of them have different worlds, and it may aswell be that you dont like any of these three but then really like some of the other Final Fantasy games.

Cant help but to think how would it be without same titles, and I feel like some of these like that XII have been mostly ignored and forgotten because of it being different. Some gotten attention as it has Chocobo ..once! :D

X was good - X-2 was also good but different
XIV is fun
XII was the best since VII (IMHO)
VIII was good but hasnt aged well

Here are my 2c. Start with FF1 then FF2 and so on.

Final Fantasy 1 - the game that saved Square/Square Enix arse from them releasing crappy games. Only played a bit of it and its fun. You get to play as Four Warriors of the Light who are destined to saved the 4 Elemental Crystals which are Fire, Earth, Water and Wind. The four crystals story plot gets re-used often in the final fantasy game

Final Fantasy 4 - You play as Cecil a Dark Knight of Baron who for some weird reason that the King of Baron wants the 4 elemntal crystals. He questions his king and eventually betrays Baron to find the reason why is there an increase in monsters and Baron capturing Crystals.

Final Fantasy 6 - Great story, there is no main protagonist in the game due to many of the characters had even importance if you get what I am saying. The story mostly revolved around Terra mostly due to the story revolves around her unique status

Final Fantasy 7- Overrated game imho where you get two emo characters going at each other Cloud and Sephiroth where Sephiroth wants to destroy the world and go to the Promised Land and screws around with Cloud. I haven't played much of it since the theme of being futuristic steampunk does not fit with me.

Final Fantasy 9 - This game I like it alot since it went back to its roots of games like Final Fantasy 4, 5 and 6. You get to play as a Thief who chases women who is tasked to kidnap a princess who coincidentally wanted to leave due to her mother the Queen acting so strangly after the Kings death. Of course stuff happens as like in other Final Fantasy games. PS rename the knight Steiner to Asshat and you will see why.

I know it's shit, but I actually liked Final Fantasy XIII.

if you plan on playing FFXII you should try the final fantasy tactics series since it's all set in the land of Ivalice. plus it will give you a good idea of what kind of charicters and items you can encounter in other FF games.

Thanks for the replies guys. So to get this right every game except for the direct sequels like X-2 and XIII-2 are set in different worlds / story universes?

Correct, with a similar undertone to all of them. Some of them even feel like Japanese writers took western mythology and put their own spin on it.

FF Tactics is great if you are in to turn based strategies.

1 Like

Forget what these guys are saying.

Play VI first, and then go play IV. If you're brave you can play II and III too. After that jump to VII and play them all from their.

The NES version of FF1 each character can only hold 4 items for weapons and armor but in the PSX Version you have an actual inventory. Just wanted to point that out since the game has a lot of abilities that can be used by using the gear in combat. FF 2,5,6,7 and 8 all have very broken ways to beat the game but 6 wins on that one.

6 ( 3 in America) is really good if you can handle the oldness. I wasn't into 7 but I loved materia. 8 is..... unique. Save that one for later. 9 is a great throwback to pre-cd versions of the FF series. 10 was a visual feast for its time. If I hadn't already been loving 6 since forever I would say it's the best one. (Fuck blitzball!) 11 really had that "Vagrant Story" (another square title) kinda vibe and a new battle system.

My general advice for playing FF or any role-playing game is to NOT level up excessively. Boss fights aren't rewarding (feeling) upon victory. Being able to only "attack" is what can make a ff game boring. 9 would be a great place to start if you have no intention of playing anything before 7. Otherwise just play what goes on sale first.

I'd say VII, XII, and X are my favorites.

VII - I liked it because it was the first Final Fantasy game I played. I thought the story was incredible, and the materia system is super cool and unique.

XII - I never played it enough to beat it, but I thought the gambit system and battle in general were pretty cool.

X - Pretty good story. Blitzball.

I also enjoyed VIII, but not enough to recommend it as an intro to the series.

I am one of the minority of people who liked 9 the most. I didn't care too much for 7, 8, 10 or 12.

Minority? I think you are the only one in history to say 9 was their favorite. I liked it alot but I've never heard someone say it was their favorite. Is it just me or was the card game total bullshit at times? Here I am sitting pretty with my leet cards and then some four year old anthropomorphic animal character beats my ass with some Ochu's and and Marlboro. Wtf!?

Oh man, you want to talk about a minority? My favorite was probably VIII. There is a long told tale that your first FF is, and forever will be your favorite, and I've yet to see it be proven false yet!

Final Fantasy IV and VI
I started playing both, and REALLY like it, but was distracted with other things in life, so I keep on having to restart it. I REALLY want to finish it though!

Final Fantasy VII
Seriously though, VII was a bit of a let down for me. The characters were a bit bland, I thought the Aeris scene was boring, and overall, nothing in the game moved me....in the way some of the others did. Now that isn't to say it was a bad game, because it was still amazing, but compared to some of my other favorites, I believe it was overrated. With that said, it had an epic battle system, and Chocobo racing was basically the best way to burn away weekends of your childhood under the hopes of one day getting, and mastering Knights of the Round.

Final Fantasy VIII
VIII was, as I previously mentioned, my favorite of all time. The characters spoke to me, the music was just awe-inspiring (Eyes on Me still gives me the chill to this day, maybe even a tear!), the intro just GRABBED me, and the twist in the story with the sorceress and mind control....damn, I play through this game over and over just to experience it over and over again. Just how well everything came together in the end, and THAT ENDING! Maybe I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic, which is why it spoke to me, but the story in 8 was just so powerful to me, that it forever has my heart. The one weak point to 8, would have to be the battle system. It is so easy to hit 100, that it basically is a requirement that you focus on other ways to make your characters stronger. Not a bad thing, but breaks from the traditional "Level up to get better" mantra of the RPG/FF genre. Instead, draws, and items are what make or break FF8, and Chocobo World essentially becomes crack due to this. I don't think I've ever spent so much time on a near-useless side game with such bad graphics as Chocobo World....And don't even get me started on the card game, Triple Triad. Oh God, if they made that into a real life game, the life and wallet of myself and all my friends would be gone.

Final Fantasy IX
IX was actually my second favorite. Again, the story in this game was just fantastic, and unlike 8, it had a much more traditional battle system which was just a blast to play with. While FF7 had me endlessly playing Chocobo racing, FF8 had me endlessly in Chocobo World and Triple Triad, FF9 had Chocobo Hot and Cold. There was also a card game, but it offered no real rewards like that in FF8, so I never got too into it like FF8. Instead, Chocobo Hot/Cold offered some end game items, but once past that, I quickly bored of it, and stopped playing it. Instead, I tended to focus more on leveling like on FF7, and perhaps even more so thanks to NOT having Chocobo Racing.

Final Fantasy X
X to me, was the beginning of the end for the franchise. I hated 10. Maybe it was the terrible voice acting, but it just felt too small, and childish compared to the others. While FF9 definitely had more cartoony graphics compared to the previous versions, it was overplayed with an incredibly intense, lifting, and inspiring story. FF10 felt like I was reading a teenage love story, and simply could never get into it. Sure Blitz Ball was cool for a bit, but I quickly pushed it aside to try and find the meat in the story, of which I don't think I ever found it. Don't even get me started on X-2

Final Fantasy XIII
Then there was XIII. I was really excited for this one! The graphics looked incredible...like unbelievably incredible. The voice acting seemed great, and so I jumped right in....and never finished. Unlike previous FF which allowed the player to explore the world they are immersed in, FF13 played much more linear, offering no such exploration with the exception of one small area in the game. The story just felt like you were being pushed through something, with no real emotion being drawn out, and so I left it unfinished as I sold my PS3, never thinking to return.

The PS1 was really a great time for Final Fantasy games, and RPG's in general. Some of my favorite RPG's of all time came from that system, and I still go back and play them every now and then. To me, games like FF6, 7, and especially 8 and 9 just FELT HUGE. Yes, they had a huge world, but the stories felt big, the soundtracks were orchestrated in 8 and 9 with no voice overs, and it worked so incredibly well. I honestly thing it was the ability of the PS2 to add room for voice-overs that ruined the game, not because the voice overs were in the game, but because it took the developers focus away from the core of the story and gameplay, and instead started an era in which the focus started to push more towards graphics and more American-friendly gameplay (like voiceovers instead of reading). FF6-9, and again especially 8 and 9, were at the end of an era where resources were limited for development, as even with the limitations, the games still took up 4 disks. This instead, I believe, forced the focus to be on the core of what made those games so incredibly good, and why I think they will always stand the test of time. A true golden age.

Have you played Star Ocean 2? Spent years playing it without looking up anything for it and after going through it 5-6 times beating it around level 90 each time a friend of mine discovered that the max level was 255. Can't really get into the newer ones for the reasons you stated, everyone after that seemed to have less content to make way for Cut scenes and movies. Another way to put it is the movies and voice-overs because the content and not what I was interested in.

1 Like

The card game def wasnt great as far as I remember. I might have liked 4-6 also if i had ever given them a shot since people seem to call 9 a throwback.

I started with 6 and it is my favorite so I guess I'm also one of those people. I backtracked and played 1, 5, and Mystic Quest and I can't really suggest doing the same. 5 was fine but I wasn't too impressed. I liked that people actually died in that one but that was really more of a after thought. 1 was just too old for me even though I grew up when it was a current title.

Mystic quest was just lame. Everything about it. I don't remember one thing about it except that the monsters look fatigued as you damage them. There are a few reasons why people can 9 a throwback. One reason is because the Crystal is relevant for the first time in quite a few games. Second, when they released 7 it was an attempt at more realistic looking characters. 8 took it a step farther but many people disliked it and cried about how they wanted their franchise back.

9 was nice and traditional. Especially with Vivi looking pretty much exactly like a black mage from FF5 or before. They also brought back classes which where more or less pointless in FF6, 7, and 8. Anyway, I just realized I just typed this much. I forgot why I was talking but here ya go!