A quick poll...

[Lunar Moog]

I'd like to know which Final Fantasy game (1-11) is your favorite.

I know this sounds like a rather n00bish question, but I'd like to know.

What it's meant to be: A quick poll. You can just vote, or just vote and post what you voted, but you don't have to put reasons or anything. I don't want this to be an argument over which is best, or why one is better than another, just a quick poll of your opinion.

What it isn't: Not a definitive answer to the question "Which is best", just the opinion of this board.

So, that said, which one?

[Walan]

Sorry, haven't played a single one. It's not that I don't like the series or RPG's or anything, I just haven't played them.

[Cloud Strife]

Had a hard time choosing between VII and IX, but I went with VII.

[Anonymous]

Hmm...had to go for Final Fantasy VIII.
The customizability of the characters was excellent.
And I listened to its soundtrack much more than any other FF.

BTW, you did not include Final Fantasy Tactics...

[Almasy Marquis]

He also didn't include King of Fighters 1997.

[demalavor]

You didn't include 11 in the poll, even though its in the poll topic.

[Lunar Moog]

You didn't include 11 in the poll, even though its in the poll topic.

Woops, my bad. FF11 wasn't anybody here's favorite, was it?

[Tenseiga]

He also didn't include King of Fighters 1997.

Starting from KOF '94 to...uh, where did it end? Is it even over? Hell, I don't know, I haven't been keeping track.

In Final Fantasy...I got bored with the series after IX. Hm, I suppose I shall say that VI is my favorite. Only because that was the first Final Fantasy game I played.

[BAMAToNE]

Heh, I'm the only one who's voted FF5. :P

[joe_cam]

My heart goes to FF6, though I'm too damn lazy to actually vote...so meh...

Crystal Chronicles was very very good as well.

[Azar]

I'm surprised the majority was for six...I thought everybody loved 7 and all that...I have no idea why six was my favorite, I probably never will...I used to think 2 was cool playing it on the emulator...until I bought it and realized that it was really friggin hard and battles occured every .2 seconds and then once you finally beat the game in that unecessarily large final castle, you get normal mode...I could kill em!!!

[Juese]

I know why 6 is better than 7, but since the majority agrees, no need to beat anyone over the head with it.

[demalavor]

Only me and someone else agree that FF8 is the best? There's gotta be other people :(

[Mustin]

IV, god damn you. IV.

[Cloud Strife]

I'm not surprised that Final Fantasy VI is winning. I'm also not surprised that only 3 people voted for VIII.

Dammit, I should've went with IX. Poor IX :(

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind, just because people do not vote for it as being their favorite, does not mean they abhor it altogether. Might as well just list my favorites, in order:

01 FFVIII: Just an overall relaxing game, due to the atmosphere of the locations and everything. The world map may have been just lame, with no frills center, west, north, east, south, but I liked all of the cities. And I like the contemporary and sci-fi themes. And I will agree that I did not care for any of the characters other than Squall.

02 FFIX: Definitely the coolest world map of all the FFs, but they did not make you walk too much. I liked all of the characters, each deep and passionate in their own way. And fact that the characters were limited within their character class made you make do with what they had, probably had the best time strategizing with this one, what with the ability system and all. And let us not forget the neo-industrial themes, reminiscent of FFVI.

03 FFX: It discussed the collapse and civilization and religion. And I was all hyped up on Evangelion at the time, which discussed the same themes. It even gave me a new view on death: I could be dead, an "unsent," and not even know it. Not probable, it IS only fantasy/fiction, but reality is slowly seeping its way into video games, as I see themes from Zen and actual religions slowly seeping into FF.

04 FFVII: The coolest thing about this game is the extent to which you had to traverse the world map on foot. I actually heard all seven minutes of the world map theme while travelling.

05 FFVI: All of the characters here were cool too, and the industrial, post-apocalyptic theme of it all was excellent. I even wrote a paper and how the game was an fantasy-allusion to WWII...The Empire was Nazi-Germany, and Kefka was Hitler. The world before destruction was WWI, and the world after destruction was WWII.

06 FFIV: Ye olde classique FF...the first non-Game Boy FF that I ever played.

07 FFV: It has its merits as a purely RP-oriented game, as plot and just about everything else takes a back seat, while they focused on game play.

...and the rest do not rank. FFI and FFII were simply too much commitment, and I had the first two Dragon Warriors or Dragon Quests to take their place.

Wait...let me take that back the Game Boy FF.'s, the FF Legends were actually pretty decent. Oh well, that is all I have time for.

[Ybrik Metaknight]

My order:

VI
Tactics (Even though it wasn't in the original question)
IX
X
IV
I
VIII
VII
XI
II
V
III

[Nodame]

VII baby, all the way. man when I play that game, it's like my brain is having an orgy! :lol:

[Shonen Samurai]

With who?

[Facade]

It was a hard toss up between Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, and VII. I ended up voting for VII... As for the order it'd have to be VII, V, IV - VI.

[Lunar Moog]

Keep in mind, just because people do not vote for it as being their favorite, does not mean they abhor it altogether.

Of course.

[Cloud Strife]

Order? I can list in order the Final Fantasy games I've played (even though I own most of them, I haven't played them all.)

Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X-2

[sempaimiles]

IX. Awesome game, back to da' roots!


-Miles

[Ybrik Metaknight]

I have a theory on why more people didn't vote for FFIX.

A lot of people, myself included, put FFIX up with some of their favorites, but not their absolute favorite FF. FFIX reminds us, in most cases, of what we liked most about our favorite FFs, and calls to mind our favorite game in the series. It sure as hell did so for me, as I saw some story parallels to FFVI on my first playthrough (what those parallels were, and whether I saw them because they were actually there or because FFVI is my favorite and I wanted to see those parallels is a discussion for another time, another thread).

What I'm trying to say is that FFIX evokes so many memories, because of the great games that came before it. Without those predecessors, FFIX is nothing (at least imo). While many people like FFIX because it brings back so many great memories, their favorite FF is usually the game that FFIX makes them remember. Obviously, the main exceptions to this rule are those who like FFIX the best for how it brought together so many nostalgic elements so well, and those who, for whatever reasons, like FFX the best.

Anyway, just a thought that I had that I thought I should share.

[Anonymous]

Ahh, yes...FFVI...my older brother rarely ever plays video games anymore...he is very "old skool," he loves him his FFVI.
If he ever joined the board, you would not stop hearing about the greatness of FFVI...for every FF thread, he would have something new, different, and interesting to say about FFVI.

In my opinion, FFVI is the first legit FF...the previous games feel simply like Square was testing out what works,
and preparing for their master plan that was FFVI.
And they mastered what they wanted to do, so they did something totally different with the next FFs.

[Anonymous]

Huh...no one's voted for FFX or even said a word about liking FFX-2...
...despite all that fighting I read about defending FFX & FFX-2.

[Ybrik Metaknight]

Huh...no one's voted for FFX or even said a word about liking FFX-2...
...despite all that fighting I read about defending FFX & FFX-2.

I liked both of them. Didn't care for FFX-2 as much as I liked FFX, but it was still good. FFX is probably my fourth favorite Final Fantasy (lotsa Fs in there), behind VI, Tactics and IX. Awesome gameplay in X, and pretty damn good gameplay in X-2.

[Shonen Samurai]

FFX is good, but it's not nearly the best.

[Azar]

1 - It was fun, if you havent played it, play it. It's eaiser to find now than it was back in the day...

2 - DO NOT PLAY!! Way too friggin hard, no levels, constant characters who's stats you have to build. Easy bosses and hard enemy's, no save points in duengeons, especially the REALLY long ones, and a seriously difficult final duengeon and final boss. Now I know why this wasnt released in america at first...

3- Played some of it on an emulator. This needs to be released in the usa. It had a classes system. The music was cool. The NPC's were cool. I didnt get way to far though...

4- Needless to explain, I think everyone has played and loved this one...I just didnt like that Kain was made out to be a main character...he was a bitch

5- It will consume your life, impossibly hard secret bosses, very long game, way to much time will need to be spent building character classes, the story was alright, the characters were alright, and the game gives you urges. Play at your own risk.

6- Best in my opinion, my only problem was the esper system sometimes took awhile.

7- A really fun one, kinda a basic RPG, and there was some stuff that didnt need to be in this game, and then stuff the did need to be. Overall a good game

8- Dont understand why it's so hated. I liked the story. I liked the draw system. I didnt like the REALLY FUCKING HARD final boss, there not supposed to be THAT hard.

9,10,10-2,11 - Cant comment, havent played through yet...

[Ybrik Metaknight]

8- Dont understand why it's so hated. I liked the story. I liked the draw system. I didn't like the REALLY FUCKING HARD final boss, there not supposed to be THAT hard.

You thought Ultimecia was hard? I sure as hell didn't...I just converted all my cards to items and all my items to the best things I could have and used Hero Drinks (or whatever they were) and Aura spells to stay invincible and (ab)use Cloud and Irvine's Limit Breaks over and over and over.

But generally, I really liked FFVIII. The only part I really didn't like was the Draw System. The Junctioning part was cool, but having to Draw spells got frustrating as early as mid-level spells like Haste and Reflect. Great story, though, and great music.

[Hthe8th]

Poor IX nothing. IX blows balls.

And Mustin I feel for you. IV is a very unheralded installment in the series. Back when you had to be hardcore to like RPGs and if a character needed to express ANY emotion it was represented by them either putting their head down, spinning in a circle or "jumping" and spinning in a circle.

[Henry Jones]

I'll restrain myself from much discussion since I tend to be long-winded about my favorites (and if you haven't noticed, my less-than-favorites).

Anyway, my favorite is VI. It's a beautiful piece of work, from the graphics to the music to the way you can learn and discover as much or as little about the characters as you want. Don't like Gau? You don't even have to get him at the end.

Second is VII: The gameplay gets a little tiresome for someone like me who grew up without load times, but it's a consistantly fascinating game that has about all you could want in a game.

Third is IV: This was a stunner when it came out. One of the first games with genuinely intriguing characters and plot (all though the Phantasy Star series was even more ahead of its time). The only thing that bothers me is the way some characters die and come back. It just bugs me.

Fourth is I: A fun and challenging game that hasn't aged all that well, but i'll still give a spin now and again.

Fifth is V: The plot was a step down from IV and customizable characters aren't really a big graw for me, but it's all right.

Sixth is III: Yes, I've played the ROM. Pretty good for the time, though three onion kids aren't the most appealing heroes in the world.

Seventh is IX: From here on out are games I didn't really care for. IX didn't move me or excite me all that much, but it didn't really hurt either.

Eighth is X: OK, the "Loner kid with guardian issues meets girl with special powers wanted by the villain" plot is getting OLD, I don't care how much they spruce it up with exotic locations. Rikku's hot if you plug your ears, though.

Ninth is II: No matter how many times I try, I just can't get into this game.

Tenth is VIII: I've all ready said at length why I loathe everything but Laguna's story in FF VIII. I don't need to say any more.

Tactics is somewhere in the middle. Again, customization is not a big selling point for me, and the so-called complex plot can be summed up with, "Organized religion sucks. Everybody dies."

[Gonk]

Funny, I've still yet to beat any of my favorites.

VI: Love, love, love the characters. Also the music.
VII: I don't like the characters as much as FFVI, but they're still cool. Another excellent soundtrack. Most of all, a great story.
IV: This is tied with VII. Actually on some days I might switch it for my favorite. So much fun.
XI: Poor XI didn't even make it on the poll. As far as MMORPGs go its above average. The fact that it pretty much punishes soloing subtracts some points. However if you take full advantage of partying and get yourself a good linkshell this is just too much fun. It certainly does get grindy at higher levels, but with good friends to play with who cares? A good party can rake in 5k EXP an hour. The one thing about this game is that it just oozes production values. Great graphics for an MMORPG, great soundtrack, a rich and varied world. The soundtrack also wins the award for most relaxing, in my opinion.
IX/VIII: These are the only two I've beat, mostly because they were rather easy. Whoever said Ultimecia was hard, I dunno what you're talking about. 100 Ultima on Squalls strength, Aura, Lionheart Limitbreak, Meltdown and one of your other characters with Recover. I had fun with VIII by abusing junction. Also Triple Triad was an awesome idea. As for IX, I just loved all the sidequests, and also Vivi.
X: I certainly don't dislike this. In fact I quite enjoyed it, but I can't rank it above the others.

Tactics Advance: I'm not sure where to put this on the list, but I really liked it.

[Ybrik Metaknight]

Also Triple Triad was an awesome idea.

Hell yes. I loved Triple Triad. FFIX's card game, Tetra Master, just seemed like a cheap — and crappy — Triple Triad knockoff. Triple Triad was my favorite FF minigame followed closely by Blitzball — the FFX version, not the FFX-2 version. And no, I don't care that I'm one of about three people in the entire world that liked Blitzball.

[Azar]

8- Dont understand why it's so hated. I liked the story. I liked the draw system. I didn't like the REALLY FUCKING HARD final boss, there not supposed to be THAT hard.

You thought Ultimecia was hard? I sure as hell didn't...I just converted all my cards to items and all my items to the best things I could have and used Hero Drinks (or whatever they were) and Aura spells to stay invincible and (ab)use Cloud and Irvine's Limit Breaks over and over and over.

But generally, I really liked FFVIII. The only part I really didn't like was the Draw System. The Junctioning part was cool, but having to Draw spells got frustrating as early as mid-level spells like Haste and Reflect. Great story, though, and great music.

It was more of that stupid GF she brought in that gave me trouble...and I didnt do to much card collecting, and my limit breaks were bad...

[Anonymous]

Triple Triad is fun until "Random" becomes a permanent rule, and you lose the "Open" rule permanently...those are the two rules that REALLY help you strategize...with "Random" and without "Open," you don't know your own cards much less the enemies...you're pretty much flying blind, in that case, it just leaves it all to chance...unless you refine all of your crappy card so you get only good cards, but I'm trying to get a complete set, here!

Ultimecia is the hardest FF final boss in relative to the others...a good deal of strategy was needed, as certain resources...it was not just use your best spell or summon, like in FFVII or FFIX...this boss was impossible without Squall's Lion Heart limit break...not even Eden could do anything for you, since he could just be easily killed off, anyway...

As for Sephiroth, I didn't even need the Omnislash (except for that part where they just give it to you), a few rounds of Flare, Ultima, and whosever Limit Break as it's activated does the trick.

And Necromancer in FFIX...Holy & Flare work nicely, along with Steiner's Shock, and Zidane's Trance.

That final boss in FFX was kind of a birtch too, the characters' ultimate weapons helped greatly, what with the break damage limit abilities and all, complementing use of Flare and Holy...Ultima in this game was all that much of a h00t, though...Flare did more damage than it, while Ultima distributes damage equally among multiple targets. And you have to use those Aeons greatly before you lose them...fighting Jecht was a bitch.
Of course, all of the above are easily solved with level-building like crazy in the Omega Ruins, but I didn't want to spend that much time doing that my second and third times through...beating it on my first try by level-building like crazy made it easy.

[Iskandar]

couple points -

1) Limiting TT rulesets is easy, just kinda time consuming. Losing a rule like Open is rare, at least it was for me.

2) Ultimecia requires no special strat, haha. Cerberus > Meltdown > Triple Shell/Haste/Regen/Aura > Limits. Pretty typical FF8 boss strat, really. Lionheart is a bonus, nothing more - Zell's Punch Rush/Booya chains are far more damaging. Griever's Shockwave Pulsar is strong, but with decent Spirit and Shell, you can cut damage to ~3000. The only worry I had while fighting her is if she blew away anyone's Ultimas or Full-Lifes, which happened like once.

[Vuffster]

And Mustin I feel for you. IV is a very unheralded installment in the series. Back when you had to be hardcore to like RPGs and if a character needed to express ANY emotion it was represented by them either putting their head down, spinning in a circle or "jumping" and spinning in a circle.

I only got into FF starting with FF Chronicles (deprived child that I was, parents wouldn't let me have a console until a few years ago), and FFIV is my favorite by far. I guess I'm a neo-oldschooler. :wink:

[Cloud Strife]

Also Triple Triad was an awesome idea.

Triple Triad definitely pwned Tetra Master.

[Anonymous]

Those of you who have played FFX all the way through,
do you believe Tidus's narration detracted or added to the plot?

Why and how did it add or detract from the plot?
Was his narration even NECESSARY?
Did his narration insult you, since you really did not need things pointed out for you?

[Shonen Samurai]

Loved it. Narration can be a poweful tool and it's oftentimes underused in games like this.

[goat]

IV is my favorite. I haven't played any of 8 or beyond (and only part of 7). Something about the music of IV is so melancholy (even the happy songs).

[joe_cam]

Hey! It's goat! Whats up man? Welcome to the boards!

Yes...Triple Triad rocked the house and I'm the second of the three guys in the world who loved Blitzball...that was the only part of FFX I liked....

[erindancer]

Ok - I never comment on final fantasy shitz...but this time I have to. I've only played 4(2 US) one time through on the computer. It was so hard! Bonus stuff I didnt' have to do - taking forever to build people up. First time I've ever had such an open playing area with little direction for things like that damn spoon that didn't even work in my final battle!! no kidding -- it had "no effect" or whatever it says. So mad. I would never do that again.

It seems like this was an easy game compared to the other ones - is that true? Which one was the hardest then?? I thought 4 was horrible - can't imagine anything worse.

[Ybrik Metaknight]

Ok - I never comment on final fantasy shitz...but this time I have to. I've only played 4(2 US) one time through on the computer. It was so hard! Bonus stuff I didn't' have to do - taking forever to build people up. First time I've ever had such an open playing area with little direction for things like that damn spoon that didn't even work in my final battle!! no kidding -- it had "no effect" or whatever it says. So mad. I would never do that again.

It seems like this was an easy game compared to the other ones - is that true? Which one was the hardest then?? I thought 4 was horrible - can't imagine anything worse.

You may have played what many consider to be the "true" FFIV, that is, FFIV Hard Type. You see, there were two versions made of that game. Easy Type was brought to the U.S. as Final Fantasy II for SNES. It's not too difficult, but the final boss, Zeromus, is still a little on the tough side. Hard Type appeared on the PlayStation along with Chrono Trigger in FF Chronicles, and is quite difficult indeed, largely due to a battle system that worked a bit differently (and some enemies that were just harder all around). Emulated versions of both exist on the Internet, so the Hard Type is probably what you played.

On the subject of that game, I turned on my copy of FFII for SNES yesterday to find out that the damn battery-backed memory had crapped out, so I lost all those play-throughs. Oh well, not a big deal. I had planned to play all the way through it again anyways.

[Iskandar]

Of those released stateside, I'd say the original is probably the hardest. They've become progressively less difficult with time, leveling off around VII. Some of that lessened difficulty is good, what you indirectly mentioned - more natural character advancement, highlighted goals/destinations, etc.