Final Fantasy General

To start us off, my favorite games (that i've played/watched playthroughs of), are:

1. FF10

2. FF6

3. FF9

I could genuinely talk about these games forever but I'll keep it short.

FF10:

I genuinely think this is one of the best stories like, ever. It is, to me, about the heartbreak of inevitability. The entire game is about doing Yuna's journey to stop sin, finding out it's complete bullshit, and then tearing the system down, but in doing so, causing Tidus to not exist anymore. I've never cried so much at a game's ending. Still need to play ffx-2.

FF6:

This game was my introduction to the series and what an introduction. The themes of persistence against nihilism, heritage and making your own path are like, formative to me. I love Terra and Celes' individual stories to find meaning, and I really find it interesting how the game has the villain win at the end of the World of Balance and then the story keeps going through the World of Ruin.

FF9:

Similarly to FF6, this has a lot of the same themes of nihilism and persistence. Vivi is like, actually one of the best characters in anything ever, he makes me so sad and so happy at the same time with how his story turns out. I haven't seen this game played in a while, and I really want to do a playthrough on my own, so I will probably have updated thoughts on it. Zidane is like, the world's he/him lesbian ever.

chocobos dungeon (wii) and the remake are my favorite final fantasy spinoffs!! and the first ff games i ever played. for a while i actively avoided any others because the chocobos looked like. actual chocobos and not my little guy.

i also play, to put it lightly, a metric fuckton of 14. i really love it.

i rly need to get around more in the franchise. i .. play so much ffxiv. but im hoping to check out the fft remaster!! i want to play the ff13 series as well, my god it looks amazing.

i think zach fair is neat. im not too into the games (mostly just look at the fanart and collabs) but i recently picked up advent children on cd to hopefully start learning the story.

Final Fantasy 4 is cool. It has Rydia, and Rydia's cool, so, you know, by association and all.

I've only ever played the first 7 games but I like to consider myself a big fan of the series. My first exposure was VII and since then I've mostly stuck to the SNES games (mostly V and VI which are the ones I had actually finished years ago.), V being my favorite for the incredible job system which I never get tired of.

Recently though I played Dragon Warrior (DQ1) for the first time and that gave me the itch to get into the first FF games, so I started playing the first and before I knew it I had started a series playthrough/replay haha. I'm currently on V and having a blast.

FFI is awesome, I was surprised by how well it held up. Maybe a bit grindy but what game isn't. It's surprisingly simple and fun for a JRPG on the NES but the replay value that comes with the party building is really the cherry on top, if not a whole other layer to the cake.

FFII is the one that took my by surprise. Everyone hates on this game for how the leveling system works but I found that if you try not to abuse it too much and play by its rules, the game becomes very smooth to progress through and is very good at keeping you engaged to every single battle you fight and it was a very interesting experience. Combine that with the general flow of battles and you have a game that feels so much more strategic than FFI and it really shows how ahead of the time the devs were. Of course, the game has its flaws (especially the FC version) and the dungeon crawling feels a lot tougher than it does in FFI. But wow, what a game.

FFIII is one I had actually finished before (both the FC and DS versions) but replaying it now with my experience with the first two games gave me a whole different perspective on this one. It feels like a natural evolution from FFI while also doing a lot of things differently. In general it feels very good to play and is by far the most polished out of the first three, but I hate how the job system has a linear progression and some dungeons towards the end can be an unimaginable pain (seriously why did they have to make the Cave of Darkness like that.)

FFIV is my least favorite and I'm not sure if it's because the game just doesn't stand out much to me or if it's because I've tried playing most versions of the game and never got engaged enough to finish the game until I played the PSP version (let's not talk about me losing my save files twice on the Steam version.) I don't really have much to say on this one. I can only imagine that game was really cool for its time but nowadays it just does nothing to me gameplay and story wise.

I already talked about FFV so skipping to VI, I actually replayed that one first (before playing DQ) so it's already out of the way. It's really fun! I'd definitely recommend it as the starting point for anyone who wants to get into the older games in the franchise. Good story, good characters (funnier than V's ngl), and very solid gameplay. My only problem with it is that I don't like the magicite system too much, but you can still do a lot of stuff with the characters' unique skills and other systems, so it's not the end of the world. Also, having a large cast of playable characters is always a positive to me. Besides that I also think the beginning of the game is very slow, but the World of Ruin being as cool as it is compensates for me.

Right now I'm looking forward to my FFVII replay since I haven't played that game since I was a kid. I remember being very overwhelmed by it for its scale and complexity, so replaying it now with all my knowledge of the previous games will surely be interesting. And I guess if I'm still in the mood afterwards, I might try playing VIII and IX for the first time. Maybe even X but I doubt I won't be tired until then lol.

Sorry for the long post. I've been thinking about the series a lot lately and just needed to let my thoughts out.

Since you appreciate FFII's unique mechanics, you might end up really enjoying FFVIII, which not only has a great cast and a very unusual and fascinating setting/story, but also has one of the most unique progression mechanics in the game, which involves absorbing magic from enemies and assigning stored magic to your stats to boost your power!

I like the recurring monsters like the Moogles, Cactuars, and Tonberries.

FF4 moved me, i loved cecil’s narrative, his growth from a dark warrior to a paladin is what cemented my admiration for the earlier installments of the series.

My favorite final fantasy character is Estinien. And also the chocobros!

I've been going through all the main games after only having really played VI, VII and ARR. I'm currently playing V and it is such a great game. I love how interesting the fleshed out job system makes character building and I am really excited to keep messing around with it.

i just finished the ff16 dlc. that game is kinda ass, but i think i got weirdly attached to it. my favorites are 6, 7, 10, and 13. been chipping away at 10-2... but... well... that game's weird format makes me kinda slow to do it.

oh fuck yes. i love final fantasy. my personal favorite final fantasy anything is heavensward. ishgard is one of my favorite "living settings" or whatever you call them in any video game ever. but that's followed closely by 7 and 10. tidus and cloud are perfect protagonists to me.

i wish i fucked with 14 more, but i think mmos are just anathema to my strange brain. have you been playing the ff7 remakes? i think rebirth is genuinely one of the best games i've played, but i just remembered it's locked behind the ps5 until sony releases its clammy grip on square-enix.

I was AGGRESSIVELY anti-FF7 remake until the thing came out and then I was very pleased to be proven wrong. It's truly a gorgeous game, and being able to be -part- of the amazing world-setting that they made for FF7 in a way that is so up close and detailed and granular is just... The best. The best!!

FF14 is... Idk. As a 'playable game' I think it comes up short in a lot of ways--I could go on for ages about the structural differences between classic 'shared world-environment' MMOs and modern 'instance-based' MMOs, but ultimately the watered-down gameplay is immaterial to the experience of the story. The Realm Reborn-Heavensward-Stormblood-Shadowbringers-Endwalker cycle is one of the absolute and most engrossing video game narratives period. Heavensward is a high point (and the gameplay was less homogenized back then...) but Shadowbringers and Endwalker are like. The absolute climax of the whole thing, with an unforgettable cast and totally otherworldly vibes.

So even if you don't like MMOs, consider playing just for the story and the experience!

So there was a really cool reference to Final Fantasy within an update a couple months back referencing the need, greed, and pass system used for loot in the MMO Final Fantasy XIV in Vast Error and it got me thinking about who would play/how the characters would be within the world of Hydaelyn! Anyone else play XIV and love Vast Error?
Also my favorite games are Final Fantasy IX and XIV! I've been a huge fan of the franchise since I was a kid, and I love the spin-off series like Kingdom Hearts (2 Final Mix is the best btw) and about two years ago I got into XIV on a whim and man it is not just one of the best FF games but best gaming experiences I've ever had! In terms of spin offs I'm a big fan of Tactics! I'm really excited for the upcoming remake ^v^

I began my FFVII replay and holy crap I forgot how much of a leap in presentation that game was. Actually, calling it a leap is minimizing the insane rocket launch of presentation that the game is. From the cutscenes to the setting to the characters, everything looks so much... more. The backgrounds in particular get my attention a lot, even though they're just low res textures there's obviously so much detail put into those that it makes me wonder how they could ever pre-render so much stuff.

Holding the player from going into the world map for a few hours is definitely a choice. They really wanted you to get a feel for the kind of place Midgar is and the presentation really sells it.

There's also a lot more dialogue and the characters' personalities come out a lot more. I think FFVI has a great plot but in comparision to the average experience of reading the game's text, VII blows it out of the water.

What a cool game, seriously. And to think it probably already looked outdated by the time VIII released.

@Palm Heart

Admittedly I used to hate ff7 on principal when I was younger because my older brother liked it a lot but as I've gotten older and gotten more media savvy I have to admit it's a really fucking good game. It's incredibly well made, especially considering that presentation wise there was nothing like it before it.

i have a nostalgic love for FFIII as the ds version of it was my first ever FF game! im sad that the default FFIII character rep in any crossover game is onion knight. where is luneth squeenix i miss him.

eternal wind is also the best ff song tbh. i distinctly remember watching the shadowbringers trailer when it was first announced and losing my mind when i heard the eternal wind strings melody. genuinely the most exciting part of the trailer for me at the time LOL