With FF10 on the horizon, I may as well post my Complete thoughts on the Final Fantasy series from 1-9

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Now before I confuse anyone, these are MY opinions.


Part 1, I was literally a kid when I played this one. My biggest memories of the game were:

A) Leveling up outside of Elf City for hours and hours buying Silver Swords and expensive spells then doing Marsh Cave, and defeating Astos afterwards. The beginning of the game up until Marsh Cave I played through many times, so it's very fresh in my head.
B) Ice Cave
C) Meeting Bahamut, getting the Rats tail, and changing Class
D) The Underwater level
E) The other side of the portal in the Temple of Fiends

Now, don't get me wrong, it was a fairly good game, but not NEARLY as good as Dragon Warrior III released around the same time.


2) Final Fantasy II which I was excited about because of the Final Fantasy Legend games which I loved. I think I enjoyed the first 6 hours or so of the game, but overall, I don't think I enjoyed this one as much as Dragon Warrior III. Better than Seventh Saga though. I liked the characters of this game by far better than any other, it was the first real game that had extremely well developed Characters and THE BEST story line by far of any game on SNES to date.


3) I was heavily anticipating Final Fantasy III, this game was delayed more and further than Zelda Ocarina of Time. It was kind of frustrating. I kind of got out of Video games around this time, and focused more on other things. Then the game came out, I started playing and I can't describe the feeling, it's like back in Junior high when you first saw that girl and you knew you liked her and that you were going to ask her out, that's as close as I can describe it. So I played, and I played an I played, then my game was deleted and I took my defective copy back and got another, and I played and I played. At the time this game was my absolute favorite game, and would remain so until Earthbound and Chrono Trigger came out the next year. I think finishing that game gave me probably the biggest rush of finishing a game since the first time I finished Zelda 1 on SNES, and I still haven't felt a rush like that since, except maybe when I finished Resident Evil 2 and Zelda Ocarina of Time, and perhaps Metal Gear Solid. To this day, it remains my favorite game in the series.


Final Fantasy 7: Overall, I thought the Midgar part was amazing, but I was highly disapointed with 95% of the game from then on. The Characters just didn't interest me. I replayed the Midgar scene about 5 times since I've had the game, maybe more, but I have only ever gone maybe to the part where you cross on the boat since the first time I played through the game. I never actually finished it on my own save, but I have on my sisters.


Final Fantasy 8 was a much better game than 7 overall, however, its magic system was probably the worst of all the games. I think I liked this game more than Xenogears even. One thing will prevent me from ever playing it again though, and that is the slowness of movement in the game, and the load times. This game I believe is heavily underated by people here at the Shrine. The one thing that got to me though, even more so than FF7, you could put a different name on this game than Final Fantasy, and nobody would have questioned the decision, this game doesn't seam at all like a Final Fantasy game.


Final Fantasy 9, this one, I'd say has the best towns and setting of the three PS games. Overall, it's almost as good as Final Fantasy 8, and it more than makes up for the tiny gap by fixing all the problems of 8. The fact that they used Garland and continued and explained the story from Final Fantasy 1 was what got me. The thing I like most about this game is that there are no boring parts, the whole game is fun right through just like Final Fantasy III on SNES. Unlike FF8, I will likely go back and play this one through again.</div>

[Blotus]

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>I thought you would've liked FF9 more, what with the old-schoolness of it all.</div>

[Ganath]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Final Fantasy I:

I was what? Five or six when I played this? Memories of childhood give this game a golden glow... but when I play it now I realize how many chunks it really blows. Nonetheless, this was one of the RPG pioneers, so I'm giving it certain leeway for story quality. But one of the things I remember is, repetitive. Although certain parts were cool, like any scene with Garland, the class level up, etc.

Final Fantasy II:

The NES version. I never made it through the whole game... again, repetitive. I wasn't five anymore when I played it, so I didn't have the same resolve as back then. Although the leveling system (or lack of) was interesting... and the story was a leap beyond the previous game.

Final Fantasy III:

Again, the NES version. I simply could NOT get into this game. I enjoyed Mystic Quest more. I pushed myself up to the point where you get and immediatly loose the airship in the begining... and then promptly quit. I couldn't stand the game anymore.

Final Fantasy IV:

I first saw this at a friends house... and the first thought that popped in my head was "WOW!!" If I had my current vocabulary back then, I would've thought a far less kosher "THAT IS FUCKING BAD ASS!!" I later got the game... and it was worth tracking down. Very fun game, and at the time, the most enthralling story I'd ever seen in a video game. I made it all the way to Zeromus... but never beat him. I had a knack for not leveling up enough, so he always tended to whoop my ass. Although I probably hit some record for getting the furthest with the least levels, almost is only good in horseshoes. Also, as a note, I loved and still do love the party system in that game. Five characters, as well as not having to deal with switching characters in and out for levels. Beautiful, they need to bring this back.

Final Fantasy V:

I played this on an emulator... and I couldn't get into it too well. I got up to the point of some fire crystal or something, and then my save got deleted. I never got around to playing it again. Nothing really much worth noting, except the class system which is similar to FFT.

Final Fantasy VI:

This game surpassed FFIV in every manner short of the party system. Again, I never beat it for my knack of not leveling, but I enjoyed every second of the game anyway. Awesome story and memorable characters. Also it introduced the revolutionary Esper system... which has just been regurgitated over and over again in FFVII and VIII.

Final Fantasy VII:

Eh... I had fun with this, but not so much as with say FFVI or FFIV. I loved the Midgar part... I thought it was cool as hell. For once, instead of this big world wide plot thing, it seemed the story was going to centralize around one area and show all the little details of this huge city. Unfortunatly, it wasn't like that. I thought it was great when I left Midgar at first... but later, Midgar was sorely missed.

Final Fantasy Tactics:

Great, great game. Cool story, cool characters, and the battles were fucking fun! That was the one thing I hated about the FF series, the battles were usually boring as shit. But this was far different, and I loved it. Basically, this pretty much ranks as my favorite FF.

Final Fantasy VIII:

If FFT was my favorite, FFVIII was it's anti-thesis. In my humble opinion, this game blew, hard. This game killed what interest I had left in the FF series. I liked the Junction system, but that didn't make up for the rest. A not particularlly interesting story in comparison to previous FFs, and I hated battles. For me, they took forever. I'd end up spending about five minutes minimum in random battles. That pissed me off something fierce. As far as I'm concerned, this is hands down the worst Final Fantasy I've ever had the (dis)pleasure of playing. I tried to make up for it by poking fun at the story... but even that didn't save it. Not to totally knock the story, it wasn't really that bad and even had it's highlights, but the horrid gameplay made the story entirely unworth it.

Final Fantasy IX:

Sadly, despite the great reviews this game got, I never could bring myself to buy it. My interest in RPGs had been waning ever since my bitter experience with FFVIII... and the deformed characters of FFIX didn't help. I did break down and pick up Xenogears at some point, which is the finest RPG I've ever played. However, I've found that even Xenogears couldn't bring back my once great interest in RPGs, particularlly in the FF series.</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>There are so many little retarded moments in FF VI, I couldn't play the game for ten minutes and not find at least one. I guess if had to single out one thing in particular, it would be that sequence where Cid is dying and you have to feed him only "tasty fish" in order to keep him alive. The first time I played through, I didn't know there were different kinds, so I just gave him whatever I caught. It took forever; all told, I must have crammed about fifty fish down that fat fucker's throat before he finally got better. I wish I had accidentally given him a few rotten ones, so he coulda died and made my life easier.</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>It was the fast and healthy ones you needed to get. I think if you didn't feed him at all he would have died from you talking to him to much. LOL.</div>

[Anarky]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>God square should really make a support group for people who played FF8, after hat game i could never really get back into playing RPG's but i am trying to get back into them again.</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I guess from 1-7 I agree completely with you. It would have been awesome if FF7 was based in Midgar or mostly in that city, it's still a great concept for a game, hmm, maybe I should replay Shadowrun =)</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It's just fun to play, same reason I like Earthbound and Chrono Trigger, and Mario RPG</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>You're not the only one, I got Lunar, Grandia & Skies of Arcadia and I didn't really want to play any of them until FFIX, where Square redeemed themselves.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>You've to talk to him hundreds of times before he dies I think.</div>

[Ganath]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I was eying that game years ago, but never played it. Is it any good?</div>

[Zeus76]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Well, let's start:

1) At the time, nothing even came close in the graphics department for an RPG. The whole look of the game from the opening sequence on just shattered everything we saw before it.

2) The "feel" of it. Again, not even close for it's time. The whole opening with Terra and Wedge and Vicks, with her being their slave, and the attack of the Espers, not to mention the Opera scene, train ride w/ Shadow and many other cool plot lines.....it was just great.

3) Kefka. Best villian I've ever seen in an RPG. There have been many, many good villians, but no one made me want to end his life like I did Kefka every fucking time I saw him

4) The World of Ruin. That's what made the game. Before that, it was a very, very good RPG, but once you got to the World of Ruin, everything changed. It had the perfect balance between non-linearity and linearity. You could do so much if you wanted to, but only so little you had to do. If I recall correctly, there was only 4 things you HAD to do, but SOOOO much more you could do.

5) Storyline. Again, unequalled for its time. Still one of the best IMO, although there are SO many good stories now.

Often you get games that are as good as FF6 in some of these categories, but only once every few years to you get a game that is overall as good as it is in all categories. That's why it's considered one of the best RPGs ever (if not THE best ever) by so many, and why all FF games, if not all RPGs, are judge by it</div>

[Zeus76]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Get Panzer Dragoon Saga somehow. When I thought I could never play a game again, I played that and my zest for gaming returned</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Yeah, i had fun with it, though I do know it's a game you have to spend time leveling up. Hiring your own Gang members from throughout the game is awesome</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Skies of Arcadia was out after FF9 if I remember correctly, and FF9 doesn't hold a candle to it, either does II(4j) or III(6j)</div>

[Blotus]

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '><b>FF 1</b>

I was pretty young when I first played this game, and still, I've never been able to sit through all the way to the end. In fact, when I owned it as a kid, it was stolen before I got to finish it. I've tried a few times to do so in the past several years, but no go... it's just not that much fun.

<b>FF 2 & 3 (NES)</b>

Only played a little of each on emulators, and since this was around the time FF7 and 8 were out, I didn't really care. Both seemed really slow-paced like the first game.

<b>FF 4/2</b>

This is the one that did it for me, and is still one of my favorites games of any series. It's the only FF game I've actually beaten so many times I can't remember the number. Over 20, for sure (on the SNES, through emulators, and on the Chronicles). Like FF9, I loved the fact that every character you used was different. I can't express my hatred enough for systems like FF5's Class System, FF6's Esper System, or FF7's Materia System which rob the characters of any sort of individuality (although to be fair, FF6 did have character specific abilities, which was nice).

<b>FF 5</b>

Never played through all of this one... only a few hours on each ZSNES and the Anthology. What I played, I didn't like much.

<b>FF 6</b>

Made leaps an bounds for the RPG genre. Not as big as FF7 did, but for the time, it was like nothing else. While I laughed my ass off at Lee and Steven's article concerning its suckage, I still love this game. But to tell the truth, thousands of whiney "FF purists" bashing the shit out of FF7 and 8 while praising this one has left a kinda bitter taste in my mouth whenever I play this game (in that I loved both 7 and 8). It's not enough to make me dislike the game in the least, though.

<b>FF7</b>

When I first finished it, I had no doubt this was the greatest thing since Playboy discovered Patricia Ford... it was amazing. But like I mentioned above, relentless bashing of this one kind of diminished my appreciation of the most revolutionary console RPG to this day. I still like it a lot, but it's hard to shrug off seeing it praised at first, and then heavily bashed in the name of "old school".

<b>FF8</b>

Oh, you cruel, cruel bastards... and I'm not referring to Square here, but rather most people on the internet I like to call "FF8 hatas". Gamefan's review was terrible, and just went to show how far downhill that magazine had gone. It was a hell of an experience for me though, and still is. FF7 and 8 still have the best stories in the series (with 7 having the possible edge, IMO), the characters I was supposed to care about (Rinoa, Seifer, Edea, Laguana, Ellone, Quistis, and to a lesser extent, that fucknut Squall), I did, and this FF game, above all the others, has the most memorable scenes (Intro, ballroom scene, train hijacking, the Galbadian military base operation, all that shit in space, and the beautiful, beautiful ending).

<b>FF9</b>

I should play this one again... I've only been through it once, but it was really nice (although the encounter rate is annoying as fuck in some places).


Ranking the series has never seemed to work for me in the past, as after replaying them, my views tend to change drastically. But here goes...

1. FF8
2. FF6
3. FF9/FF7 tie
5. FF4
......this will probably be inverted this time next year, knowing me.

Haven't played enough of FF5 to rank it, but from what I HAVE played, it would probably be at the bottom. FF Tactics was also groovy, but ain't really part of the series.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>FF1-3 - Never played them.

FF4 - I don't think it's fair to say this title is *that* good because nostaglia always gets in the way, but it is a solid game. It's also the last FF game until FF10 where characters are significantly different in terms of HP and abilities.

FF5 - This is a pretty average game. It's not bad or anything, but it's nothing impressive.

FF6 - Like BL, I detest the next-gen FF haters who always go back to FF6, but it is a very good game. The music is probably Uematsu's best. The characters manage to remain likeable despite having too many characters. This is also the first FF game where you're starting to have more characters than a game ought to have. I think the reason why FF6 pulled it off is the character themes is worth hours of character development. Just about every one of the characters minus Umaro, Gogo, or Mog (and even then...) had a character theme that captures the essence of the character.

FF7 - I think this is the best PSX FF by far. The music remains respectable though you're starting to have junk in there. I mean, you just haven't every single one of the 100 tracks to be good music. It's not going to happen. Story is quite good even though I already know what's going to happen, including Cloud's past and Aeris's death. I think the testament of a good game is that when you know what's going to happen ahead of time, and yet it still moves you.

FF8 - I used to hate this game a lot, but I'm starting to appreciate it after playing a couple times. As all of you may know I really can't stand stupid main female character, and Rinoa is a very stupid main female character. I didn't like Squall or Rinoa, but I think their romance story is okay. Laguna, for me, is what makes the game interesting. It's also the last FF game to have great music. There are some very powerful themes in the game that captures the development that could not be done by words. I think Ami remains one of the most identifiable themes in a FF game that is not a battle theme or a character theme. The scene at the basketball court in Trabia Garden wouldn't have the same effect if it didn't have that piece of music in the background.

FF9 - Garnet is dumb, therefore the game is dumb. The only character I marginally like is Eiko because she has a halfway character decent theme. Super Saiyan Zidane is not my idea of a well-developed character. The music really started to decline in FF9. They *claim* to bring back old music to add flavor or something, but the truth is that Uematsu is running out of ideas. Assuming my taste hasn't changed and Uematsu hasn't changed his style, there's definitely a decrease in the number of great tracks by him.

FF10 - The story is good. The music sucks, and the ending kind of sucks.</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Genesis or SNES version?</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>You want to know what I think about FF VI, read the article Lee and I are preparing for our website. I'll send you a link once it's done.</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I have both, but the SNES one was the one I was refering to, I didn't really get into the Genesis one</div>

[Blotus]

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>I played both, and while most people declared the Genesis one to be better, I favored the SNES version.</div>

[Anarky]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>From the tone of your post i assume The FF series hasn't been that good to you, so do tell what was your favorite game series?</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I don't particularly have any favorite series, but I've a lot of favorite games.</div>

[Zeus76]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>lol. Fucking hate it when that happens. Sure, give me a link, I'll check it out</div>

[Derithian/India]

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: left; '>FF1:damn boring game. I couldn't even try to play it through now but nontheless it wasn't a bad game. It was what got me into RPG's. Yet it is still boring. Garland kicked ass as a bad guy and Chaos was probably one of the hardest bosses in an ff game. But still that's speaking from a little kids perspective

FF2:Better than 1 but I played about 15 minutes on emu ansd said fuck it, same with 3

FF4:Excuse me while I masturbate for a second. This is not nostalgia talking. Badass characters, badass story, Kain was probably the coolest character in the ff games. Zeromus was probably the hardest boss in ff history....black hole, black hole, black hole. He was so god damn frustrating. But nontheless it had a good ending and the key that made it a good game. Edge. Damn he ruled. And Rydia was a badass. Best game of the series, I still play it.

FF5:Good game, not the greatest story but a great battle system. I liked the job system although this was the start of the decline of character individuality. This was also the game with the last dificult final boss in ff history. he was almost as bad a zeromus.

FF6:SETZER!!!! go gambling mother fucker. Same with locke and sabin. fantastic characters, great story, WoR. The one thing that detracted from this game is that while kefka was a good villain, as a final boss he was a pussy. I Kicked his ass the first time at level 37. After this I thought that would be the easiest final boss in ff history. Even the god damn whelk was harder than this guy......

FF7:you know Midgar as everyone says is the greatest place in ff history. Damn I lovesd that part of the game. But after that, I still loved the game. I liked the other parts, I liked trying to kill the weapons. I loved many of the parts. But this game was ruined by it's final boss. Sephiroth was the epitomy of a fucking pussy. All his forms. At level 39 went down like a fucking rag. He was the worst end boss in FF History...It had the best minigames ever

FF8:Booooooo. I'm sorry but this game to me lacked in so manyu areas. The characters were horrible, although zell was kinda cool. BUt every other person in that game sucked monkey balls. The ending was good but it was far from spectacular, The characters were just the same with different weapons. I hated the junction system. The overworld and map graphics actually um......sucked. FF7 wass much better looking. Depending on how you played it could be hard or easy. if you were at max level the last boss was a bitch. I swear to god she must have had like 30 kajillion hp. AHHHHH it was a bitch.

FF9:Fantastic. The graphics are smooth, the movies are amazing (flying away from the wizard through the north gate was the coolest damn movie ever) The ending was good. I loved the characters.....GO VIVI. Black mages rule. The game a had a somewhat difficult boss again, you actually did have to level A bit to beat him. The minigames were pretty cool, the card game was cool. I loved this game. It was great and fantastic.

So here we go in order of goodness

1)FF4
2)FF6
3)FF9
4)FF7
5)FF8
6)FF5
7)FF1,2,3</div>

[Gone to Shakers]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>and back then I favored the Genesis over SNES (until Earthbound and Chrono Trigger, Mario RPG, the DKC games and everything, 90% of the SNES's best games only came out in the last year and a half of its lifespan)</div>

[Darx]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>FF1- I can still remember sitting with my friends on Warmech bridge, looking for exp. No plot, No point, but still fun.

FF2 & 3 Played a little on emu, but why bother, there's no way they can match up to newer ffs.

FF4- I just finished the PSX port yesterday. Still good fun. Short, but fun

FF5- I don't like this game. It was really boring for me to play. I dunno, maybe it was that it seemed to take years to level or maybe it's because the plot wasn't good, but it's the only one that I've played through only once. The characters were built the same in this game, each of the 4 or 5 I guess were identical in abilities, but I didn't mind, since by the time I got around to it, it was commonplace.

FF6- Played this one A LOT. There weren't any other big RPGs out when it came out, so I had a lot of time to play it. Good setting, fun battles, and decent characters. The only problem with this game was this was the first game where characters were getting too similar. Sure they had their special abilities, but eventually you don't even use them and just choose, "Genji glove, offering" or "Gem Box, Economizer".

FF7- I had loads of fun with this one. Sephiroth is a great villian. He's always up in your face, playing you like a little bitch. I love it. The weapons were a good addition too. Eventually it became a competition between my friends to see who could beat them in the most impressive way. I think my personal best is with just Cloud with the ol' Buster sword, with a couple HP plus, mime, and counter.

FF8- I woulda liked this game so much more if the story didn't suck ass. "Hey guys, we all knew each other when we were kids.....we just...forgot." "Oh and this person we've been fighting...is our mom." Gimme a break. Laguna and crew shoulda been the focus of this game, or at least they should have used them more. Best line in the game:
"Yeah, I had a dream too. I dreamt I was a moron." Classic.
Still I thought the battles were really fun, and I liked that the enemies lvl with you.

FF9- This is a fun game. Nice story, never gets really stupid. And it has Vivi. God damn, that boy makes the game. Usually I rename the main character after myself, but not in this game. Anyways, I liked this game so much, I endured the torture to get the excalibur II.

FF10- Dunno, we'll see.

So all in all, they were all good, some just not as good as others. I'd do a ranking, but I don't like making lists like that.</div>

[Derithian/India]

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: left; '>best combo gem box/economizer with ultima and quick ultima quick, ultima ultima, ultima quick. and so on...the neverending turn. I havn't actually tried but I'm guessing it works.</div>