Hey all, here's my two cents, games presented in the order I played them.

-Final Fantasy II on the SNES is my favorite game of all time, and it occupies a special place in my heart. I still remember getting the game as a clueless nine year old back in '92, reading the instruction manual cover to cover, and being struck dumb by the awesomeness of the game I was about to play. When I popped that game in and fired up my late 80's style big screen projection TV, I sat and let the intro theme play out, it was just badass. Then as Cecil and Kain stepped out of Baron castle, cueing the best video game music of all time alongside a sweet prologue, I was instantly hooked onto the FF series. BTW that first random monster attack on the overworld map scared the living crap out of me. I played this one from start to finish countless times, I leveled up my characters to level 99, I got the GBA version (not as good, still great though), and I plan on getting the DS version next month to relive part of my childhood. Seriously, I could go on and on about this game, I really should make a video blog about it to get all my thoughts out there.

-FF Mystic Quest (SNES). I know it gets a lot of hate, but you can't tell me you didn't rock out to the music during the last stage and final boss, total 16-bit metal awesomeness. It was fun, straight forward, and you could actually see the monsters on screen! The hero looked cool, had a few good lines, and I enjoyed the ending.

-FF(NES). What the heck if up with only 4 letters for the character names?!?! I had to name my hero STEV, a big damper on the experience for me. Of course I went with the standard Fighter, Black Mage, White Mage, and Thief party. Thieves were terrible but ninjas kicked some serious ass. I have mixed feelings with this one, I mainly played it as a competition between a friend of mine to see who could beat it first. What a pain in the ass this one was, unforgiving NES style AI, that damn Marsh Cave drove me insane, and I never did beat the last dungeon. I did get the GBA remake, found it really boring.
FYI I hate FF II for the GBA, the leveling system makes no sense, reminds me of the godawful system used in games like FF Legend I and II and the Romancing SaGa series on the SNES.

-FF Adventure (GB). Friekin awesomeness. Probably my favorite GB classic game of all time. Great music, decent story, and just fun to play through. GBA remake sucks balls.

-FF III (SNES). Fantastic, this was what I like to call a 6 AM game. Meaning back in grade school I'd wake up an hour early to get in a solid hour of gaming before going to school. Locke, Edgar, Sabin, and Shadow were my favorite characters. FF III didn't have the same effect on me as FF II, but I still played through it a couple of times, and man that last stage where you have to control multiple parties was a doozie. Ending kind of bothered me.

-FF Legend II (GB). Hated it. Hard as balls, stupid leveling system, weapons that run out, and Apollo is impossible in my mind.

-FF Legend III (GB). Solid game, the only FF Legend game worth playing, cool story.

-FF V (SNES, translated and played on an emulator). This one is hard for me to judge. I just felt the storyline lacked any emotion, I never was drawn in, and I didn't really like the characters. Yes the job system kicks ass, but it's so bloody cheap when you get the Samurai job, all you have to do is keep using coin toss to breeze through most of the bosses. Still, I wish Square would have brought us this one, it would have helped feed the RPG drought of the 16 bit era. At one point they were even going to port it to the PC. BTW I did get the GBA remake, nothing special, still have never beaten ExDeath, too lazy to level up enough.

-FFVII (PS). OK, here's my deal with this one, I unfortunately had a third party memory card for my PS, and just as I was about to get out of Midgar it decided to *$&# up my save file, and from then on my saved game files only worked about 50% of the time. Pissed off and frustrated I committed the sin of going to the GameShark to whip through the game faster, big mistake. Ya I played through it cheats, and didn't enjoy it at all. One day I need to go back and play it without any outside help, but I don't know when I'll have the time. So this one is lukewarm with me.

-FF Tactics (PS). Sweetness. Never fully understood the storyline, and that sequence of three battles near the end where you have to deal with those rooftop assassins is ridiculous. PSP remake is awesome, still haven't beaten either version, again because I'm too lazy to level up enough.

-FFVIII (PS). Sucks total balls. I tried playing it, but I hated junctioning and thought the story was dumb.

-FFIX (PS). Ahhhh, this was such a relief to me when I saw this game, a return to the crystals. I loved this one, everything about it screamed old school FF, and I enjoyed it. It got a little annoying at the end and it felt kind of rushed, similar to how FF7 feels at the end when the programmers needed to wrap things up. But I highly recommend this one.

-FF III (DS). Meh, that's all I have to say, just didn't do it for me. It felt a lot like FF I mechanics wise, for some reason I just can't go back to the NES era, don't know why. I think the job leveling system is kind of screwy, and the story sucks.

The later games (X, XII) I've only played sparingly, boarding school and college didn't really allow enough time to give to finishing games like these. I'd like to hear what you all think as well.
Peace

FFVIII was my first FF and i love it,I know anybody hate it but I don't care I liked the setting and story.
The best FF is FFX for me because the story was awesome graphic was good and the fighting system just felt right!
Sadly that FFXII is only for PS3

Heck of a post. That sucks you had to go the gameshark route with VII, but I know how frustrating save files can be. You should definitely give it another go when you have the time. You definitely lose a connection with the game when you have to cheat (or cheat for cheats sake)


When you get a chance you should really play through X. It really has a great story and a main character that is only borderline annoying.

I didn't notice crisis core. I have to say as much as I like the series... This game... Parts of it can be hard as crap... And after awhile to me it got very repetitive and I couldn't wait to beat it... Now that I have, I like going through it again to see how much I missed. Which is quite a bit.

It does give you quite a bit of information though and a lot of good story.

Actually I'm playing through Crisis Core right now, it seems really easy to me for some reason, granted I don't have it on hard mode but still... The battle system is fun and works nicely, although I find myself rarely using my spells or abilities, except for the occasional 'Cura' now and again. Zack is a great character, although at times the dialogue is just plain terrible. The voice acting is surprisingly good, and the music is great. It kind of sucks knowing that the main character is going to get killed at the end...

And yes I will space my paragraphs from now on, thanks for the 'pro tip'. Reminds me of GamePro magazine and their 'pro tips' back in the day, what a crappy magazine that was. But the subject of video game magazines is another topic for another day (DieHard Gamefan, EGM, and NP are the best)

I love Final Fantasy, but I hated 12, and I'm not sure anymore if I'm gonna buy 13. It doesnt feel like Final Fantasy to me anymore. It Feels more like .hack, or an Action-RPG.

I used to be a huge mega die hard final fantasy fan, final fantasy II and III for snes I probaly played more then all my other super nintendo games combined, FFVII same deal , loved it, loved 8 and 9, I even liked mystic quest in a unique diferent sort of way.

10 I was very on the fence about, it had good graphics for its time, it had a few interesting characters, it had a decent story, the game play just didnt feel very final fantasy, and the fact they took out the over world map was lame, over all, I didnt really care for this too much, it was playable but thats about it.

ff11 I didnt play because I was addicted to everquest at the time and I didnt want to "betray" my MMO of choice - now looking back, a mmo FF would be ok, but not a numbered sequel in the series.

FF12 made me want to eat broken glass while having a red hot poker shoved in my ass, the story was weak, the gameplay was weak, the characters were weak, it felt like everquest or WoW but not online ( as yahtzee would say " its a murmorpager !!! ) , if I would have played this game and no one told me it was FF and it wasnt on the box or title screen I would have never, in a million years guessed it was a final fantasy game - if games can go to hell, I hope this game burns in the deepest darkest most fire filled pit.

after the abomination that was 12, I have no desire to play final fantasy 13, especily since they anounced they would be keeping the combat system of final fantasy 12.

but...whats wrong with .hack?

I was introduced to the FF franchise through FFVI (not III; VI dammit!) and it's still my favourite in the franchise. However I think that the series har really gotten stale over the years; after FFVIII it started getting boring and by X-2 I'd pretty much given up hope.

I still play VI, VII and VIII every now and then but right now I'm more into Shadow Hearts.

Hey strider_med459
Not really sure how you can call yourself a "true" FF fan when you seemed to dislike (or started or never finished) some of the FFs'. Maybe cause it was something in your statements or I just misinterpreted it. I dunno.
I'm not trying to start something here, your history on FF obviously shows your knowledge of the series and everyone has the right to thier own opinion. But there is a few things I'd like to say.

In reguards with the original Nes titles is understandable, some people have started with the Snes or PS back. So maybe that could be a reason why its hard to play or even appreciate them. Personally me, I started with the original FF and worked my way up. So playing the different games seeing what each one had to offer in terms of battle systems, to story and characters, it was interesting to me seeing that these games never really took after one another.

The fact that you've played to Adventure and Legend sereies surprises me. Not many people I know have played them. Or liked them for that matter.

Not gonna say much on the Snes ones, to me the Snes is the best system out there and IV through VI were all good. VI is my favorite.

In the PS era, meister is right. Defenitily go back and play VII again. Just without the Shark.
As for VIII. Now I'm a huge fan of VIII. Although the drawing system was kinda boring and the fact that you had to make your own weapons not really buying and equiping among some things. There were other apsects about VIII that most people either dont know or dont care about. The Junctioning system I took as a welcoming change, maybe not for the series but for this game. The abilities given by your GFs' and the Card Mod is a marvelious combo. Having all the "ga" spells and even some like "Tornado, Pain, and Meltdown" before you even leave balamb garden, was a nice challenge and brought more fun for me everytime I replayed. Also the ability to get the Lionheart, Squalls ultimate weapon by the first disc was also a fun challenge. Anyways, the junctioning system gave the player to customize how he or she fit. Even if you didnt like the story or characters, its always interesting to see what you can make of it. That is, if you gave it a chance.

Last, about the later PS2 games. I enjoyed them, though the series was defenitly changing more outside the box. FFX had enough to keep you around but as for some of the side quest and mini games, eh. Dodging thunderbolts in the thunderplains and crazy ass birds on a chocobo is not my idea of fun. And all that just for characters ultimate weapons.
I've played alittle of XI and the only reason I say I dont care for it, is due to the fact that I'm "not" the biggest online gamer. In reguards to XII, I found it to be a mesh of alittle of the old and new. Though the gambit system sometimes got on my nerves, some ultimate weapons were just a bitch to find that is if I cared about all of them in this game. And I dont know if its just me but XII kinda reminded me of Star Wars episode IV. But anyways, a cool thing about XII is that Gilgamesh makes an apperance. I dunno, I thought he was cool.

Well, thats all I'm gonna say. I dont mean to write a story here. But, all I'm trying to say here is that give them all a chance. Personally me, I havent played a Final Fantasy game that I really can say I hated. I do think that the series is going downhill and I think they should have ended it with XII. Not that I'm saying I'm not gonna play another but just look forward to more system changes and overall outlook on the Final Fantasy series.

~Myris Phare

The Shadow Hearts game are really good. Glad to see another fan out there.

~Myris Phare

FF1- Awesome game, doesn't need to change a thing, perfect balance (except Red Mages suck)

FF2- I found watching childbirth to be more exciting than this game

FF3- My personal favourite game in the entire franchise. Its a shame the DS version, while it was cool, was nowhere near as awesome as the NES/Famicom one

FF4- Never liked this one, I don't see what's so awesome about it but that's just me, so *shrug*

FF5- Good game, we need more FF games with job systems

FF Legend series- HOLY SHEEEET Best portable RPG ever made.

FF6- Kinda over rated by good nonetheless.

FF7- People seem to hate this one game too much. Sure the spinoff movie and games were total piles of festering loads of splooge, hate them, leave this game alone.

FF8- Die

FF9- You too

FFX- Playing this game was like eating glass, only it wasn't as fun

FFX-2 This was worse, how dare you ruin the perfect job system FF3 had. No amount of T&A can save your ass

FF12- Never played, but not holding my breath

FF Tactics- Okay, you did well, for that you may live.

Whatever...

Nothing O.o, I was just using that as an example of how it plays to me. I play Final Fantasy for the JRPG, not this new action-Rpg crap.

I think the cold hard truth is that we're going to see a lot more of the action RPG games ala FF XII in the future. As video games further solidify their stance as a mainstream entertainment medium, smart game developers realize that the old school JRPG turn based games occupy a small niche, whereas the more exciting action RPG games cater to a much wider audience over here. So which do you think has more earning potential??? At least this is the case in America, I presume Japan still goes ape shit whenever a new Dragon Quest game is released. Back to the US, let's face it people, the days of games being a geek's territory are over, and the type of games we are getting these days is just a repercussion of that... One has to look no further than the advertisements in video game magazines. 10 years ago the only ads I used to see were video game related, nowadays I'm bombarded with ads for Gilette razors and Gatorade, it's almost like I'm reading a frieking Sports Illustrated. Action games sell, GTA IV, COD 4, etc...

I miss the days where it wasn't cool to play games (except piece of crap games like Madden) and I spent countless hours going through gems like FF II (IV), Lufia, Breath of Fire, Lunar, Shining Force, Dragon Slayer... That's not to say the classic JRPG is dead, far from it, look at the new Dragon Quest games coming to the DS and the Blue Dragon series on the DS, still I think we'll be seeing less and less of these games in the future, and more of the action RPG variety.

And to address the comment questioning my FF fan status, OK I'll admit I'm lacking when it comes to the PS2 era and a big chunk of the PS era, but as for the 16 bit and 8 bit era I know those games inside and out. I've played the original NES games translated on an emulator, and various fan translations of FFIV, V, and VI. Anyway, peace out.