Favorite Final Fantasy!

[FelixMordou]

I have to say that my favorite FF is tied between Five and Twelve. I loved the customization you could do in Five, and the Gambits in 12 are what got me interested in programming and logic.

[ArnoldSewerby]

8 is my favourite, I loved the world, loved the music, loved the broken junction system.

7 is a very close second, between the two of them I lost so many hours on multiple playthroughs growing up, but thanks to a big heap of nostalgia 8 will always be my favourite.

[Commander_Joir]

mine is IX with amazing music

[Drann]

8 is my favourite, I loved the world, loved the music, loved the broken junction system.

7 is a very close second, between the two of them I lost so many hours on multiple playthroughs growing up, but thanks to a big heap of nostalgia 8 will always be my favourite.

A large part of what put me off with 8 was the Junction System, once you knew what you were doing it became extremely easy to become very powerful very early into the game. The only way to make the game challenging was to pointedly play poorly and not take advantage of all the refine abilities you get etc. That said there's probably mods for the PC version that will up the difficulty, so it might be worth giving it another go. I recently played through FF7's New Threat Mod and it was a very refreshing experience for me, speaking as a long term veteran of the game.

[Dex_Arcana]

I'll be the oddball. I loved Siefer and Quistis, Rinoa and Squall's character designs etc. So FF8 for me was my favorite, though FF10 is a close second and a close third is FF7. I loved FF8 so much i even bought and still have most of the action figurines.

Guess I'll be another oddball. 8 had a charm in the series that hasn't been seen since then. 7 is a close second though.

[Dad the Witcher]

Im probably alone in this one, but my fav is 8...I have played ff3 - ff13 (ff13 is where the series died imo)...7 is a close second!

[Nashoba]

For me it has to be IX. The characters were great. The world just had some special something that I haven't gotten from any other Final Fantasy. The battle system and learning new abilities from gear was pretty great for me too. Tactics is probably my number 2 but I have a soft spot for tactics games in general.

[Kraneloran]

FF7 is my favorite. I also really liked 9 and tactics.

This...
just This

[ArnoldSewerby]

A large part of what put me off with 8 was the Junction System, once you knew what you were doing it became extremely easy to become very powerful very early into the game. The only way to make the game challenging was to pointedly play poorly and not take advantage of all the refine abilities you get etc. That said there's probably mods for the PC version that will up the difficulty, so it might be worth giving it another go. I recently played through FF7's New Threat Mod and it was a very refreshing experience for me, speaking as a long term veteran of the game.

I think a big part for me was when I was young I didn't have the internet and it felt like I had ''broke" the game, I didn't realize that it was so easy for everyone to do.

[James27]

I can never decide between FFVII and FFX. FFVII was the first FF I played, and I thought it was the best thing ever! There are very few games who's world and characters I got invested in as much as FFVII. And the same goes for FFX. They're huge parts of my childhood and teenage years.

[RepentantSky]

As someone who has actually played every mainline FF game to at least some extent (looking at the MMO's for that one, the rest I've played and beaten several times) as well as some of it's branching games, I'd say it has to be FFIX or Tactics with FFVI and FFX falling not hard behind, but I think tactics overall would be my favorite if only because I like the story a tad bit more than IX.

[Broken Mirror]

Short version: 8 - 6 - 7 - 1 - (5) - (4) - (3) - (9) - 10 - 2

I'm not so sure about IX, as I want to give it another chance to grow on me. I have not completed III, IV, or V and hate the ability system of II.

---

Long version:
My story with FF may be a bit convoluted.

I, as a few others here, started with VIII shown to me at a friends house. This was the sole reason for me to buy a PSone.

Like with so many other game series, the first one you play is always something special. I never really found the junction system to be broken, but an interesting idea albeit a counterintuitive one. Your stats being directly tied to the amount of certain spells in your posession felt very contradictory, yes. It made you think a lot before using certain spells in battle. I also liked the setting, of course the music and the characters. I first played it mostly for the music and the cutscenes and didnt care much about character customization.

That being said, one can play the game without endless spell-drawing sessions. But if you do, the game gets pretty easy, yes. I'm not so sure about Omega Weapon though as I never found that certificate you get rewarding enough for me to try. It took me about 15 years to finally see the credits.

I think I played FFV next on ZSNES and was really disappointed to find out that every installment was a different set of characters and a whole different story. I later tried VI but the long, not skippable intro somehow discouraged me back then. I now love that game even more than VII. A few people say its (story-wise) basically the beta version of VII.

I believe I tried IX after that but was disappointed with its more childish looking style and set of characters.

Finally, unaware of its popularity (b/c no internet), tried VII and was pretty shocked to see how bad it looked compared to VIII. I stopped playing it for some time because of the dark tone, gritty looking world combined with those flat shaded characters and ugly G.F. designs.

I think i finished it twice since then and still like that 20(?) minute end sequence.

Next came X, which I played for a while, but I never found any connection to the characters and hated the sphere grid. That was my last FF game until I recently picked up XV from a friend (haven't started it yet) and started playing XIV because I want to get away from all those f2p titles and PSO2 isn't an option.

[Drann]

I think a big part for me was when I was young I didn't have the internet and it felt like I had ''broke" the game, I didn't realize that it was so easy for everyone to do.

To be honest I don't think that many people did figure it out to begin with, which may be why the Junction System released in the state it did. A friend of mine legitimately tried to finish the entire game using nothing but GF summons (it must have took him absolutely ages) and he actually did get pretty far, but for obvious reasons wasn't able to complete the game. Another guy I knew complained about it taking ages to draw magic from monsters, which is literally the only method he was using to obtain magic. Yet another person I spoke with used some of the refine abilities, but hated the card game and avoided anything to do with it, which of course is ignoring the easiest way to get items for refinement.

Squaresoft probably believed it'd take people longer to get to grips with things in general, and I guess looking back they might have been right for a large chunk of people.

[Broken Mirror]

I also did “overuse” GFs on my first play, fought every battle, didn't draw any GF from a boss didn't upgrade my weapons, and didn't pay attention to GF abilities. That savegame was pretty much ruined but I still have it to this day.

During my countless “start-overs” (which I never finished) I also tried the “hardcore draw” route. I still prefer that for those basic spells like blind, fire, ice, thunder and vita.

And, yes I didn't care much for Triple Triad on my first (and only for now) playthrough but refined Lv2 and 3 spells from items.

[Bella Desiare]

My choices for favorite Final Fantasy game is a toss-up between FF VI and FF VIII.

But neither of these were my first foray into Final Fantasy. So the one I remember with great fondness is Final Fantasy Mystic Quest for the SNES. Hey, what can I say? I got it used and played through it a couple of times. And sure, it was an entry-level version of the series but it was fun.

[ryan_]

A large part of what put me off with 8 was the Junction System, once you knew what you were doing it became extremely easy to become very powerful very early into the game. The only way to make the game challenging was to pointedly play poorly and not take advantage of all the refine abilities you get etc. That said there's probably mods for the PC version that will up the difficulty, so it might be worth giving it another go. I recently played through FF7's New Threat Mod and it was a very refreshing experience for me, speaking as a long term veteran of the game.

That's actually one of the things I liked most about it, along with Triple Triad. With a little research and some elbow grease you could max out your stats and have lionheart on Squall before the end of disc 1. I kind of like when you can break a game like that. FFT is kind of the same way -- you can come up with some incredibly broken combinations, but it takes research and a little legwork.

Overall I liked FF8, even the plot, except for one thing I want to bring up: it has *by far* the stupidest plot twist I've ever seen in a story. I'm talking about the "we were all best friends but we forgot" random plot twist. Groannnnnn. I kind of wish the Rinoa is Ultimecia theory was true and was actually in the game, too, because Ultimecia was a pretty out of nowhere and meaningless final boss.