17. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
While I welcomed the new races and classes, I was less of a fan of the Judge inclusion. Don’t get me wrong, the Judges themselves are awesome, from their look to the story behind them. Unfortunately, they add such a random element to the fights, that it made me not enjoy grinding nearly as much as I did with the original Final Fantasy Tactics. The journey to handheld did not always do the best for the qualities of the battles either. The stages could be pretty, but they did not seem nearly as epic as some of the first game’s battles, and they were definitely a lot shorter. Additionally, the difficulty that the first game is famous for was almost entirely gone from this game. It felt like they assumed the Nintendo audience would be younger than the PlayStation audience, so they needed to adjust for that.
16. Final Fantasy II
Final Fantasy II is a very important game in the history of the franchise. One of the reasons for that is that it is the first appearance of many mainstays such as Chocobos and Cid. Many of the monsters introduced in this title have been more iconic within the franchise than even the monsters introduced in the first game. But, by far, the most important thing that this game added to the franchise is making the game story-centric. The characters actually had their own personalities, they were not just a bundle of stats. And all the characters had real motivations to go to the next town or defeat the next boss. There was a good story in the original game, for its time, but if you played both of the first two games there was a noticeable growth in the story and character department.
I frankly love to grind, especially when there are continuous rewards to be gained. Yes, there is not much in the way of carrying over between the classes, but that urge to master every class is very strong for me. As a result, any of the Final Fantasy games that has a class system is going to maintain my interest for a very long time. Sadly, because this was such an early example of this system, the classes are not even remotely balanced and there are some classes that are either ridiculously underpowered or very overpowered.
14. Final Fantasy
This game is still a really good game to go back and play. I really have no qualms about recommending this game (especially the PSP remaster) for people to go back and experience the series right from the start. Even though some of the magical experience does not hold up, because they have become tried and tested tropes, it’s still a fun time. But for my personal list, there is still a lot of fond memories there even beyond the objective quality and what this game meant for the games medium overall. One of my favorite early memories of gaming was when all my characters changed to their hero classes, such as the Warrior to Knight and the Thief to Ninja. That was such a magical moment for me that I could not sleep the rest of the night, I had to keep on playing, even with school the next day. What a way for the series to kick off.
13. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
The timer system isn’t completely bad, they do give some major story reasons for it to exist, and it does lead to the capability for multiple endings. But without that system, this game would have possibly ranked much higher on the list. I really love the combat system, I really like the story, and there is a ton of really great fan service content (meaning special outfits from the series past, not nudity). I would not give up the contents of my Collector’s Edition of the PlayStation 3 game, but for playing the game itself I would recommend the PC version, it looks quite a bit prettier. Even though there are ways that you can extend the time in the game itself, I’m hoping for a PC mod that will allow me to turn that clock completely off. I want to spend more time with Lightning, she is a pretty great hero for the series, even if she was initially a hard sell for me in the first game.
So it comes down to the question of why this game would rank so low on my list when it’s the number one Final Fantasy game on so many others, and as a side question what would make it rank any higher. This game has one of my favorite JRPG fighting systems (but not my favorite one on this list) if the rest of the game held up to that quality it would certainly rank higher. When it comes to the characters and the overall story, it definitely deserves its place on my list. That’s to say that it may seem low at #12, but this is a list of all time Final Fantasy games, not a list of JRPGs of the PSOne era. Any other RPG would struggle to get into the top 10 on this list, so it’s not like I’m saying the game is bad.
So I generally disagree with the general consensus that this is a bad game, as you can tell by its placement on the list. But I will say that if I just stopped at beating the final boss as quickly and low leveled as possible, it would rank lower on my list. The more you dive deeply into this game’s esoteric systems, the better the game becomes, in my opinion.
So the pertinent question would be, why is this game in my Top 10, and what makes it better for me than it’s immediate predecessor? As underdeveloped or unlikable as the other characters are, the story is very focused on Squall and Rinoa. This gives the story a much more intimate feel than pretty much any other title in the series. And because their’s is a romance, it is particularly touching to me personally. As such, even if it doesn’t always succeed entirely, I am much more forgiving of it because it’s highlights are so very high. I’m a total sucker for romance, and I always will be, and it’s rather sad to me that it tends to not get explored as much in this series as I would have liked, or to quite the degree I prefer. So even if this game has a lot of really great things, and a lot of not so great things, it deserves being in my top 10 for it’s innovative battle system and it’s wonderfully sweet romance.
09. Final Fantasy X
What holds me back from boosting the game even farther up on the list due to the story is that the romance is not the strongest narrative element. There is a stronger narrative element which I am not very fond of, and that is the fascination with death and sacrifice. I recognize the value of these elements in literature, but I personally do not seek them out. They strike me as the fascinations of youth and the privileged (those who need to add drama to an undramatic life). It’s not just the focus on Yuna’s slow march to death, it’s how the whole story focuses on death and decay. It’s quite difficult to consider the world of Spira really all that worth saving. But that is my personal opinion and tastes.
With the sheer variety of those monsters that you can raise, you will have plenty to accomplish if you want to capture and raise them all (sounding a bit like Pokemon there). There are also several mini-games, a lot of fan service (especially in the arena fights), and multiple endings. So all told this game presents a ton of things to do, with a very open structure as to how and when you accomplish them. Of the three Final Fantasy XIII games, this also presented my most fun Platinum Trophy, because it never felt like an onerous grind. Even though there were a ton of things that I needed to do in order to earn every trophy, the game stayed fun throughout and I can’t wait to earn every trophy on the PC version. You can’t say much more for a game than that. I will always remain a passionate defender of this game, and a fan.
I really loved the refreshing feel that new style brought to the series. Even beyond the fact that I prefer to play as female characters in my games, it felt really interesting to see everything from a more female perspective. Because in this case all three of the girls in this game are much more feminine than either Lightning or Fang were in Final Fantasy XIII. Not every woman needs to act feminine, but it’s nice to explore that aspect of people instead of their gender just being incidental, as I felt it was at times with Lightning and Fang.
06. Final Fantasy IX
As you can tell from my list, this game ranks several spots higher than either Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy VIII, but when people think of the PS1 Final Fantasy games, this one usually only comes up if that person was a Final Fantasy fan before the 32-bit era. Perhaps some of that has to do with the fact that the PlayStation 2 was already being sold by the time this game was localized in the United States. But most of it seems to be about it’s aesthetic and style, which were a decided throwback to the Final Fantasy games of yore. This was the last major project the original creator was a part of before he left the company, it was another team that was making Final Fantasy 6-8. But I dearly love his last hurrah.
The Job system in this game has remained one of my favorite character building systems in gaming history. When I go back and play this game every few years, it remains the most pleasurable experience for me. Even after I have the story pretty much memorized, and I know all the Job requirements and abilities, I still have a lot of fun building up my characters.
04. Final Fantasy V
For better or worse all Sakaguchi games have a fairly simple story, usually involving the destruction of crystals that are protecting the world. The one major exception (within the Final Fantasy label) is Final Fantasy IX, which did not have crystals really play a major part of that story until the end. This game was almost a retelling of Final Fantasy IIIwith its crystal story and also it’s Job system. But this was definitely the more grown up version of that game. The story was definitely longer, but it was also a much more emotional and well-written journey. I would say that the story and characters are a little weaker than Final Fantasy IV, but the combat and character growth systems were much more advanced.
03. Final Fantasy IV
That extra story was my largest surprise about this game and remains one of my fondest gaming memories of all time. I got to (what I thought was) the ending of the game, only to find that I had to go underground instead, and I found a whole new set of dark crystals. Then, when I was certain that the game was wrapping up all over again, here I was traveling to the moon and to an all new overworld and set of dungeons. The game just kept on going and going, and I could not have been happier.
What has stayed with me the longest about this great game is just the wonderful feeling of occupying this world. This director’s previous works were all amazing games, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Vagrant Story. And even though the director had to be removed midway through this game (for supposed health reasons), his fingerprints are all over this game and I consider it to be his greatest work. The world feels very rich and lived in, and all the characters and races are extremely well realized. The Judges were first introduced in this game and now their appearance is as much a part of classic Final Fantasy lore as anything else. There were a lot of changes to this game, not only with the combat system but even with the Espers (summoned creatures). Almost every change was a change that I felt was for the better, in my opinion.
