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I was trying to come up with my favorite Final Fantasy games, only counting the first 10 numbered games. I think everyone can agree that after Final Fantasy X, the series took it's most radical turn yet, and stopped being classic Final Fantasy. Here's my list, 1 being my favorite:

1. Final Fantasy VII (lame choice, I know...)
2. Final Fantasy IV
3. Final Fantasy VIII
4. Final Fantasy V + VI (just can't pick one over the other)
5. Final Fantasy X
6. Final Fantasy II
7. Final Fantasy IX
8. Final Fantasy I (I surprised myself putting this at the bottom)

I love all of them, and have played through them multiple times, so ranking my personal favorites was tough. I omitted Final Fantasy III because I've only played about 50% of it (if that), so it's hard to take a stance on it. It's definitely the most technically impressive of the Famicom trilogy though.

How about you guys?

1. VI
2. IX
3. VII
4. III
5. IV
6. V
7. I
8. II
9.
10.

I haven't played through VIII or X yet, so I can't really judge them for now. I can easily say VI is my favorite, but The rest of the list was hard to sort (except putting II on the bottom, remakes aside that game is truly awful). In fact, if we had one of these threads in the future all of my answers might end up in different places.

I also feel like FFI should be higher, but it's just at too much of a disadvantage tech wise when compared to its follow up games that had similar play styles, but with added features and appearance.

Top Tier

X, IV,IX

High Tier

VII, V, VIII, I

Low Tier

III, II

Haven't played yet Tier

VI

Why not include XI, XII, and XIII?

I just started playing XII. I've only played a couple hours, but I'm surprised it doesn't have a better reputation. I really like the new fight system, the artistic direction is fantastic, and the story is looking to have some good political intrigue. Admittedly, it is a bit weird to have a serious story of betrayal and political corruption one minute and then fight some silly looking cactoid the next, but that's just the bizarro world of Final Fantasy for you. I think XII is too often overlooked.

J T wrote:Why not include XI, XII, and XIII?

I just started playing XII. I've only played a couple hours, but I'm surprised it doesn't have a better reputation. I really like the new fight system, the artistic direction is fantastic, and the story is looking to have some good political intrigue. Admittedly, it is a bit weird to have a serious story of betrayal and political corruption one minute and then fight some silly looking cactoid the next, but that's just the bizarro world of Final Fantasy for you. I think XII is too often overlooked.

I disliked the Gambit system, because the game was wresting away control from you. Even the character you were controlling did little. It didn't help you had to purchase gambits, which was essentially saying "buy competent party members". I lost the will to play at the second advancing wall demon, and it became "stare at Fran's ass- the game"

Dylan wrote:1. VI
2. IX
3. VII
4. III
5. IV
6. V
7. I
8. II
9.
10. .

i like this list.

AmishSamurai wrote:Top Tier

X, IV,IX

High Tier

VII, V, VIII, I

Low Tier

III, II

Haven't played yet Tier

VI

I was going to tear into you for not having VI in God tier but then I saw that it was in the "haven't played yet tier". Which begs the obvious question why aren't you playing it right now?

01. VI
02. IX
03. IV
04. I
05. V
06. II
07. III
08. X
09. VIII
10. VII

I could fight with myself over the order of my top 5, but at the end of the day, they all would remain in my top five regardless of order.

J T wrote:Why not include XI, XII, and XIII?

I just started playing XII. I've only played a couple hours, but I'm surprised it doesn't have a better reputation. I really like the new fight system, the artistic direction is fantastic, and the story is looking to have some good political intrigue. Admittedly, it is a bit weird to have a serious story of betrayal and political corruption one minute and then fight some silly looking cactoid the next, but that's just the bizarro world of Final Fantasy for you. I think XII is too often overlooked.

XII is a pretty solid game, but I didn't want to include it because it's not a Final Fantasy game to me. I once read that the game was originally intended to center around Basch, and the story was going to focus on his story, with his brother and what not (the political intrigue aspect of things). Why this was dropped (if it was ever true) in place of one of the worst main characters I've ever been exposed to and sky pirate nonsense is beyond me. XI is dribble, and XIII is somehow worse. XIV speaks for itself, I think.

FFVI
FFIV
FFV
FFVII
FFIX
FFII
FFI
FFX
FFVIII
FFIII

Quite frankly, I think the top three aren't too controversial. Nobody hates any of them.

These are some of the more controversial placements on my list, so I should explain myself:

-FFII - It gets extra points for pioneering the "underground resistance against evil empire" trope, as well as having a unique (albeit broken) level up system.

-FFIII - It went this low because it represented a huge leap backwards in story-telling from FFII, since you get four generic Onion Knights, instead of the characters in FFII. This game also just wasn't fun to play.

-FFX, FFVIII - I rated these low, because they seem to be very run of the mill RPGs given their time frame. Plus they felt like they emphasized style over substance--as if Square were trying to compensate for boring game mechanics with high production values.

-FFVII - It hasn't aged well, but it was a revolutionary game and it amazed me with its production values when it first came out.