Ranking Final Fantasy Games
I'm on a bit of a Final Fantasy bender lately. I'm playing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth with my wife whenever she's got the time in her busy schedule, and when she doesn't, I play Final Fantasy 6 Pixel Remaster on my laptop... which I also play at work (shh).
YouTube apparently picked up on that and recommended me some nobody's channel, ranking all the games from 1-16, and comparing with their community of about 500 people who also voted.
I disagreed with it so much, although I'm not a hardcore fan or anything. I haven't even played them all, and some I played but never completed. Others I've played several times. But I did find it unusual that not only did I disagree with their ranking order, but I couldn't even understand how they could have come to their conclusions - both the youtuber and its community.
Here's their results:
Here's mine:
(pictures taken from in-game galleries and screenshots)
10: I, II, III, IV, V
I can't say I've played them, because they're lame pixelly games. I've dabbled in III and V in the past but never got hooked. I hear very good things about IV though.
9: XV & XVI
See, I played XVI relatively recently, just a few months ago, and although I did actually enjoy it quite a bit, I can't tell you much about it from memory, and that's not because my memory sucks (although it does). It was just... quite forgettable.
XV suffers the same fate. Enjoyable, but entirely forgettable. There's always attempts of blowing you away with extremely bombastic visuals and battles. But after a while, it just wears off. Every fight is the same and way too button-bashy, and the music just gets so absurdly exciting it feels like it exploded itself into a corner and couldn't find its way back. Ever heard of subtlety??
All this was to hide what is basically a pair of very weak storylines and unrelateable characters.
Honestly, even though I can't remember that much... XVI is kinda garbage in hindsight, even though I definitely enjoyed it all the same.
As for XV, I definitely wouldn't skip it out as a Final Fantasy fan, but it wasn't even designed originally as a full game, they just made it that way as an afterthought. It shows.
This is 90% of XVI's entire gameplay.
8: VIII
Honestly, I just wasn't a big fan of this one. My FF peer and oldest friend puts this as no.1 for god knows what reason. The whole story at least to me was as forgettable as the main character other than just how much I dislike his emo facade. The battle system blows, and the characters need to take a 3-point turn if you walk into a wall at too sharp an angle. I think a lot of people put a lot of merit in the battle and level systems but... it's just not for me.
The music though... fantastique!
If I never have to see this character again I'll be a happier individual.
That's pretty much all I have to say about VIII
7: XII & XIII
Honestly I struggled to decide where to put these games. They are GOOD games. Excellent games. I just can't think of that much to say about them. I think there was a lot I didn't like such as XII's level up system and XIII's surprisingly weak story for a Final Fantasy game (especially given there were THREE parts to this game). Instinctively, XII is the far superior game between the two, but I can't put it above VII, nor below VIII, and they suffer for me personally for the same major reason: A meh story. Story is what Final Fantasy should be all about!
But yeah, XII definitely has the superior story, battles, world design, and general aesthetic feel compared to the mechanical sterility of XIII, and you have a ton of fun doing hunts and sidequests compared to basically none of that in XIII.
6: VII
This could very well be a far better game than I'm ranking it, to be fair. I only played it once, and a very long time ago. As I play the remake now, very fond memories come back, certain dialogue and locations (Costa Del Sol, Junon, Gold Saucer). But the feeling I get when I think back is kinda clunky and sticky almost. The colours felt overly smoggy and saturated (kind of the point in some ways), and I didn't realate so well with the character designs which were not as quaint as pixels, but not as realistic as full-size humanoids.
It just felt kinda ugly. That's why it was such a great thing a remake was being had. All the shortfalls that made me feel off about the game are overcome by time and technology. Story, game mechanics, materia system and such - great stuff, and of course I can't avoid the mention that this game has probably the single most influential and impactful moment in all of gaming history.
The more I play the remake, the more the original should climb up the rankings as I start to appreciate exactly what it was trying to accomplish with limited technology.
Ok, Enough
I've no idea how such a brief blog is approaching 1,000 words so I'm gonna cut it short here and give my TOP 5 in a part 2! I wonder if anyone can at least agree on a top 5 witih me...?
Honestly I'm as surprised as the next person that I didnt put 7 in the top 3 but that just seems to be the expected outcome rather than how I truly feel.
It was my favorite saga in my times of extreme vice. I played all of them until XII, then I didn't have time to follow the ones that came out later.
I agree with VII being in first place, it's a fascinating story but the game doesn't give you the full story. In order to get the whole story you need Final Fantasy Before crisis (NS), Final Fantasy Crisis Core (PSP), Final Fantasy VII (PS1) and Final Fantasy Advent Children (Movie).
I would leave the second place to FFXII for having such a large, colorful and good scale map and a relatively interesting story.
FFIX was very entertaining at the time, it could have position 3.
Then there are two others that I don't know what number they correspond to but I liked them a lot, these were Final Fantasy Agito and Final Fantasy Tactics.
Well you may not have noticed but this is only rank 10-6! I've got 5-1 coming too, so I think my general rankings are a bit different to the average which always puts VII as number 1. You raise a good point about VII and the other material but I always dismissed advent children as just fan fiction. I mean, I watched it SO many years ago and I don't recall it being particularly enjoyable.
And... too poor to own a psp back then XD
Honestly you havent missed out much! No 'bad' games, but none "incredible' either
FFIV is a very good game. The good things you've heard about it are right. It isn't anything complicated like the modern games or even FFVII but it's a classic fantasy RPG with a few twists that make it a worthy Final Fantasy title.
FFVI is something older fans tend to cherish more than even FFVII so I'm not surprised at the results. Personally though I didn't see the appeal. I'm actually more impressed by FFV than VI because of the improved Job Class System. I'm surprised FFVIII ranked so low but thinking back the gameplay itself was very annoying so I can understand. I'm much more of a story person as my own topics probably show haha. So FFVIII ranked higher just because I loved all the twists and emotions. Also the icicle to the chest scene was so iconic I suppose that miHoYo even paid homage to it in Honkai Star Rail with Cocolia doing the same thing to the MC.
You are right, VIII is deserving of more credit I suppose. But a lot of my rankings are extremely influenced by sentimentality of many years. For example, when I do another post from 5-1, obviously IX will be in the top 5 somewhere, but how much of that higher rank is due to the game being great, compared to just my own personal memories I associate with the game with rose tinted glasses?
I genuinely have no idea. I can't even trust my own ranking haha
So with VIII, I just don't have those rose tinted glasses. More like metallic blue-tinted glasses with a reminder of how annoying it was to work with the tacky junction system. I guess I didn't play it during a particularly meaningful stage of my life?
Regarding IV - I've got the pixel remaster on my desktop so I can't forget to play it after VI! Especially will now I have some confirmation it's worth it =D
Haha rose tinted glasses are definitely good at doing that. I have to agree because for me it was the opposite. I wasn't such a fan of FFIX so it was surprising to me how many people loved it. I was really interested in the time travel and lineage plotlines from FFVIII especially with all the theories that came up afterwards about how Ultimecia might be an alternate version of Rinoa made immortal by becoming a sorceress. There was also a theory that Ultimecia caused her own defeat by possessing Edea and in the process also saved Rinoa. Meanwhile FFIX was more about personal insecurities like Vivi and eventually Zidane wondering if they're real. Personally I didn't like how Zidane kept reassuring Vivi but as soon as it turned out he wasn't real either he goes total depression mode.
That's actually similar to what happens in IV but I thought Cecil handled it better. I guess when you get to it we'll see if you agree.
Thanks for the spoilers at the end there!! It's only been 30 years! lol
yeah Ok you do raise a point that the very nature of the plots' focuses are different, which can certainly appeal to different people. IX's kind of intrapersonal philosophising was just something that appealed to me before I even knew what philosophy was. They make such a point of it they even marketed each character with their own philosophical slogans 'To be forgotten is worse than death' and such.
But each character does explore these themes really well, and I felt so much for Kuja towards the end.
As an aside, the music can also determine the rank of a game for me perhaps more than most people, and I'd wager the majority of people would likely rank IX's soundtrack as number 1 - although to be fair, VIII's is borderline on par, I reckon! 7-9 really was the golden era
Lol sorry should have put up a spoiler warning.
Yeah I think most fans of FFIX really felt for Kuja. Often I feel he overshadowed the main characters. I mean he knew all about his origins and about Garland and fought against his fate. And to relate to the point about music I think many players were fans of his theme.
But personally I rank the VII-X era of Final Fantasy music on the same level. I agree it really was Square's golden age. But IV and VI also have some really good tracks too especially with the Black Mages rock remixes.
Cheers to that!
14 the best because it's the only one I played.
Logically that also makes it the worst ;)
I was really impacted by 7 and 10 as a kid, and 9 was kind of cool. I realized after trying to catch up with the games I missed, 12 and 13 and finishing 8 (cause my disc was F-ed my first playthrough)…I’ve just been chasing the original magic.
The remake is good, but I’m not sure anything else has been since 10, can’t speak for 14 and 11.
Haven’t played 15 or 16 yet. Meh
I only got halfway thought ff6 too cause rom crash. Looks more fun than 15 or 16 tbh
Since coming back to gaming Nier has really taken the spot of what FF used to be for me. Also pretty impressed with Persona series so far
1 FF10
2 FF7 remake
3 ff7
4 ff9
5 everything else I’ve played
Looking forward to part 2 😆
Persona has been consistently great, so I hear, along with Yakuza, which more than a handful of people are saying the best series ever, but... I'm very skeptical. Might be worth you trying given it's japanesey based.
Your ranking of FF isn't too controversial for me, I could easily see myself putting 10 at the top! I didn't though lol
Are you used to saying that yet? I hope the charm of it doesn't wear off for a very long time :)
Haha no not at all! I'm definitely saying it needlessly on many occasions. I used to think it was stupid when my friends would say 'my wife' even though I had been friends with their wives as long as themselves... but now I can see the appeal haha
In the little married life issues we've had, I'm very quick to say things like 'I'm your husband, that's my job' or something XD
😇🌈