What is your favorite and least Favorite Final Fantasy and why?

[Another]

Tied between FF3 and FF12. FF3 for the lack of story.

FF12...I actually like the story...when my friend played it. Because then I could actually remember what happened between the world's most tedious battles. Seriously, whenever I played it myself I always forgot what was happening. If there was ever an FF that NEEDED to be shorter, it was 12.

Favorite: Another tie between 6 and 10. Though right now I'm playing 8 and 9 and enjoying them thoroughly, despite 8's horrendous magic system. Also got 7, but I just really don't like the characters (Except Tifa ,Cid, and Red XIII). Was I the only one that was glad when Aries died?

 

[moretimethansense]

Favourate - IX I just love the world and the charecters more than I do in the other FFs, not that I dislike the others

Least favourate - XII Do I really need to explain?
Fine I hate it, with a passion, to the point when I see it on my shelf I hate the series a little more, I haven't played XIII because of how much I hate this one, I fear if XIII is as bad as some say it is it'll kill any love for the series I have left.

 

[Nero Haven]

Can I get away with just saying Vivi? IX was a game that grabbed me right from the start. I was a kid, staying at my friend's house, and their dad was a heavy gamer. He popped it in and I couldn't pull myself away from watching it. I had no idea what was going on, but it just looked so cool. Ended up spending way, way too much time on it when I got home and bought it immediately. Thinking back, I would have called it love of the nostalgia, but I've recently played it all over again, and while nowhere near as challenging as I thought it had been before, it was still an absolutely amazing game, even by today's standards. Also, Vivi is probably my favorite RPG character of all time.

FFIV is a close second. To me, it's the first game where FF started to really take shape, and the biggest real change in the formula in the series. Truly driven in the narritive, with in-depth, likable characters(Which kept dying, why must you make me cry, FFIV?), who really take lead, instead of being a bunch of generic heroes taking on vauge world-ending forces.

As for my least favorite...well, I wouldn't revisit XIII under any circumstances. Trainwreck of a game. The first 15 minutes of a game is supposed to 'catch' you - the entire first half left me asking 'when does this get good?', until I finally just gave up. I feel weird saying 'least favorite' since I hated XIII. And at the same time, I enjoyed all other main installments.

 

[Plinglebob]

My favourite Final Fantasy is either VIII, X or XIII. I'm biased towards VIII because it was the first one I really got into and have very fond memories of playing and talking about it with my friends. I liked X mainly because of the gameplay. I liked the sphere grid and the rigid, turn-based combat really but an extra layer into deciding what attacks to use, when to heal etc. I also enjoyed the very liniar path as it helped keep things flowing and the story focused. While I wasn't a fan of XIII's combat or levelling, XIII is still my favourite because of the characters. Each character is a lot more complex then people think and it does a nice deconstruction (I think thats the right word) of some of the typical gaming characters. The only character I didn't really like was Fang, but that is more the fault of the developers introducing her so late compared to everyone else.

My least favourite is definitely XII, but I think this is partly due to risen expectations. When I see Final Fantasy, I expect a "Save the World" plotline, decent characters, relatively liniar and turn-based combat. This, coupled with the fact it was getting 90% from various different reviewers I trusted meant I was hyped to play it. I then started playing it and found it was nothing like that. I didn't like the characters and the plot and gameplay felt very unfocused compared to what I was used too. One day I'll probably go and give it another try.

Am I the only person on earth who like FF X-2? Get past the first couple hours of hideous J-pop and it was really quite good. I am a 40+ hetero male so this was not easy for me. If you can get over the idea that the magic system is like dolly dress-up time it was possibly the best magic system they ever devised. And the silliest looking outfits were wonderfully powerful. Mascot was such a chore to get and a joy to use. I have just about talked myself into playing it again. Of course I kind of like Spirits Within also so my opinion is probably useless.

Don't worry, I liked both of them as well. Friend and I saw Spirits Within at the cinema and as we were walking out if was obvious we were the only ones who followed the stroy thanks to having to follow the random stories in the games

X-2 probably has my favourite combat/class mechanics and some of the jobs were a lot of fun (3 max level gamblers is very very funny). It a game where I think if they had come up with a new story with all the same mechanics it would have been better received.

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

Favourite game: FF VIII
I like the story, the way Laguna´s arc ia linked to Squall´s and i actually like Squall as a more introverted and brooding character. He´s like a silent bad-ass to me. I guess he could be perceived as emo by some people...Besides, it was my first FF game, so i guess nostalgia might be a factor.

Least favourite: FF X-2
A sequel, to me, is supposed to take advantage of what made the original great and improve on it. Either that or offer a different take the source material while honoring it. This game failed on both accounts.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Favorite?

XIII.

Loved the battle system, which is NOT on auto-pilot. At least not once you get the paradigms about 2 hours in. You hit "autobattle", sure. But you were swapping paradigms every few seconds and keeping track of all the things on the HUD. The story was okay, and I actually liked all of the characters except for Hope.

Least favorite?

III. (DS)

Oh. My. God. Fucking grindtastic as all hell, without having save points at the end of long dungeons with tough ass bosses at the end. I'm a fan of a challenge, but I'm not a fan of replaying an hour of gameplay after I die at a boss. Regular savepoints would have saved that game from this fate.

 

[iamthelizardqueen88]

My vote is for FFIX. FFX did give it a run for its money though but overall i think IX is superior in every way except graphics which i dont care about to begin with.
And my least favorite with out a doubt is FFXIII i could go on a tangent explaining why but Im too dumb to know how to make a spoiler box so some people would most likely get mad at the length of my complaints

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

Favorite: FFXII, mostly for the open-ended feel, like a single-player MMORPG. Some of the characters were good, a couple were lame.

Least: FFIX, mostly for the ridiculous characters and design. Plus it was a huge disappointment after VIII, which was my 2nd favorite.

 

[EllEzDee]

My favourite will have to be when it actually becomes final. I supposed that's just a fantasy.
*tumbleweed*

 

[Engarde]

I liked VIII, I couldn't quite tell why though, and XII, I liked the political story and all that in it.

Least favourite was X because Tidus is a whiny *****.

 

[Mr. Omega]

Favorite: Tactics. I found myself having a connection to my generic, random-named units as well as Ramza and the guys who join. A good story, a great job system, good characters and hard bosses (even if a few of them are throw-away grunts). Honestly, the only issue I had was when Orlandu joined, because he was absolutely GAME-BREAKING, but practically needed for the end-game.

Least: III. All they did was translate it to english and update the graphics, leaving us with NES-style RPG gameplay. Remember NES-style RPG gameplay? ENDLESS grinding, generic story, expensive equipment, embodiment-of-evil bad guys. It was good back then, but it didn't age well.

 

[lord.jeff]

My favorite is Final Fantasy 9, Zidane and Vivi are the best characters in the series, plus it is one of the few games that changes past locations do to story events instead of just constantly opening new ones which helps to evolve the world as well.

Least favorite is 10 and it's no't because of Tidus, it's because of the battle system. I found it way to repetitive constantly switching to Lulu for magic enemies the Auron for armored the strategy for random encounters was way to straight forward and reusing enemy models didn't help either.

 

[J-Do]

My favourite is definatley IX, I just love how light hearted it is (well moreso than others) and I like the fact it's got more of a fantasy feel to it (as opposed to say VII and XIII which have machines and stuff in them.)
I would have said XIII was my least favourite, but the more I play it the more it's growing on me. Plus I'm only like 3 hours in, so I would say it would be unfair to judge it yet.
My least favourite... now that's a harder question, as I enjoy all of the games that I've played (still to play I, II, III, VI and XII. I'm not counting the MMO's as I doubt I'll ever play them.) but if I had to choose, I'd go for VIII, purely because of the draw system. I just never really liked it.

 

[OliverTwist72]

Final Fantasy Tactics is my fav, FFXIII is my least fav.

I can't count the number of times I've played thru FFT, I'm currently playing thru a campaign nyow!