Three decades ago, Final Fantasy was released for the Famicom in Japan. Its success saved a dying company and spawned a massively successful and (mostly) beloved series, launching Squaresoft into position as a giant among RPG developers. Few video game series are able to stir as much passion in the people whom it has touched, for better or for worse. Divisive as it is, everybody has a favorite, and nobody has a weak opinion on the matter. With as much passion as people have for the series, I thought it only appropriate that we re-experience the games we love so much to celebrate Final Fantasy's important birthday.
Five years ago, I created a thread to celebrate the Final Fantasy series's 25th anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been five whole years, but we've now arrived at the beginning of Final Fantasy's 30th anniversary year. Not only is 2017 Final Fantasy's 30th anniversary, it's also Final Fantasy 7's 20th anniversary, and Final Fantasy 5's 25th anniversary as well. Square Enix is kicking off a year of celebration starting today, so it's only natural that we begin ours today as well.
My goal for this thread is for our community to use it to come together and not only replay their favorite entries in this series and document their journeys over the coming year, but also for people to try some of the games they may have never tried before. Most importantly, I want everyone to be able to share their memories and experiences of playing these games together.
You're free to join in whenever you like, and play whichever games you like. The thread is intended to run for the entire year, so there is no rush.
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People asked for my opinions about which versions are best to play, so here goes.
1: PSX. Of the modern releases of the game, the PSX version is the one that I feel achieved the best game balance. It retains the D&D style spell charge system, and isn’t as much of a walkover as the PSP version. GBA would do in a pinch, although it does replace the spell system with MP.
2: PSX. This game is notorious for a stigma that you have to beat yourself up to progress. This isn’t true, never was, but the just as with 1, I think the PSX version of 2 achieves the best balance. The PSP version is too easy, to the point where spells level up too fast and end up costing more MP earlier on than you really want them to.
3: NES. The DS/mobile/PC/PSP version makes significant changes to the core systems, changes up the order in which you get jobs, mucks with the balance significantly in order to accommodate 3 enemy battles instead of the original 9. The NES version still feels quite modern, in my opinion.
4: You have two very distinct choices with FF4.
The DS/mobile/PC 3D remake is my favorite version of the game. It overhauls the battle system and encounter design and gives an interesting if not somewhat cumbersome progression system for the player to use.
For 2D versions, I strongly recommend the PSX version above the others. It retains the balance of the original Japanese release. The PSP version is insultingly easy, although nice to look at.
5: GBA. This version has a good translation, and doesn’t really suffer in any major way in comparison to the SNES version.
6: I prefer GBA. You can’t go wrong with either the SNES or GBA versions, though. The GBA version fixes many bugs with the game, but has downgraded music (which can be fixed with a fan patch, if you’re so inclined). SNES version is nearly perfect and can also be patched to fix many of the bugs fixed on GBA. Avoid PSX at all costs, the load times are atrocious.
7: Any. The Steam and PS4 versions have cheats and fast forward.
8: Any
9: PC/mobile version is preferred, because it has an option to skip the pre-battle camera rotation which adds several seconds to the start of each fight.
10: PS4 or PC are preferred over the PS3/Vita versions because they have a music selector. PS2 version doesn’t have the international sphere grid.
10-2: Any version of the remaster is good here.
11: PC.
12: Zodiac Job System is the best, but I’m sure the remaster will take the crown.
13: PC, although PS3 has 1080p movies.
14: PC.
15: PS4.
