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[Muffdraul]

It's hard not to recommend FFVI. I started with FFIV, but I didn't care much for it. FFVI was the one that made me a fan.

20 years later, I think it's a good place to start because it was the first major change in the series that took it in the direction that led it to where it is today. Sakaguchi created the franchise and directed the first five, and they were basically a variation on the same motif. Very D&D influenced, that kind of old school pseudo-medieval LotR inspired swords & sorcercy thing. With FFVI he was promoted from director to executive producer, and other people started directing them and taking them to weird new places. But FFVI can sort of serve as an encapsulation of what FF was like back in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras.

 

[jholmes]

Yes. It's utterly mediocre by today's standards. Every character and even the story is generic with some of the worst plot twists I've ever seen. I played the game this or last year and it's just not 'good' without nostalgia.

I would apply this paragraph to FFXIII (except I would change "generic" to "generic and yet somehow impossible to follow," and perhaps "nostalgia" to "being in a perpetual state of denial").

 

[CentroXer]

I would play them in this order:

FFVI - best 16 bit FF game
FFVII - terrible graphics but still excellent game
FFVIII - improves upon FF7 a lot. Great characters music and atmosphere. My favorite
FFIX - worse than FF8 but still good
FFX - first Final Fantasy on PS2. It's a good one.
FFXII - different from the other Final Fantasy games, but still great

FFXIII - uh it's ok but not mind blowing.

 

[DylanTackoor]

The best FF is the PS4 FF VII, right guys?

 

[Jon of the Wired]

What the absolute fuck?

This kind of nonsense is beyond opinion and just saying stuff to get a reaction.

None of the FF numbered games are absolutely terrible outside of FF14 1.0. Even though the 13 series is a banal mediocre chore to play, and i wished it would just die and lay in the annals of history, even that is not something i can say is objectively bad no matter who you are. The battle system can be enjoyable, and the music is very nice.

I recognize that it's not necessarily a common opinion, but it is sincere. I genuinely did not enjoy those games when I played them, and would not recommend them to others. I accept that other people like them, but honestly I find it somewhat baffling (I'm tempted to say it has a lot to do with what age they were when they played them, but I don't have any evidence to back that up).

They're all absolutely hideous to start with (though I'd be hard pressed to think of any game with 3D elements from that generation that looks even passable). Their plots are largely incoherent (FFVII is the worst for this, just being a random jumble of tropes and cliche, but both VIII and IX come completely off the rails by the ending). Their casts are mostly irritating and unsympathetic. The battle systems are fine, I suppose, in that they don't differ much from previous FF games, but if I want to play an ATB game I have lots of better options. I could continue listing things about that games I don't like, but in the end I just didn't find them fun.

 

[thesaucetastic]

Spoiler

play ff4 first, the other games will make you not want to play the classic ones. If you don't like that then play ff7

This was long, but I enjoyed it. It's the quintessential JRPG story.

 

[finalflame]

I would play them in this order:

FFVI - best 16 bit FF game
FFVII - terrible graphics but still excellent game
FFVIII - improves upon FF7 a lot. Great characters music and atmosphere. My favorite
FFIX - worse than FF8 but still good
FFX - first Final Fantasy on PS2. It's a good one.
FFXII - different from the other Final Fantasy games, but still great

FFXIII - uh it's ok but not mind blowing.

Please expand your logic here, because that's a damn bold statement.

 

[GoldenCrow]

As you are new to the series FF6 is he best starting point and in my opinion easily the best game in the series.

Many people rave about FF7 but it hasn't aged well and can be quite bad if you haven't got nostalgia driving you forward. The game came out during that awkward period where they had gone 3d but analogue sticks hadn't been implemented and the game suffers badly from it, if you can get over that it is a very good game and worth playing anyway.

 

[theecakee]

As someone who has jumped on the FF bandwagon relatively recently...past like 3-4 years or so, only thing I do have to say is FF7-9 have not aged well at all. If you weren't around in the hay day of early 3D graphics, these games will be pretty rough to get into.

 

[Zukuu]

As someone who has jumped on the FF bandwagon relatively recently...past like 3-4 years or so, only thing I do have to say is FF7-9 have not aged well at all. If you weren't around in the hay day of early 3D graphics, these games will be pretty rough to get into.

FF9 aged really well.

 

[legacyzero]

You guys and your golden age of Squaresoft. Any golden age that includes FFVIII but not FFIV, FFV, FFVI and Chrono Trigger is no golden age of mine.

OP, the first post got it. Play VI. Unless you're convinced you love the jaggies in which FFVII is a good enough place to start too.

You're talking something differenct. Golden age (IMO) is their PSX time-frame where seemingly everything they made was damn near pure gold. I only began to play Squaresoft games during the PSX era (Starting with FF7), which let me to experiment with their older titles (CC, FFIV, FFVI, Super Mario RPG, etc)

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

Final Fantasy is what Dragon Quest should be in the west.
Yes, I'm salty.

I could not agree more.

DQ>FF

 

[jholmes]

You're talking something differenct. Golden age (IMO) is their PSX time-frame where seemingly everything they made was damn near pure gold.

Maybe you and I have different tastes or maybe you're just looking through things with rose-coloured glasses but I would never refer to Chrono Cross, Saga Frontier, Threads of Fate, Legend of Mana, Ehrgeiz, Tobal No. 1 or even my beloved Chocobo Racing as "pure gold."

 

[Jolkien]

Final Fanmtasy IV, VI and IX are all must play. If someone would tell me they can only play one.. it'd be either FFIV the complete collection or FF IX. Probably FFIX. Classic final fantasy story besides one at the end thing near the end but it doesn't impede the enjoyment of the game.

Spoiler

Necron comes out of nowhere

. One if not the best ending in my opinion of all game of the series.

All in all a good adventure. Battle system is a bit slow but if it's your first game it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[legacyzero]

Maybe you and I have different tastes or maybe you're just looking through things with rose-coloured glasses but I would never refer to Chrono Cross, Saga Frontier, Threads of Fate, Legend of Mana, Ehrgeiz, Tobal No. 1 or even my beloved Chocobo Racing as "pure gold."

Versus today's standards from them?

 

[Weltall Zero]

Yes. [FFIV] is utterly mediocre by today's standards. Every character and even the story is generic with some of the worst plot twists I've ever seen. I played the game this or last year and it's just not 'good' without nostalgia.

FF9 aged really well.

The juxtaposition of these two statements is nothing short of ironic.

 

[Zukuu]

The juxtaposition of these two statements is nothing short of ironic.

...because? FF9 has a somewhat decent plot and with Vivi a very deep, interesting character. It's an odé to the spirit of FF - just modernized. FF IV falls short of everything. I hated FF9 when it was released, btw. I replayed 9 like 3 years ago and 4 a year ago, so I don't think I'm an overly fanboy of 9. It's just better (by today's standards). Also, FF9's graphics are bearable - in particular on emulator.

 

[QuantumZebra]

Final Fantasy is what a lot of people mean when they say JRPG, so it's certainly worth exposing yourself to the series. That said, the only ones worth playing (in my opinion, of course) are IV, VI, X, and XII.

I and II don't have much in the way of actual characters or plot, and I'm not sure if III has ever been released in English. The PS1 games (VII, VIII, IX) are universally terrible. They were pretty bad when they came out, and they've aged abominably. I haven't actually played any of the various XIII games, but it sounds like they're a hot mess.

Edited: I'm an idiot, III had that DS remake. It's II that's never had an English release.

what the actual fuck