Kotaku: A Beginner’s Guide To Final Fantasy, The Biggest RPG Series On The Planet

So what came after Final Fantasy VII? Any other masterpieces?

Let’s do another quick breakdown:

Final Fantasy VIII – The story of a grumpy teen named Squall and his adventures in military school. (And in prison. And space. And a time-compressed alternate reality.)
Final Fantasy IX – A medieval throwback chock full of wizards, knights, and Shakespearean dialogue.
Final Fantasy X – The one with Tidus. Dark, haunting, and full of water.
Final Fantasy XI – A massively multi-player online game. Fun if you’re into that sort of thing.
Final Fantasy XII – A single-player massively multi-player online game. Fun if you’re into that sort of thing and you don’t like other people.
Final Fantasy XIII – A big hallway.
Final Fantasy XIV – A failed MMORPG that Square plans to totally revamp and release again later this year.

[Ranma1]

My favourite series of all time.

I still remember when FF games "used to" have amazing stories and you could control all characters...

[Irishguy95]

Don't worry man, Versus might have that(and you can control all characters at least) and world map/airships/chocobo's.... .etc

[Dark-vash]

Woot? How can you control all characters in an in Versus? That was possible with turned based combats, where every action was selected by you, later games, although you can control every character, you could only control the actions of one character at time and the others were controled by AI using certain configs, gambits or Paradigm Shift.
Versus will suffer from the same problem that 12 and 13 suffered, you will only be able to control 1 character !

[Irishguy95]

Lol, you could ALWAYS only control one character at once, how are you supposed to control two at once? It's impossible. FFXIII let you control one character per fight, in Versus you can switch who you are using on the fly

Nomura made a point that you can even setup combos by having the attacks lead on to one another

[Dark-vash]

I'm pretty sure that you can change Leader on FF13 during the fights.

[DanielBryan]

My Final Fantasy meter.
1:OK.
2:OK,with added story.
3:Never played it.
4:Excellent.
5:Good.
6:Excellent.
7:Excellent.
8:Good.
9:Better than 8.
10:Better than 9.
10-2:I don't play dress up games.
11:Never played it.
12:Good.
13:Alright.
13-2:Good.
Vs13-2:Marty McFly can't travel that far ahead.
14:Online FF's are a no no for me.

[NoGunz]

" Vs13-2:Marty McFly can't
travel that far ahead"
LMFAO!

[DanielBryan]

Whoops,I meant Vs13.Don't know why I put the '-2' in there.

[showtimefolks]

i hope moving forward the quality for these games get better like last gen

[segamon]

the Fantasy was Final, with Final Fantasy X.

[LightofDarkness]

What are oft touted as the best in the series are getting a bit long in the tooth now, and it becomes increasingly difficult to recommend them to younger players as time goes on. VI, my personal #1, is now 18 years old, and it's starting to show. When I first played it (back in '95), it looked pretty good, as far as SNES games go. We didn't know of any better presentation style just yet (FMV/CG wasn't really en vogue or achievable yet) and people were just happy to be playing a game with a story more complex than "aliens are bad guys, shoot them to win". Recently I recommended that some younger gamers try to play it after they told me they hated XIII and all Final Fantasy games were rubbish, and guess what? They thought XIII was better. Yeah. Imagine that.

But also, put yourself in their shoes. These kids grew up in the PSOne-PS2 era and have been playing 360/PS3 games for the last 5 years or so. Literally EVERY game has better presentation than FFVI, and probably just about every PSOne FF game too. Yes, even VII is starting to show its age. Relatively speaking, it'd be like telling 14-17 year old me to go back and play Donkey Kong, then re-evaluate how good Super Mario Sunshine is(or whatever the newest platformer was at the time). Things have simply progressed too much since then, they weren't around at the time of release to appreciate what it did for the genre or gaming as a whole and nostalgia is not a factor.

At best, I could recommend they start with X, and if they liked the idea, work their way down. And I hated X.

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

Play the old games on a handheld that's what I would suggest (FFIV,V,VI,VII,VIII,IX and hopefully X HD soon for the Vita) the graphics benefit and your eyes wont hurt lol.

Also just to add the soundtracks sound amazing with a pair of headphones in and still rise above most JRPG's to this day. My favourites being IX,VII and IV.

[LightofDarkness]

I have no problems appreciating them, it's just the younger generations that don't seem to. It's quite sad, and it makes me feel old :p

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

I completely sympathize lol.
I'm 24 years old and got into FF during the PSone days.
I have only recently gone back to play the old games though (FF1-6) due to me sticking my nose up at the dated graphics in the past and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I am enjoying them.
The games still hold up even today, the soundtracks,story and characters are still brilliant.
I know what you mean when it comes to getting the kids to play these games though lol It's depressing to know I'm going to be one of those old guys going "they just don't make em like they used to" it's the same with most franchises that have carried over from last gen though, everything seems to of changed for a new generation that loves teh action gamez.
The only thing we can do is moan at them and moan about the good old days lol

[belac09]

so true, man it sucks that todays kids will never love the old 8 and 16 bit games. my nephew though is 14 and he loves all those old classics, maybe there is hope.

[TheLyonKing]

8 is still the greatest in my eyes, the characters are very complex and have meaning behind action what some people generalise e.g squall being moody is the view of someone who never played the game and understood his upbringing.

The junctioning system is slightly flawed but I enjoyed it.
Story
Characters
Extra
Design
Places
Weapons
Summons
They were all fantastic , It was a story that I invested a lot of hours in.

Ff in order of greatness (personal opinion)
Ff 8
Ff 9
Ff 6
Ff 10
Ff 3
Ff 7
Ff 4
Ff 1-2
Ff 5
Ff 12
Ff 11
Ff 13

[Irishguy95]

The character*

Squall was the only worthwhile character in FF8. The rest were Random fodder who were just...there

[Jensen]

FFX hands down the best in the series and i speak for every breathing thing in the world \o/. /s