We’re ranking all 16 chapters in the amazing history of Final Fantasy. We only have our own thoughts on this, but we know we’re putting ourselves in danger.
Final Fantasy has been around for 36 years as of this writing. There is only one thing scarier than that. What makes it different is that this piece will be much older if you read it years from now. If you’re young, that might sound like a story. If you’re old enough, though, you might start to think of yourself as a myth. It’s crazy either way.
Fans of Final Fantasy are known for having strong views. How could we not have thoughts? There are now 16 main series movies and counting, as well as many spinoffs and even a few straight sequels. Today, we’ll stick with the numbered chapters, the big, famous, admired, and sometimes hated ones that make up the story as a whole. The NES original and the PlayStation 5 are on the list as we count down to the FF crown.
Final Fantasy 3
First, let’s clear something up. Last Fantasy 3 is a good game. A rough-around-the-edges attempt to follow in the lines of Dragon Quest 3, whether on purpose or not. It has a job system that lets your party take on the roles of many different fantasy archetypes. There are brave heroes, spell-casting mages, smart thieves, and more.
Some of the trouble is that “and more.” Final Fantasy 3 tries to do too much with its over twenty-two different job classes. Many of them aren’t useful most of the time or can only be used in very specific cases. The main idea of the game is hurt by this, and the story isn’t very interesting either. Even though we didn’t expect much from the NES age, that was already done better by one of its peers in that trilogy.
Final Fantasy 13
At least Final Fantasy 3 didn’t try to make the story the most important thing about the game. FF13 has the opposite problem; it tries so hard to involve you at every turn. If that works for you, great, but it didn’t click for us. Nobody in this group is dislikeable; Lightning, Sazh, and Fang are three good people who are stuck in the cruel ending of a terrible story.
There are some good things. The game takes a long time to get started, and the leveling system is very similar to Final Fantasy 10’s Sphere Grid, with almost no room for player-controlled customization. However, the fighting is smooth and satisfying. Plus, isn’t that the best fight theme game ever? The show’s best fight theme. It’s too bad about… A lot of other things.
We’re not comparing the sequels, but just so you know, we believe Final Fantasy 13-2 is the better game overall, even if the bad guy is really bad. When Lightning Comes Back… It’s definitely a video game. That’s what we’ll say.
Final Fantasy 2
A lot of people praise Final Fantasy 4 for having the first full-fledged story in the series, but that’s not fair to Final Fantasy 2. Yes, it’s just basic food. Also, “Guy speak beaver” is one of the three things Guy does say. A lot of games from that time didn’t deal with loss as much as FF2, and the way it handles those losses still surprises people who play it for the first time.
One of the main complaints about the game is its strange stat-building system, which didn’t follow any kind of traditional method. Instead, it used a system that was so badly imbalanced that players were better off having Firion and his friends beat themselves up in battle to get stronger.
If you didn’t do things the right way, your stats could even go down. Most of these problems have been fixed, but the core experience is still a bit of a mess.
Final Fantasy
A common belief among fans of many other series besides Final Fantasy is that the first game has to be ranked highly just because it was the first. Eh. FF is a good time. To pick classes for your four original Warriors of Light, stick with those classes (and their upgrades) the whole game, and see how well you do is a classic thing to do. The simple adventure does what it’s supposed to do well.
Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t think a lot of other Final Fantasy games have been better! This is a great old-school RPG that you can pick up and play right away, but it doesn’t have the depth that makes later games stand out. So what? That moment thirty minutes in, when you cross the brand-new bridge and the famous Final Fantasy theme plays while the title of the game flashes on the screen? It’s still epic 36 years later.
Final Fantasy 4
After this, we promise not to be so mean to the 2D age. The change from 8-bit to 16-bit design in Final Fantasy 4 was just as big in terms of story as it was in terms of graphics. The characters were much more defined than in previous games. Everyone: the brave Cecil, the troubled Kain, the mysterious Rydia, and everyone else. This is the best kind of pulp fantasy, and the Active Time Battle (ATB) method made it stand out from other books of the same time.
People either love or hate how silly it is that so many characters give up their lives only to be shown to be fine later on, and we don’t like how Saturday morning cartoon-like it all is. Anyway, at least they went so crazy with Cid that it crossed the line between silly and awesome: the man jumped from an airplane to the ground below while carrying a bomb and was unharmed.
Final Fantasy 15
You have to respect any news story that starts with four friends pushing their luxury car down the road while Florence and the Machine’s cover of “Stand by Me” plays in the background. But what should have been the beginning of Final Fantasy 15 was cut off and turned into a Hollywood movie with a 12% grade on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s just the beginning of a long list of ways this game turns into Frankenstein.
The dead body of Final Fantasy Versus 13 has been brought back to life in Final Fantasy 15. It used to be an epic tragedy, but the people who made Final Fantasy 15 wanted it to feel more like a cute road trip for most of the game’s length. Okay, don’t be mean. These are probably the best parts, even though the story only goes on for eight of the fourteen (!) chapters.
The real trouble starts when those last four chapters are counted on for the rest of the book. Their lightning-fast, hyper-linear pace is a train wreck because of this. Strong material released after the game’s release helps, and the ending is surprisingly good, but this Final Fantasy will always feel at odds with itself. It’s a fun, if flawed, open world extravaganza that then tries to find the ghost of Versus 13 but fails horribly.
Final Fantasy 8
Final Fantasy 8 is a good game that came out at a time when Square was putting out great games all the time. In its prime, there was nothing else like it in terms of sound and vision. It might have the best method for summoning monsters in the series, and its junction system is honestly very hard to understand. (Hint: You don’t have to draw 100 of any spell. There are better ways to get those than fighting.)
Many of the big setpiece scenes are well done, and the main character, Squall Leonhart, acts a lot like the kind of bad behavior that teens who are having a hard time usually do. Other than that, FF8 stumbles. It has some abrupt plot turns, a pretty average love interest for Squall that becomes more important as the story goes on, and a plot that depends on how well that average romance is portrayed more than anything else.
But what about Triple Triad? Ten out of ten, don’t take notes.
Final Fantasy 11
Final Fantasy 11 is the first of two games in the series to be an MMORPG. It makes the most of the larger game world by introducing the rich world of Vana’diel. By 2002, Final Fantasy was known for its cool worlds, but it had never been done before on this scale. At the time, the depth of Vana’diel’s many cultures, historical events, and political games played by its two main groups blew people away.
It is popular that FF11 was so hard for solo players when it first came out that you could level down if you didn’t do well, and there were so many monsters that could kill a single adventurer in seconds. If you didn’t have a group of committed friends, it was a hostile environment. This has been toned down a lot over the years, and adding AI-controlled NPC party members has made FF11 a lot friendlier.
Final Fantasy 12
The world of Ivalice is just as much a character in Final Fantasy 12 as any one person… for the better and worse. There are a lot of interesting characters. Balthier, Basch, and Ashelia are all charming in their own ways, and the bad guy version of Cid is a fan favorite, even though Vayne Solidor is the main bad guy. Perspective lead Vaan probably gets a bad rap that he doesn’t deserve, but he is still a weak link.
But even though FF12 has a lot of interesting characters, none of them really get a satisfactory story arc. This is because the game cares more about showing off its (spectacular) setting than keeping the story moving at the right speed. There are clear high points but far too many low points.
That being said, the Gambit system is one of the best ways to use computer-controlled party members without limiting player control, and it’s a real shame it hasn’t been updated since. If you’ve never played FF12, you should get the 2017 remake instead. The Zodiac Age fixes many of the game’s problems, but it can’t fix the main story’s slow pace.
Final Fantasy 5
The retranslation of Final Fantasy 5 has helped it more than any other game on this list. It didn’t come to the West when it first came out, but it did come here with a messy port and a boring story a few years later. Then it got a great new remake on the Game Boy Advance. It was always almost like FF5 would be the most exciting and daring journey in the series, but the cast didn’t feel like they were having fun until that point.
That’s all there is to say about FF5: fun. A fun little group of characters go on an old-school high-fantasy quest and enjoy it along the way in this game. Because the job class system works so well, fans get together once a year for randomness runs where they have to stick to certain builds. This setting is also used by Final Fantasy 5 Four Job Fiesta to raise money for charities, so it has the same feel-good fun vibe as the game.
Final Fantasy 16
In this Final Fantasy, the story of Clive Rosfield is at the center of everything. It’s the hero’s story more than in any other game in the series. This would be terrible if Clive wasn’t a fun person to be around. Luckily, he’s great, his story is great, and his voice actor, Ben Starr? Sure, great. Also, FF16 is the most ancient single-player game since Final Fantasy 5, which was just added to the list.
People from a variety of warring countries who are in danger are written in a way that makes them seem real. It’s a nice change of pace. We really can’t say enough good things about the script or the beautiful set pieces. They’re not just the most beautiful in Final Fantasy; they even beat out current God of War games in terms of beauty.
If you played Doodle Cricket, you know that combat is all about action. Final Fantasy 16 doesn’t have many “RPG elements,” and the world could have used more exploration, especially since FF15 is best when players are free to roam. But if you like the whole thing, we promise it’s worth your time—it’s the best Final Fantasy that isn’t an MMO in more than 20 years.
Final Fantasy 10
When we talk about Final Fantasy, we usually use numbers instead of Roman numerals, but if there’s one major game that makes things look a little silly, it’s Final Fantasy 10. It looks so much cooler when written as Final Fantasy X, right? But we’re getting off track. No matter what you call it, the tenth one is a winner. It shows a world in pain because of a creature that people think is judgment for past sins.
Spira’s worldview on this problem is to send strong young summoners to their deaths to briefly save humanity. This idea is at the heart of an emotional story with one of the best endings in video game history. The Sphere Grid, the ability to change the abilities of weapons and armor, and the great blitzball mini-game are all nice extras, but we’d still rather not have the rough voice acting and a few characters who are so unrealistic that they’re funny.
Final Fantasy 6
There have always been diehard fans of both Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 6. Fans of Final Fantasy 6 have been screaming from the hills for everyone to ignore the fans of Final Fantasy 7. Even though we won’t go that far, we will still say that FF6 is one of the best video games ever made. What better praise is there?
As you might expect, Final Fantasy 6 has a huge group of memorable characters who work together to stop a bad empire and then really come together when they face a much worse (and funnier) evil later on. Before Kefka Palazzo’s terrible act, there was a “World of Balance,” and after, there was a more gloomy “World of Ruin.” This is classic Final Fantasy, and the theme of hope in the face of hardship makes it even better.
Final Fantasy 14
“It starts off slow, but I promise it gets better later” has never been more true than in Final Fantasy 14. In this day and age of binge-watching TV and playing games all the time, that sentence may seem very off-putting, but believe us, FF14 is worth the time. No matter if you’ve tried it or not, you probably know how bad the first version was and how amazing the second version was when it was released.
Still, the new material added in 2013 ranges from ok to almost unbearably dull. But when you get to Heavensward, the first full expansion, a heartbreakingly great story takes the place of a lot of the stuff that didn’t work before. The characters, who were just okay at first, start to develop into the best-written and most enjoyable supporting group in the show’s history. Masayoshi Soken’s music is great, and most job classes have a lot of different ways to play.
Depending on how much you like social games, you may or may not enjoy the rest of Final Fantasy 14. However, the main story can now be played completely by one person, so you don’t have to get involved in a lot of the game’s “MMO-isms.” You can find a good MMO game right here, though, if that’s what you want.
Final Fantasy 7
As many spin-offs have been made from Final Fantasy 7 as from any other role-playing game. It was a huge hit that made Square famous around the world, turning them from “one of those RPG developers.” One of the most important games ever made, Final Fantasy 7’s general gameplay style and over-the-top, powerful storylines were copied a lot in the years after it came out.
The huge number of FF7 fans were kept happy with continuations like the movie Advent Children and Zack’s role as leader of Crisis Core until Square finally said the words they wanted to hear: “Final Fantasy 7 Remake.” Since the Remake project covers three games, it shows how big the original game was at the time. It’s almost impossible to turn the whole package into a huge revival in a world where making games is so hard and risky financially.
Fighting for the environment, PTSD, and tragic sacrifice come together with chocobo racing and cheesy one-liners to make a game that is funny, sad, disrespectful, and strangely personal. Really cool stuff.
Final Fantasy 9
It was the year 2000. As crazy as it sounds now, 13 years had passed since the first Final Fantasy game. In that time, eight major Final Fantasy games had been released, and a ninth was just around the corner. From the sixth of those eight movies onward, the series became less and less like its fantasy roots, with black witches, magical crystals, huge castles, and other fantasy tropes. The case for Final Fantasy 9 happily says on the back, “The Crystal Comes Back,” and it really does.
Final Fantasy 9 is a love letter to the games that came before it. It has an almost ridiculously charming cast, and the story is often laugh-out-loud funny while also knowing when to tone it down and make it serious. It’s also fun to play outside of the story, with a lot of different things to do that never feel boring.
If 10 was the start of Final Fantasy’s slow change into what it is today, then 9 is the perfect end to its more famous years. We can only hope that this beloved brand ends with just as much of a bang as the modern era did.
