A while ago another user @mobbs made a list of his favorite FF games. Wuthering Waves is waiting on the new version coming up next week so there's a lull. Zenless Zone Zero will be out next month and Genshin Impact only has a new banner waiting in the wings in a patch of nothing but filler events. So I figure I might do my own list since mobbs' list showed me I had enough to say on the subject.
Honorable Mentions
I'm pretty sure it'll come as a shock but I wasn't much of a fan of Final Fantasy VII. It's been hailed as the best FF game, it's the one that Squaresoft itself loved most and it recently got a major facelift in an altered story for the modern generation. But personally I didn't really appreciate the emo act of the main character or the cyberpunk setting. Conversely I actually ended up liking Advent Children much more; most FFVII fans didn't seem to like that sequel. I felt that Cloud didn't really get a conclusion in the main series game and it was nice to explore and complete his character growth in the film.
Speaking of acts by main characters this also made me less of a fan of the more recently popular Final Fantasy IX. The biggest issue was how confident Zidane portrayed himself throughout the entire game, helping Vivi come to terms with his artificial existence. But by the end when the tables were turned he immediately threw all his words out the window and sulked.
As a result I much preferred Terra from FFVI and Balthier from FFXII. Terra just like Zidane found out the life she knew wasn't real and that she wasn't even all human. In fact her lineage was banished from the world. In spite of that she pushed on and saved the world at great personal cost. And Balthier like Zidane portrayed himself as "the leading man" throughout all his appearances but he lived up to it by the end of the game, truly showing off the selflessness and also style it takes to own that mantle.
And that leads to
No. 05 - _Final Fantasy VIII_
Squall much like Cloud is stoic and emo around others as an act. However Squall is actually introverted and shy while Cloud's act came from thinking he was Zack and his true personality as seen through both flashbacks and personal moments with people like Tifa and Aeris shows he's naive and trying too hard to prove himself.
As the story progresses Squall meets Rinoa and eventually rises to become a good leader for Garden. He then becomes a focal point for the plot, tied intricately with the central villain. There are even theories that the game ended very differently with a new sorceress awakening and warping reality.
VIII also gave us some classic cutscenes from the Rinoa/Squall reunion hug to of course this
which Honkai: Star Rail paid homage to.
However the game suffers a little from the clunky GF system that's slow and grindy. Drawing magic from enemies just to have a stockpile to use in major battles is not the most exhilarating thing to do.
No. 04 - _Final Fantasy IV_
So we move into something more traditional. Just like the previous examples, the main character is Cecil Harvey who believed he was the kingdom's Dark Knight. However that was because one of the Four Fiends had taken over the kingdom and hidden Cecil's true lineage. Eventually he reclaims his role as the Paladin and then another whammy happens. Like Darth Vader before him the major villain of this game happens to be related to Cecil and he needs to deal with that too. IX did something similar with Kuja but I feel that IV did it much better. You're haunted by him throughout the later game knowing who he really is but unable to convince him to stop what he's doing. Also while both were the penultimate villain Kuja gets replaced by something that was never even mentioned until the end. The final boss of IV on the other hand is brought up right before the final part and then fully explained during that dungeon.
The combat system is much more simple compared to VIII since it is an older game. But it worked pretty well. Each character had a specific job to bring something unique to the party. Back then parties were comprised of 5 characters with a line-up setup so two took up the rear while your sturdier characters were typically placed in front. Cecil being the Paladin usually covered the front especially as you develop him and he gets the ability to automatically cover for another character and absorb the hit.
No. 03 - _Final Fantasy XIII_
Lightning was made to be the female Cloud. Just like Cloud she was stoic and tried to act cool. But unlike Cloud who again thought he was Zack, Lightning knew exactly who she was and it was for that reason she hid herself. She and her younger sister lost their parents early on so little Eclair Farron was forced to be Serah's guardian. She needed to ignore the fact that she was a kid herself and became Lightning. After that she became a decorated soldier in the military and was very emotionless. The game's story then forces her to confront that decision and become greater than herself even going on to become the goddess Etro's chosen warrior and even ultimately killing the creator god itself. (IV would technically end up doing this too in its sequel.)
The combat system in this game is insane. It upgrades the job class system of several of the older entries which itself was an upgrade to the older games like IV that had designated job classes per character. In XIII each character can take on different roles but you set those roles into a Paradigm to quickly toggle between. You then go into battles where you constantly shift between paradigms as the battle requires. The AI controlled characters automatically perform skills based on their current role while you get to select role related actions for your main character. Also unique to XIII is that each character has a personal Eidolon or summoned creature. Previously VIII's GF system was similar but you could equip GFs to almost any character you wanted. IV and IX relate as well but for a different reason. They had dedicated summoner job classes and only those characters could summon. (IX's were also called Eidolons. IX also had specific summons linked to each of the two summoners.)
No. 02 - _Final Fantasy X_
Spira was the setting of Square's tenth entry in the series and so it was a pretty big deal. Eventually the creators would go on record to say that X was directly connected to VII and several parts of the world building related between the two. However within X itself there was already a complex story that took place across key points in time. Our MC Tidus is actually from the distant past of Spira or at least a version of that Spira. And you guys might be sensing a theme with my list. Just like the previous entries he has to put on a brave face because of who he is and what that means. Actually everybody in this game has to hide their true feelings because after a major event in the past called the Machina War, Spira was sent into an endless spiral (hence the name) where people with the ability to summon creatures, in this case Aeons are sacrificed to defeat a nigh-unstoppable monster. One of these special people, Yuna is on her way to sacrifice herself as Tidus joins them and it weighs heavily on everybody.
But where Tidus becomes one of the best main characters of the franchise for me is that he eventually learns that he could put a stop to this endless cycle of death and he can truly stop the monster which is aptly named Sin. But it gets complicated. It turns out that Sin was created as a last resort against Bevelle a megalomanical country that started the Machina War. The endless rebirth was meant to keep it from ever posing a threat to the world again but after so many generations everybody on Spira was done with war. It was time to end it. However it turned out there was another side to Sin. At the same time that Sin was meant to prevent war from ever happening again it was also meant to preserve the nation of the past that had summoned it to begin with. By turning all of the survivors into special spirits called Fayth they could dream their nation back into existence. The Fayth are also the ones that create the Aeons who are also their dreams. Individual Fayth can dream an Aeon and then summoners like Yuna can manifest them into reality. Take an entire civilization of Fayth and you can summon back a whole nation. But Sin is also a summon and it is a very unique kind of summon. As long as there are Fayth that exist it can form around their summoned Aeon like a shell. To truly eliminate Sin is to also eliminate that old nation and Tidus is from this nation. In other words if Sin goes so does he and that's when he becomes the best main character. Knowing all of this he keeps it a secret from everybody until the very end and doesn't explain the details either. They go on to defeat Sin just as planned and Tidus sacrifices himself to free Yuna and all future Spirans from having to continue the cycle of death. The entire world is changed as a result.
As for the combat system for the first time you're able to max out just about everybody leading to some wild numbers. Add on the then brand new "Break Damage Limit" ability and those numbers grow to some insane levels. But on top of that Square provided limits on what you can do with that too. Some of the bosses gained previously impossible HP and attack damage. On top of that they were given counters to the more damaging attacks you could do. There was one that would continuously attack you until your whole team was knocked out if you hit it with anything that broke the damage limit. You were then forced to equip your team to do a maximum of 9999 damage per hit on an enemy that had millions of HP. It was an experience.
No. 01 - _Final Fantasy X-2_
This selection will be divisive for many people. X-2 has dialogue that didn't quite hit, it's theme drastically changed from its predecessor and the previously modest Yuna is sporting short shorts and an open chest shirt.
However for me it was a beautiful sequel. If we were to describe the Spira of the previous game in one word it would be depressed. The world had been smothered under Sin and the periodic sacrifices of summoners for 1000 years. Tidus brought them a new beginning and they took it. Yuna was finally allowed to live the life of a young woman instead of someone whose father was the previous sacrifice and she was set to follow in his footsteps. One thing Tidus had always tried to foster in her back in X was that she speak her mind and live the life she wanted so X-2's Yuna was exactly that, much more powerful and decisive, a main character in her own right. The world felt alive with all the other characters moving into these new lives free from Sin.
We even got the most direct connection between Final Fantasy games ever: Shinra a child genius Al Bhed who developed the Dressphere System by using memories recorded on spheres or crystallized pyreflies. Shinra is the ancestor to the Shinra family who founded the ShinRa Electric Power Company that farms Materia which is a crystallized form of life from Gaia. By the end of X-2 Shinra's even looking into space travel and the creators would eventually suggest that Shinra ends up discovering the planet of Final Fantasy VII's story. His descendents then go on to set up the same technologies he invented so the Dresspheres would evolve into Materia.
On top of that while the final boss for this game is a let down gameplaywise it's very good storywise. Tidus again was from a dream version of the real nation that existed in the distant past. He was characterized by his stubbornness and absolute refusal of the status quo, that summoners had to be sacrificed to stop Sin. As a dream it meant that he had to be based on somebody from the real nation and that's the final boss, Shuyin. Shuyin represented the darkest place Tidus could ever go, if everything failed. Remember Tidus sacrificed himself to save Yuna and permanently stop Sin. Shuyin's goal was similar; he was willing to sacrifice himself to save Lenne and permanently stop Bevelle from their Machina War. Unfortunately while Tidus had help from the fayth, Auron, his father Jecht and of course Yuna's whole group, Shuyin acted alone. There are many theories as to why it ended so poorly for him but the one I like best is the reincarnation theory. Before Tidus met the group they had someone who they kept saying looked just like him, Chappu. Chappu also died and the suggested cause was that he chose to use machina instead of the sword his brother Wakka had given him, the Brotherhood. This idea of using traditional methods instead of machina comes up again in the story. Tidus never abandoned the Brotherhood and never used machina. Shuyin's plan was to use Bevelle's strongest machina against them. It could be that Chappu was the reincarnation of Shuyin and followed his path, a path that led to doom. Meanwhile Tidus who can be seen as another reincarnation of Shuyin was able to diverge from that path and succeed his predecessor. Anyway I like that theory.
Also if you do a completion run of the game you'll get the Perfect Ending where Tidus is brought back by the Fayth using their last ounce of existence to make him truly real.
And finally this story carried the message about the costs of war. I think Japan really likes to promote this message given the last major war they were a part of. Several Godzilla movies have also brought up the negative consequences of war like the most recent Gozilla Minus One. I think this game was one of the better tellings. You got the broad scope of it, the threat of a new war between the Youth League and New Yevon. You have the history lesson of the Machina War. And finally you get the personal cost with Shuyin and Lenne.
In terms of gameplay it wasn't the most polished. I think Square was trying something new with this because after X-2 we'd see the ADB or Active Dimension Battle in XII and then that Command Synergy Battle discussed previously with XIII. Final Fantasy X's system focused much more on strategy and planning compared to all previous entries that had the Active Time Battle which put all actions on a timer. But this CTB (Conditional Turn-Based) system also meant it was much slower than ATB. (this can be seen in miHoYo's Honkai: Star Rail game which pretty much has the same system) X-2 brought back ATB but even faster and commands had to be selected at rapid succession to make the most of chain effects. There's also probably the most fun exploit out of any Final Fantasy game so far which is to equip your Gunner with the Catnip accessory and then purposely lower their health to red. Catnip lets you do 9999 damage on every hit when your HP is low. Gunners have the special ability Trigger Happy where they fire their guns rapidly to do several hits of very low damage. Combine that rapid fire with Catnip's ability to change all hits to 9999 and you have a super powerful character. This exploit is almost necessary for the post game bosses that'll kill you in seconds no matter what you do. The only way to beat them is to kill them first and Catnip Trigger Happy'll get you the distance.
X-2's systems also allowed for some creative strategies. There was something like an early attempt at positioning effects, like getting more hits if you could place your characters in the right places by having them target and therefore move towards certain enemies first. You can also use it to dodge hits because the AI might reselect targets if they can't reach you. (I had a Dark Knight positioned between my Gunner and a tonberry one time. The tonberry was initially trying to hit her but couldn't hobble to her with my Dark Knight in the way so it redirected its knife attack on my Berserker instead. But you could also end up softlocking the game too haha) Careful positioning and crowd control are now staples to action RPGs like Genshin Impact for example. The brand new Final Fantasy XVI actually has a system very closely resembling Genshin's where you control only one character and switch between different elements to cause reactions that do greater damage or inflict status effects. XVI feels like the evolution of these systems that I believe X-2 started.
Anyway that's just what I think. What about you guys? What were your favorites? Did my list include any of them? What did you agree with or disagree with about my list?