Start playing Final Fantasy, which game to play first?

[OrcsRLame]

In my opinion Final Fantasy 9 is the perfect place to start. In short, it's the most moderate Final Fantasy experience you could possibly get.

It's pretty much right between the old and the new Final Fantasies. It doesn't have the extremely good graphics of the new ones, and it doesn't have voice acting, but it's not 2d like 1-6 or extremely blocky 3d like 7. This gives you a sense of how the new Final Fantasies will look, while not spoiling you on their modern graphics. FF9 is also a sort of retelling of the rather simplistic story of the original Final Fantasy.

Concerning difficulty, it's not the hardest game in the series, but it's certainly not the easiest either. To me, it just seems like the best starting point because it's not extremely old, it's not new, and it's got that classic Final Fantasy story. I'm not even saying it's the best in the series. From what I've seen, that's generally hotly debated between 6, 7, 10, and Tactics. It seems like 6 is the current flavor of the year, but that used to be 7. I say play 9, and then just work your way through the rest of the series as you see fit. Either starting at the beginning, or jumping right into the most popular ones.

Most people will just tell you to start with their favorite though.

[Dave131]

Every game is an entirely separate story except for 10 and 10-2 and 13 and 13-2. If you play earlier ones you'll see some repeating names at times but new worlds. Honestly the most popular ones are FF6 (commonly listed as FF3 as it was the third one released in english) and FF7. At the end of the day though, you can start anywhere.

Final Fantasy 7(American version) had a movie sequel, a PSP prequel, and I believe Dirge of Cerberus was related to it by telling Vincent's back story

Now OT: If you really wanna do it right, play the American SNES Final Fantasy 3, next play Final Fantasy 7 and 8, and lastly play FF10

(All the listed games are the American releases)

[jackofwind]

I must say, most of 7's popularity comes from the rabid Sephiroth fanboys who think that his theme is the be all and end all of video game music, and that somehow a white haired one winged pansy bitch with a grossly oversized sword and an attitude problem makes a fantastic villain.

[Biged781]

I recommend starting with II or II (IV or VI in Japan, SNES). They are both great games (FFIII is my favorite game of all time, ried with Chrono Trigger). II is more old school. After that, VII, then IX. I'm not a fan of VIII, but those two were really good an IX is often underrated IMO.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

I'll be honest and say I've only recently played one FF game, that being the one that you either love, or hate, 13. I thought it was good, being that I don't own a playstation and all the other FF games on the Xbox were mainly a multiplayer game, I was rather pleased, but playing through them all...that'd take most of a life time in my opinion. That fact there just scares me, and they release them faster than I personally could complete them.

[KCguy]

I love 7 and no one will ever change my mind or opinion. It's the best FF game of all time.

[MasterHamster]

FF7 and 8 are overrated cult-classics, but worth a try.
Old ones (1-6)
and 13 if you can handle the linearity, mainly to get to 13-2.
The purists can say what they want, 13-2 was sweet.

[OrcsRLame]

I must say, most of 7's popularity comes from the rabid Sephiroth fanboys who think that his theme is the be all and end all of video game music, and that somehow a white haired one winged pansy bitch with a grossly oversized sword and an attitude problem makes a fantastic villain.

It'd be really cool if we could keep at least one Final Fantasy thread from devolving into fanboy comments, sweeping generalizations, and insults towards games that are not our favorites. ^_^

[Haizer]

My opinions...

I - skip, or play on NES emulator at 10x speed.
II - no basis for response
III - no basis for response
IV - Recommended - try to play a remake for script issues
V - Recommended, lots of original ideas the rest of the series 'borrows' from in this one. jp only, will need a translation. Plus, the main char is named butz.
VI - highly recommended
VII - skip, unintelligible script, slow game play and laughable mechanics (without nostalgic hind-site, it's really not a great game to be playing from the modern perspective)
VIII - skip, similar reasons to VII, but better script. Story was stupid (imo). Draw system punishes you for using magic. Watching summons for 3 minutes isn't fun.
IX - moderate recommend. I liked it, graphics are extremely dated but not as laughably as VII. has a "throwback" to the sprite era in terms of graphic design.
X - I'm meh on this one. Worth a spin but not sure it's worth the 40 hours.
X-2- no basis for response
XI - mmorpg, at this point why bother
XII - do yourself a favor and skip it. You let the computer play 90% of the game anyway with gambits.
XIII - worth it if its under 20 bucks, short(ish) impressive graphics, horribly linear.
XIII-2- no basis for response.
XIV - mmorpg, and one of the worst ever created, skip.

Yeah, no. Play all Final Fantasy games, they aren't all the best, but most of them are incredibly good. As for FFVII, there is no nostalgia with me, I played the game through and through again a month ago and enjoyed every minute of it. I played FFVIII again after that, and I am working on FFIX again right now. Each one of these games has something unique about them that the other games do not. I recommend you play them all, but in whatever order you want to do it in. There is no real linear line between any besides FFX/FFX-2 and FFXIII/FFXIII-2. They are all good games, and if you really like them they are all worth playing.

[Stevegasm]

My opinions...

I - skip, or play on NES emulator at 10x speed.
II - no basis for response
III - no basis for response
IV - Recommended - try to play a remake for script issues
V - Recommended, lots of original ideas the rest of the series 'borrows' from in this one. jp only, will need a translation. Plus, the main char is named butz.
VI - highly recommended
VII - skip, unintelligible script, slow game play and laughable mechanics (without nostalgic hind-site, it's really not a great game to be playing from the modern perspective)
VIII - skip, similar reasons to VII, but better script. Story was stupid (imo). Draw system punishes you for using magic. Watching summons for 3 minutes isn't fun.
IX - moderate recommend. I liked it, graphics are extremely dated but not as laughably as VII. has a "throwback" to the sprite era in terms of graphic design.
X - I'm meh on this one. Worth a spin but not sure it's worth the 40 hours.
X-2- no basis for response
XI - mmorpg, at this point why bother
XII - do yourself a favor and skip it. You let the computer play 90% of the game anyway with gambits.
XIII - worth it if its under 20 bucks, short(ish) impressive graphics, horribly linear.
XIII-2- no basis for response.
XIV - mmorpg, and one of the worst ever created, skip.

As someone who played the games while they were relevant, I mostly agree with this list. To add though:
IV: Get the DS version if you can. If not, get the PSOne version. Script issues aside, the USA release of this game as Final Fantasy II was incredibly dumbed down and much easier. That is not to say you won't enjoy it.
X: I didn't like it much when I first played it about 20 hours in. 3 years later, I started over and finished it up, and actually really liked it.
X-2: If you can look past the corny story (holy hell is it bad), it probably has the best battle system of the series.


My personal favourite is VI. If you're going to get it, go with the Wii marketplace version, after that, an emulator, and if that isn't your thing, you can settle on the PSOne port. To add to jackofwind's praise, Final Fantasy VI has the best soundtrack of the whole series. Of the entire series, it gets to the open ended part of the game the quickest too. The first part of the game is very linear. Following a major story event and getting your second air ship, it's like a throwback to the NES era where you can do whatever you want and go wherever you want, even strait to the last level. That's not to say you aren't given direction, but if you wanted, you could try and tackle the last level strait away. Oh, also, and this won't give anything away, but when you get the option, wait for Shadow. Remember that.

[Bathory]

Play em all I'd say. Go up 1 -13. It's a lot of fun. Some people may recommend skipping a game but, I can't in good conscious suggest doing that. Each game, even though I didn't necessarily think the storylines of every FF were fantastic, they were still great experiences in the gaming format.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

Hey, I actually never played Final Fantasy before... So I decided to play it because I hear tons of good stuff about it.
I'm a big lore fan, so I want to understand the story of the FF game I'm playing. So where should I begin? Or are there seperate stories
for each game?

Only a couple of the games are true sequels. FFX-2 is a direct sequel to FFX, and FFXIII-2 (the most recently released) is a direct sequel to FFXIII. The rest all have their own stories with their own characters and worlds. There's reoccurring themes and entities (Bahamut, Shiva, Ifrit, and other summons occur repeatedly (not always called summons, though - eidolons in 13 and aeons in 10, etc), as do chocobos and moogles and the like), but with the exception of the two I mentioned above, each of them is self-contained.

That said... I'd recommend starting with FFVII or FFVIII, as both had excellent stories and were, in my opinion, the best FF games to date. FFX is close behind those, and FFXIII behind that. I've always hated FFIX, but other people love it.

There's really nothing you can go wrong with playing first. They're all pretty damn good.

[Linaver]

When I tried my first FF I went with FF7. At that time it was already hugely outdated. Guess what, I loved it. Say what you want but it is definitely one of the very best FF. I played FF7 with an open mind with tons of gaming experience behind my back. It gets my vote.

Tried FF8 soon after. I uninstalled it after about an hour of play. The pokemon "magic" system isn't my cup of tea.

[ralphie]

2, 3 and 7.

[fangless]

Playing any of the original first 3 will be tough at this point. Lots of out dated mechanics that just make it frustrating :P

3 isn't too bad if you can play it on DS, but it's still just the point where they began to really get going. If you start with FF4 for the SNES, and like it, you're in good shape to work your way up.

[OrcsRLame]

When I tried my first FF I went with FF7. At that time it was already hugely outdated. Guess what, I loved it. Say what you want but it is definitely one of the very best FF. I played FF7 with an open mind with tons of gaming experience behind my back. It gets my vote.

Tried FF8 soon after. I uninstalled it after about an hour of play. The pokemon "magic" system isn't my cup of tea.

That's why I say it's best to start with 9, as it's extremely average for a Final Fantasy game. It gives you a good perspective as opposed to starting with one of the most popular. If you start with one of the most popular games, you have nowhere to go but down. Any other Final Fantasy game you play, you'll be comparing to 7 or 6, or 10. If you try to go down to a game like 8, you'll be like, "This game sucks! Why isn't it as good as 6?"

If you start with 9 though, you'll be like, "8 Isn't so bad. It's got a couple of quirks but it isn't so much worse than 9 that I won't play it." and if you go play something like 7 you'll be all, "Omg this game is so awesome and badass!"

[Illuwin]

That's why I say it's best to start with 9, as it's extremely average for a Final Fantasy game. It gives you a good perspective as opposed to starting with one of the most popular. If you start with one of the most popular games, you have nowhere to go but down. Any other Final Fantasy game you play, you'll be comparing to 7 or 6, or 10. If you try to go down to a game like 8, you'll be like, "This game sucks! Why isn't it as good as 6?"

If you start with 9 though, you'll be like, "8 Isn't so bad. It's got a couple of quirks but it isn't so much worse than 9 that I won't play it." and if you go play something like 7 you'll be all, "Omg this game is so awesome and badass!"

Interesting viewpoint. Very good points there..

I will say I played 8 when it was released and never finished it, got to the final palace area. thought it was very tedious, confusing (magic system wasn't intuitive, imo) and contrived story. I had bought (and finished) 1, 2, 3, and 7 at that point, among other Square(soft) games. (non jp numbering system, US releases on disk/cartridge).

[Deafknight]

The true Order is like this: 13,8,4,6,7,9,10

It will be like this:
ooh this is a pretty movie,
this is definitely a playable rpg
where'd the pretty movie go ? but man im already in love with the characters
This is even better than the previous one, the fuck !
<3333333333333333333333333333333333333
This sure reminds me two games ago so its gotta be good
pretty again \o/ and it doesnt play bad either, a worthy ending to the series !

After that you can play 12, its way different and not as rich in plot, still a good game but not a final fantasy per se

[jackofwind]

My personal favourite is VI. If you're going to get it, go with the Wii marketplace version, after that, an emulator, and if that isn't your thing, you can settle on the PSOne port. To add to jackofwind's praise, Final Fantasy VI has the best soundtrack of the whole series. Of the entire series, it gets to the open ended part of the game the quickest too. The first part of the game is very linear. Following a major story event and getting your second air ship, it's like a throwback to the NES era where you can do whatever you want and go wherever you want, even strait to the last level. That's not to say you aren't given direction, but if you wanted, you could try and tackle the last level strait away. Oh, also, and this won't give anything away, but when you get the option, wait for Shadow. Remember that.

Always. ALWAYS wait for Shadow, for the love of god.

[Keilith]

I have played them all, 4 is my personal fav story wise and game mechanics its still good. FFT and TA and TA2 if you like stratagys (Final fantasy tactics) they keep the story but change game mechanics majorly. All of them are independent except for x x-2 and 13 13-2. ff12 changed game play majorly and was fun but not really ff imho just reacurring themes. ff9 is the catch all and will give you a good example of what the majority of the series will do for you.