Final Fantasy is a series I adore. A couple managed to make it into my top 10 (X) games. Yet, I haven’t played much of the series. I’ve decided it’s time to play the rest. Against every recommendation online, I’m playing in release order.

This is now the third long series I’ve started this year (see also: Yakuza and Mass Effect), and half the year has passed already. Surely I’ll manage to complete at least one of these, right? I foolishly included the year 2024 in the name of the Yakuza series, so I’m kinda stuck there. I’m hoping to finish at least one series by the end of the year, playtime be damned!

I think in the short term, this is the series I’ll make the most progress on, even though it is undoubtedly the longest. Regretably, my wrist isn’t in shape to play a button mashing game like Yakuza, or a shooter like Mass Effect. On the other hand, the Final Fantasy series make for great Steam Deck games, and are much easier on my wrist. Plus, they’re (mostly) comfy fantasy games, which I’m super in the mood for right now. Adventure awaits! Huzzah!

So how many games are there in this series, anyways? It turns out this is actually a difficult question. Counting various rereleases, special-editions, spin-offs, and so on, I found a list of 126 (CXXVI). Obviously that’s not what I want. I’m not such a fan that I’ll play multiple versions of these games to compare them, and I’m not interested in various Pokémon Snap style spinoffs. I want the real meaty games, and I want to play the best¹ versions of each. Though, when a remake differs significantly from the original, like in the case of the FFVII remake series, I’ll consider those separate games. If I apply that logic to only the “mainline” (numbered) games, I’m left with a list of 16 (XVI) games. However, I also want to include sequels and some spin-offs, but I’ll be pretty arbitrary with what I include. Also, I love XIV, but I’m going to exclude it and XI. This isn’t meant to be about MMOs.

This list is what I came up with. It’s got all the mainline games, Tactics, the X and XIII sequels, Stranger of Paradise, and the VII Remake series. 21 (XXI) games in total. I’ll be playing them in (mostly) release order. I’ll probably wait for the VII remakes to all release on PC, and play them last. It’s worth noting that I selected the original release entry for each of these games for the purposes of creating this list, though I will be playing remasters/rereleases of pretty much all of them.

UPDATE: I decided to include a few more spinoffs, Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, A King’s Tale, and Type 0—bringing this list to 25 (XXV) games

Know of any other games I should include? Let me know!

I’ve already played XV and XVI, and I don’t intend to replay them as part of this blog series—but I may change my mind.

UPDATE: I’ve decided I will be replaying both XV and XVI to get a complete look at the series again. My taste in games might have changed since I played XV. I’ll probably be able to play XVI on PC by then, too.

I’ve actually played a few more than that! At the time of writing this post, I’ve completed the NES/Famicom generation of Final Fantasy games: I, II, and III. Many people recommend skipping these, as they are often considered the weakest in the series. I wanted a complete picture of the series though, and I don’t mind some old-school design even if it can be tedious. I just used guides to get through the more obtuse parts. I’m glad I played them. It’ll be interesting to compare to the future entries, especially where they tried some gameplay changes, kept some and abandoned others, and over time refined the gameplay format of each generation. It was also fun seeing where this long chain of inter-game references all started.

Fair warning, I’ve played a lot of FFXIV. It was my introduction to the series. Due to XIV’s role as a themepark MMO full of references to old Final Fantasy games, I’m going to recognize a lot of things from these old games due to seeing them first in FFXIV. This is probably the opposite of the intended effect. That said, so far it has definitely improved my experience of playing the older games. Please bear with me, as I’ll certainly include this backwards perspective in my thoughts on each game.

The NES Generation#↑

I played the Pixel Remaster versions of these games. These are the 8th-9th rerelease of most of these games, as far as I know.

These versions have cleaned up and often redesigned art that is much more clear and detailed than the originals, while maintaining the same style. See this reddit post for a comparison. Instead of trying to make the games look more “modern”, they have very pleasant pixel art that takes advantage of decades of improvement in pixel art techniques. The art feels nostalgic and classic without feeling aged. They did a really, really good job with this.

They also recreated all of the original music, overseen by the original composer, the legendary Nobuo Uematsu. This time, they got a full orchestra to record the tracks, instead of the chiptunes of the original versions. They sound fantastic. Once again, they sound iconic and nostalgic, but with the audio quality of more modern games. Really, really good job on this as well.

Various releases of these games over the years have changed the gameplay in one way or another. Some have changed the magic system, or overhauled how the job system works, or how encounters work, or even more! It can be a pain to look up information for these games online, as you’ll often reach a page that has conflicting information based on what version is being discussed. These Pixel Remaster versions keep it simple. They stick very close to the combat and progression mechanics of the original, while offering some quality of life cherry-picked from older rereleases as well as some all new quality of life features of their own. In general, progression requires less grinding as fights are more rewarding and shop prices are cheaper. Some of the job system changes from earlier releases that made the games better (without “reimagining” them like some previous releases did) made it in. New to these releases are some massive conveniences that made me really glad I’m playing these versions. They’ve got an auto-battle mode, which simply repeats the last action each character has taken, and speeds up the combat animations a bit. Since much of the combat is pretty simple (apply buffs, spam attacks, heal as needed) this cuts down on the tedium. Additionally, the games are far less punishing due to being able to quick-save anywhere out of battle, and the ability to toggle random encounters on and off. You’re still going to want a lot of random encounters to keep up with expected character progression, but I really enjoyed having that control. Sometimes I’m down to run in a circle to farm encounters for xp (especially with auto-battle), and other times I just want to get through this corridor without being interrupted.

I really enjoyed the Pixel Remasters. There are some 3D remakes of most of these games, but I highly recommend this experience instead.

Final Fantasy I#↑

The game that started it all!²

It was very cool to see the origins of the series. It’s got so many iconic elements that stick around in the series. Jobs! White/Black/Red Mages! Warriors of Light! Crystals! Chaos! Fiends of the elements! The elemental types themselves! Airships! Flying fortresses! Cid! Matoya! Light and Darkness!

Many other elements of this game are pretty standard RPG stuff. You can especially see the influence of early Dungeons and Dragons on it. Very cool to see the unique Final Fantasy designs that made it stand out.

Story#↑

The story of this one is interesting, if simple (sorta).

We start with four Warriors of Light, each bearing a depleted crystal. They are hired to go save a princess who has been kidnapped by a rogue knight named Garland. Standard fantasy stuff! What’s interesting is that rescuing the princess was pretty straightforward. It’s only the beginning of the journey, not the ultimate goal.

Instead, the heroes travel the world, solving problems caused by four elemental fiends, and restoring energy to their depleted crystals. I’m skipping over a lot here, as the process of restoring each crystal and the problems they solve for people are all small (but good) stories of their own, but they ultimately don’t matter in the grand plot. It’s a series of small adventures as part of a larger legend. The important part is the crystals, and the elemental fiends who must be defeated in order to accomplish this.

With the crystals restored, a time warp suddenly occurs, drawing in the power of all four crystals and then the warriors themselves. They are brought 2,000 years into the past, to witness the creation of the fiends from the energy that was just drawn into the time warp ahead of them.

It is revealed that Chaos had created a time loop. The fiends were created by elemental energy and then sent into the future to cause the problems for the warriors to solve and thereby gather elemental energy, and the energy gathered by the warriors would be pulled back in time to create the fiends. It is also revealed that the rogue knight Garland was actually Chaos, and that the time loop allows him to live forever and ascend above time.

The Warriors of Light were always destined to save the world in the future, as dictated by the time loop. But now, knowing of the loop, they ascend with Chaos to defeat his true form in the past, breaking the loop and truly saving the world this time.

It got a lot more wild than I expected for a first entry, and that crazy style is probably the most important thing defining the series going forward. Final Fantasy never makes “normal” fantasy games. There’s always a twist, subversion, or deconstruction of some kind. There’s always some convoluted writing that I find charming.

Gameplay#↑

This was… okay. It’s very basic.

It’s a turn based game with random turn orders per round, but you have to commit to your course of action before knowing the order. This limits strategic options significantly, and makes the game very swingy. For example, you may want to heal everyone after the boss hits you with an AoE attack, but the order might go: Heal (everyone is currently at max health, wasting the spell) -> Boss attacks at the end of the round -> Boss goes first next round, before you can heal, killing everyone. Sometimes I’d also want to raise somebody and then drop a potion on them, but the potion would happen first and get wasted. Buffs would go off after the targetter character attacked. It’s a mess.

I didn’t find it particularly hard, at least. Once I got used to planning my trips and stocking up on the consumables I might need, it was straightforward, if a little tedious.

There were some small elements of strategy though. A tank class could swap in for characters that were about to take lethal damage, absorbing the blow with their much higher defenses and health pool. Enemies had various elemental weaknesses, or resistance to physical damage, so an elemental mage was a must. Debuffs needed to be cleansed. Buffs needed to be applied. It was barebones, but definitely functional.

Spells work similar to Dungeons and Dragons. You’ve got leveled spell slots and spells that fit into each. It’s a little simpler, but I found it familiar and easy to manage.

Figuring out where to go was a chore. I’m glad I used a guide, because some of the intended actions to progress the story were so hidden that my playtime would have quintupled without any additional enjoyable moments. If you play this one, I highly encourage you to use a guide as well.

Future games took some elements of this system and iterated on it. So it’s interesting to have this as a baseline for comparison, even if I didn’t particularly enjoy it. At least, I didn’t find it actively harmful to my experience. It was mostly neutral.

Rating#↑

6/10
Playtime: 14 hours

Even if the combat wasn’t my thing, I loved the style of this game. The music, the themes, the characters, the animations. It’s a classic for a reason.

Final Fantasy II#↑

It’s clear they experimented with this one a bit more.

Unfortunately, I think they found a lot of ways not to make a good game. Though there are a few trends kicked off by this that I’m glad they picked up again later.

Like the first, use a guide. Don’t torture yourself.

Actually, just don’t torture yourself by playing this one at all.

Story#↑

This one is a story of rebellion. The big bad evil empire is terrorizing the land. They’re destroying whole cities for unknown reasons, and ensuring everyone is as oppressed as possible. Why? They’re evil!

Your party consists of 3 orphans chased out of one of these destroyed cities, saved and recruited by the resistance.

This party is constantly trampled down. No NPC even begins to trust you until you prove yourself with some feat. Literally everyone questions your ability no matter how many powerful foes you fell. Every accomplishment is snatched up from the party right at the finish line. Kill a big boss so you can steal X item? An evil NPC is going to run into the scene to take it first, leaving your trip pointless. Rushing through a dungeon to get to a destination before it’s too late? You’re always just minutes late. No true victory is ever achieved.

The story constantly introduces new characters, just to kill them off before you have a chance to get attached to them. They replace your 4th party slot, meaning you never really get to build that slot up. You’ve just got to take whatever the game gives you, only for it to be taken from you again minutes later.

The game even tried to include a very cringe sex scene, only for it to be interrupted as it’s revealed that

When you finally defeat the big bad evil emperor, the celebration is extremely short-lived. It turns out that one of the party members’ long-lost brother was actually evil all along, and is becoming the new emperor, effectively undoing any good that defeating the emperor would have accomplished. Further, this brother character hasn’t been involved in the story since literally the first 2 minutes of the game.

Oh, was that not a pointless enough twist for you? Before you can even fight this brother, the old emperor comes back from hell, and announces that killing him only made him stronger, and now is going to bring hell to earth. Another recently introduced party member sacrifices themself pointlessly here, for good measure.

Evil brother joins the party, no longer evil, suddenly. You go into hell, kill the emperor (again), and then everyone retires. Finally, the one and only time the party actually accomplished anything that wasn’t snatched from them by the writers.

Yeah.

Gameplay#↑

Oh if you thought the story was bad…

This time you don’t get a choice of job at the start of the game. You don’t get to customize your characters in any way, due to the story (with literally the only thing tying the story to these specific characters being the 2 minutes of brother-betrayal).

Instead, you level up individual skills by using them. Want to do more damage with swords? Use swords! Makes sense so far, I kind miss the job identities, but it’s not so bad… wait: Want to gain more health? Use… shields?! Or finish fights at low HP without dying?! I can’t even control that in this RNG-heavy system! Want higher level magic? Use… each individual spell hundreds of times to level it up?! Got a shiny new magic weapon right before a boss weak against it? Too bad you didn’t decide to train that skill hours ago, and it currently would do less damage than the basic weapon you already trained with.

Just to sweeten the deal, lets throw in all of the flaws of the first game’s system as well, while removing anything good about it.

Ooo, lets add loads of mandatory grind on top! As a treat!

This one also sought to obfuscate story progress options even further. Where the first had sometimes cryptic instructions, sometimes talking to nearby NPCs would reveal additional details that could help. In this one, you have to click a “learn” button on random keywords that NPCs use in dialogue, so that you can then “ask” other NPCs about those keywords, with no indication of what will be important where. So I just have an ever-growing list of spam keywords I shout at every NPC to see if they can give me any details at all. By the end of it, I usually forgot what information I was seeking in the first place.

This system sucked.

Rating#↑

3/10
Playtime: 8 hours

Everything about this game felt like it hated its players. It felt like it just wanted to be mean. It mistakenly thought that this would make it more satisfying to complete. It did not.

I had heard many times that XIII is the worst in the series. We’ll see when I get there, but I can’t imagine it’s worse than this. I think it has that reputation because, unlike this one, it’s actually popular enough for people to talk about it. This one was so bad that everyone just forgot about it.

The very few points this one earned were due to the music and art, as well as the Final Fantasy elements that it introduced that other games would use better. Such as Chocobo, Behemoth, Ultima, and other iconic things like that.

Don’t bother with this game.

Final Fantasy III#↑

The triumphant return! We’re back on track!

This one rejects a lot of the experimentation of FFII, and instead iterates on the first game. I really like what they did! Jobs are back, and better than before. We’ve got a heroic and fun story. This set up even more for the future of Final Fantasy.

Story#↑

This one almost feels like a reimagining of the first story’s early concepts.

We start with 4 orphans, being raised by a village. While exploring, they discover a crystal, and learn that they have been chosen as Warriors of Light, fated to prevent the Flood of Darkness.

By the power of the crystal, they are able to wield strong magic and fight with great might. This is represented by unlocking jobs for them to select.

Our warriors venture out into the world, much the first game, to solve problems and find the other crystals. Along the way they meet many allies and have plenty of adventures.

While exploring the world (which appears roughly the same size as the previous games), you reach the edge. The previous games let you wrap around the map, because the planet is round. In this one, you can see the edge, and a sky full of clouds below. Interesting.

After some adventures around this flat world, you gain access to a more powerful airship, and learn the truth: this world is merely one continent of a greater, round world, which was launched into the sky by ancient mages. Our warriors are actually originally from the round world below.

The warriors head down to see what this great new world is like, only to find it flooded, with only a few islands. After gaining the power of the Water Crystal on one of these islands, the flood drains away, and reveals the original continents. The people who lived here were preserved as statues—unpetrified when the flood receded.

The warriors continue their adventures down here, seeking the final crystal and solving many problems along the way. They learn that long ago, an immortal master sorcerer had three apprentices. To Doga, he granted magic power. To Unei, he granted control over dreams. To Xande, he granted mortality. Xande felt sleighted by this “gift” of death, and vowed to destroy the world.

After awakening and allying with Doga and Unei, the warriors accumulated all the final pieces of the puzzle: A massive, invincible airship, and the elemental fangs, which serve as keys to Xande’s lair.

Doga and Unei reveal that the warriors must kill them in battle, as the only possible way to break the final lock Xande had on his tower of crystal. Doga and Unei promise, however, that their souls will live on even though their bodies would die.

In this tower, the warriors fall for a trap. They are paralyzed and surrounded by five dragons—the curse of Five Wyrms. Doga appears, claiming that the souls of five filled with light were required to break this ancient curse. We see a montage as he flies through the realm, asking NPCs the warriors have helped along the way. They all immediately drop what they are doing and offer everything to help. By the power of their five souls, the warriors finish their climb through the crystal tower, and confront Xande.

During the fight, it is revealed that the Cloud of Darkness had made a deal with Xande, and had been manipulating him towards a Flood of Darkness. The Could of Darkness is too strong. It defeats the warriors. Doga and Unei sacrifice themselves to revive the warriors, and transport them into the World of Darkness to defeat the Cloud of Darkness.

Long ago, four Warriors of Darkness prevented a calamity known as the Flood of Light. Here, in the World of Darkness, they are trapped—bound by guardians set up by the Cloud of Darkness. Upon defeating each of these guardians, the Warriors of Light release the Warriors of Darkness. Together, both sets of warriors team up to defeat the Cloud of Darkness, in the name of balance.

With the world saved, the warriors and their allies return to celebration and retirement. We get a epilogue montage of all the important characters from the story. It’s good vibes all around.

I really liked this one. I got plenty attached to the allies accumulated along the way. So that moment where they all risked everything to save the warriors was really beautiful.

I also really appreciated how the explorable world kept getting bigger and bigger.

There were sidequests to unlock big summons for the summoner job, which were fun and very rewarding.

Speaking of summoner, this was the first game with them! They stick around and are a huge part of Final Fantasy. That’s undoubtedly the biggest thing this game contributed to the franchise, but it also gave us moogles, titan, ifrit, garuda, odin, and more. This really feels like where a ton of reoccurring Final Fantasy elements began.

Gameplay#↑

This got rid of everything I disliked about FFII, and improved a lot of what I liked about FFI.

Jobs are no longer selected at the start of the game. Instead, they can be swapped freely out of combat. Each character has a character level and a job level with each job. Leveling up your character increases your stats (determined by what job was equipped at the time) and leveling up each job improves the abilities of that job. The character level and job level are sort of added together when it comes to character effectiveness. So switching jobs would set you back a little bit, but you’d still have a well functioning character while catching up the job level. Job levels were also a lot easier to accumulate than character levels. Perhaps 2-3 times faster, on average?

The game wasn’t going to let that just exist on it’s own though. They made it more fun. Some jobs are just better in certain fights than others, and generally you’re going to want to be using more recently unlocked jobs. For example, a dragoon can jump, taking them off the field and out of harms’ way for a round. Perfect for fighting a boss that does big slow AoEs every other turn. Another boss might have randomly rotating weaknesses, and hitting him with the wrong type of magic heals him instead. Good thing scholars specialize in revealing weaknesses! Another boss might deal exclusively single-target damage that oneshots anyone in your party… except for the viking, who also has a taunt skill to ensure that boss always hits him. It’s a neat system that encourages exploring the combat system and trying out new things, without feeling punishing for wanting to change up your style.

There’s a little bit of character investment that’s not so flexible though. Character stat increases are determined by equipped job at time of level up, so a character that exclusively played mages throughout the game will have better magic stats than one that switched around a lot. It feels like Dragon’s Dogma was inspired by this. That said, it wasn’t too punishing. Generally, using the right tool for the job (right job for the job?) was still worth doing.

The only place that falls apart is spellcasting. And… it fell apart pretty hard at the end. Like the first game, you have to buy spells from vendors to teach them to your characters. Your characters can only hold a certain number of spells each, and can only use spells that are on the spell lists of their jobs. So, naturally, I had one healer, and I dumped every healing spell I could find on them. This worked until the final boss of the game, who is nearly impossible to kill without two healers. The problem is, this is after a point of no return, and a long dungeon. So even if I swapped one of my characters to a white mage, they couldn’t cast any healing magic because I couldn’t teach them any healing magic. I couldn’t go back to a shop to buy more healing magic. If I reloaded a previous save from before the point of no return, I’d have to redo a massive chain of multiple dungeons and bosses that took me hours. The only option left was to grind outside the final boss’s area until I was so high level I could take it on with a single healer. That was not a great experience. There were a few other similar places, but none as bad as that.

Unfortunately, this game also suffered from the issues the first game had with turn timing. Sometimes, the RNG just decides a boss gets to go twice in a row, and that (literally) kills a run, every time. You can either overlevel so that you can consistently clear even with bad RNG, or just keep fighting that boss until you get a lucky run. Feels bad that there’s not a more “skill-based” option to get through it. I can’t get better at the game or get better tactics or anything. Just gotta grind it out. Not a fan.

I really had fun with it though. The big spells (especially summons) were really fun both to acquire and to use. The later jobs had very cool abilities and I always wanted to upgrade to them.

I appreciated that allies trailed behind you instead of taking up a party slot. It meant that I had full control over my party. It also meant I could turn around and ask questions of the following NPC, to help keep me on track. It was a useful guide, and helped me get attached to the characters more by seeing them follow me around, and talking to them in various situations to see their responses.

Exploration content was cool. The game kept altering the travel methods available to me in order to change the play space I was allowed within. It consistently got larger and larger in more and more exciting ways. I got to sail the seas, then the air, then under the seas, then I could jump mountains, and so on. I also enjoyed the few places where having certain debuffs was required to progress. For example, I needed to shrink my whole party to fit into certain passages and towns, which felt very minish cap (one of the greatest Zelda games). Sometimes I needed to turn everyone into frogs to swim through an underwater section. This turned debuffs that I’d usually inflict on enemies into dual-purpose utility spells. Very cool. Even cooler that I sometimes had to fight with these debuffs on, requiring me to adapt my strategy to account for the debuffs. For example, being miniaturized sets all of your physical stats to 1, so having a full caster party temporarily helps a lot. This one was also full of secret rooms and loot which was always a nice surprise to uncover (the others did too, but it hit different this time, felt like a bonus instead of a requirement).

Rating#↑

7/10
Playtime: 18 hours

This was not a flawless game, but it’s easily my favorite of the three.

It’s clearly an upward trend at this point. It’s improved so many things and I can see that this is where they really found their footing. They got cinematic with the story in a way that really landed, and so much of that iconic Final Fantasy flavor is taking shape.

I recognized the most from this game out of the three. A ton of content here is used for a ton of lore in FFXIV. The crystal tower raid series is one big reference to this game, and the Shadowbringers expansion is clearly an homage to it.

If you’re going to play one from this generation, play FFIII. Just look up a guide. There are plenty of good ones out there, and it’ll save you some trouble.

Final Thoughts#↑

I played these games in the most nostalgic way available to me: on a handheld console (Steam Deck), tucked in bed with the lights out, staying up irresponsibly late because I just need one more battle to level up one of my party members. It feels weird to call these games nostalgic when I never played them, but I feel nostalgia regardless. Maybe it’s because I played other JRPGs back then. Maybe it’s just the handheld device. Maybe it’s because I’ve been a fan of FFXIV for almost a decade now, and it’s made me feel like these characters, themes, and art are old friends. Whatever the case, these games are my comfy, happy place right now.

As far as I’ve heard, it’s only up from here! I’m looking forward to it.