Ahead On Our Way - The Top 21 Numbered Final Fantasies Countdown

[Purple]

The game was remade using a polygonal engine - and notably that caused the game balance to be reworked, since the engine couldn’t display as many enemies as the original NES version, so encounters had less enemies with more HP, which made battles feel longer and more sluggish.

Aside from kinda ruining the pacing of combat, the whole approach of "we are going to keep half the screen filled with super detailed models of the characters" just really made the whole thing super claustrophobic. From the very start of the series, the Final Fantasy series has had particularly voluminous spaces pretty much everywhere. Thin wall tiles in big castles, big outdoorsy valley dungeons, etc. etc. Playing 14 recently I found myself thinking "wow this remote little cabin is like... 100 square meters." But you play 3DS and everytihng is just... oppressively cramped.

I like to think there’s a reason why this is the last Final Fantasy end dungeon with no save point in the main series.

And yeah. Come to think I never actually finished this. I have a save just outside the final dungeon, where I just did not have the energy to slog through all that.

 

[Issun]

I don't have much to say about FF3 DS. I liked what I played okay, but I much preferred the Famicom version, which I'll have lots to say about when it shows up.

I also have a lot of things to say about FF4 DS, but as these lists are supposed to trend positive, I will probably stay out of the discussion if that one shows up.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Evil Jesus does look hot in that battle swimsuit.

That is a nice body...

 

[Peklo]

as these lists are supposed to trend positive

They are. I have zero interest in wading through the laundry lists of complaints or "even critiques" per game when the entire rest of the history of the forum is available for that purpose. If a game shows up here, it means someone liked it, so that's where the discussion should go.

 

[Positronic Brain]

Time to laugh in the face of oblivion.

#20
Final Fantasy XI

a.k.a. the MMO one.

93 points • 4 mentions • Highest rank: #8 (Pudik)​

Released on May 16th, 2002 (Japan)
Producer: Hiromichi Tanaka (1.0)
Director: Koichi Ishii (1.0)
Lead Composer: Naoshi Mizuta, with Kumi Tanioka and Nobuo Uematsu.

This was another of Sakaguchi’s ideas - an MMO. This was before World of Warcraft, and Sakaguchi was intrigued by the social aspect of these multiplayer games. He was also the one who pushed for it being a numbered entry instead of a spin-off, which was a pretty big thing - imagine if World of Warcraft had been titled Warcraft IV.

I haven’t found if Play Online was also Sakaguchi’s idea. FFXI was tied to Square’s weird proprietary network that gave us so many headaches and ended up going nowhere after this game. There were also other controversies, like the game requiring the HDD add-on to be playable in PS2, or it launching in Windows first. It’s also notorious for not being too player friendly, at least on those first years, as gaming companies were still figuring out how these MMOs should work.

But this is where my knowledge of the game ends - I never played it. By the time I was ready for the MMO craze the dominant game was WoW so I skipped FFXI entirely. To cover this deficiency, I asked Johnny Unusual to write a few words why he had ranked FFXI so high in his list, at #6.

Ah, I meant to type IX instead of XI. Never played XI.

Oh, well.

I couldn’t find anyone willing to contribute a first-hand account on why IX is good, but it must be doing something right, as it’s a twenty year old game and it’s still online and receives new content every now and then. The community is tight knit, so if Sakaguchi's goal was to create a community that would play online as comrades in arms, he succeeded. Alas, it will remain in my list as the FF I never played.

Something old

FFXI has drawn from all other titles during its lifetime, from enemies to jobs to abilities. One aspect I’d like to highlight is that from the very beginning it was designed to be “universal” - one version for all regions, with no post-release localization, so when the designers were picking names for its bestiary they used both japanese and western names. So it drew inspiration from all FFs from all regions!

Something new

Being a MMO, the usual turn-based combat of FF had to be redesigned. FFXI introduced free movement in battles, and ditched random encounters altogether, critical aspects of its battle sytem that would be adopted by future FFs. Some aspects of its lore, like the Galka, Mithra and Tarutaru races would also be reused later by Square’s next MMO.

Something blew

In FFXI you can have two classes at once - a main class and a support class at half the level, which enables the main class to use abilities of the secondary class. A system like this hasn’t resurfaced in a main FF since (and while XIV implemented a similar system, it ditched it when it was rebooted, but more about that later) (spoilers!)

Rating:

2/7 possible polygonal models in screen

 

[Daikaiju]

Loved the world and the lore. I was also tickled how kind and welcoming the San d'Orian king was in comparison to, well, everyone else in that place.

FF11 also introduced Shantotto into the tapestry of future games, for good or ill.





Definitely ill. Woman is chaos unbound.

 

[Positronic Brain]

All I know about Shanttoto is that she's a good Dissidia character, honestly. I've always been curious about her, but not enough to actually play XI. But she's popular enough that, besides representing XI in most spin-offs, she has a counterpart in XIV's lore.

 

[Oathbreaker]

Most of my knowledge of XI came from the thread for it on the old forums. It always sounded very fun, but when I tried it for myself I found out it was too late for me to be willing to put up with its early MMO design foibles. Before I fully put to rest my desire to do hard content in MMOs some of the superbosses in XI sounded right up my alley, I'd probably still be willing to try them out if I could play it in a hyperbolic time chamber.

 

[Peklo]

I played XI for a hot couple of days in 2020 just to enact a bit of virtual archaeology and tourism, and greatly enjoyed it in that capacity. There's a real strength to its aesthetic and colour palettes and the atmosphere simply existing in its world creates--even the PlayOnline log-in interface and its associated BGM are pleasingly kitsch and distinct, to say nothing of the fashion runway character creation clips. I'm jealous of the people whose life circumstances could leverage the game into the social experience that it must've been in its most relevant period, since that was where its interests heavily leaned.

 

[pudik]

i did want to write something up, but unfortunately it's just been so long since i played it that it's hard for me to say anything of too much import. Of course, every starting area, including "the player's" with the playonline login, is so deeply burnt in I could sketch them better than my own hands. I've got enough assorted memories of scrolling through menus for auto attacks and lists of spells that, if nothing else, make me weep over xiv's streamlined action-focused setup. And ultimately that's what I hold most from it. XIV is more accessible, and probably why it's more successful (i think? idk), but nothing makes me yearn for ffxi more than when i played that. XI gave me the feeling i assume people got from the first final fantasy with the idea that i could build my character, as myself, and contend with an entire world that would throw enough things at me i had the inclination to explore my boundaries. 4 hours into xiv, and I get the set up for combos, and what I'm going to do for every enemy. 4 hours into xi I've finally figured out a rhythm for moving through the attack menus and I'm eagerly anticipating each level up reward (which back in my day two years to achieve from my recollection). As someone who never played Warcraft I can't imagine an mmo capturing the feeling of falling into a series as much as xi did. Outfits were great, building up to the moment where you can finally find a team is great, and above all, blue mage is just another class, rather than a separate game mode.

 

[Kirin]

I couldn’t find anyone willing to contribute a first-hand account on why IX is good, but...

{you} meant to type XI instead of IX.

 

[4-So]

I bought FF11 because I had all of the other ones, so why not, and only played a blessed little of it. I was already an MMO vet by the time FF11 came along, having spent many hours in EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot, and I found FF11 to be not only player-unfriendly but almost hostile to folks who wanted to be eased into its more social aspects. In a lot of ways FF11 signaled the end of classic MMOs, since World of Warcraft would lead the charge in the themeparkization - that's a word now - of the genre. In that respect, I do appreciate a lot of the game's slow-burn worldbuilding but it's through the YouTube vid retrospective lens.

 

[JBear]

Back when XI first came out, I was scared of it, because I worried about the time commitment that MMOs represented and didn't trust myself to play responsibly. That said, I had a couple of good friends who played back then, and who even now keep threatening to take me on a guided tour and do a deep dive on it. There's precedent for us just picking an old MMO and diving in together, so maybe someday! It's probably more likely than my playing that other FF MMO, at least, because I'm contrary like that.

I also have a cousin who's a lifer-- he was a big FF fan, and he started playing XI at launch and basically never stopped. I don't think he's played another FF since, but he built his entire online social circle around that game and still to this day posts on his guild's (linkshell??) online message board as his social media of choice, I think.

Basically all I know about the game is half-remembered stories about some raid boss that took a full real-time 24 hours to kill or something ridiculous on that order of magnitude? If true, that's at least one thing that carried on to the next numbered title!

 

[FelixSH]

I would love to play FF XI, but only as a version made for single-play. I will play through XIV at some time, partly because of the giant free trial, but even there, I would prefer a single-player version. Multiplayer is just not my thing, it stresses me out. Maybe one day.

 

[Purple]

Honestly a few months back FF14 added the option for most if not all formerly party-requiring content in the base game/first expansion to just grab some AI NPCs to fill the seats and you actually can treat the whole thing as a single player game. Unless you just like, don't want to see all the lesbian catgirls making out when you wander through towns.

 

[FelixSH]

Sounds awesome. It's less anything against XIV, and more that I want to play through XII and XIII first, to complete my project, and generally not being ready for a giant MMO. But good to know.

Still, I feel like I should do what Peklo did with XI, and just take a look for a few days, or something, to at least experience XI in some way. It's a shame, that it will elsewise remain an unknown entity to me.

 

[pudik]

I would love to play FF XI, but only as a version made for single-play. I will play through XIV at some time, partly because of the giant free trial, but even there, I would prefer a single-player version. Multiplayer is just not my thing, it stresses me out. Maybe one day.

FFXI also has added NPC party members to add. From what i understand is is more or less possible to play all content solo

 

[Positronic Brain]

I have some thoughts regarding XI's vs XIV's philosophies, but I'll keep them close to my vest for now in case XIV pops up in the list. Man, Iwish I could see the future.

{you} meant to type XI instead of IX.

>_< As I said before, after a while all roman numeral start looking the same. Man, I hope he doesn't get mad....

 

[Positronic Brain]

Feel like dying?

#19
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

a.k.a. The one with all the costumes. No, the other one.

108 points • 5 mentions • Highest rank: #5 (Peklo)​

Released on November 21, 2013 (Japan)
Producer: Yoshinori Kitase
Director: Motomu Toriyama
Composer: Masashi Hamauzu (with Naoshi Mizuta and Mitsuto Suzuki)

Ah, the game that closed the XIII trilogy. Famously co-developed by Tri-Ace (but who, according to Wikipedia, only worked on graphics). It has the peculiarity that you control only one character, the titular Lightning, but she can equip different outfits (Schemata) with different skills in each, and she can switch them on the fly - and each one has an independent ATB bar. So you basically control a whole party, attacking several times by switching your Schemata on the fly. An army of one, so to speak.

Another peculiarity is that the game deviates from the traditional rigid structure of mainline FFs. Instead you just pick at quests - but you have to be careful, because there’s a clock ticking all the time You have only up to thirteen days of game time to finish the critical path, or the world ends. Its structure is so different from traditional FFs that even the logo deviates, being one of the few from the main series that is not drawn by illustrator Yoshitaka Amano.

It is an intriguing concept but, alas, I’ve never played it beyond its demo. Which is weird because according to my Steam and PSN accounts I somehow have bought it twice? Godammit. In any case, I asked Peklo to share with us why this game ranked so high in their list.

Lightning Returns had the unenviable task of concluding a trilogy that in popular conception few wanted, the opening salvo seemingly having soured public opinion on the evergreen series to an extent never seen before. Focusing more than ever on the leading heroine of a family of games that came to be emblematic of an entire genre's supposed fall earned it no easier time of it in critical or kneejerk discourse, and previous safeguards like a protracted development timeframe and practically limitless material resources were also denied it. The days of excess were behind it now, which reflects in the shape the game would take in making the most with little, both as a developmental reality and thematic throughline.

Lightning Returns presents the quiet entropic demise of a world, frittering away its last days in stagnated ennui for its existentially static populace, the eerie disquiet of which is contrasted with Lightning's own purpose and travels through the pockets of civilization that are to be her and everyone else's coffin in these end of days. Contrary to any other games in the series and most video games as a rule, Lightning Returns is a game about the inevitability of encroaching finality and sand slipping through one's fingers no matter how hard one delays or struggles in response; it is an action-oriented RPG starring a superwoman of a protagonist in the employ of a god and still manages to make every step of her journey feel mundanely disempowered and casts any small personal or altruistic victory won along the way as inherently pyrrhic.

It is a game that often feels like a patchwork amalgam of discarded and half-finished concepts of previous projects, but which fashions that residue into a meaningful and thematically coherent whole through the conceptually simple but difficult act of tying disparate design elements of assorted origin to support that central thesis. It's an exponentially daring game for throwing away large parts of the widely detested playbook of its immediate predecessors, and then writing new pages in an equally obscure and forbidding script to replace them. Whatever trends of the era or responses to popular criticism exist in it are all expressed in ways that cast the end result as just as idiosyncratic as what its predecessors were accused of, and for that individuality it's the best and truest possible conclusion to a maligned but cherished saga within its series.

Thanks, Peklo!

And one last piece of trivia - for all the jokes made about it, this is one of the few Final fantasy titles where you do get to kill God.

Something Old

Lightning’s schemata are based in the classic Final Fantasy jobs. Is like having the complete job system, even if there’s only one character in screen. As part of DLC and cross-promotions, some of the schemata are direct references to certain entries in the series, like VII’s Soldier First Class and Flower Girl schemata. And nobody will convince me that the Moogle schema is not a reference to X-2.

Something New

The battle system, with a dedicated block action and freedom of movement in the field, has plenty of similarities with FFXV’s. Apparently it’s a case of convergent evolution, since the XIII and XV teams swear they came up with their implementations separately, but one do wonders….

Something Blew

The time limit would never show again in a main Final Fantasy, While it did add some tension to the proceedings, it was the more questioned element in the game since it limited what you could do in a single playthrough. It might appear again, but so far it looks to be a permanent guest at the Abandoned Ideas inn.

Score

(10-3)/13 days

 

[Juno]

wrong logo!

 

[Positronic Brain]

wrong logo!

It's not my fault the "Post" button is so large and clickable. It should be fixed.

 

[Peklo]

The time limit would never show again in a main Final Fantasy, While it did add some tension to the proceedings, it was the more questioned element in the game since it limited what you could do in a single playthrough. It might appear again, but so far it looks to be a permanent guest at the Abandoned Ideas inn.

It's complete anathema to the power fantasy/FOMO completionist gamer baseline (and part of why I love it any time a game utilizes a comparable concept), but in practice there's very little one cannot do once the game's basic rhythms are internalized. I was eventually constantly idling away time as I simply ran out of meaningful stuff to do on the default difficulty settings, and there's a far more forgiving easy mode that makes things even more lackadaisical. It's not a waste of a concept since dwindling time still ultimately informs all the mechanics and storytelling of the game, but it's not a sheer vertical wall to overcome. Probably the only strictly multiple-playthrough exclusive content is some of the super challenges that are meant for new game+ or a second loop.

Anyway, what a game. I put off playing it for several years and utterly loved it. The soundtrack is particularly interesting since coming off the solo undertaking that XIII represented, the bulk of the material in both of the sequels is composed and arranged by Mizuta and Suzuki rather than Hamauzu, who's still doing a lot but doesn't define the soundscape by his lonesome anymore. It's such a vibrant and diverse catalogue that results and really helps define the game's culminating atmosphere.

 

[FelixSH]

Everything I read about XIII-3 sounds like it would appeal to me, but my PC isn't capable of handling XIII-2, so I didn't even try that one. At some point, I will have a new pc, and I will get to experience it.

 

[Kirin]

This is one that got away from me - I was interested but never managed to make time to sit down and play it. Also time limits kind of scare me, but it sounds from Peklo's description that it wouldn't have bothered me too much in practice.

 

[Lokii]

I’m excited to get to this one ~someday~

 

[pudik]

I really loved the little bit of XIII that i played, and I've been excited to continue but then things got in the way. peklo sold me on it years ago, and lightning returns itself has seemed enough of a reason to play through it all

 

[Daikaiju]

Was this the game withe the moogle plushie outfit?

 

[Peklo]

It surely is.

 

[Oathbreaker]

Absolutely loved most of what Lightning Returns had to offer, especially in terms of its battle systems and themes. I was always a fan of fast ATB and Lightning Returns does it even better than X-2. Honestly in hindsight seeing other people's thoughts articulate things I didn't give as much thought I probably should have ranked it higher than I did.

Fun new-ish fact also. A modding group managed to get a near fully accurate mod of the Aerith garb working for the PC version of the game recently after years and years of it being judged basically impossible to port or reverse-engineer from the console version. They had a little trouble with its colors but it's otherwise the same.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I beta tested for FF11 on PC and on PS2. Because I beta tested on PS2, Squaresoft sent me the PS2 version of the game (including the hdd!) for free. Best beta test I ever participated in because of that.

As a game, it definitely wasn't for me. It still had a lot of Everquest in its DNA that made the game punishingly hard if you ever died, and also the entire combat system was oriented around you having to team up with others. But if you liked MMOs it seemed like a really good one. And it had a bunch of innovations that did make it a lot more approachable/enjoyable versus other MMOs of the time. The marketboard was a big innovator; being able to play w/ JP players was pretty cool, and the way communications worked in the game also kept the game as one of the least toxic gaming communities I've ever played with. It just wasn't, you know, for me.

I've been meaning to play Lightning Returns for a long time. But I never came close to beating XIII-2. And I'd have to go find and plug in my PS3 and that's probably not gonna happen.