eisenreich

I would have to say VI followed closely by VII. Despite playing nearly all of the games in the series, these two were the most memorable. The main draw for me was the villains: Kefka and Sephiroth, hands down the most fleshed-out and complex characters I've come across.

fujishig

I dunno... I know that "old school" fans generally dislike VII, most likely because it brought about a whole new era of RPGs that focused on graphics and cutscenes and brought in a different fanbase... but I grew up in the DragonQuest I, FFI era. I replayed those games on GBC and GBA, and they just aren't as much fun as I remembered. Both are very simplistic, and offer a minimal amount of story. They were revolutionary for their times, but take away the nostalgia value and they fall short of today's standards.

I used to marathon RPGs (I stayed up for days without sleeping beating Phantasy Star II), and I enjoyed the stories then. But I find now that I'm more interested in the battle systems and the atmosphere than the overall stories. It could be because I can't really play RPGs straight through anymore. This also might be why I'm starting to prefer the tactics games, Ogre battle and stuff like Vagrant Story.

Although I like eyecandy as much as anyone, the main reason I hated VIII was the damned unskippable Guardian Forces. Yeah, you don't really have to use them, but they're a main part of the battle system, and you have to call them a LOT. Letting you skip past most of the animation in X was a much better option. Sometimes I prefer the oldschool, much faster though very simplistic battle animations... it makes tedious leveling up (which is present in most RPGs) much faster.

III is the one where you have kind of generic characters that can switch job classes, right? That one was pretty cool, and I can't wait for the DS version. I'm actually looking forward to finally playing X-2 because of the jobs...

Does anyone ever make videos piecing together an RPG's story, avoiding the in-between leveling up stuff? That'd be pretty cool, and useful too. I always wondered why most RPGs don't let you at least view all the cutscenes again after you finish the game...

PixyJunket

I must be broken then, I've replayed Dragon Warrior I probably 50 times and it's never lost its charm to me. I enjoy that simplicity, where it's just you and the desire to level up; no silly "story" to get in the way of killing monsters and collecting loot. I guess that's where I disconnect from a lot of today's RPGs. Fighting monsters and collecting loot are in today's RPGs but only as an excuse to say there is something to do in between story points, which I feel are usually poorly written with ever more poorly written characters. I thought Square's Super NES stuff was a damn fine balance of the gameplay and story aspects but they continued in a direction where visuals were most important, then story and somewhere near the end of the list is gameplay.

fujishig

So what's the draw of DW 1 to you? Just the simplicity of the concept? Certainly in that game, the earliest of RPGs, it's just meeting a variation of around five sets of monsters and killing it and getting gold. I enjoy the game, and I have played it through a few times myself, but I can't say the original version was very fun... if anything, the GBC version is superior just because it made it so much easier to level up, and you can really fly through the game if you want. This also shows that even in the infant stages, RPGs have ever existed to fill the middle with game-lengthening battles, and I don't really see the difference here. And you can't tell me that character development or story was a driving force in those early games.

Now DW3 took some time, if only because of the random level ups and not wanting to just gain one stat point on a level up. The job system also gave it some complexity.

Sorry to derail the thread... just curious. I find newer games much less tedious than the older games, if only because of the variety of the battle systems. Sure, some of them work and some of them fail (most notably VIII's draw system), but I like the added complexity,and it does help differentiate the games. What do you not like about modern gameplay?

Corvin

And why is it scary? I'm sure I'm not only speaking for myself by saying that I've played most of the FF series, and I still find FFVII to be my favorite. Furthermore, I'm not even sure you're right about the Playstation era comment.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=438858

This thread shows that many of the posters here are older than the "Playstation era" you mention.

darkside

FF VII was excellent. I liked VI a bit more, but I have no problem with it coming in first. I'm definitely not one that started gaming with the Playstation.

fumanstan

I concur.

Chris_D

hah I was waiting for some 'old-sk000l' gamer to get all uppity about their fav FF not winning the poll. I might not have played many of the offerings on nintendo's older consoles but I've been playing rpgs since 85 on c64/pc, and about every rpg I could get my hands on, on segas consoles. Admittedly was not heaps, but included classics like ultima, ys, phantasy star, sword of vermillion, landstalker.

Face it, the reason a lot of people liked FF7 is because it's a great game. I played it before even owning a ps1 and it definitely sold me on the idea of buying a ps1 just to play rpgs (already had a n64).

FRwL

Well FF7's advertising campaign dwarfed FF6's so simply more people know about FF7. Just look at this thread, people voting for something saying they haven't played the other games. The state of the art graphics and renowned CGI effects were much talked about at the time as well.

Funny how you've been playing RPGs since 85 yet completely missed out on the console that was been known as the RPG console.

Corvin

Then again, some of us---not all, obviously---have played much of the series. And some of us are still picking FFVII. If I pick FFVII as my FF, I'm assumed to be one of the following, sometimes a combination: 1) one who can't tell a good game from a bad one; (2) a tool that falls for marketing gimmicks and hype; or, (3) an inexperienced FF player.

When really, none of those are true at all. Like it's some kind of true-gaming wrong to have FFVII as your favorite.

Chris_D

Could only afford one console. Megadrive came out a lot earlier. A friend has a snes although all he had was japanese games (funnily enough not in eng, although zelda was relatively playable still). Many of the best snes rpgs never came out in PAL anyway (chronotrigger). Good enough for u .

And yes, ff7 is a good game .

gatoinfeliz

Final Fantasy 6 (US 3) was the best. Great story (shits all over the mess of 7's), great music that goes with the atmosphere and great characters. I know it's blasphemy but I really liked FF9 more than FF7. The story was good and humerous at times, and it really felt like a quest from start to finish. Not to mention the game system (magic and fighting) was more user-friendly than 7's and the graphics were better (obviously it was going to be).

Of the PS Fantasies the weakest was 8. Horrible Horrible game.

I would fall in love with FF6 again if they remade it a la FFX. Square-Enix should remake FF6 and FF7 again. They should remake Secret Of Mana and Chrono Trigger again as well. I would love it if they started work on another (and this time superior) sequal to Chrono Trigger. Chrono Cross was a complete waste of disk space. The story had nothing to do with Chrono Trigger until the very end and the play system sucked major ass.

pOpus

Final Fantasy VI was not only my favorite FF game, but one of my favorite games of all time. It was the last time Square managed to produce a real story with great gameplay, instead of annoying long cut-scenes with fancy CGI graphics that did nothing but slow down gameplay. After VI (and with the possible exception of IX) most of the recent FF games have seemed more like interactive movies than actual games to me.