What's you favorite PS1 Final Fantasy?

@Fredchuckdave said:

Tactics is the only one that's aged particularly well, every other one has old JRPG issues (note not every PS1 RPG has those issues, just some of them), takes hours and hours to start up, much better beginning of the game compared to the end (particularly IX which has a superb disc 1 and then the rest of the game is garbage). The music and the cutscenes are still pretty good though. I will say the crickets in Final Fantasy VIII make me feel wonderfully nostalgic, more games need crickets.

I agree with this completely. IX is great until disc 2 and then just squanders all of Disc 1 build up. 8 is my particular favorite because I liked the magic system, the combat, the supporting cast, and it still has quite possibly one of the best mini games ever. The crafting system in the game is a bit weak but overall non of the other ps1 games hold up to me like this one.

@Sidoran: XIII has pretty set in stone characters unless you grind for like 50 hours postgame; even then the characters' raw stats are wildly divergent.

Lots of love for IX, I figured this'd be a full scale VII blowout.

IX is great.

VII is alright.

VIII is hot garbage.

Final Fantasy Tactics

9 would be my non joke answer even though FFT was legit the best Final Fantasy game on the PS1.

@Fredchuckdave: More so than most, I agree, but there's still a fair amount of overlap between characters with the paradigm system. That and I was severely disappointed with that game, so I try to keep it repressed from memory. :P

@Apparatus_Unearth said:

Lots of love for IX, I figured this'd be a full scale VII blowout.

I think the whole 'VII is so overrated, IX is so underrated' thing is dying down and evening itself out. I'm glad VIII is the minority here. I would've had to seriously re-evaluate my opinion of GiantBomb if it won.

I think FF VIII overall had the most enjoyable game play systems, side content, and cinematic set pieces so that's my favorite. I think I like IX's art style, story, and characters the most but they took a step back on the game play side. VII was novel but that's all it will ever be since they hadn't quite figured out the art, writing, and mechanics.

@ArtisanBreads said:

VII. I know, I'm not cool.

EDIT: Actually, FFT is really it. But you left that off. What's the big idea!?

This, pretty much. Out of the ones in the poll, VII wins, but Tactics really gets my vote.

VII for its world, characters, and for pure nostalgia (it was the game that pushed me into game addiction), IX for its mechanics and ability leveling system, Final Fantasy Tactics for its job system and purely addictive nature. VII is my overall favorite, but I'm a huge fan of each of them, including VIII.

I am so happy that so many people like FF9 . I thought I was alone :( but now I know there are others

VIII Chicken-wuss! Though if I could say Crisis Core + VII then that would be my answer.

No love for 8 apparently?

@vorpalparasite: Crisis Core had some interesting ideas, but serious problems with its story telling. Namely with Gackt, Genesis and the whole dumapple thing. It was a mess. It's also really disappointing that all of the VII "sequels" completely forgot what Cloud's personality was supposed to be, going with the fake emo side, instead of the dorky hero he actually was.

I haven't played any of them since they came out, and have touched none of the pseudo-sequels to VII. I remember VII more than VIII more than IX. It's like night and day: VII is vivid, IX is almost a complete blank, VIII is somewhere in between. Regardless of which is the better game, VII undeniably had the greatest impact at the time.

7 is fanfuckingtastic. 8 is terrible and 9 is pretty awesome. So 7.

Also, saying 8 is terrible is just considering the things I personally want out of FF games. I know why people like it. It succeeded in a bunch of ways, just none that I care about.

9. Followed closely by 7.

8 is a fine game, but it doesn't hold up when you compare it to 9 or 7.

IX.

That game fell short in a lot of ways, but goddammit, it had heart.

8 is an atrocious piece of crap. 9 is mediocre and forgettable other than the fact that a DBZ character is the last boss and main character for some reason.

7 is an actual good RPG that made RPG's popular in the west and brought a small unpopular genre out of the gutter and made people actually care about it.

I wonder which I voted for?

7, I liked a lot because it feels like a natural evolution of the SNES-era games, and because of how impressive it was at the time.

8, I liked a bit because it threw away almost everything previous games had done up until that point and just tried a whole bunch of brand-new systems. Some worked and some didn't, but I still enjoyed the game for what it was trying to do. The story and characters were pretty bad, though, though the world was sort of unique.

9, I recognize is probably a great game, but it just never clicked with me. I have no idea why. I've tried several times but never really felt a spark.

I chose 7.

My feelings shift around, but there are things I adore about every one of 'em. I don't consider any of them wholly better than the other, since they're all good at different things (and, of course, weak as well). But hey, lemme slap together something anyway.

Characters: IX > VII > VIII

In general, I find the cast of IX and the dynamics and banter between them to be the best of the three. VII is full of memorable characters that get their individual plots fleshed out rather well, but their dialogue doesn't make me smile as much as IX does -- and I guess that's what ultimately matters to me most. IX is just good fun all the way through. As for VIII, I actually consider Squall to be one of the most realized FF protagonists, but... his supporting cast leaves something to be desired, and kinda drags it down for me.

World: VIII > IX > VII

There's something about VIII's world that I find extremely endearing. At times it feels like kinda anachronistic within itself, but I think that's part of the charm too. Most of the game feels relatively modern-day, until you realize there's a lot of crazy fantasy science powering everything... not to mention the sprawling future metropolis you find later. I 'unno, I just find the locales in this one the most interesting, the setting itself feels pretty unique. FFIX is more on the generic fantasy side, but there's enough intrigue in the way its technology works, and the occasional political happening sets it above VII for me, where much of the world is pretty incidental.

Systems: VII > VIII > IX

Specifically I'm talking about the systems related to battle. The level of authorship I have over my party's attributes and abilities directly correlates to how much I enjoy the system. So... Materia takes the cake. It's not the most robust customization around by any stretch, but I've had a lot of fun making dumb combinations for hilariously effective results. Junctioning in VIII takes a close second, and I love it too. If it wasn't for the fact that it revolved around DRAWING, I might even call it my favorite. [insert mini-rant here where I complete about consumable abilities] IX is a more distant third because I'm not really making a lot of choices in it. It ends up more of a "do I want this NOW, or LATER"-type deal, and forces you to keep wearing old equipment even long after you've found better stuff, which is just a little boring.

LOOK IT'S A TIE

I almost tried to rank by story, but shit, all of them fall apart at the end.

@SagaciousJones said:

I personally think a lot of the backlash against VII is unfounded and largely colored by the ways Square has "expanded" on that universe in directions that play up the worse aspects of the game while leaving behind the good.

Mostly, I referring to Cloud and how people think he was the start of brooding "emo" JRPG protagonists. This is false. The actual character who appears in FFVII is upbeat and positive, cracks jokes, and has fun. FFVII retains the thematic elements that people have loved about the franchise since FFIV--corny goofball comedy set against serious story beats--and takes it to the farthest extremes in both directions. While VII had the most serious plot so far with all the Sephiroth business, it it also by far the silliest FF game. I am mostly a fan of the latter part, but I can see why people would be turned off by the former.

I present some evidence for why the Cloud people have in their heads--the character featured in every FFVII related content since the actual PS1 game--is not the protagonist I love.

Snowboarding

Dognapping

Let's Mosey

Cross Dressing

Teasing Tifa

Barrett Date Scene

Cloud was a great protagonist. WAS. A shame people forget how much he evolved as a character over the course of FF7.

No idea why FF7 is so hated, it's basically a SNES FF game with a slightly different setting and some sort of commentary on the older stuff.

VII = best music.

VIII = best characters.

IX = best gameplay.

I'm one of the few who hasn't played any of the PS1 Final Fantasy games but IX seems to be the one that's right up my alley. In fact, I plan on buying VII and IX on PSN pretty soon.

Fuck anyone who didn't vote for Final Fantasy 8 y'all are dirty motherfuckers.

9.8.7

@bartok said:

Final Fantasy Tactics

9 would be my non joke answer even though FFT was legit the best Final Fantasy game on the PS1.

I'd find it hard to vote for Final Fantasy Tactics, since Square got the guy who made Ogre Tactics to head the project for them, which heavily influenced the characters, story, and even art direction (the artist being a friend of Yasumi Matsuno's who came to Square with him), all of which I think are what make FFT so good. Some people would probably say Square still gets to take credit for it, but I feel Matsuno himself is largely responsible for making FFT what it is, and if Square hadn't plucked him away from Quest/Enix, it never would have happened in the first place -- or if it had, it would have been extremely different.

So yeah, my vote would go to FFIX for those reasons even if FFT was in the poll. I'm fairly certain the spirit of the question was what our favorite "traditional" Final Fantasy game of the PS1 era is, and FFT isn't a traditional FF, which is probably why it was left off the list. If the question was which was the better game between those two, that would be a hell of a lot harder for me to decide. I easily like both games far more than FFVII or VIII, though.

I can't get into FFT.

Man. I loved me some Final Fantasy VIII.

7, the only one I've ever played

I had hoped VIII's popularity would increase over time but I guess that's just not gonna happen. When they were coming out, my favourites were VII, IX, VIII. But as I've played them over the years I enjoy VIII more and more.

It has the most varied gameplay and story scenarios, and, I may be mathematically wrong about this, but it feels like it has the most writing too. Also, sweet music!

It's a toss up between VII and IX, but VII was my first love, so...VII.

VII, but VIII is still close.

The only Final Fantasy I've beaten is FFX, so yeah... I don't know :(

At the time, VII, but today it's IX. I played through all 3 of them again a few years ago, and it held up the best to me. I'm your standard, dyed in the wool VIII hater. IX it is.

@GERALTITUDE said:

I had hoped VIII's popularity would increase over time but I guess that's just not gonna happen. When they were coming out, my favourites were VII, IX, VIII. But as I've played them over the years I enjoy VIII more and more.

It has the most varied gameplay and story scenarios, and, I may be mathematically wrong about this, but it feels like it has the most writing too. Also, sweet music!

People who post frequently on message boards is key here.

If they remade FF VII or something you'd see how popular it still is widely. It'd be a huge seller.

8 by a large margin.

VII, with IX barely behind it. I don't even want to think about the pile of trash that is VIII

VIII, 八, ٨, ৮, 捌, ८, ፰, 8, ೮, ໘, ൮, ௮, ๘, or any other possible way to express eight.

I will never get over my love for Final Fantasy VIII. IX is as close a second as it can possibly be. It finishes .000000000000001 seconds behind VIII.

I really like VII, too.

For me, 7 is okay but I don't really ever want to play it again. Characters are kinda bland as well as the story, but materia is pretty decent I guess.

8 is pretty boring in my opinion. Only saving grace is Laguna and Co. otherwise all the characters range from mediocre to suck. God do I hate Squall and Rinoa. That dog was pretty sweet though.

9 I like a fair bit but haven't played in a while. I should go back to that one sometime.

And of course Tactics blows them all out of the water. Might be my favorite video game of all time. Definitely top 5 at least.

Hating Final Fantasy VIII is on my asshole litmus test.

Also:

@GERALTITUDE said:

It has the most varied gameplay and story scenarios, and, I may be mathematically wrong about this, but it feels like it has the most writing too. Also, sweet music!

I don't think "most writing" equals "best writing." I've never not enjoyed an FF game (only one I haven't touched is XIII so that could easily change), but VIII has the lofty distinction of having the second worst plot twist in JRPG history (worst goes to Star Ocean 3).

Also, VII had tons of activities to change up the gameplay: Chocobo racing, the motorcycle, the Junon march, Fort Condor, Gold Saucer games, the submarine game, throwing barrels at dudes from rafters, squatting with the gym dudes, snowboarding, and I'm sure other stuff I can't even remember. The only other game I know that breaks up the talking/dungeoning/fighting JRPG formula so well is Super Mario RPG.

Can you remind me what side content VIII had beyond Triple Triad? I don't want to sound snide; I honestly can't remember if they did similar things.

But yes, Man with the Machine Gun is awesome.

@JerichoBlyth said:

IX was the best game in the entire series (oh fuck everyone and their precious FF6 for the Super Nintendo - I thought it was boring)

It was a shame that it was the death nail for traditional FF games though...because it didn't sell very well at all. Then we got the very streamlined FF10 and it allllll went to shit.

Ok, you can't both knock the best game in the series and then fuck up a phrase like "death knell." I avoid being a grammar nazi unless you kill one of my sacred cows, like FFIII/VI.

To the OP, Tactics was, by far, the best PS FF game.

My vote FFIX my favorite final fantasy granted it may be because it was my first final fantas!

@SagaciousJones said:

But yes, Man with the Machine Gun is awesome.

God, that song is awesome. Most of the music in that game is, actually. And come to think of it, I really enjoyed Triple Triad and I thought the GF and junction system was kinda neat. I guess that goes to show you how a weak main cast can sabotage something.

8. 9 was too childish and simplistic and 7 is actually one of my least favorite games in the series, full of bland, uninteresting characters. I loved the junction system of 8 and I loved how it was a very mature, political drama type of game. Though Squall did suck, the rest of the cast made up for it.

Tactics, or IX according to your poll. Actually they are my top 2 games of forever.

FFVIII, though my username might give it away. FFVII was so mediocre and IX couldn't possibly have been anymore vanilla and uninspiring.

FF IX because of this guy.

@ArtisanBreads said:

VII. I know, I'm not cool.

EDIT: Actually, FFT is really it. But you left that off. What's the big idea!?

man, I loved FFT but I got stuck at a point where the enemies were way more powerful than I was and there was no way for me to grind.

I should seriously go back and play it again someday.