Which Final Fantasy do you recommend I play next?

VI is the best of the 2D Final Fantasies and one of my favorite JRPGS ever IV is also really good too.

I can't recommend IX as I personally think it's one of the worst in the franchise. I recommend reading ZombiePie's blog on 9 if you want a primer.

Doom.

While I think VI is a better game overall, I might suggest playing IV before it. VI is absolutely the pinnacle of that style of Final Fantasy game, so playing it first and going back to an older game like IV might be a little rough. Both are absolutely worth playing, speaking as someone who played both of them for the first time last year. It just might be easier to do it in chronological order, especially if you plan on playing them all at some point anyways.

I have a hard time recommending IX, as it's one of my least favorite, but I would at least suggest the PC version if you choose to do so. The PS1 version has some of the most unbearably sluggish combat I've ever seen (due to hardware limitations, not design) and the PC version at least fixes that.

I voted for 6 because it's the best one , but if you're the type of person that will play all those games regardless and just want to have a good order, i would probably play 4-6-9 .

Exactly this.

I agree with this guy agreeing about this post and the suggestion expressed in said post!

That said, if you think how "modern" a game is might influence your enjoyment of it, then I'd recommend IX, as I genuinely believe it's the single best 3D Final Fantasy game. Opinions on this one differ, mind you, in that some people are WRONG and others are not.

This is tough. 9 is my favorite out of those three, but you'd get more out of it if you can appreciate the references to the old games. I'd just do it in order. 4 then 6 then 9. Or 6 and then 9 if you don't want to play 4.

I've played 4 and am playing through 6 and 9. I'm voting for 6, because it's a good time so far, and it really hits the ground running from the very start. I don't think going back to the older Final Fantasy 4 afterwards will be an issue, especially when it has pretty decent modern remakes.

@do_the_manta_ray: @thewildcard: @onemanarmyy: @wemibelle: is there any other reason to play them in order besides mechanical refinement? I have no problem enjoying or adjusting to older games and I've been playing the series with no regard for that. 10>12>13>7>CC>13-2>10-2>8>LR. I am looking to play them all but I'm looking to enjoy them first, critique them second, so I do take significant breaks in between each. I'm really just trying to decide which one and not looking much beyond that. Right now it seems like VI is the winner and am I right that the GBA one is the one to go with? And I forgot to put in Type-0 as one of the choice. Do y'all have any opinions on that one? Oh and @wemibelle: I did hear the PC IX is good but I already have a physical and digital copy of the PSX version so probably won't buy it a 3rd time :/ but it can't be slower than 8 can it?

@liquiddragon said:

Good lord no! Play the SNES version. The music is nerfed in the GBA version and the music in VI is absolutely fantastic! I guess the mobile version has the best quality music, the extras from the GBA version and the (supposedly) better translation, but you'll be going at it with touch controls...

I voted for IV anyhow. It still holds up. I'd avoid the DS version though. The difficulty turned me right off. I've beaten the SNES version a dozen times, and the DS version is 100X harder. To the point where I gave up. It's brutal.

Edit: Forgot about the PC version. It's not available in my region for some reason. It's based on the Android version, so...

Six, quit fucking around.

@liquiddragon: I remember IX feeling unbelievably slow, sometimes to the point where I thought the game had locked up. I ended up ripping my PS1 copy and playing it through an emulator, where I could use emulation speed to make it go faster. However, I've rarely seen anyone complain about it to the level that I do, so it might just be a weird personal issue?

As for where to play it, I definitely agree with @sinusoidal that the SNES version is much better for the music alone. When I played it, however, I found a patch for the GBA version that inserted the original music from the SNES version and enjoyed myself that way. I don't really think that's necessary though--the benefits of the GBA version are minuscule and likely won't be something you'd notice having never touched it before.

I originally bounced off of Type-0, but that was before they added the motion blur fix (because the original made me feel quite ill). I can't speak to it, but I do want to play it at some point.

@liquiddragon:I only played a few hours of Type 0 and kinda hated it. Nothing in the first few hours felt like a FF game apart from all the L"cie , Fal"cie talk that you know from FF13. You're getting bombarded with lore and characters and flashbacks and it all felt very confusing. And i thought i had a firm grasp on Final Fantasy XIII! Most characters are also named after cards, which is cute up until the point where you forget which character was 7 and 8 and why they are in a party with a girl named Sice. I guess it sounds like six? 5 is named Cinque. It came across as a dumb joke and deminished my interest in those characters.

It just felt like a typical anime RPG in the vein of God-eater, where you take on smaller missions > do them > go back > start new quest. The combat also didn't click with me in the first few hours, and felt like i was still playing a PSP game, but maybe that's just because i wasn't invested in it. At the start you have access to 10-ish characters, which made me wonder how much time i should spend to make them all strong, or if i just ignore the ones that seem weak. I rather have a team naturally come together over the course of the game like most Final Fantasies do. From reading some stuff online it seems like the game splits you up into multiple teams at times and if you're not properly leveled, you're just going to have a bad time.

There's also a day/night cycle in the game. Between missions you have time off to talk to other characters or leave your hub area to train / visit other cities. That stuff was annoying to me, because it felt like i had to choose which content i wanted to miss.

In my research, it seemed like the SNES version of VI is pretty much the best way to go, and it's working out fine for me so far.

If you haven't played 6, it should be your next. Then go 9 then 4.

I've only played two final fantasies, xv and vi. Both last year. VI was so freaking good. That's my vote.

@liquiddragon: been many years since i played 4, but if my memory is correct, 6's story is just grander and has deeper storymoments that impact the gameplay more, whereas 4 is fairly pedestrian by comparison. 6 also has a better antagonist and is overall a darker game than most Final Fantasies. Legendary music as well.

9 is more of a throwback game that harkens back to the job-systems. It has one of the best Final Fantasy characters, but i felt that the open world gameplay of 9 is very restricted compared to earlier games. My memory might be hazy, but it felt like there weren't many moments where you could just free-wheel around the overworld and find cool stuff to do on the side. It also didn't have a great antagonist. It's pretty good about handling lighthearted comedic things and serious themes though. If you're mostly invested in the story, people seem to really enjoy this. If you're more in it for the gameplay, you will probably enjoy other Final Fantasies more.

I just feel that the 'throwback' aspect of that game won't hit you at it's fullest if you play it before you dive into some of the earlier games.

@onemanarmyy: cool, thanks man. I was actually thinking, sense I've almost exhausted the 3D ones, I'd like to tap into the sprite based ones so that works out.

None of the above. You are a beautiful flower which needs to grow.

Be free

You should play VI, also known as III in the US, at least at the time of its release. If you play on an SNES console or through emulation, the title screen should say Final Fantasy III. You probably already know that, but I thought I'd say it just in case.

You just listed my three favourite Final Fantasy games. All three are worth playing and I would play them in release order (so 4>6>9). 6 is my favourite by far though so if you only have time to play one I'd suggest that one.

Ranked in other of preference I'd say 6>9>4.

Unlike some others, VI is the only game in this list that I like.

Based on how you've ranked the ones you've played already, you'll probably enjoy 9 the most out of the poll options. It was the best of the PS1 titles. 9 also uses four people in a party, which is what the games used to do before 7. So after 9 you could play 6 and you'll be plenty used to using 4 party members.

@jesus_phish: Any reason why you think I'd enjoy IX the most or just a hunch?

@liquiddragon: Just based on the ones you've ranked already.

If you wanna play all 3, start with 4. If you are only gonna play one, do 6. This is my decree.

Your ranking list also lines up pretty ok with mine, so maybe you will like 9 also. I played that game in 2016, and it's definitely rougher than I'd like to admit. Especially in combat, it's just slow as fuck. But I really like it still, and I feel like it fills a similar FF niche as 10 and a little bit of 12. So perhaps you'll be into it too? It'd be interesting to hear back on that one. A lot of people that I've talked to that only got around to it years later haven't really liked it. Might have been a time and place game.

@jesus_phish: Right but maybe you're seeing a pattern I'm not? I started the series favoring the story over gameplay but I think I've come out pretty split in that regard. At this point, I have no idea which ones I'll like.

@tobbrobb: oh cool, what's your ranking?

@liquiddragon: Everything you've played so far has been from the 3D era of it. Out of the main games you listed top five as being X, XII, VII, VII and XIII.

IX is the last of the 3D games for you apart from XV and probably has the best story out of all the playstation era games. It certainly has better gameplay than VII and VIII. It's also the only 3D one that captures some of the spirit and feeling of games like IV and VI.

If your favourite style of gameplay is from XII onward though you're out of luck because none of the games before then play like that.

@liquiddragon: Something like:

1. X
2. XII
3. VII
4. VI
5. IX

I'm a little wishywashy with rankings in general, but that's pretty much the top 5 for me.

Six is the best game in the series in my opinion.

Maybe the Marvel kind? ;)

http://kotaku.com/marvel-comics-and-square-enix-launch-new-partnership-wi-1791651439

As much as love 6, man is it a hard game to go back too. I just cant deal with random battles at this point. They just seem like busy work.

I'd say skip all of those and play Bravely Default instead. That is a great game that also repects the players time. The ability to control how often the random battles happen, completely spoiled me on the older Final Fantasys. Fair warning though, Bravely Default's story does shit the bed about two-thirds of the way through. Id still recommended people play it.

There is a critical lack of FFV on this list. I'd say play 5, 6 after that, maybe 9, then forget 4?

People like all of them I suppose. I never really got that far into IV as it never really grabbed me. I never really got into VI until I bought a copy of the GBA version in college and, while never beating it, got pretty close to the end. I thought it was pretty good. The mashup of different styles in the turn based combat was pretty interesting. I think IX is the last good 3D Final Fantasy that sticks to that formulae (thus barring XII and XV, XIV doesn't really count) from my consideration. The reason I like IX is that it has a pretty creative world. I think more than anything I like just wandering around well designed worlds. That was the part of VII that I loved so much was their was just really interesting places everywhere that tended to have a personality of their own. And I think with IV that was what never really grabbed me. The start of it at least doesn't deviate too much from standard medieval architecture with little creativity into their design. Maybe that changes, but I never got a sense of that with what I played.

Personally I would say VI or IX. I kindaaaa think VI is a better game overall, but I still really like IX.

FF VI (AKA 3 in the US)

While there were aspects of 9 that I liked, on hindsight, I couldn't really tell you a thing about it cept that I thought the main villain was a woman for the longest time, that Vivi was cool, and something about eating frogs?

Once you've finished VI, going back to the SNES 4 might be tough as the graphics really pale in comparison to 6.

Fortunately, I had a lot of fun with the 3ds version of IV, the 3d remake, and I've been waiting with bated breath for them to do the same treatment to 6 (To match that 1996 video of a 3d final fantasy that floated around pre-FF7) but nope. The only remakes FF6 gets are shitty ones.

GO BACK TO FFX AND FINISH IT.

It is by leaps and bounds, oceans and storms, mountains and nature, earth and fire, space and gravity - and everything else - the best Final Fantasy game ever. EVER.

@zevvion: I've gone through it twice. It's my #1.

play 6, 15 and tactics, then find another series

@liquiddragon: Replaying it will give you more joy than going back to older games. Or I should say: it gave me more joy.

Whenever you decide to play IX, the PC version that came out recently has a great feature that allows you to speed up the game. FF9 is amazing, the battle system is just extremely slow.

@zevvion: lol. I did buy the remaster so I do need to at least mess around w/ that at some point. Have you tried that one? Is the cropping bad? Heard some complaints about the faces as well. I've been hesitant to go back to X 'cause the voice acting in it has become such a tired joke but it's not something I had any problems with when I played it in middle school.

@liquiddragon: Yeah, I've had no issues with the PS3, PS4 or Vita versions. I don't recall any issues with faces... maybe they didn't look as great? But whoever was complaining, are they sure the faces in the original were that great? I played original FFX a month before the updated versions came out and I remember thinking everything was still exactly the same graphics except it was now HD, which is exactly what I wanted. They did actually touch up some stuff here and there, but it's mostly the same as you remember.

I've had no issues at any point on any level with those remasters. It's more or less what you hoped it would be.

@zevvion: Cool, that's nice to hear. I didn't look too deep into it so I'm not sure how wide the complaint is. It could just be a very small minority yelling on the internet as usual. The one screen shot I saw made Yuna seem less strong, less assertive than she did in the original game. It's probably just nitpicky bs, I didn't check out any videos.

Anything pre 6 is kind of a different beast altogether. With the listed games you've enjoyed you'd be more likely to enjoy VI and, to a lesser extent, IX.

That said I think IV is the most entertaining of the bunch, being a pretty mechanically solid set of systems with a reasonable focus on plot and characters. Kind of the last time Final Fantasy really tried to balance those things.

@belegorm: Fo sho you should play V. Kinda the only traditional FF with mechanics that feel anything close to modern. Bit of a slow start as you unlock jobs and abilities but it doesn't take TOO long to really open up. I still think VI just doesn't have anything really going on with it's combat or character growth. Shares a lot of the same lack of depth and options that VII had with the advantage of character variety, both in numbers and inherent differences. VI and VII became intensely spammy, offering little argument for doing anything but "the best thing" every turn until whatever you were fighting died.

IV and V feel the most engaging as a modern player that doesn't have all the time in the world to grind my way through I-III and really wants more depth than VI+ offer.

5 is the only real option.

@lv4monk: I hadn't expected you to support IV (after V of course).

You still should consider that DS remake of III though, IIRC there were many improvements that would make it much more similar to V mechanically and structurally, though with the super deformed 3D on DS.

6. It is always 6.