I recently just finished FFXIII and loved it unlike many people that I know. People say it was too linear and I agree. But the fact that it was in service of the story really shows. With the exception of Vanille, I genuinely liked the characters (and even she had her moments). With that being said FF XIII-2 is coming out this week and it's already paid for. I'm excited to see a continuation of the FF XIII world. However early reviews have said they fixed the linearity issue but the story has taken a big hit which really does disappoint me. Anyway that is not what this post is about! I've decided to take a journey in 2012. A journey to play through all of the mainline FF games which means no XI or XIV. I'm excited and while I know going through a couple of the early ones might be a little rough, I want to be a bigger fan of this series than I am. Well here is to an interesting 2012!

Man, FF I-III are WEIRD games. The first is definitely the least weird, as it's very simple, but it can be hard to play at times. I think you'll like the other games a whole lot, though.

FFV is my favourite, though most people will agree that FFVI has the best story. So look forward to those!

I only played a little FFVI on the gameboy ds ( or was it the Advance cart on my ds ) any way, the story was probably ok for the time, the dialog is pretty basic, although you could probably say that about any FF game. Personally out of all the FF games I played, ( VII, IX, X-2, XII, XIII), I liked IX the best. and thought VII was the weakest, but i was playing the crappy PC port.

Despite the voice acting, I think X holds up really well. I hope you make it that far, cause it's worth seeing.

Are you really planning to play FF2?  That is a game for crazy people.
 
Edit: What constitutes a mainline game?  Counting X-2 creates a slippery slope, as from there you have Crisis Core, The After Years, Revenant Wings, The 4 Heroes of Light, any of the Tactics games, but specifically A2, just off the top of my head.  Do you count the numerous Crystal Chronicles games?  Are you only playing the RPGs?  If not, and you really want a different look at the franchise, enjoy terrible games, and are also a masochist, I hope you're including Dirge of Cerberus in the list.

Final Fantasy XIII is not problematic due it's "linearity". The issue stems with poor level design, and the lack of giving you an impression that you might have an iota of personal freedom. You will notice as you play through the back-catalog of Final Fantasy games, that concepts like towns, an over-world, and basic dungeon design that doesn't incorporate a single hall-way, add to a general feeling of freedom. They also offer more understandable and intelligible story exposition than XIII.  
 
Regardless, good luck on your play-through's. Thought I'd share some pointers. 
 
Final Fantasy II - It incorporates a bizarre Skyrim-esque leveling system. First of the series to incorporate main characters that aren't blank slates. Least favorite in the series. 
Final Fantasy III - The DS version is quite faithful to the original NES game. A better version of the DS remake was re-released on iPhone. 
Final Fantasy V- Stick with it! It has a horribly slow beginning and that actually took me a while to get into it. A lot of my friends had the same issue, hitting a wall early on and not bothering to continue further. It's phenomenal and probably one of the least played in the series. 
Final Fantasy VIII- Like Final Fantasy XIII, it's a black sheep in the franchise. There are essentially two ways to play Final Fantasy VIII: 1) You summon monsters over-and-over again. 2) You exploit the unnecessarily jumbled Junction system, assign specific spells to different attributes, and fly through the game without breaking a sweat. It's possible to beat the first disk of the game with ludicrous amounts of HP.  
Final Fantasy IX- You will appreciate some of the finer points of this game if you have played previous entries. Don't work on you playthroughs backwards. 
Final Fantasy X- Inconsistent voice acting, while not the first JRPG to have voice acting, easily the first to have it to the amount that it has. It's a bit rough. 

@Xeiphyer said:

FFV is my favourite, though most people will agree that FFVI has the best story. So look forward to those!

Kefka and ghost train fights!

Final Fantasy VI is my favorite. It has the largest and best cast of player characters and some truly memorable villains. Final Fantasy IV is a close second.

It's honestly pretty ridiculous to think that Final Fantasy V came in between those two games. It's probably my least favorite. (Yes, I like Final Fantasy II more.)

Well you're going to have an interesting time, indeed. Some of my best memories come from the early FF entries. Good luck and be sure to update your journey!

Good luck man, you're gonna need it for those first 3, and 4 depending on what version you're playing.

I don't get why people hate the voice acting of 10... I personally thought it was really well done. Auron, LuLu, Wakka, Tidus, Yuna were my personal favorites.

Now Rikku... while not a bad voice for the character, isn't that great of a character overall IMO. Khimari(sp?) was alright for what he was... but he was basically a silent protaginist pet monster.

Seymour was a badass villain with a badass voice. However, I think Sephiroth and Dysley(aka) Bartandulus were better villains IMO. I have yet to play 6 though.

Tidus's father was awesome as well... Hell. I thought the whole voice cast overall was awesome.

Now, I KNOW someone is gonna put up a vid of the laughing scene... well... I already have a rebuttal to that scene. Tidus was the only one who was TRULY happy to be on this quest. He thought they were just gonna save the world and all have a happy ending so he was making it light hearted for everyone. While everyone around him KNEW what was gonna happen at the end. Hell, without Tidus. they all might have just killed themselves by the end game.

Also, how in the hell do you say Tidus's name? I have always wondered this.

I don't get why people hate the voice acting of 10... I personally thought it was really well done. Auron, LuLu, Wakka, Tidus, Yuna were my personal favorites.

@Zenaxzd said:

@Jay444111 said:

I don't get why people hate the voice acting of 10... I personally thought it was really well done. Auron, LuLu, Wakka, Tidus, Yuna were my personal favorites.

Agreed! Especially since some of the cast are some of the better voice actors out there.

Wakka and Kimahri were done by the same VA, who everyone on the planet has heard his voice by now as he's Marcus, Bender, among other people (his IMDB page is stupidly long). Man, I honestly think he's the most diverse VA in the business. Does Marcus Fenix and Wakka sound similar? How about Marcus and Franklin (also from gears), or what about Migelo from FF12 (your orphan caretaker/shopkeeper)? The man is amazing. EDIT: Also it's Tee-Dus, according to Kingdom Hearts anyway as that is how it is said in each of the games.

I'm going to jump in here and mention that someone will likely post the "laughing" scene from FFX in Youtube form as a response to you before it actually happens.

Not that I agree with a such a simplistic assertion. The overall voice acting in FFX was fine.

@Jay444111: I remember back wayyyy in the day when there was a trailer on the Spirits Within dvd and the narrator said it as "Teedus", which I distinctly remember cringing at. I prefer "Tye-dus" as the proper pronunciation.

I personally find most of the dialogue in that game (FFX) endearing. You get an auditory tour of one young man's personal growth over a pretty intense storyline.

@Zenaxzd said:

@Hailinel: Jay444111 hit the nail on the head with my feelings on that scene so I don't really care about the inevitable posting of it anyway.

Agreed.

FFV is my favourite, though most people will agree that FFVI has the best story. So look forward to those!

I hope ya get alot of of your experiance, i tryed to go through some of the older ones myself recently seeing as allot of people praise them so, altho i did find the storys of them very boring with only the exception going to VI.

My favorites are 6 and 12, but the rest I don't think I could go back and play. I tried 3 out on the DS, but the grinding really got to me.

@Jay444111: It's Tee-dus, the voice actor said that that was what the developers told him. Also the Japanese romanji spelling is Teiida which backs up it not being Tye-dus. What I'm trying to say is that I like FF and I support this, although good luck on the early ones, they can be rough and I hope you like grinding.

When I said mainline games I didn't mean games like X-2 or Revenant Wings. And while yes I feel like I probably will go insane with some of the earlier games I still want to do it anyway. The only FF games I've played to completion are FFX and FFXIII and I'm playing FFXIII-2 just for fun. As far as format for these go, I'll be playing most of them on my PS3 since most of them are in the PSN. I have FFIII on the DS I just never beat it. I also really could not stand FFXII, but I've been told I need to give it another chance. Thoughts on XII?

final fantasy 1 was SquareSoft's final fantasy.

While I wasn't a fan of FFXIII, I've liked a great many others in the series and am looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the games. Good luck and have fun!

@SpaceRunaway said:

Are you really planning to play FF2? That is a game for crazy people.

Thats the best one in the series IMO.

 Thoughts on XII?

Well since I just finished it recently and I'm curious as to what you all think about it, what about FFXIII? I personally really enjoyed it, but my friends absolutely despised it. One thing that I thought was weird was that I felt like the summons (with the exception of Bahamut and his Lvl. 3 Megaflare) were really underpowered and summoning them felt like a waste of time. That just might be my inexperience with the series, though.

I like XIII as well, sure its "linear" but I love the combat. Honestly find things like towns kind of annoying and in the way of my finishing the game.

Well since I just finished it recently and I'm curious as to what you all think about it, what about FFXIII? I personally really enjoyed it, but my friends absolutely despised it. One thing that I thought was weird was that I felt like the summons (with the exception of Bahamut and his Lvl. 3 Megaflare) were really underpowered and summoning them felt like a waste of time. That just might be my inexperience with the series, though.

Zenaxzd PSN has FFIV: The Complete Collection which I'm guessing is the most refined?

@Ross said:

Zenaxzd PSN has FFIV: The Complete Collection which I'm guessing is the most refined?

The Complete Collection isn't really the most refined. It's just a compilation that includes the episodic sequel The After Years. I'm also not sure if it includes any of the extra content that was in the GBA version, and it lacks the extras and gameplay tweaks of the DS version. (The DS version is also the most difficult version of the game, by my estimation.)

 (The DS version is also the most difficult version of the game, by my estimation.)

@Zenaxzd said:

That said the complete collection comes with The After Years which is a sequel to FF4 and was surprisingly good, worth it for that alone.

From what I played of The After Years, I thought it was pretty bad, actually. I only played through the first chapter, but the pacing was so poor and stretches were so tedious that I had no inclination to continue on much further than that. I consider that a shame because FFIV is one of my favorite games in the series.

@Zenaxzd said:

@Hailinel said:

(The DS version is also the most difficult version of the game, by my estimation.)

I want to add to that by saying difficult for good reasons so it's not off-putting or anything, strictly gameplay wise the DS version is the best version of the game I've played personally.

Having played the SNES version, the PS1 version and the DS version, I'd say the DS version is my favorite. I also have a friend that got so good at the GBA version that she could get to the final dungeon in a ridiculously short span of time.

@Ross said:

Well since I just finished it recently and I'm curious as to what you all think about it, what about FFXIII? I personally really enjoyed it, but my friends absolutely despised it. One thing that I thought was weird was that I felt like the summons (with the exception of Bahamut and his Lvl. 3 Megaflare) were really underpowered and summoning them felt like a waste of time. That just might be my inexperience with the series, though.

Well, if you summon you get all your HP back which can be a lifesaver. Considering that you finished it I assume that you knew that already.

@Ross said:

Thoughts on XII?

XII was generally a pretty good game i thought it was solid and its properly the one i spent the most time playing to completion with something silly like 120 hours, although for me its where everything began to get a bit sour for me, although this is down to one reason for that game and is the Gambit system and is down to how i played it where i had the gambit system set up well enough to where the game needed no input at all from me in the last half of the game and killing a group of mobs was as simple as just walking up to them, dare say i would have enjoyed it more if i wasn't trying to get as much out of my moves as possible and not waste precious milliseconds, oh and the summons were extremely underwhelming in every aspect, granted i didn't get any super secret summons in XII but summons used to be a big deal and were extremely helpful in past games they were your big number hitters and since FFXII they have become irelevent for the most part which is a shame since that was a speacil part of the series that made that aspect of the game just less exciting.

I guess its some of the reason why i think XIII wasn't as good as it almost felt just the same push X to win sort of thing, although that wasn't really the case with the whole Job switching system on the fly for specific situations. Finding enemy weakness's and then using the right magic to counter them was dull too since it just automaticly made (generally) the best choices on what to do without there being much incentive for manual input, and the story was let down with it not having any prominent villains which least XIII-2 seems to have something with the purple hair dude even if he is very generic.

i do think 6 and onwards will defiantly be the most fun experience's though since imo that's when they started to get good with story telling and added depth and emotion to characters that had mostly before been very bland Lets Save The World Party of people without much back story told for them or motivation given to why they are doing what they are doing.