My Journey With The Main Final Fantasy Titles

I haven't played all the main Final Fantasy games yet, and I have only finished two of them, so what made me interested in the series? a long story here.

So as I wrote some Final Fantasy posts, with more planned, I decided to write about my first encounter with these games, which ones I played from the main series. I intend this post to be a reference.

By the time of this writing (4 July 2018) I have played 9 games from the main series,
which in order are: IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, III, I, II, XII.

My First Traditional RPG

The first Final Fantasy I played was Final Fantasy IV. It was my cousin's copy he gifted me, it was bought along with Chrono Trigger, and I spent more time on Chrono Trigger. My English was bad so I didn't understand much of the story, but I loved Akira Toriyama art, and that time of my early teens I was obsessed with Dragon Ball.

The cover of the CD my cousin bought.

So I never played FFIV much on Playstation 1. I played maybe 2-3 hours of the game's story and understood just a bit of that. FFIV only has small chunks of dialog so it needs the player to pay attention to what characters say more than any other game in the series, I believe.

If I remember correctly, Rydia not being able to cast fire, was the last scene I reached in my PS1 days.

I liked the battle system of both FFIV & Chrono Trigger,
It felt like a better version system of the Digimon world series I was used to.

Age of the Internet

Years later, I learned about emulation by chance, I had internet and one day I downloaded Final Fantasy V for GBA, it's the second Final Fantasy I play and it was fairly easy to understand with my level of English at the time.

I loved the characters and the "Job" system and the occasional humor. Sadly I had exams so I stopped playing and I don't know why I didn't go back to complete it.

...A Fateful Day...

One day I found an image on the internet, a long hired guy looking angry surrounded by fire. I recognized him at sight. I didn't know the guy's name. I didn't know from which PS1 game he was until that day. But I still recognized him:

"Hey!! It's the guy pictured on my Playstation package box."

On the back of the PlayStation my father bought for me as a child there were pictures of many games, as a child I looked at the pictures listed... Tekken 3 was one of them, and one FPS game, maybe it was Medal of Honor?

Out of all pictures, the one I wanted to see the most was that game with the guy in fire - Sephiroth, I learned his name later - When I read the title: Final Fantasy VII, many things made sense, and suddenly I wanted to play FFIV and FFV again.

Then...

First minutes of the epic story of FFVI

Final Fantasy VI was the third one I play in the main series (again, on GBA emulator.) but I got stuck one time and postponed completing it until I lost my saves... I didn't focus much on the story, now I know that FFVI has one of the most deep stories ever and I should think on it more when I play it for real, the next time.

At that time I emulated many GBA games, I won't count FFI and FFII here, as I only played the prologue of each by then.

Final Playstation Days

Final Fantasy VII was the fourth main entry I play and the first one I finish... I loved cloud and his friends, the story was more interesting than any game I played before, except maybe Chrono Trigger. Not because it was actually good, but because it left a lot to imagination, mixed fantasy and sci-fi elements and maybe because Cloud was... Cloud!

I loved how quirky the scenes were, despite the dark overall atmosphere... And that scene Sephiroth in fire, felt more powerful as I knew it was there in the game but never expected it to be in that time and place. I'll stop talking about FFVII here because if I didn't this post may get tooooooo loooooooong.

Next was Final Fantasy VIII...

FFVIII was the fifth entry I play, straight after VII, keeping my excitement of the series... Graphic was more easy to the eyes and reminded me of Chrono Cross. Characters are %200 more relatable than every RPG I played up to that point. Luckily my English was at a level where the story can make sense, because FFVII was easier to understand.

The start of... Love?

But I lost my saves the first time (by the the beginning of the third disk, what frustration.) And decided my personal rules of "buying my games legally" somewhere in my second time which is very recent.

Playing On The Go?

Next comes NDS emulation, I played the first levels of Final Fantasy III then I opened FFIV and was drawn in from minute 1 of the animated scenes. Suddenly everything I didn't understand in my childhood because of my weak English made sense and I only stopped FFIV when I needed to format my PC.

Emulating that NDS version was the reason I didn't hesitate to buy the (inferior) PC version I write my recent post about, and if I got money I'm willing to buy my physical version of it one day.

Final Fantasy I & II were the next ones, I tried them before on PC and this time I played them on mobile (GBA emulator on my android, I won't recommend it.) Final Fantasy 1 was the second entry I finish. (the time loop of FF1 is an interesting twist, sadly it's the only plot of the game.)

As for FF2... I don't have much to say... I found the keyword system a bit interesting if not old, and I can say for sure that the battle/stats system is a great example of making a game so easy to break.

Looking for the Next One

By that point I was familiar/obsessed with Final Fantasy, I bought Kingdom Hearts for Playstation2 just because I like both Disney and Final Fantasy. Though I found after buying it that it was KHII (yup, didn't notice the II in title.) Kingdom Hearts series deserves a post like this on steemit too.

I looked for FFX in every games shop near me,
but I only found FFX-2 & FFXII so I bought the latter.

So, FFXII was the last main entry I play, it didn't feel like a Final Fantasy to me, (more like Vagrant Story instead.) But it's a great game, and I find Vaan being relatively useless to the plot a bit special (the guy tries too hard.)

Basch is more of protagonist material than Vaan by every standard.

It has many things I wish to see in more games like the gambits system, but it's slow, not in a bad way but I didn't finish it after so many hours. I stopped playing it after I was able to work for money myself and decided to get my games legally "from now on."

So by the time of this post (4 July 2018.) If you exclude the MMOs,
the only entries left are IX, XV and each series of X & XIII.

Currently I'm still at Final Fantasy IV after I bought it along with FFVII, FFVIII... I have FFX, FFIX on my wishlist and hopefully I'll get a legal copy of every game in the main series, and finish them.

What are your thoughts?

Have you played a Final Fantasy Before? Are you interested in the series? Do you recommend a game I play after Final Fantasy IV? Why?
Notice any typo in my post? I wish a discussion forms from this.

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Cover image is made using the official FFVII Remake promo art. FF Chronicles cover is from here. FFVI screenshot is from here. Squall screenshot is taken from this promo. Sephiroth image is taken from here. Basch image is from here.