The Best and Worst Airship in the series.

[Wolf Kanno]

Simple topic, what do you consider to be the best airship in the series and which one is the worst?

[Lord Golbez]

Best - The Big/Lunar Whale (depending on translation). It has a Mysidian Legend associated with it. It takes you to the moon. It's got a Big Chocobo and places to rest. It looks awesome and has great music.

Worst - Cid the Ghost's easily destroyed airship in FF3.

[WarZidane]

Best is a tough call between FF8's Ragnarok (because it's sci-fi as hell and i love sci-fi, also it looks cool) and FF9's Invincible (because it's pretty and oh yeah it holds souls and enslaves eidolons).

I'll give the edge to Invincible for now, I guess.

Worst is also a tough call because 1, 2 and 3's airships (the Cid ones, that is) are equally bland. I'll give it to 3 though, because 1 has the excuse of being the first and 2 has the dreadnought :p

[Vermachtnis]

FFX's The Fahrenheit is my favorite. "YEEHAW HERE WE GO!" Lunar Whale is pretty cool. And The Highwind. And The Red Rose. There's a lot of cool airships.

Also going to say Cid's Ship in III is the worst.

[Shiva95]

Best - The Lunar Whale because of its legend, and also because we can go on the Moon with it hehe ;D
Worst - the one from FFIII

[Loony BoB]

Ragnarok is best. It's just badass.

Worst? Based on appearance, I'm going to say Regalia. It's literally just a car with wings plonked onto it.

[Wolf Kanno]

In terms of aesthetics:

Best: The Blackjack, I love the Zeppelin design of the ship and the interior casino was fun to explore a bit.

Worst: The Celsius from X-2, talk about gaudy and overdesigned.

Functionality:

Best: Invincible from FFIII, while it's slow, it also has a free inn, shops, a Fat Chocobo for item storage, and the ship actually launches fireballs at enemies during aerial battles. Not to mention it still functions as a fun mode to travel.

Worst: Ragnarok, it's honestly the slowest airship in the series. Badass design aside, the ship is actually no faster than the Gardens in travel speed. I still think it's one of the most disappointing airships in the series besides maybe the Strahl in XII.

[maybee]

Best : Ragnarok from FF8. Though I might be biased because I love the music that goes with it.

Worst: Lunar Whale from FF4. Too big and clunky. FF15. Whatever the heck that was and it was fricken annoying to try and control.

[Loony BoB]

Worst: Ragnarok, it's honestly the slowest airship in the series. Badass design aside, the ship is actually no faster than the Gardens in travel speed.
Wait, really!? Wow. I honestly always felt like I was "finally moving fast" when I got it. xD I guess that's the height making it feel faster?

[Wolf Kanno]

It's slightly faster than Garden but not by much, but compared to the airships from the previous titles and IX, it is the slowest airship in the series. Not helped by the map glitching out sometimes while you fly it.

[Lord Golbez]

Isn't the first airship in FF9 also quite slow?

[Wolf Kanno]

Compared to the Highwind and the SNES airships? Hell yeah, it's probably the second slowest in the main series.

jump to the 12:30 mark
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VS.

jump to the 8:00 mark
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As you can see, while both are fairly slow, the Hilde Garde 3 has a bit more pickup and go in comparison. The Ragnarok feels box-y and slow when watching both side by side, I almost feel like you're moving the map rather than the airship in VIII. Whereas IX's ship feels more mobile and zips through the scenery a bit better.

[maybee]

It's slightly faster than Garden but not by much, but compared to the airships from the previous titles and IX, it is the slowest airship in the series. Not helped by the map glitching out sometimes while you fly it.

Eh. More time to listen to the cool music. :love:

[Snap Jumper]

Worst: Everything from III. Not one airship in this game can fly over mountains, and it's not only possible to get into battles in certain areas, but the encounter rate can be quite high while you're flying in those areas. The Nautilus, in particular, is too fast and hard to control, resulting in flying extra tiles. Normally, that's no big deal, but flying to Doga's Manor with a somewhat high encounter rate means more fights.

Best: I'm completely biased toward the Falcon in VI. It comes out of one of the best cutscenes in the series and provides the hope the party needed. It provides healing and offers party swapping and that's good enough for me. The only flaw is that you can fly yourself right into a Doom Gaze battle at any time.

[Rez09]

Favorite: A tie between the Invincible and Nautilus from FF3 -- Wolf listed everything I love about the former, and the latter just zips around so fast and is part submarine, which is totes awesome.

Least favorite: Cid's Airship from FF3 -- I mean, it is quite possibly the most amusing airship ever, but it doesn't exactly get you many places.