What it says on the tin. Look back at the release date (in your country) or year you played the FF and see if you would have made it your Game of the Year that year, or did something else surpass it?
What it says on the tin. Look back at the release date (in your country) or year you played the FF and see if you would have made it your Game of the Year that year, or did something else surpass it?
Three Final Fantasy games would have been/were contenders for my GOTY of their respective years; 8, 9 and 10.
All the FF games before those, I played in a later year than their release (making it impossible to really judge them for their release year, and for the year i played them they weren't contenders) and for all the FF games after those, there were clear other winners for my GOTY.
So going into detail a bit more on just those three:
FFVIII - At the time, absolutely my GOTY. My opinion on the game has certainly dwindled since then, so current me would not say it's the GOTY of 1999 (I'd probably give that to Unreal Tournament), but back in '99 I absolutely loved it.
FFIX - This one's tricky because I can't remember if I played it in 2000 (US release year) or 2001 (EU release year). If it was 2000, then no, because Deus Ex was also 2000, and Deus Ex blew my mind. If it was 2001, it would've been my GOTY. In this game's case my opinion hasn't really changed so current me thinks no different of this. :p
FFX - As with VIII, at the time, definitely my GOTY. Again, my opinion on it has dwindled over time so if you ask the current me, it's not the GOTY of 2002 (That'd be Metroid Prime, most likely)
Generally, yes, they always were up until FFXII (at least post NES). FFIV and FFVI were definitely and I don't even have to look at the year because they're my favorite games for the SNES. The only two games that even compete for me are Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger, and I know those weren't released in the same year as either (at least FFVI is also easily better than both those games for me).
FFV wasn't released here during the original SNES run. If I used the Japanese release date it might be. If I used the date it was first released here, I'm sure it's not.
FFVII is my favorite be of it's console and indeed of all time. I don't need to check it against what else was released that year.
FFVIII is my second favorite FF, but oddly faces the stiffest competition among the pre-FFXII and post-NES FFs. That's because it was released the same year as Suikoden 2, a game that with FF7 and FF8 cosy triumvirate of favorite games. I'd probably give it to FF8, but I'm not 100% on that choice.
FFIX is also one of my favorites and I know it didn't come out the same year as Xenogears which is probably the only PSX game that could challenge it for me.
FFX starts to decline for me but I still don't see a suitable challenger. MGS2 is up there, but no, FFX is still GOTY for me.
FFXII was released the same year as Suikoden V, a vastly superior game despite some minor flaws. FFXII does not get GOTY. I'm not going to bother with anything after FFXII. I didn't even finish any of them, so of course they're not my GOTY (this excludes FF7R which may be my GOTY).
FF1-3 would also be no, because they weren't that great and mostly didn't release here until much later.
FFT I don't really count, but it was released here the same year as Xenogears, so it's not my GOTY.
I did get XII on release (pretty much the only FF which I got on the day of its first release) and it’s definitely my GOTY for that year
The more I look at this the more I can say it's a hard no. Granted, it's a bit weird with the Nintendo era since my recollection of the year I played some of these games is very ill defined. I played FFI and IV several years after their release.I played FFVI the year Chrono Trigger came out, but I would still say it was my GoTY simply because I played CT the following year after it's release.
97 - Castlevania Symphony of the Night or Breath of Fire III
99 - FFV via the Anthology Collection
2000 - Vagrant Story
2001 - MGS2, though if I was counting just games released that year whether I played them or not, then Ico
2006 - This was a tough one, because it would likely be FFXII, but it's also the year I got Twilight Princess. The issue is that while I had TP and loved it. It wasn't until the following year I was able to get a hold of a Wii to play it, so FFXII by default?
2010 - Lol, yeah it was likely ACII, Birth by Sleep or Peace Walker that year.
Yes.
Mostly because VIIR is my current game of the year for this year because I've played hardly any of the other "big" releases this year either due to lack of interest, or waiting for launch-issues to get ironed out/waiting for the inevitable game+all dlc package in 1-2 years.
Up until X I didn't really regularly play FF's in the year they came out.
X - I feckin love X but in Europe it came out the same year as Metroid Prime which is one of my all-time favourite GameCube titles.
X-2 - Liked it, but liked Tales of Symphonia more.
XI - Didn't play until years after release and it was significantly different then.
XII - Didn't get it until a year later, but looking back at what came out that year - it probably would be GOTY.
XIII - Definitely wasn't a game of the year for me because Mass Effect 2 came out the same year in Europe.
XIII-2 - Ehhh... maybe... possibly also an Assassin's Creed game. I was deep into WoW addiction by this point.
XIII: LR - Couldn't even bring myself to finishing it so definitely not.
XIV - Maybe if we count A Realm Reborn as the actual launch then easily yes... if not, then no. Barring Stormblood, each of the expansions have been my favourite games of their respective years too.
Type-0 HD - Yes. Purely by virtue of only playing this and XIV at the time!
XV - If it had launched in its present state, easily would've been GOTY. But as it didn't, that goes to Dishonored 2.
VIIR - Yes.
OK, I will go by the first NA release of these games. Based on that:
FFI (1990) - Nope, Super Mario Bros. 3 came out that year and would be GoTY in almost any year.
FFII (2003 in Origins) - Nope, hard to say what I would I would pick, but not this.
FFIII (2006 on DS) - Nope, I'd probably pick Twilight Princess or KH2.
FFIV (1991) - Yes, tough choice over Street Fighter 2 and Super Mario World, but I like FFIV more.
FFV (1999 in Anthology) - You know what? Sure. A rerelease but probably better than other contenders (FFVIII, SSB, Mario Golf).
FFVI (1994) - Definitely. My GOAT. :D
FFVII (1997) - Yes, it beats out SotN but just barely.
FFVIII (1999) - Nope, see FFV.
FFIX (2000) - I think yes, although this was a great year for games including the iconic MGS.
FFX (2001) - Nope, I think it is beat by Golden Sun and SSB Melee.
FFXI (2003) - As much as I love FFXI, I don't think I can count it since this was just the base game and I played it after a couple expansions and patches.
FFXII (2006) - Nope, see FFII.
FFXIII (2010 - Nope, beat by a dozen others like Super Mario Galaxy 2, Xenoblade Chronicles, ME2, Red Dead Redemption... hot damn this was a great year!
FFXIV (2013) - Never played!
FFXV (2016) - I'm still playing this one, though I'm not sure it would beat Persona 5 or Odin Sphere.
Looks like I have five GOYs, all from SNES/PS1 era. :D Only FFVIII didn't make it since it came out the same year as FFV on a technicality.
VII Remake is my 2nd favorite game of the year.
It's surprisingly rare for a Final Fantasy to end up my game of the year. I love the series, but there are almost always a handful of games that I end up enjoying more.
Here's the list, in order of North American release date:
FFIV (1991) - This absolutely would have been my game of the year. Monkey Island 2 would have been a close second.
FFVI (1994) - This would have wound up on top as well. I love FFVI, but the competition isn't exactly steep here. The only other games I've played from '94 are Freddi Fish :p and Virtua Fighter 2.
FVII (1997) - I love VII, but The Curse of Monkey Island's goofy sense of humor has a special place in my heart.
FFX (2001) - There are actually a lot of games ahead of FFX for 2001, but Jak and Daxter is at the top of the heap.
FFII (2003) - Not even close. It's not really a fair contest given how long it took for it to come to North America, but Jak II is my game of the year for 2003. If I were counting original releases instead of NA releases, FFII absolutely would beat Super Mario Bros. 3 to take the top spot for 1988.
FFX-2 (2003) - No, it's behind FFII.
FFXI (2003) - No, it's even behind FFX-2.
FFXII (2006) - No, but it's very close. Number 2, after Yakuza 2.
FFXIII (2010) - Yeah, absolutely. Heavy Rain and Yakuza 4 are pretty close behind, but FFXIII is definitely my favorite game from 2010. Though if we were to count the year of its Japanese release, Uncharted 2 and Dragon Age: Origins would probably squeak ahead.
FFXIII-2 (2012) - No, a couple of games surpassed this one, with Analogue: A Hate Story coming out on top.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (2013) - No, I enjoy FFXIV, but it's nowhere near the top spot. Gone Home was my favorite game of 2013.
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (2014) - Nothing can touch The Last of Us: Left Behind. And even if you don't want to count a game that originally released as DLC, Dragon Age: Inquisition would still easily by my game of the year for 2014.
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD (2015) - I didn't care much for Type-0. Trine 3 was my game of the year in 2015.
Final Fantasy XV (2016) - FFXV falls quite a bit short. I enjoyed it, but there were a lot of great games in 2016, my favorite of which was Uncharted 4.
So the only Final Fantasy games that ever cut it as game of the year for me are: FFIV (1991), FFVI (1994), and FFXIII (2010).
Of the ones I've played, the only one to do so is FF7 and it's still up against some pretty tough competition i.e SOTN, Klonoa, Crash 2, Mega Man X4 and Legends etc.
FF7R is on odd one for me. I can't say that I disliked the game. I liked the characters, I liked the combat system, I liked the music. There were a lot of things that I loved. 85% of the game was great. I just hated the major narrative changes they made.
It's not just that they made these changes, though I'm not sure how I would have felt if they made changes that I thought were actually well done, but I really don't like the direction they chose. I hated every scene the Whispers interrupted, I hated how prevalent Sephiroth is in the story, and I hated this inclusion of "Fate Beings" that were dictating the characters actions. In general I hate story lines with fate and "chosen ones". To me it takes away from the stakes of the story because the characters actions meant nothing throughout the story.
Like I said, I don't hate the game. In fact, I'd have to say it's a pretty great game and if it won their GOTY I'd be okay with that. But I haven't yet replayed the game even though I planned to after finishing it the first time because every time I think about playing it I remember those things I hated and it turns me away.