Your final Final Fantasy

[Flying Arrow]

This question's probably more for the older members out there - those who grew up side by side with the series for years:

Which game in the series is the last one for you? Specifically, which game marks the end of the warm memories and nostalgia, with all post-(your choice) entries being rip-offs, dumbed-down, whatever criticism. For instance, a lot of poster might see VI as the last game in the series, with VII and everything afterwards being the stuff that happened to come later, inferior to the true, earlier iterations of the series.

I've read a lot about the 'charm' of the series on this board and others, and I'm really curious about what this 'charm' entails for different players. I want to make it clear also that you don't necessarily have to like your "final" game; I'm curious about which last represented your idea of Final Fantasy.

My answer: X, probably. I could easily go with IX if we're talking about entries I enjoyed, though. X is a game I did not like, but, thinking back, still has the intangible Final Fantasy charm that I remember from the now-mid era entries (VII-IX). Although another reason is entirely practical: X, for a long time, was the last game in the series. XI as an MMO was so far removed from what Final Fantasy was up to that point, and XII came out so much later (five years after X?) and was so different that it might as well have been stuck with an entirely new moniker. The length of XII's development also makes it the longest gap between the single-player FFs to which most (*all) players had become accustomed. In a sense, Final Fantasy did end for a lot of players, with the new entries being the gaming equivalent of one's favourite band re-uniting after a long hiatus, still pretty good but no longer as cutting edge or as interesting as in the prime.

On that note, it's probably worth mentioning that the time between X and XII's releases marks my transition from teenager to young adulthood, with the mystique from news of newer entries long evaporated and the nostalgia lenses firmly suctioned onto my eyeballs. Although I'm not so big on X and smurfing loved XII, I still see XII as kind of a post-Final Fantasy. For more context on my perspective, the new XIII is even farther removed from the older games, despite being modeled after what I consider to be the 'last' game in the series.

A fact worth considering: the homage-like nature of IX was essentially designed for an era no more than eight or nine years its elder. FFs IV-VI were the biggest influences on IX, because those were the entries most of the world had played. Now with XIII, we have a game that riffs on a previous fan favourite (X) from almost nine years ago. I'm not sure what my point is with all this (other than making myself feel old) but I do find it interesting that XIII seems to be the IX of the new generation, albeit with substantially less material to work with.

Not sure how this thread will go over. Try to keep it civil, I guess. Curious to see what everyone else says.

[Saber]

Final Fantasy IX had everything it takes to make a final fantasy. It had blue windows, magic, world map, chocobo's and moogles. X seemed to take away from several things I liked about Final Fantasy. The question you asked me though, I'll have to say VIII. Although some will say that the window color and controls wasn't very "Final Fantasy" it still had depth. I think that I liked all the ones where you could mash attack and win in fights. I liked the ones where you could max out stats. Anyways I would like to write more but yeah, I'm still waking up.

[Bunny]

I consider Final Fantasy VI to be the last good, enjoyable Final Fantasy game.

[VeloZer0]

It is proving surprisingly hard to make my thoughts on this coherent. Hope this makes sense.

I played virtually all the FF game from ages 14-17 and all in mixed up order; I don't think there is a huge amount of nostalgia going on there.

When I look back on the series I usually think of FF10 as the last game in the series. I had fun playing FF10, I thought the combat system was great, but the story and characters blew for me. So I consider it a worthy entry to the series, but not a great one. When I think of FF1-FF9 I think of them all as superb games, with one exception. This is coupled with the exceedingly long FF10-FF12 delay (made even longer by the fact that FF12 was the first game I ever had to wait to be released) and the change of direction at square between FF10 and FF12, and the fact I didn't like FF12 or FF13.

Viewed in the context of FF1-FF10 I saw FF10 as a blip in quality, but viewed in the context of FF1-FF13 I see it more as the 'beginning of the end'.

An alternative way to see it is as ending after FF7 with the exception of one really good game being produced in between (FF9). But that is way too damn depressing.

In summary, I see FF9 as the last great FF title, but I usually regard FF10 as when the series ended for me.

[Raistlin]

FFT. I enjoyed FFVI, VII, and Tactics, but then was very disappointed with FFVIII, and the series never fully recovered for me.

[Clo]

I enjoyed, for the most part, most of the FFs up to FFIX. When X came out, I was a little disappointed, and things have just gone downhill from there.

IX was the last FF I really liked, and which seemed to go with the series, but the series has obviously changed, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. It needs to conform with the new systems.

[Shiny]

FFX was the last one I enjoyed, but if we're talking purely nostalgia I will go with IX being the last since it was also technically the first FF I played.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm probably going to go with the majority here and say IX was the last FF for me. X was a huge disappointment for me and the first game in the series where I actually got bored playing it.

X to me was a very streamlined adventure that restricted control from the player and only gave the illusion of choice. Gameplay was dumbed down considerably to the point where even VI-VIII looked like challenging titles in comparison and the cast itself felt like I was watching the RPG equivalent of a boy band with each member fulfilling some niche and cliche within the drama. I recognized the premise of the plot as being the Tale of Orochi and consequently with that in hand I was able to predict most of the games plot before it happened.The one plot twist I didn't predict was so silly and utterly stupid that it made give up on taking the game serious from then on.

Despite my long list of complaints against the game, I found it mostly mediocre at best (It is not the worst game ever) and that frankly just didn't sit well with me. All these traits were things I noticed in other RPG games which is why I liked playing FF cause it always threw me for a loop. X was the first title where I felt Square slipped and was no longer leading the genre. It had sadly become like much of the mediocrity that was prevalent in the genre at the time and even now.

XI being an MMO turned me off from it and it was years before I actually played it, while I felt the game is quite good, my fear that kept me away from the game rang true and that was the fact I just don't like MMO style games. I don't like playing with other people and I have no interest in forming a bond with a community of gamers. I play games to forget about people. For that reason, I've started XI two years ago and I currently still have a level 14 WAR and no linkshells.

I really loved XII, the game restored my faith in the series, that it might actually rise again if placed under the proper care of someone who actually understands and gives a damn about the FF name. Kitase kinda feels he can do as he pleases while Nomura only likes messing with his own titles. Matsuno on the other hand was a fan of the series from back in the day and in a lot of ways, XII has more in common with IX than any other entry if only cause the game is filled to the brim with references and allusions to every major FF title in the series much like the original FFTactics.

Though I feel XII is easily worthy of being an FF title much like I felt FFTactics had before it. This game still felt like a Matsuno game. In a way it feels like a "guest entry" into the series cause SE was still waiting to make a follow up to succeed IX. XII is definetly the last good entry in the series for me, though I'm sadden by the fact that I know it could have been more had Matsuno stayed with the whole project to completion.

XIII... god XIII is a mess. By trying to streamline the genre, SE pretty much unmade the genre and sorta proved to me that the list of people at SE who know what they are doing is incredible short. Motomu Toriyama needs to go into another profession cause the man has never worked on a game I liked and most of his games tend to get railed by fans and have a strong dislike (X-2, RW, and XIII). Kitase needs to retire cause it obvious whatever good came from any game he made in the 16-bit and 32-bit era was not because of his input or was a complete fluke cause the man is crazy and I don't think this is something that just came about. Nomura, who has been blasted by fans for ruining the series is about the only guy over there who seems to get what makes a game and actually gets the series anymore and in a way that's kinda sad...

The transition to the PS2/PS3/360 has been a disaster for SE in my opinion. In 10 years time, SE has released a mediocre set of games with a very small list going above and beyond and showing that some of Square still exists there and its sad when you realize that in the four years on the PS1, Square gave us some of the most memorable titles of all time that even went beyond the main FF brand. Today, SE's best offerings come from a series that is the Video Game equivalent of Scooby Doo and Friends with KH, and its nice to see DQ is sorta having a Renaissance of sort in the West but most other attempts at rebooting other franchises are often mishandled and poorly done and the FF series lacks any true direction and will probably never regain their former glory as its being handled by people who don't realize they don't know what they are doing. I feel SE has slipped and is being passed on by everyone now. Its reached a point where if the game is good is an actual achievement for the company and its sad when there are more fans wanting remakes of fifteen to ten year old games over anything new the company has in the making.

[Flying Arrow]

Don't mince words, Wolf - what do you really think?

I quite like your answer, though. As you said, XII really is a guest entry in the series, especially now that XIII has left its stain. XII is also probably the only SE-developed game in the last, oh, decade, that meets the quality set by their SNES and PS1 efforts. Moreover, XII captures perfectly the adventurous spirit of Final Fantasy for the post-PS1 generation. Forget the hugely different battle system or the bland-ish plot, XII's grandeur is what the series should have been when the series made the leap to new technology.

But the thing is, I can forgive X. It was ill-conceived, but it was only a stumbling block into the new generation. It didn't really work out, but it's hard to get angry about it, I think. But I do find your observation on X's reputation in the shadow of XIII interesting. See, I originally looked at X the way I look at VIII - a series of badly-designed elements that probably could have worked out with enough tweaking. Such is the price of creativity and experimentation, right? VIII, I think, is a pretty good game despite its numerous flaws, and I even admire old Squaresoft for attempting such a radical design shift after the ludicrously successful VII. They could have kept going with nearly-identical clones of VII (see: Fallout: New Vegas) but they didn't.

XIII is where things get hairy, though, and where my understanding of Square (or whatever is left of it) ends. XIII is nine years older than X. Nine. That means, there's been more time between the logical evolutionary steps in the series (XII being an anomaly, remember) than there was between the releases of IV and IX - the meat of the series, essentially. Final Fantasy is smurfing old, man. I find it embarrassing that XIII should even exist at this point. Imagine if IX was a basic 2D JRPG a la FFIV? It was an homage, and that's it. It put its own twist on things instead of outright aping its inspirations. In a way, it capped off a decade-long burst of RPG creativity by Square. Now, here we sit with XIII, a game which had an astronomical budget and a half-decade development time, and all that we get is, battle system not-withstanding, a knock-off of a dated and poorly-conceived first generation PS2 RPG. In my opinion, the worst thing that Square could have done was put single-player numbered FFs on hold for as long as it did. Ignoring arguments of X's quality, without a quick response or evolution of X in the same way that each game had been a response or evolution to its immediate predecessor (entries had been almost annual at this point), the series effectively stopped.

My point, I guess, is that the unique point in time during which Final Fantasy was leading the pack (the mid to late-90s) is long over. The franchise, at this juncture, is not just obsolete and stale, but kind of an attempt at a revival of a chunk of time in which the original series existed. (I guess this explains the incessant remakes and teasers of remakes.) The revival of single player FFs with XII is really the beginning of a new series, I think. A new take on what was done in the last decade. FF couldn't last forever, and it probably would have been best if the creators recognized this and bookended it properly (although this is seemingly what IX tried to be, which is much to its credit) instead of letting it continue to rear its head from time to time and blather its way into oblivion like a regretful, drunken old fart who spends his time reminiscing to people who don't give a smurf.

Moving on, however. I'm still interested in seeing answers to my original question. As a student and lover of literature, one thing I'm fascinated by is responses to works of fiction by different generations over time, and how once-revered things can fall out of favor while previously under-appreciated stuff can suddenly strike a chord after a while and become celebrated. I know this thread is probably reading pretty silly and hoighty-toighty to a lot of posters, but I still want to know what everyone's hindsight end to the series is, or how they think any of it fits together coherently. On that note, the more nostalgia-laden the answer, the better!

Keep 'em coming!

[MJN SEIFER]

Probably FFIX. I did like FFX, but it was to far removed - I kind of see FFX as "Final Fantasy: The Interactive Movie" if that makes sense...

[Jessweeee♪]

It's still going strong for me. Of course, I sort of view them in sets. Pre-FFVII, FFVII-FFIX, FFX-FFXII, FFXIII+. Each set has a different feel to it, and if I go in expecting the same charm from a previous set, I'm going to be disappointed. Each set has something about it that makes it special for me. (Well, so far I've only enjoyed FFVI out of Pre-FFVII, but still, it's special!)

[Stecloud]

FFX was the last title I enjoyed playing. And I did enjoy it; I know it wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but I had a lot of fun playing FFX and thought it was a pretty decent attempt at updating the series while retaining a lot of its charm. And then it all went wrong....

FFXI: Online. ONLINE! Why not simply call it FF Online, instead of placing it in the numerical series? I think this was Square's first major mistake: as if it isn't confusing enough already when trying to explain the concept of 10 titles in a series all called Final Fantasy to a newcomer, without having to expand on this caveat (don't get me started on FFX-2...).

Then we had FFXII. FFXII was...ok. I've never quite managed to complete it, mainly because I find the story difficult to follow and the character development apalling. Where are the conversations? Still, it was nowhere near as bad as FFXIII. Urgh! I've never been more disappointed in my life, than with that pile of poo. BORING! I was worried as soon as I read a review that described the game as one long-tunnel interspersed with battles, but held on to hope, until I played it and this turned out to be a very accurate assessment of the game.

Two things I don't understand about FFXIII:

1) What's so good about the battle system? I found that my best option was always just to select Auto-Attack. Anything else took too long to be beneficial, and I was still getting 5-star battle ratings doing this.

2) Why are people comparing it to FFX? I just don't see the similarities.

[Crossblades]

FFXI: Online. ONLINE! Why not simply call it FF Online, instead of placing it in the numerical series? I think this was Square's first major mistake: as if it isn't confusing enough already when trying to explain the concept of 10 titles in a series all called Final Fantasy to a newcomer, without having to expand on this caveat

You're not gonna like FFXIV then o.o

[Slothy]

Two things I don't understand about FFXIII:

1) What's so good about the battle system? I found that my best option was always just to select Auto-Attack. Anything else took too long to be beneficial, and I was still getting 5-star battle ratings doing this.

2) Why are people comparing it to FFX? I just don't see the similarities.

I agree on the first point. As for the second, it got a lot of FFX comparisons because both were quite linear. But FFXIII took it to an extreme that I didn't even think possible in the genre.

As for the topic at hand, I'd be tempted to say FFXII because it was the last one I liked (and I liked it a lot), but depending on who's behind future games I'm sure I could like an FF title again, even after FFXIII had me about ready to give up on Square altogether. But at least that just cemented the idea that I should do everything I can to avoid anything that Kitase and Toriyama ever make again.

[Stecloud]

FFXI: Online. ONLINE! Why not simply call it FF Online, instead of placing it in the numerical series? I think this was Square's first major mistake: as if it isn't confusing enough already when trying to explain the concept of 10 titles in a series all called Final Fantasy to a newcomer, without having to expand on this caveat

You're not gonna like FFXIV then o.o

I actually have had quite an enjoyable time playing some MMORPGs, including FFXI, I just disagree with it forming a part of the main series. I won't have time to play FFXIV, so I'm not going to bother to get it.