The topic ‘which Final Fantasy game is the best’ has been done to death on most forums (hell, there is a topic on this right now…), so I thought I would ask something slightly different. Which Final Fantasy game do you consider to be the greatest contribution to the series since Final Fantasy I? Now, before you all go off and simply pick your favorite game, keep in mind that we are talking about ‘the greatest contributor’, not the ‘best’. In other words, you’ll have to take into account things like popularity (whether the game sparked a mass awareness for the series), establishment of traditions (the first game to effectively use the trademarks that would later mark a game as a ‘Final Fantasy’ game) and finally, appreciation for the game itself (whether the game is considered to be decent by people who’s opinions actually mean something).

I’m not going to turn this into a poll, because I want people to actually state reasons as to why they consider their choice to be ‘the greatest contribution to the series’. I’m also not going to state my own choice, simply because I’m still trying to decide between FFIII, FFIV and FFVII, all of which I consider to be equally important to the series for various reasons (it should be noted that none of these games are at the top of my ‘Favorite FF Games’ list’).

Thoughts?