FF6 was my favorite as well and it wasn't even close. So many great characters, also it's the only game that has a perfect balance with the first 1/3 of the game being completely linear, and the last 2/3 being almost completely free to do what you want. Also enjoyed the fact that each character had their own unique way of combat, whereas later games the only difference was the attack and casting animation. Lots of puzzles, side quests, and the first part really sets up the game beautifully so that you want to do all of the quests, side quests, get every character and ultimately defeat Kefka.
FF7 was great when it came out, but the graphics now are a mess of polygons. The materia system is too simple (way better in 6 imo) and the game itself is very easy unless you make it hard. Also the storyline is a huge step down from 6 because they are limited by working with their new graphics, and actually I feel like all of the FF after limited themselves severely afterwards due to this. Sephiroth has nothing on Kefka, although Rufus was an enjoyable mini boss imo.
FF8 was a good game I thought. Not a huge fan of love stories in these games, but I Thought they handled it pretty well. Only part that really annoyed me was that part I mentioned in my "parts of a game that ruin a perfectly good game" thread or whatever the title was that I started.
Just awful writing.
The last dungeon was a lot of fun and very difficult, but there's no motivation to kill the last villain other than the fact that you're told that is now the last villain.
My problem with saying that the magic system in this game is a grind, is that it's a grind in all of these games, and the turn based combat system is always based on that. It's a grind walking around the map getting into random fights to level up your characters to 99 as well, the difference is that most people aren't stupid enough to do that. Apparently though add a new system, and everyone thinks they need to level their magic up to 99... why? Not only does that much grinding ruin any challenge in the game, but it's boring and certainly not how the game was supposed to be played. I never did play the game that way actually had a few challenging fights throughout the game because I kept my characters about where they should have been for the encounters.
9 was great, although very different. It tells an epic story and all, but does it very quickly. There's a special item you can get only if you beat the game in less than 12 hours, so that tells you how short the game can be. That leaves less room for character development, slightly less plot and less of a game all in all. The game is tight and compact though, with lots of mini games, a strong plot that moves forward quickly and gets epic at a much quicker pace, and a smaller cast of characters than normal. The game develops the storyline and the smaller cast at a very quick speed. Also one thing I thought was nice was that there was no way to teach everyone magic like the other games (as far as I remember). So it's back to the original rpg style with a fighter class, mage class, heal class, blue magic etc. but you have to choose the characters instead of customizing them yourself.
If you haven't played 7 or 9, I'd go with 9 for sure.
FF12 was awful through and through imo. Plot sucked, battles sucked, side quests sucked, It played like how I imagined FF11 (their mmorpg) would play except that it was single player.
Last edited by Bluegrassplayer; 08-17-2013 at 12:54 AM.