Can you describe the Final Fantasy games for me?

Question

I don't need their stories, thanks to their popularity, it's hard NOT to know who the characters are and what happens. (It sucks because now I'm expecting all those plot twists and they won't really have the same impact...)

I just want a brief description of the main games. I haven't played any yet, but am looking to start and want to know if there's a certain order I should go about them. Recommendations of which should be first/second etc. would be great. I'd love to hear what one you consider is the best and when describing the gameplay, feel free to toss out your opinion of pros/cons.
Is each game played the same? Could you describe the gameplay mechanics or compare them to another RPG?

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!

Answer 1

Final Fantasy 1: 4 hero's take up the responsibility of rescuing a princess from the hands of the evil Garland. Simple turn based gameplay with a numbered leveling system for your characters.



Final Fantasy 2: as 4 youths you have to embark on an adventure to take down the emperor and his empire. basic turn based gameplay with an awkward leveling system that increases seperate stats based on your actions in battle, VERY awkward and can be mercilessly exploited.



Final Fantasy 3: as a team of 4 orphans you have to bring balance back to the world. Standard turn based gameplay, but is the first to introduce the job system where the player can switch his characters to any of the 23 job classes available.



Final Fantasy 4: Cecil and his friends have to keep the evil Golbez from obtaining the crystals and destroying the world. This title introduces the active time battle gameplay where characters turns are made in real time and is the only game in the series to have more than four controllable characters. Each character have predetermined jobs and have their own powers, magic, and abilities. This title is VERY story driven and VERY creative.



Final Fantasy 5: Barts and his friends must secure the elemental crystals and prevent Exdeaths revival. The job system is revisited and players are able to master up to twenty-two job classes, this title introduces ability points which are used to permanently learn abilities associated with each individual job. The player is able to carry over one or two job specific abilities after changing jobs.



Final Fantasy 6: A group of hero's must save the world from being conquered by the evil empire and their exploitation of magic. Players are now able to equip Espers that teach magic to the characters and give stat boosts. other abilities can also be learned by equipping relics that give special attributes to characters. Characters can also gain unique abilities from seperate pieces of armor or weapons that are equipped or gain immunities from certain magic and abnormalities.



Final Fantasy 7: As Cloud Strife and friends you must stop the evil mega corporation Shinra from draining the worlds life force for money and stop the evil Sephiroth from destroying the planet. Party size in battle are lowered to 3. This game utilizes the Materia system, materia are magical round crystals that can be equipped to the players armor and weapon, they allow players to access magical, command, summon, support, or stat abilities, they can be combined in a number of different ways to suit the players tactics in battle. Each character has a seperate bar next to their ATB bar called the limit break bar, the bar fills from the damage a character receives in battle and once filled to the top the character can release a special attack. Each characters limit breaks are different and can serve to heal, protect, or attack teammates or opponents.



Final Fantasy 8: Squall and his group of young mercenaries must stop an evil sorceress from manipulating and controlling the world through fear and magic. This title introduces the "Draw" system where instead of equipping certain items to gain magic and abilities, you have to equip a single GF "Guardian Force" and draw magic from your enemies or draw points. Magic in turn can make your characters stronger by being junctioned to certain statistics and raise them a certain number of percentage. In this title how strong your character becomes HEAVILY depends on the magic you have equipped to your characters, leveling up is not used to make a character stronger, but to make the monsters harder. GF's learn abilities at random, but players can guide and choose what abilities they want their GF's to learn if they so choose.



Final Fantasy 9: In the midst of war Zidane and his friends must stop the greedy Queen Brahn of Alexandria and Kuja from conquering the world through war. This title returns to more simple mechanics, you have the Active Time Battle system with four characters to control in battle and a normal leveling system. weapons, armor, and accessories have their own unique abilities that come with them, by equipping them the character is able to use the abilities, as characters battle they gain AP (ability points) when enough ability points are gained they can permanently learn the abilities that are instilled in weapons.

Answer 2

The Final Fantasy series uses a different game play system with each game. The first few are related to the Dragon Quest series of games, but they move onto an active-time system later. The games don't have any connected story line and can be played in pretty much any order (save the sequels directly related to a line).



General consensus is that IV, VI, VII, and X are the best games of the series.



IV: Was the first FF game on the SNES, and considered by most Americans on where the series really gets going. This game has a number of firsts and unique features:

-The first FF games where characters were set in class and personality.

-On of the few FF games where you party, class and characters, are entire set by plot.

-With a max of five party members, IV has the largest active party limit in the series.

-The first FF game with the active time system, where you choice of action determines how long it takes to do. Also the first game where the enemies wouldn't wait for you to take your turn (though you could turn waiting on in a menu).

-The first where all spells where learned by either level or earning, no spells were bought in stores.

-The original US release was of the easy version of the game, the ports are all of hard type.

-The DS remake makes this the first FF with a remake as opposed to a port. The remake upped the difficulty above and beyond the hard-type ports.

-The earliest FF with a sequel.



VI: The last FF games on the SNES. Considered by some to be the best of the series.

-Has the most playable members out of any game in the main-line. (12 main, 2 hidden)

-Considered by many to have one of the darkest stories of the series.

-The first game where spells were learned through an addition to EXP called TP points.

-The first game to have limit breaks, that could be preformed at low health, but they were so rare that most players never see them.

-The original release had *numerous* bugs that reduced difficulty. The ports fix those bugs and are more difficult.

-The second half of the game was almost completely non-linear. Events could be completed in any order, or completely skipped.



VII: The first FF game on the PS1, considered by many to be the best in the series.

-You could only have three active members at a time, the first time that has happened in a FF game and a trend that continues to all future games.

-The first game where limit breaks were controllable.

-The first game where spells were non-permanent. They had to be equipped and if you removed them from your equipment you would no longer know the spell.

-The first FF to include pre-rendered full-motion video at key moments.

-The only FF with a prequel. Also the only one with an animated movie and OVAs.

-Also has a sequel which focus on one of the side characters from the first game.



X:

-The first FF game to allow in-combat character switching.

-The first to allow a character to theoretically learn all abilities and spells and use them all without class switching.

-The first FF to get a sequel and the first where the sequel is on the same counsel as the original game.

-The first FF not to include a world-map mode. The game remained in scale view the entire time.

-The first FF where summons remained in battle instead of as alternate versions of spells. A summon replaced the party until killed or dismissed by the player.

-The first FF since III to return to a turn-based combat system.

-Currently being remade into a HD version for the PS3. Whether this is a IV style remake or a simple HD port has not been announced.

Answer 3

You can start wherever you want because they're not connected in any way. The best starting points are FFIX, VII, or V because they are very explanatory and average difficulty. After you beat those you can take on the entire series. Favorites depend on what your looking for: Final Fantasy IX is my favorite in the whole series because it's the funnest one to play. But VI has the best story in the series. FFVII has the best characters. It all depends. As for gameplay no they are not played the same way, they're all turn based but each has it's own unique component added to it. For example in FFXIII you have paradigm shifts, which is basically a whole bunch of role shifting because you can only do one role at a time. In FFVII one character can do anything you want him to regardless as long as he has the ability. Also the way you equip summons are different in any game you don't JUST equip them. And the way you level yourself up is different in every game. It's very hard to explain but it's not the same at all you don't even have to worry the slightest bit about it being repetitive or anything.

Answer 4

I was a big fan of 7 and 8. First off I was like 10 when I played them even younger for the 1st one. 7 I liked because of the summons just like in 8 and you have to find them. 7 Also includes a casino that you could play quite a few cool games at the time like snow boarding but my favorite part was you could breed Chocobos. Not to mention alot of characters you got to join your party. 8 Was the one I got sucked into the most I played it non-stop. The plot is basically your in school, you have a bad guy rivial, a chick who likes you. Alot of people like these 2 but alot dont as well its personal, I would say give it a try for any of them there not expensive anymore.

Answer 5

1) Here are four guys. Pick whoever. Make sure you set the game speed to fast, because it starts on "The absolute slowest text speed." I cant rememebr if its 1 or 8, but just set it to whatever is on the other end of what its on by default. Turn based game with slow text F*** thign.



2) Here are four guys. You name them but you only get three. You don't have levels, but you level based on what you use. In theory. In realityi ts bugged to hell so..



3) Here are four guys. You get all four of them. They're Onion Knights! See: Final Fantasy 5.



4) Okay now you get five guys, at most, and never have control over it, but they're actually people who you actually care about. Also, Moon Giants. This is the first game with ATB



5) See Final Fantasy 3



6) I think we can just skip over this one. god I hope you don't need it described.



7) Like 6, only you'll have no idea whats going on.



8) Pick your poison. You can gain levels or not. Yo ucan fight with summons. Thigns go to 100. You can win using a card game with persistence. every enemy is scaled to you. Fast combat. You'll know whats going on but it still wont make sense.



9) STEAL > FAIL > STEAL > FAIL > STEAL > FAIL > STEAL > FAIL > STEAL > FAIL > STEAL > FAIL > STEAL > FAIL > STEAL > FAIL > STEAL > FAIL >STEAL > FA and so on.



10) six characters, can be switched out at any time, even in battle. turn based, no atb, but actions determine order of combat for upcoming turns. Actually pretty fun.



11) MMO



12) Offline MMO.



I kinda stopped playing there.

Answer 6

Best ones to play imo ff 7 9 10 12 an hopefully 13 versus heres wat i see in ff love magic fantasy betrayal evil

Answer 7

Final Fantasy V (FF III in the states) for the SNES is the only one really worth playing.



But very well said, Seven In One Stroke...



*applauds*