16 is absolutely fantastic. I haven’t read any reviews for it so I don’t know what they are saying but I had an absolute blast playing it. Had a smile on my face from beginning to end. Well, I enjoyed it atleast I found the ending very sad.

X was the last one with a good story

For the record, I was also immensely disappointed in XV. However I loved XVI. The ability cool downs in particular felt very ATB-like to me and I loved the customization. The story is very good and one of my favorites from storytelling perspective (in other words, HOW the story is told).

I also really liked the combat and exploration of XII. And the Zodiac version makes it even better.

I thought XIII had some of the best moments in the series.

XIII-2 perfected the gameplay from XIII and made storytelling and exploration “fun”

XIII: LR is very experimental and has some of my favorite action-based combat in the series.

World of Final Fantasy is a lot of fun if you want turn based monster capturing.

Stranger of Paradise is a blast. My only issue with it is that you can’t really overpower by leveling up. I hit a hard wall with a boss and the only way through is “get good”.

I didn’t get much into Type-O but I keep meaning to.

Theatrhythm exists. I love it, but it’s also it’s own thing entirely.

I played FF7 only and loved it. I did not care for the first remake game, and have not finished it. Hanging at like 70% complete.

I can say that I enjoy the Final Fantasy series just for the fact that I respect they are always trying something different with each one. This has the end result of me not getting on with several of them, but critically, someone else does.

I just find it kind of beautiful that a series is willing to experiment with itself to such a degree, and that at this point there really is at least one game in it for just about everyone.

All it really means is that I have to accept that not every game has been made with me as the target.

Yep

I’ve played and beat every single numbered FF title except for 11.

The new ones are good, just different. No one likes every single FF game, everyone has a favorite they associate with the time they jumped into the series, and then all others end up colored by how similar or different they seem to that ideal one.

Even the people in this thread bashing FF13 would probably be surprised to know how many people out there think it’s the best (I know, a shock).

I can share my own opinions on which games are good or bad, but it’s ultimately meaningless unless your tastes happen to coincide identically to my own.

And besides, everybody knows 9 is the best, without question.

I play FFXIV. I’ll break it down by expansions, but it’s the one that didn’t follow the general downwards trend so much.

1.0 - trash. They couldn’t figure out how to work together. One guy spends forever making the best looking water wheel ever, in the background, that you never interact with. It’s too graphically intensive, and flows the wrong way from the water. It doesn’t match the building it’s attached to. Meanwhile, they forget to add roads towards main cities. It’s an unplayable mess. It’s literally unplayable, as they killed it off to replace it with:

2.0, A Realm Reborn - they really fixed it under one guy’s leadership. It’s playable, and works. It’s outdated somewhat today, but has a lot of moral grey areas and twists. There’s a lot of running around and time wasting, which was common back then.

Heavenward - they made a great story. It’s one of the best expansions. Streamlined and faster. No needless “talk to 5 villagers” quests like previously.

Stormblood - not as great. There’s a lot of setup they use later. The world building is really great, though. Some of the best looking areas.

Shadowbringers - the best expansion they’ve ever made. Perfectly balanced world building and characters, and story. This is peak FF, with the best music as well. Probably because they can ditch much of the old A Realm Reborn story.

Endwalker - ties it all together. The story leads up to “death is inevitable for everything that has ever lived, so just die now” kind of depression hopelessness that you wonder how they’ll get out of it. Well, because it’s Japanese and FF, it’s the power of friendship that saves the day. But, this really feels like the culmination of everything they’ve learned in the previous expansions.

Dawntrail - this is the downward slide. They force you into a role to support someone for ruler that is almost slapstick bad. Characters don’t make logical choices. The theme is all over the place and can’t decide what it wants to be. Many people say to stop at endwalker, but we’ll see how the next expansion goes, which is years away.

There’s plenty to say about the game otherwise, but the general thought is that they’re gradually cutting corners, taking longer, and under delivering as they’re stretched too thin. They’re feeling the same pressure everyone else in the world is - not enough money. Which is crazy, because FFXIV is THE game keeping Square Enix alive.

I’m just disappointed in the way Square Enix seems to think turn-based combat is anathema for some reason. The series has abandoned its roots, it just isn’t FF to me.

X is around the time FF lost it’s main architect, Sakaguchi (technically sooner , but dev times I imagine it overlapped). Guys a class act that was with them since the beginning, but he started his own company after a falling out with the direction SE brass wanted to take things. He was the one pushing to always have life and death as main themes and kept certain other producers in line.

I always recall an anecdote on FF7, as him, Kitase and Nomura were working out story. Sakaguchi required a meaningful death in the plot. Kitase (who we can thank for FF6s second half) suggested the whole cast die except one who the player chooses. Nomura talked them down from that. FF7 was his baby (so much so that he’s the character designer and artist), hence why he’s so present on the remake. That said, they kept each other in check and Nomura gets really weird ideas (KHs being his lead, for example).

After Sakaguchi departure, 11 was modeled after EverQuest and had a newish team, 12 was written most by FFT scenario team but had a change mid devolpment midway (the SE brass wanted a plucky young protag, Vaan was late development), 13 was so overbudget that they had to make sequels to recoup costs, 14 1.0 was mostly old guard 11 people with no idea about optimization, 14 2.0 was Yoshida learning from WoW success (flaws and all) but adding “FF theme park” plus a great writing staff, 15… similar to 12 in changes mid production, but iirc it was the SE brass shoehorning bad ideas and plot required DLC, and 16 is Yoshida and his core team making a pretty solid ARPG but with some tedium due to his MMO roots (and if you like 7R you’d probably be ok with 16).

Anyone can like or dislike a game, so I’m just giving you the long range of production issues that are objectively damaging the experience. It’s ok to like flawed games. I know an unhealthy amount of video game industry lore, and the biggest thing I can’t even say because of an NDA. lol

(Bonus fun fact, FF6 was meant to end at the halfway point but was so ahead of schedule and funds they went ahead and created the second half. It’s my favorite FF lol)

No, I don’t think so. They are just different and people don’t like change. For context, I’m a massive JRPG fan and I’ve played: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12 and 15. And of course tons of spin-offs. Planning on playing 7, 8 and 13 - don’t care for MMOs and 16.

Out of these, I love of course the obvious early ones: 4 and 6.

However, 10 is my favorite overall. It has the most solid gameplay (fuck ATB tbh) and a great story, even though we sideline Sin way too much for Seymore who I don’t care for. It’s biggest problem are the minigames though, I hate Blitzball and especially the Cloister of Trials.

9 could be better, but the steam version crashes so much I didn’t get to finish it.

Now, after 10 we got a lot more experimental:

12 was fun but had massive problems. It’s biggest was the autobattle mechanic alongside the speed up in modern releases. You basically don’t play the game and you don’t even strategize. It’s always faster to sprint a few minutes around the map and get back with more levels which ultimately killed any interest I had in the battle system. But I dislike programmable party members in every game, so your milage may vary. The world building on the other hand was awesome.

15 was a great game. I think it’s reception isn’t wrong necessarily because of how much it differs from trailers and such. However, I played it years after release and without having seen a single trailer. I had a blast throughout. The writting is among FF’s best, not because it’s such a great story, but because the relationships between the main party are so strong. I even liked the battle system - it’s different and has a lot of potential, I think. It’s biggest failure is that you need to watch a series, a movie and read lots of other material to grasp the story - a lot of it isn’t in the game.

16, I can’t say much about. I’m honestly not very interested in basic medieval fantasy settings, they’ve stripped out the RPGs mechanics and quite frankly I just don’t own a system I could play it on. Maybe I’d like it after all, I don’t know.

No?

Realistically, as you mentioned with FF XIV ARR now being a classic but also being a pain to get into is true for any other older FF, many people simply have rose tinted glasses to keep them from seeing all the flaws present in those prior entries.
I also started with FF VII, but 25 years after its release, and let me tell you that it did not age well (at all) imo.

Had I not picked up FF XVI, I probably wouldn’t have given the series another chance.
I now played both FF VII remakes to date and absolutely loved them, especially Rebirth, and am going through FF VI, which I also think is a masterpiece tbh.
FF IV didn’t work out for me, but that’s fine.

All that to say, video game series evolve, ARPGs have been quite popular for a while and FF went that route - for now. That doesn’t make for bad games, and the series will keep evolving.

I understand your sentiment…

I havent played 16 either but i also see almost no appeal. Its clearly an action rpg at heart and that isnt what Final Fantasy was originally about.

The depth of story people expect in the modern era is as high as it was when ff7 ot ff10 released, the only issue is that expectations for production value have gone through the roof.

If anything is holding square enix back from creating the next ff masterpiece, its their commitment to high quality visuals with extremely diverse gameplay, and unfortunately that is what they have groomed their fans to expect. This is why the ff7 remake is being done over 3 games, to get that much story into the visual and gameplay depth people expect, it would probably dilute the experience to cram it into 1 5-year production. That and they make money off 3 games instead of 1 lol

What would salvage ff17 in the eyes of a classic ff fan would be to cut down production value and variations of gameplay. SE just needs to boil in good turn based combat, then focus on creating a beautifully unique setting with deep, engaging lore. That is what was so powerful about ff7 and ff10 imo. A couple minigame distractions would be good, but the amount of effort that went into the minigames in ff7 rebirth is just ridiculous.

It would be nice to see a spinoff series that focused on this at least… We can dream.

You lost me at XII wasn’t great and saying XIII had an OK story. The writing on XIII is one of the most atrocious I’ve experienced, it hits like a korean dramedy. The combat was OK but had the depth of a puddle. A realm reborn has a steep climb to 60 but it’s worth it for the great story and impactful world events (granted the fetch quests get boring, the community makes up for it). XV was not great, the world-building prior to release was exciting but the hit from the game was lacking. They tried to make it better with episodes and extended content but by then I didn’t feel like coming back. The combat was a sore disappointment, long gone were the puzzles of the prior games. The story was OK enough but it didn’t carry the game. XVI suffers from the same problem as XV. The story is pretty fitting in a fantasy setting, the set piece moments are absolutely sublime, but the pacing and combat are off. Not enough depth. It feels, much like XV, as a final fantasy for dummies (and the performance and technical aspects of the game leave a lot to be desired) XII is a goddamn masterpiece.

Squaresoft games were so good that there was a weird full decade there where the name Square Enix still managed to get me interested into checking out games, but the games themselves never did. Eventually this too died out and I finally don’t care at all about square anymore.