I have been playing video games since the early 1980's. From the literally thousands of games that I have played during my life, the Final Fantasy series by Square (later Square Enix) holds a special place in my nostalgia.
I have played every single game in the mainline series, with the exception of the two MMORPGs, as well as some of the spinoffs and side games (such as Crisis Core, Final Fantasy Tactics, FF7 Remake, and a few others). This blog post will focus only on the mainline series.
The series could, perhaps, be divided into three distinctive "eras", based on style, game mechanics, and content. There are no hard lines dividing the games between these three eras, as there are a bit of overlap between them, but nevertheless, I would classify these three eras as (note that I'm using the Japanese numbering for the earlier games, which is now the official numbering as well):
- The "classic" or "golden" era, consisting of the Final Fantasy games from I to VI, plus IX.
- The "interim" era, consisting of the Final Fantasy games VII and VIII.
- The "modern" era, consisting of all Final Fantasy games from X forwards.
The "classic" games consisted of games using a 2D top view and 2D sprites, and were largely designed around that graphical style. (Rather obviously this style was largely dictated by the limitations of the hardware of the time, namely the NES and the SNES.) While Final Fantasy IX does use full 3D graphics, I still count it as belonging to the "classic" era because it was explicitly designed by Square to be a homage to the 2D classics, and follows many of the same game mechanics to a T.
While all the six (plus one) games are masterpieces on their own right, I consider Final Fantasy VI to be pretty much the culmination of the classic era. The magnum opus. The game I would choose if I had to choose one to represent what "Final Fantasy" is about. This game just transcends everything else, and in fact I consider it not only the best Final Fantasy game, but also one of the best video games ever made, period, regardless of genre or time period. I have extreme nostalgia for this game in particular.
In the "interim" era, consisting of Final Fantasy VII and VIII, Square radically shifted the style of the games, moving from 2D graphics to 3D graphics. But the shift went farther than just the visuals, as the contents, the gameplay, the storytelling, experienced a significant change as well, compared to all the previous six games.
One of the most significant changes in tone, started by FF VII, is the move from high fantasy to "magitech fantasy" (where "medieval Europe setting" is replaced essentially with a sort of steampunk or dieselpunk fantasy setting). Final Fantasy VI, the last game from the "classic era" (not counting IX), already delved a bit into this setting, so it kind of already showed the early signs of this shift in tone and setting. However, it was VII that embraced full-on magitech-steampunk
Final Fantasy VII is considered by many to be the best game in the series, and its culmination and magnum opus. Personally, I don't see it. I played the original PlayStation version, and I wasn't really all that enthralled by it. I have also played Final Fantasy VII Remake, and I still don't really get all that excited about it. (The Remake isn't just the original game with updated graphics and added content. It's actually an independent game of its own, but I will not spoil the idea any further here. However, for a significant part it does replicate the original game, just with improved graphics, so it kind of works as a modern version of it.)
It may be just me, but I just cannot understand what's so special about VII. For me the previous game, VI, is the one. The absolute best, the absolute culmination, everything that Final Fantasy is, the magnum opus. (And we are talking about the original SNES version. It has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of compared to modern games. It still stands as one of the best games ever made, even using the SNES hardware.)
Then there's the "modern" era. Oh boy, is a doozy...
This is the era, starting with Final Fantasy X, where Square Enix took the game series to a completely different direction. They threw almost everything from the previous games away, and only kept a very general theme, with vague allusions to some previous games (such as chokobos appearing in every game). In general gameplay, the game mechanics, are completely different and unrelated to all the previous games, and there's very little traces of classic 8-bit and 16-bit JRPG mechanics and tropes.
Personally I do not consider Final Fantasy X nor any of the subsequent games in the series to be actual Final Fantasy games. They are a completely different and unrelated game series that just carries the same game series name (soiling the originals).
Most people consider Final Fantasy XIII to be the worst game in the entire series, by a long margin. I disagree with that sentiment. I consider it the second-worst. Far, far below it is Final Fantasy X, which I not only consider the worst Final Fantasy game, but in fact one of the worst video games ever made. Everything that FF XIII did wrong, FF X did it years earlier, and much worse at that.
If FF XIII is extremely and utterly linear, with extremely short and linear levels which use a very abstract non-descript graphical design, and the game has pretty much nothing that makes a JRPG a JRPG (such as towns, npcs, shops, a wide open overworld and so on and so forth), FF X already did all those same things, but even worse. Its levels were even shorter, even more linear, were even more abstract, and the game lacked even more of JRPG game mechanics and tropes.
On top of that FF X is just infuriating to play due to its sheer amount of cutscenes. It has been a joke for quite a long time that modern games are nothing but cutscenes that are occasionally interrupted by short segments of gameplay. Well, with FFX that's not a joke, it's reality. That's exactly what the game is. And the worst part is that the cutscenes are too long, boring, uninteresting and badly acted. I'm not even kidding, there are parts of the game where you watch a long cutscene, gameplay continues, and less than 10 seconds later another long cutscene starts, interrupting your gameplay. There are large segments of the game where gameplay is literally a small fraction of the time.
FF XIII is slightly better than this, but not by a whole lot. XII is boring and uninspired (and I couldn't even bother playing it to is half-point, not even close), and XV, while better than any of those, is bland and uninspired, and also lacks most of what makes a JRPG a JRPG. (The two remaining games in this list are MMORPGs which I have not tried.)
