Disclaimer: Spoilers will be all over this post — you have been warned!

Released in 1999, Final Fantasy VIII was the second game released on the PlayStation platform.  The game continued the modern/futuristic trend of Final Fantasy VII, containing weapons such as the gunblade and technology that included space travel.  However, the game did take some radical departures from many of the things players became used to in the Final Fantasy universe.  Magic Points (MP) were non-existent, money could not be obtained by killing monsters, monsters and bosses leveled up with you, stat increases from leveling up were marginal at best, and the characters actually looked like humans on the world map instead of sprites or the blocky polygon models seen in Final Fantasy VII.

The game introduced the Junction System to allow for players to increase their characters stats, and magic (and some summons, known as Guardian Forces) was obtained by literally drawing it from monsters that were encountered in battle.  It was a very unique system and its main goal was to shift the emphasis away from straight grinding of experience points.

With this post, we now enter the point in this countdown in which all of these games will be very close to each other and my decisions in ranking became very, very tough.  From this point on, there will be very few reasons one game is above another and those reasons don’t stand out as clearly as they have in the rest of the countdown.  I will do my best to differentiate the games and clearly define my reasoning; however, I’m quite sure that I might see several disagreements from this point on.

Next Page: Story

Final Fantasy XI was the first of the Final Fantasy series to move into the realm of online gaming.  Not only was this Square Enix’s first attempt at a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), it was also the first MMORPG, as well as the first Final Fantasy that was simultaneously cross-platform, spanning across the PlayStation 2, PC, and eventually the Xbox360. In hopes of creating a truly global community, Final Fantasy XI also featured an auto-translate function that would allow for certain phrase to be entered and then displayed in the player’s local language.

Final Fantasy XI first went live in Japan in 2002 on the PlayStation2 and American gamers got their first taste of the game in 2003, but it was released first for the PC (PS2 release came in 2004).  European gamers were then later able to join this online adventure in 2004.  Finally, in 2006, the game was released world-wide on the Xbox360.  Despite the announcement of Square Enix’s next MMORPG, Final Fantasy IV (which is set for release near the end of this year), the game is still up and running and still maintains a rather respectable sized player base–not too shabby for an eight year old game.

Set in the world of Vana’diel, players are able to create their own character from one of five races and pledge allegiance to one of the game’s three nations (of which I will go into detail later).  From there, players must select from one of six basic jobs as the Job System from Final Fantasy III returns in a modified form (again more on this later!).  After that, the players are quite literally dropped into the big online world and are on their own to make friends, level up, do quests and missions, as well as possibly taking up a craft or two.

Now since Final Fantasy XI is structured quite a bit differently, this post will cover details in a different manner.  I will run down some major parts of the story that surrounds the game, but since there is so much detail, it will be a general overview and brief.  Instead of a discussion of heroes villains, as there are far too many to write about, I will instead discuss character creation, including a look at the game’s races and major nations.  Discussion of the game mechanics will remain the same as I will explain in detail the workings of the Job System.  I will also add in some sections that are not normally in my other posts as they are a large part of the game, yet do not appear in other titles.  Such topics will include a look at the game’s economy, which will include a look at the crafting system.  I will also take a look at the many events available for a player to take part in during their adventures.  Finally, as with all my posts, I will close with a discussion on why this game landed here.

Ranking this game was quite difficult, as I had to decide just how much to include in my judgments.  In the end, I decided that since this is very much a living game, I would consider all of the expansions and updates added to the game (in the end, I’m not sure this hurt or helped the game at all).  While I have not even come close to completing or participating all of the content in this game, I definitely believe that the six years or so that I have been playing this game will give me quite an accurate picture of this game.

Yes, that isn’t a typo. I started playing in the spring of 2004 and still play occasionally to this day, although my playing time has plummeted significantly since my college years.

Anyways, enough rambling, time to get through this very lengthy post!

Next Page: The World of Vana’diel

Disclaimer: There will be spoilers abound in this post (including spoilers from the game’s prequel, Final Fantasy X).  You have been warned!

Originally released in 2003 for the PlayStation 2, Final Fantasy X-2 (spoken “ten-two”) became the first direct sequel to a Final Fantasy game.  The game, however, took a radical departure from Final Fantasy X.  The overall tone of the game, the battle system, and even the players that you could control all took a major overhaul.  This time around, the majority of the story was treated with a much more light-hearted tone and the player this time could only control three characters: Yuna, Rikku, and the game’s new playable character, Paine.  The trio, dubbed “YRP”, is controlled in battle through a new job and battle system called the Dressphere system.

Despite the success of Final Fantasy X, this overhaul was met with very mixed reviews.  Often called the Charlie’s Angels of the Final Fantasy series, many fans felt taking over the new adventures of YRP felt like anything but a Final Fantasy game.  With everything from concert performances staring Yuna, to a quasi-lesbian scene in a hot spring, and a battle system that is quite literally based on costume changes — it is not hard to see why many fans felt this way.

This was also the first Final Fantasy game to reward players for completing the entire game as it tracked the player’s completion percentage throughout the game.  Based on how much of the game was completed, the player would then be rewarded with different endings.  Anything less than 80% resulted in the normal ending, above 80% resulted in what was called the “good” ending, and a 100% completion awarded the “perfect” ending.

Although for the majority of this posts you will see me crack many a joke at the story and some of the other general ridiculousness of the game, there is a lot that Final Fantasy X-2 did extremely well.  I will reveal those aspects throughout the post; however, let’s first take a look at the story.

Next Page: Story

Disclaimer: Once again, this is your friendly warning that spoilers will be abound in this post.  Funny part about this one though…I had to spoil the story for myself to finish the article.

Yes, you read the disclaimer right, I haven’t finished the game personally.  Before anyone says it, no, that isn’t the reason the game ranks low as I actually like many elements of this game and believe me, I’ve put more than enough playtime in the game to become familiar with the game mechanics and the majority of the story development.  Also, I have nothing against the first three Final Fantasy games in the least.  I simply believe later entries into the series are much better games as a whole as well be explained in the “Why This Game Ended Up Here Section.”

Anyways, now that all of that is out of the way, let’s get to the game!  Final Fantasy III was released in Japan in 1990 and was the last Final Fantasy game to be featured on the NES.  However, it wasn’t until 2006 until Americans were able to play an official version of the game on the Nintendo DS.  The game has also been re-released one more time via the Wii Virtual console in July of 2009.

The American release of the game was drastically different from the original.  Not only was the game completely re-designed and re-skinned into a full 3-D game, but the DS version even gave names to the four heroes in the game.  Just like Final Fantasy, at first the four characters were simply “Warriors of Light” once again and started out in the game as Onion Knights.  The DS version renamed these four as Luneth, Arc, Refia, and Ignus and started them out as “Freelancers” and making the Onion Knight as a secret job to unlock as a nostalgic nod.  The beginning of the story is also slightly different in the DS version and that will be reflected in my recap below.

Final Fantasy III though will forever be known for starting several recurring themes that are still present in today’s Final Fantasy titles.  It was in this game that several jobs made their first of many appearance in the Final Fantasy franchise, including the Summoner, Dark Knight, Bard, Dragoon (they appeared before, but players never had a chance to become one), and Ranger.  Also several jobs that made reappearances from the original Final Fantasy got a bit of an overhaul as it was the first game to feature abilities such as Steal and it was the first game in which you could summon creatures to come to your aid.  Not only that, Final Fantasy III saw the first appearances of the Moogle, legitimate sidequests, and a non-static job system.

If Final Fantasy was the foundation of the series, Final Fantasy III could definitely be called the framework.

Next Page: Story

Disclaimer: There will be spoilers abound in this post.  You have been warned!

As we move along in my countdown, we arrive at the original, the game that started it all, Final Fantasy.  Originally released in Japan in 1987, the U.S. got their first take of Final Fantasy magic on the NES three years later (thank God localization now only takes months!).  Since it’s original release, the game was remade as a part of the PlayStation’s Final Fantasy Origins package along with Final Fantasy II in 2003 and has been re-released on the Game Boy Advanced, PSP, and now the PSN store (and soon, it will be available on the iPhone).

At the time the game was released, Square Co. (yes, they didn’t go by Squaresoft then, and the merge with Enix wasn’t even a thought at this time) was failing.  After several lackluster releases, president Hironobu Sakaguchi, decided to make one more game.  He declared that it would be his final attempt and that the theme would be a fantasy RPG, and that plan became the title of the game, Final Fantasy.  However, what was meant to be a farewell to the gaming industry met with huge success and it only trailed behind the most popular RPG in Japan at the time, Enix’s Dragon Quest.  The game also had moderate success in the States, saving Square Co. and giving birth to one of the most successful RPG series of all time.

Story

At the start of the game, the player is presented with a bit of a history lesson and legend of the unnamed world they find themselves in.  The elements of the world (earth, wind, fire, water) were governed by four elemental crystals and their power was used by four powerful civilizations that existed hundreds of years before the start of the game.  However, the crystals began to grow dark and the civilizations could no longer use the crystals to control each element as they once could.  After each crystal grew dark and each civilization fell, a prophecy was declared, saying that in the future, four Warriors of Light would restore the world in a time of darkness.

The player is then placed in control of these four generic characters, whom each carry a darkened crystal with them.  After the player gives a name and a job to each party member, they make their first stop to the Kingdom of Cornelia and discover the kingdom’s princess has been kidnapped by Garland, a former knight of Cornelia whom apparently has plans to overthrow the Kingdom.  The heroes go to Garland’s liar, the Chaos Shrine, defeat him and save the princess.

After the ordeal with Garland, the heroes then set out on a series of linear quests that allow them to travel across the rest of the world.  Eventually, the party arrives at the town of Melmond, a town that whose earth and crops are literally rotting.  It is believed the Vampire living in the Cavern of Earth is to blame and the heroes take it out; however, no improvement is shown.  Upon further investigation in another cave, the party comes across Sadda (also known as Sarda) whom tells them an Elemental Fiend known as Lich is the culprit.  Upon Lich’s defeat, the power of the Earth Crystal is restored and the land of Melmond returns to normal.

The party continues its travels, defeating the remaining elemental fiends and restoring the power of the remaining three crystals in their possession.  Along the way, the party also encounters the Dragon King, Bahamut, whom sends them on a quest that allows the four Light Warriors to obtain upgraded versions of all their jobs.

However, despite everything seeming to be back to normal, our heroes find out their quest is not yet done.  The Four Fiends were actually in league with Garland.  Now brace yourself because things are about to get a little crazy if you are trying to follow the story.

Somehow, Garland is able to make a deal with these Four Fiends; however, they did not exist in the present, but rather the past as they were the ones to blame for initial darkening of the crystals and destruction of the world’s ancient civilizations.  As a part of this pact, the Fiends send Garland 2,000 years in the past and Garland sends the Four Fiends to the present time.  Somehow, this created a time paradox that would allow Garland to live forever and the Fiends could do as they pleased in the present.

With this knowledge, the Light Warriors return to the Chaos Temple and use the power of the crystals to travel 2,000 years in the past to destroy Garland once and for all.  The Warriors reunite with Garland whom remembers them and is quite pissed as his initial plan was to have a present and past self to keep the time paradox and his eternal life in place.  Garland then absorbs the power of all the deceased Four Fiends and becomes a demon known as Chaos.

Of course, the good guys win, Chaos is defeated and the time paradox is broken with both Garland and the four Elemental Fiends gone for good.  Upon their victory the Light Warriors return to their own time and everything is back to normal except for one twist: no one, including the Light Warriors remembers anything.  The world returned to a point in which Garland, the Fiends, and their scheme never existed and no one had a single memory of the event, making for quite a rather interesting end for such a journey.

Characters

As stated in the previous section, there isn’t exactly any real character development to speak of.  The four Light Warriors are whatever you want them to be more or less.  However, if you want someone else to give some character development to these sprites, may I suggest some 8-bit Theater or the musical stylings of Duane & Brando:

The Villain

Again, not much to see here.  Garland/Chaos really doesn’t have much development to speak of; however, it is definitely one of the more unique evil (and most confusing) plans in the entire series.

Battle/Leveling System

The battles and leveling are as simple as they can get.  Pick your jobs, get in random battles, input commands, get experience points, level up, wash, rinse, repeat.

Every job has its own unique abilities and you are able to pick six from the start: Warrior (aka Fighter), Monk (aka Black Belt), Thief, White Mage, Black Mage, and Red Mage (random note: many years later, Final Fantasy XI, would later also allow these six jobs to be the first available selections for a player’s character).  The Warrior job is your basic damage dealer that could equip heavy armor and weapons.  A Monk is a bare-fisted damage dealer (giving a Monk weapons actually would hurt), but can’t equip heavy armor.  A Thief can’t equip heavy weapons or armor, but with a high agility rating they can pull off more hits per round.  A White Mage allows for healing magic to be used and a Black Mage could cast attack magic.  The Red Mage is the jack of all trades and could equip many of the weapons and armor in the game as well as being able to cast many, but not all, white and black magic.

After conquering Bahamut’s trail, these jobs are then upgraded to Knight, Master, Ninja, White Wizard, Black Wizard, and Red Wizard respectively.  Each of these were a powered up version of the previous job, and in the case of Knight and Ninja, those jobs could now use white and black magic respectively.

The real beauty of this system though is that it allowed for a multitude of different job combinations to be used as well as encouraging multiple playthroughs of the game in order to try different combos out.  Sure it’s basic and overly simplistic, but it works and still stands the test of time and makes for a much more enjoyable playing experience than yesterday’s entry, Final Fantasy II.

Why This Game Ended Up Here

Even though I very much enjoy the simplistic nature of the game, compared to other entries in the Final Fantasy series, it simply doesn’t as much substance as other entries.  Final Fantasy served as an excellent starting point for the series, but, as we progress through the countdown, we will begin to encounter games with must more robust stories, characters, and battle systems.

The real meat of this countdown is about to begin (and my decisions in rankings start to get much harder).

Disclaimer: This post will be littered with spoilers of the story throughout.  You’ve been warned!

Originally released in Japan in 1988, Final Fantasy II never saw the light of day in the States until 2002 with the release of Final Fantasy Origins for the Playstation.  Since that time, it has been re-released on the Gameboy Advanced and PSP systems.  Even though I consider this the “worst” out of all Final Fantasy games, it is by no means an awful game; in fact, Final Fantasy II introduced unique mechanics never seen before in a Final Fantasy game (or any RPG at the time) and also saw the debut of a story that featured unique characters controlled by the player.  Despite such innovations though, there are several reasons why this game lands at the bottom of my countdown.

Story

The game starts as the evil Palamecian Empire attacks the town of Fynn, in which the game’s main characters, Firion, Maria, Guy, and Leon live.  In the attack, their parents are killed and as they attempt to flee the town to save their own lives, they are attacked as well and left for dead.  Following the attack, only three of the main characters, Firion, Maria, and Guy are find themselves in the rebel stronghold of Altair, with Leon missing.

What follows next is a series of linear quests in which the three heroes attempt to prove their worth to the rebel resistance.  Along the way the main party of three is joined by a fourth character throughout the game (and that character might as well have been a red-shirted Star Trek ensign, as that role was practically a death wish in this game).  Eventually, the our heroes become a part of a three-pronged attack plan against the Emperor.  One of the rebel mages, Minwu, was to retrieve the ultimate magic tome of Ultima, another rebel, Gordon, would lead a direct attack on the Empire at Fynn, and the player-controlled heroes would enlist the help of the Dragoons to join the rebel cause.  However, the player’s quest turns up rather empty as they only find a single poisoned Wyvren remained and no Dragoons were to be found.  The lone Wyvren gives the players the last Wyvren egg in which the heroes place into a healing spring for incubation.

As the heroes return, the story starts to get a bit crazy.  The supposed princess helping leading the rebellion, Hilda, is then revealed to be a monster in disguise.  The heroes then learn that the Emperor is keeping the real Hilda as a prize in a tournament in his Coliseum.  Of course, for some reason our heroes think going directly into the lion’s den is a bright idea and they win the tournament only to be thrown into jail by the Emperor upon their victory.

As only a Final Fantasy game can, our heroes happen to be in the right place at the right time as a traveling thief frees them and allows the party and Hilda to escape.  The party then sets out to find Minwu and the Ultima tome in order to defeat the Emperor.  After a bit side-tracking that involves, among other things being swallowed whole by a sea monster, Leviathan, the heroes eventually obtain Ultima, however, at the cost of Minwu’s life.

Upon obtaining Ultima, the heroes learn of a destructive force known as the Cyclone.  By hatching the last Wyvren egg, the party is able to enter the Cyclone and stop it by defeating the Emperor himself.  After the Emperor’s death, the party encounters a villain known only as the “Dark Knight”, the Emperor’s right-hand man, that had appeared throughout the game.  That same “Dark Knight” is none other than the heroes long-lost friend, Leon, whom for some reason or another decides that he will crown himself the new emperor.

That plan is cut ever so short as the Emperor manages to resurrect himself from Hell (dead serious here), and pulls an Obi-Wan-Kenobi move of “you struck me down now I’m more powerful than ever”.  The party, now with Leon back in tow (seems pissed off, Hell-resurrected emperors are great for mending friendships), escapes and the Emperor raises Castle Pandemonium, the fortress of Hell and the game’s final dungeon.

Of course, our brave heroes and quickly reformed Dark Knight brave Castle Pandemonium and defeat the Emperor once again, sending him back to Hell for good.  The party returns to Fynn where they reunite with Hilda (and the handful of other characters that managed to not die by joining the party throughout the game) and well…live happily ever after.  Except for Leon, whom isn’t quite happy with himself and decides to leave the town, but of course, like any good Final Fantasy hero, Firion lets him know that he is always welcome back as Leon “belongs” in Fynn.

The story itself isn’t overly spectacular, but it did contain a handful of twist that one would be hard pressed to see coming.  The twist of Leon being the Dark Knight in particular was probably the single biggest shock as the game had no problem killing of other characters that joined the heroes on their quest.  In retrospect, the story might seem quite highly predictable and, well…lame by today’s standards, but it truly was something that hadn’t been seen in RPGs at the time.

Characters

The characters themselves aren’t all too memorable.  Firion, Maria, and Guy don’t receive too much of a backstory or anything that resembles any real character development (especially by Final Fantasy standards today).  Even Leon’s character fails reveal any real motivation behind joining the Emperor, joining back up with the party, or his feelings behind leaving Fynn at the end of the game.

To be fair, this was the first real attempt at even attempting to have the player play as characters whose stories where already written, as the previous game, Final Fantasy, was basically just a blank slate of four generic heroes.  It was the first attempt to try something different in the series, and later having unique characters and solid development has become a staple of the series.

The Villain

One thing that did not deviate from the previous formula, was that of the bad guy.  The Emperor was just that, a generic bastard that wanted world domination.  Well, he was also one that somehow managed to control the powers of Hell while he was alive and then somehow was able to gain even more powers after he died the first time.  And that pretty much about sums him up.  All things considered, this Hell-raising Emperor is rather forgettable in the series.

Battle/Leveling System

This area is probably Final Fantasy II‘s greatest strength and weakness.  The battle system was very much ahead of it’s time and was borderline genius.  However, I believe attempting this system in what was still the Final Fantasy series’ infancy, ultimately doomed it.

On paper is sounds like an amazing idea: no experience points or levels in a RPG!  Instead, your skills simply increase as you use them.  So if you swing a sword a bunch, you become quite deadly with it.  Cast a lot of magic, and you are able to nuke your enemies into kingdom-come.  Take a bunch of damage, and that character becomes increasingly resistant to it.

While this system now currently sounds like a dream system for a MMORPG (and I do believe, Square Enix’s next attempt, Final Fantasy XIV will implement a similar system of sorts) it did not translate very well at all into a first-generation console RPG.  Skills, especially those of a magical nature, increased at a horribly slow rate.  Of course, when things go slow, players always look for a way to make them go faster, and many different workarounds were found to circumvent the system.

In the original versions of the game, the player could cancel actions right before they happened; however, the game would calculate the skill increases as if they actually did, leading to battles in which the player does nothing but grind out skills via constant canceled actions.  Another popular shortcut was to equip characters with two shields and have them constantly attack.  Of course, nothing would happen; however, if you did several rounds of “shield attacks” and then switched back to a weapon you wanted to skill, the game would treat every attack as if you attacked with said weapon upon the battles end.  Finally, you could drastically increase your party’s hit points by doing what really should be quite unthinkable in a RPG: attacking yourself.  Since the only way to increase the hit points was directly taking damage, players would pick fights against weak monsters and do nothing but attack themselves in order to obtain massive hit point gains.

Like I said, a great idea on paper and very much ahead of its time, but executing them at this time in the series monumentally backfired in my opinion.  There were just simply too many ways to cheat the system and cheating the system seemed to be the only way to make any real progress as the grinding element of “doing it the right way” was borderline absurd.

Why This Game Ended Up Here

So why did Final Fantasy II end up at the bottom of my countdown?

Well, the short answer is the battle system.  While I do believe it was definitely ahead of its time, it severely hurt the game.  Not only in the aforementioned “cheats”, but perhaps the biggest sin of the game is how it treated the spell Ultima and the final boss battle against the Emperor.

The Ultima spell was touted as the ultimate of all magic and the only spell that could destroy the Emperor.  And the game was actually designed very much in that manner; however, when you first get the spell, it will likely be the weakest piece of crap your characters can cast as opposed to the much stronger spells that you have leveled up all game long.  Of course though, this just means you have to level up the spell through the system right?  After all, during the last boss battle, the Ultima spell is really the only thing that can do any real damage to the Hell-risen form of the Emperor…well except for one other thing…

The Blood Sword.

This rather easily obtainable sword basically breaks the game (and you can get two of them in all but the 20th anniversary editions of the game).  It’s damage increases drastically against opponents with high HP, and the Emperor has the highest HP of them all.  Even better, this sword has an added effect of “Drain”, meaning the damage you cause, gets given right back to the character that uses it, giving them a constant source of damage as well as healing at the cost of no MP (something else you likely wasted time leveling).

As soon as you open the Blood Sword chest(s), all of the work you did leveling Ultima, or well, anything else for that matter can become completely worthless.  Not only will your wasted time drive you mad, but also consider that in the story, one of the characters, Minwu, sacrifices his own life because, supposedly, Ultima is the only thing that can stop the Emperor.

Apparently, someone should’ve let him know they were hiding a Blood Sword in a chest.

This rather sizable kick in the nuts to your own hard work and the story (seriously Minwu got screwed!), combined with lackluster character development and a simplistic story lands Final Fantasy II at the bottom of my list.  I’m not even joking about the sizable kick to the nuts either.  As soon as I found the Blood Sword, I was seriously pissed at how much time I wasted leveling Ultima for absolutely no reason as I felt like I was playing the rest of the game on easy mode.

Final Fantasy II is definitely the most unique of the series and is by no means awful; however, if you do decide to give it a try, do yourself a favor: learn the ways around the leveling system, don’t worry about leveling Ultima, and just decimate the game after you find the Blood Sword.

Those are seriously hours of my life I want back right now…