Ranking EVERY Mainline Final Fantasy Game

Final Fantasy 16 is almost here summer of 2023 can't get here sooner and if you're like me and you're as excited as I am you're probably playing through many of the Final Fantasy games again or for the very first time but whether you are a newcomer to the series or you are a veteran I think we can all agree that each of these games are very unique very different very good and very bad all in their own distinct ways my name is Gavin and today I'm going to be sharing with you all my personal ranking of all 15 of the mainline Final Fantasy entries [Music] foreign [Music] a quick reminder for how this video is going to go down this is all just my personal rankings my 15 is not going to be your number 15. my five and eight and three are probably not going to be in the same position that you would put them this is all completely subjective and I am incredibly curious to know how you would rank each of the Final Fantasy games in the series and another quick thing before we do start go ahead and leave the video a like share it with people who you think enjoy the final fantasy series or you want to enjoy the final fantasy series and go ahead and subscribe and hit the notification Bell if you have not already without further Ado let's go ahead and get started with number 15 and that is going to be Final Fantasy 11. Final Fantasy 11 is one of the games in the series that I have the least amount of experience with it's mostly just so low on my list because I I really just don't know much about this game at all other than the fact that it is a MMORPG this is one of two entries in the Final Fantasy series that is not a solely single player experience there's been a monthly subscription that players have had to pay in order to play the game and if you're someone like me and you have kids and you work a full-time job and you don't do YouTube for a living um that is just not very easy for me to do I'm also fairly young so whenever this game came out I was I was not playing this game when this game came out I was very young by the time I was really getting into Final Fantasy Final Fantasy XI was just not on my radar whatsoever I think I whenever I got a computer when my dad let me have a computer whenever I was about 10 or 11 years old I think I saw that it was on this the store for really cheap it was like ten dollars so I bought it and I didn't realize that I had to pay a subscription to pay to play the game so this is not a game that I have much experience with at all from the people who I do know who have played Final Fantasy 11 I hear that it is a good time um I feel like this is just one of those situations where my lack of knowledge and my lack of experience with this game it just simply is the reason why it is lowest on my list every other game on here I I have a lot more experience with than this game um this is just not a game for me from what I've seen as far as the interface goes you know just the way the text boxes work especially whenever you compare it to the way Square has started developing MMOs today like Final Fantasy 14. um it's just a little bit too outdated for me personally I know some people who loved this game on the PS2 and on the PS on the PC and I believe the Xbox at a period of time um but like I said this game is going to go in last place for me just because I don't know anything about it in 14th Place I'm gonna go ahead and say Final Fantasy 2. this is not a game that I hate by any means I actually wouldn't say that I hate any of the Final Fantasy games in the mainline series um this is just not a great one especially for me when I compare to the rest of the games in the series there's a lot that this game does really weird for the time when it came out on the NES and in all of the re-releases I think most people can typically agree that as far as the gameplay goes uh this Final Fantasy entry was the most experimental there was a very exploitable uh kind of It kind of a weird funky way of leveling up your magic and your uh your weapons and your abilities and all this sort of stuff did not work with me but as far as the story goes I didn't hate it either I think it's really simple it's it's very you know buy the books as far as a fantasy story goes with betrayal and um you know just good versus evil uh compared to Final Fantasy one this is definitely more character driven Final Fantasy 1 didn't have any real main characters besides NPC sees but in this game your whole party is an established cast of characters and they can be really likable they can be really not very likable ultimately just for me personally it's it's kind of the gameplay that is the big hold of this game uh in my opinion and for me it just it didn't quite grab me in 13th Place I'm gonna go and say Final Fantasy 3. Final Fantasy 3 is also another game that I actually I actually enjoy this game a lot um I think it's innovation of the job system it definitely has taken Final Fantasy and many other video games that have come out since uh and really interesting directions I think the job system is one of the more unique types of gameplay styles that you can find in the Final Fantasy series now Final Fantasy 3 is an old game this was an old NES game and we didn't actually get it here until uh we got the Nintendo DS remake here in America the first Final Fantasy game definitely took an emphasis on just Adventure telling a story and a fantasy world making just a role-playing video game after you know the release of Dragon Quest Final Fantasy 2 came out and it tried to kind of enhance both the gameplay and the story with more characters and they tried to go weird places with the gameplay and it was kind of Hit or Miss for a lot of people Final Fantasy 3 kind of saw some of the mistakes of Final Fantasy 2 and decided that the story was gonna go and take a bit more of a back seat the characters are not very established at least in the original game they have more character arcs in the remakes and stuff um but the gameplay is absolutely where of the three main Final Fantasy games this is where we take the most strides but with that being said we're actually going to move into 12th Place and we're going to put Final Fantasy 5 there 5 to me is interesting because of what I've played it is a great evolution of the job system from Final Fantasy 3. really it's Final Fantasy 3 and Final Fantasy 5 of these original 2D Final Fantasy games that really try to build up this job system aspect of the gameplay for me Final Fantasy 5 uh kind of like Final Fantasy 11 this is not one that I have completely finished of what I've played though like I said this is a really fun game if you like job systems if you've played games like Bravely Default or you've played Final Fantasy 3 or even other Final Fantasy games with job systems like the MMOs or Final Fantasy 12 check out Final Fantasy 5. it's definitely a good time uh the pixel remaster is really really good uh the soundtrack to this game is really good I'll I'll continue to kind of talk about the soundtracks to these games as we go through them Final Fantasy 5's soundtrack is really good for me personally it is uh it's still just kind of low on this list kind of like for the reasons that I gave for Final Fantasy 11 I just don't know too much about it but like I said I've I have liked what I've played in 11th place this is hard this is Final Fantasy 14. I have played A Realm Reborn I've watched a lot of the cutscenes of just you know Final Fantasy 14 1.0 um I think the story is really intriguing I love the music to these games I actually really like the combat even though it is an MMO I like the environments I like all this stuff but I've only played A Realm Reborn I've I have not finished the game I don't know where the series uh or you know these expansions I don't know where the main story of Final Fantasy 14 actually ends I have played the first expansion but also like Final Fantasy 5 and Final Fantasy 11 I think these three games are the ones that I personally just have not played a whole lot of Final Fantasy 14 though I'm going to put at the top of that list though of the games that I'm not super familiar with but I know that if I do play these games and if I ever do make an updated list from what I've heard uh in the music from what I've heard about some of the story aspects from just the way that the internet just it just won't stop singing the Praises of Final Fantasy 14. I know that this game will absolutely go up a lot higher on my list just for right now I don't want to put this game any higher than 11th place right now simply on the basis that you know I've not finished the game I want to give it the time that it deserves but also with like I said for Final Fantasy 11 I'm married I've got kids I work 50 hours at my normal job and I don't make any money doing YouTube stuff so uh if you if you want me to make money on YouTube uh check out my patreon but until that happens it's gonna be a while before I before I really start jumping into Final Fantasy 14. I love what I've played but I want to properly rank it higher than it deserves once I've played it in 10th place we're going to go ahead and say Final Fantasy the original game the first Final Fantasy holds a very special place in my heart as this is the very first Final Fantasy game that I ever played I never played the original NES version uh the first game or the first version of this game that I played was the Game Boy Advance version I've since then played the PSP version that has you know all the updated visuals and the music and stuff and the extra Dungeons and all that but I've also checked out some of the pixel ring Master as well where the soundtrack to there it's fantastic I first learned about Final Fantasy through Kingdom Hearts uh you know there was Squall or Leon and there was uh cloud and yuffie and said you know the first Kingdom Hearts game that's really whenever I was like okay time to check out time to check out Final Fantasy and you know whenever you're young and you look up you know where should I start you know commonly you're just gonna see you know the best place to start like like any good story is the beginning I'm really glad that I played Final Fantasy the first one first uh I think that it's a really good starting point especially if you're someone like me and you really love to just see the development history of something uh kind of the same reason why I'm going through the Dragon Quest games in the order that they were released it's because I before I jump into you know some of the best games in the series I want to see how they continue to develop or continue to develop Final Fantasy is kind of where I I wish that I had continued to do that after I played Final Fantasy one I kind of jumped around for a little bit um I did not immediately play Final Fantasy 2 after Final Fantasy one but talking about the gameplay here for a second it's really simple this was the first Final Fantasy game after the release of Dragon Quest 1 that actually only had you playing as one person in your whole party the entire time Final Fantasy came along and gave you four characters that you could name and choose their class and you had this whole Adventure that you could you know you're fighting against all these monsters and enemies playing through this epic story with time travel and all this stuff uh with a party of four and it's really really fun I think even on the NES with all the issues and you know the super whack encounter rate that it has I still think even the original version is a good time I wouldn't recommend that you start with that version if you want to play Final Fantasy one I would recommend you play either the PSP version or the pixel remaster there's lots of good things that they both do in their own right but Final Fantasy one uh at its Bare Bones it's very simple it is it is you know the very first Final Fantasy game you're not going to see every single Final Fantasy Trope in the first Final Fantasy game you will see some um but you're not going to see chocobos you're not going to see moogles you're not going to see Sid these are things that came a little later down the line but you are going to see you know things like Gill and common enemies that come up uh villains and protag or yeah like NPC protagonist names and antagonist names these are things that kind of come up later on in the series this is where a lot of things did start and we we owe the rest of the series to Final Fantasy one so for that that's gonna go in 10th place so controversially coming in ninth place we're gonna go ahead and put Final Fantasy Four I know a lot of people uh in person and online who say that Final Fantasy 4 is not just their favorite Final Fantasy game but they will say that it is their favorite game of all time and I'm not going to disagree with them I think that Final Fantasy 4 is really really good it's just like I said when talking about you know uh Final Fantasy one I played the games not in the order that they were released I played Final Fantasy 4 for the very first time back in 2020 and by that point in time I actually already had my own personal top 10 favorite Final Fantasy games so I was already an established fan just took me a really really long time to finally get around to playing Final Fantasy 4 and I think just with everything happening with lockdowns and all this stuff that's whenever I found time to really sit down play the PSP version and I really got to finally experience you know one of these uh groundbreaking games uh in the industry and I appreciate a lot that it has done I understand that you know I don't I don't like really using this term because it's not it's it's not really um the most subjective way to do a ranking but for the time that it came out I completely understand why people's mind were just completely blown um same thing for like Final Fantasy 6 and Final Fantasy VII you know for the times that these games all came out there was a lot that they were doing that no other game company was really doing at the time um and for those reasons you know they stick in people's minds for a long time and they they stay in people's hearts forever for me personally I played this game after I had played you know some of the best games in the in the entire series uh in my opinion so for me jumping in from these other games that I love into this game it was just really underwhelming I like the music in in a lot of these games I mean uh Naboo umatsu is is in my top five favorite video game composers of all time but there was just so many moments in this game where I just felt like man my expectations for Final Fantasy 4 were so high and I like the story I think it's really it's it's well told but it's very simple I don't think it's a bad story I think you can tell a really good simple story I think you can take I think you can take a really simple story and make it excellent personally I felt like this simple story was just good it wasn't bad it wasn't mind-blowing to me just when I come to these story driven games gameplay typically takes a back seat for me I don't really care much about the gameplay I like you know the ATB system that this game had but for me I was really coming at it from a final fantasy story lover enjoyer for me personally it just wasn't great for me and so for that reason I'm gonna put Final Fantasy 4 in number nine and so right off the heels of Final Fantasy 4 number eight is going to be Final Fantasy VI I know for many people same like with Final Fantasy 4 not only is Final Fantasy 6 a lot of people's favorite game in the series but it is many people even more than Final Fantasy 4. it's many people's favorite game of all time and I don't judge at all like I say too I know for the time that this came out this was a big deal this game does have a very special place in my heart though I remember whenever my wife was pregnant and we were in the hospital I remember I brought my laptop with me so that I could kind of Chomp away piece by piece at this game um while we were you know just kind of sitting around waiting for stuff to happen um I remember whenever my daughter was born and those nights in the middle of the night that I was getting up and you know warming up a bottle going out into the living room I would set my laptop up and I would just hold my daughter and I would play this game and I remember I got to hold her while I finished this game and the credits rolled and it was a really cool experience I'm gonna always kind of hold Final Fantasy 6 in my heart uh just kind of as I don't know that that special time in my life whenever I became a father for the first time that's just I know that's a little bit of a tangent but this is kind of just my experience with Final Fantasy VI but when I look at Final Fantasy VI with a more critical eye I personally you know there there are things that I start to realize about myself in this game and that is one you know I mean I love I like the gameplay I like the stories I like the settings I like the characters you know I don't think that there's anything necessarily that this game does bad I just don't really love everything that it does um there's just a piece of me that when I when I look at this I don't know I think for me personally as I get older I look at how a game can be told today uh a game like undertale for instance you know there's no voice acting or anything like that um the way that the pixel art is done the way that the music is all done um both in Final Fantasy 6 and in this game it's all done really well but I think that there's just a certain way in storytelling that is definitely different today than it was back whenever this game came out I think it all does things very well but like I said too you know um this is a recent game that I played so I played this game with all basically all the other Final Fantasy games that I haven't mentioned yet um you know under my belt this is this was a uh this was kind of underwhelming for me if I'm if I'm being completely honest um like I said I like the music I like the characters I like the story I like the gameplay I just don't really love all of it and so for me it's just kind of right in the middle of the road and another game that's just kind of in the middle of the road for me is going to be Final Fantasy 12. I think that the world of the lease is probably the most interesting setting that square has produced in many many years even in Final Fantasy Tactics uh vagrant story all of the lore that is here within 12 you know evilies is really really well done I love this world I love you know just the races of uh you know people creatures whatever you want to call them um I love the environments I love just the medieval aesthetic to them it's it's really really pleasing to me every time that I think about this game all I want to do is just I just want to play it every single time it comes into my head the first thing I want to do is just open up any sort of console that I have it on or on my PC and and just play the game because it's I just I want to live in the ivelisse it's so awesome I think the story is really good I actually have not totally finished the story I've played like I want to say I've played like 90 of this game um I have to keep every time I play a game that's so political and um you know religious just in its themes and its tones I feel like if I take too much time away from the game I have to start it over every time and I like the gameplay a lot um I think that the I think and I know this is a common thing uh that many people will say whenever talking about Final Fantasy 12. um the main character who we play as Von um it's not very interesting to me I think he's a little whiny I I'm not I'm not a huge uh fan of Von and I'm a big character you know driven guy I I really love The Supporting Cast I think The Supporting Cast is what really makes this story uh and honestly in times the gameplay um really really good it's it's a really fun game um a really fun story and the gameplay and job system here I think is really well done I like playing this game a lot and I like that you know from Final Fantasy 11 they've kind of taken the concept of being able to roam around walk around your enemies and stuff like that run away from battles I I like that they did that here and they've blended it with the single player aspect of being able to you know stop time you know do your battle in real time just like in the older games uh I think it's really well done but like I said I think it's just kind of the way that the story is told from us the you know the playable character's perspective here um and the way that just all of the uh audio it just sounds so weird in my ears you know like I said this is all just a personal thing for me I don't know there's just certain aspects of this game that just kind of puts it right in the middle of the road but I'm really excited to continue playing this I'm kind of trying to play through you know Final Fantasy Tactics right now hopefully we get a remake of that soon um but for right now Final Fantasy 12 is just kind of right in the middle of the road for me in sixth place I'm going to say Final Fantasy 10. now I know this is also a really really well beloved game um this is another game that I played fairly recently I got to play this game for the first time back in 2019 I believe and I had a good time with this game I for a really long time this is one of those games where where I started this game and I have I saw the intro hundreds of times I have tried and tried and tried and tried to play Final Fantasy 10. and I really could not tell you what it was about Final Fantasy 10. that just made me completely lose interest after playing the game for about four to six hours you'd get to the island and you meet Waka and you're you know in the future and all this stuff and uh this this was just I don't know right after that point I would I would stop I'd turn off the PS2 or the PS3 or the PS4 or whatever you know Port of this game that you're playing it on but I um I I just can't tell you why for such a long time it took me forever to finally push past the opening to this game I'm really glad that I did though because I did eventually finally finish Final Fantasy 10. I got used to the sphere grid I liked the characters a lot more you know the story got really intriguing to me this this was a really really fun experience for me and um I think for me personally the biggest thing about this game that kind of puts it low on my list is I just don't find Final Fantasy 10 for me very replayable I think whenever I when I first finished this game I loved it I thought it was fantastic I just I did not feel that itch to start it all over again and you know not every game has to do that for you not every game does that for me it's some of my favorite games ever um but maybe it's just something to do with the way that the game does linear uh you know level design I know that there are some ways or you know whenever you do start the game over or depending on what version you're playing you can uh level up your character you know in the sphere sphere grid in an alternate way but maybe it's maybe it's the way that I originally played it and the way that I felt locked to a specific character's you know ability progression um I don't I'm not sure what it was but for me personally I just don't find Final Fantasy 10 to be super replayable um it for me personally Final Fantasy 10 was kind of just like a you know you play it once and then you're grateful for the experience that you had and then you remember it you know down the line and this is kind of one of those games that you go back and you play like a decade later I mean maybe for a lot of people it's a lot sooner than that but for me I just haven't necessarily felt that itch yet to go back and experience the game again I know a lot of people have been waiting to see where I'm going to put this one on the list but uh this it's definitely more controversial but number five I'm going to say Final Fantasy 13. yes this is a top five Final Fantasy game for me personally I love this game I I love Final Fantasy 13. I I really I actually really like the entire Trilogy one of the biggest reasons why I loved the series so much is the amount of effort that each game puts into the World building the lore here no matter you know which Final Fantasy 13 game you're playing the lore is really tight and there's actually I mean you can kind of see in the background there too I do have you know uh the Final Fantasy type zero for a period of time I know Final Fantasy 15 was kind of in this sort of universe with Final Fantasy type zero and Final Fantasy the 13 trilogy and this is something to me that is immediately going to like sell me on a game you know if I find out that there are other games kind of in the series that have very loose connections but if you dig deep and you look into the lore you'll find all of the connections here I mean that to me that speaks to me in a way that you know not many other things in storytelling really do yes I know a lot of people have criticisms about the level design uh the gameplay like just in battles and things like that some of the characters I know people don't like very much these are all things that for me when I play this game I really don't see them much of an as an issue so like I said Final Fantasy 1 was the first Final Fantasy game that I played the second Final Fantasy game that I played was Final Fantasy 13. at the time that I was getting into the series 13 was the newest game out and I had a PS3 for about eight months at this point and the game came out and I was really really excited to see you know a game that looked like real life and to be totally honest I really think that of all of the PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 era video games I think Final Fantasy 13 visually still holds up today and if there's one positive thing that I can say that this game does really well it is just the world design the Aesthetics the game is beautiful the game is a freaking Marvel to look at uh whether you were playing it when it just came out or you're playing it today this is a beautiful game I love everything about this game aesthetically it's awesome as far as characters go I really like lightning as a main character I think that over time her character has gotten more complex I know a lot of people didn't really like how she's kind of just a edgy or you know female kind of cloud type character um but I thought that she was fine I like I liked her a lot and I liked The Supporting Cast and I know a lot of people uh they like to crap on Hope a lot and uh you know what I like hope I think he's a good character people say he's very whiny he's a kid I've got daughters they're whiny I love them you know um this is not in an aspect of the character that I dislike in any regard this is not something that I ever thought was out of the blue or you know not normal for the kind of character that he was um the kind of Grudge that he holds against Snow the entire game who I also really like as a character and is voiced by Troy Baker who does an awesome performance you know there's just so much that I like about this game I like the story I like the world uh even the gameplay too I mean I know people have said you know it's a mash X you know or Mash select to win and it's man you've got to play the game for more than three seconds to realize that that is just not true especially when you get to the later parts of the game there is a spike there is definitely a difficulty Spike when I first played the game back you know when it came out I did not finish the game I thought it was way too hard because I got to that difficulty Spike that was just way too much for me I played the game and I finished it for the first time probably you know back in 2017 or so maybe 2018. and man I loved it and that's whenever I started really getting into the sort of fabula Nova crystallis uh you know sort of Mythos here in the 13 series and man I just had a complete blast playing this game I I'm gonna say it over and over again oh man the music here both the music here and Final Fantasy 10. the soundtracks were done by the same composer I'm blanking on his name right now I'm sorry it's not nabuamatsu um but the the sort of ambient you know soundscapes that this composer does it is beautiful it's like no other game it's fantastic I think Final Fantasy 13 also might be up there in my top soundtracks to the whole series and possibly of all time the 13 soundtrack is great and so for that it at least gets a spot in uh in my top five in fourth place we are going to put Final Fantasy 8. Final Fantasy 8 is really good and this one actually took me a while to uh to really love this one was initially fairly low on my list uh but you know what guys I'm just gonna I'm just gonna be honest with y'all I'm a sucker for melodrama uh I'm a I'm an Emo guy at heart I I love the romance here I love squall I love renoa everything that that we got going on over here I think I think the game um it doesn't do it the best I've definitely seen some other stories some other games you know take this sort of high school angsty sort of Love Story and you know they've done it better but man where this story goes where there's where these characters are LED I I love this whole entire setting I love the plot twists that happen I love Laguna I love you know the the parts where you play you know in in different let's just say you know you play as different characters every now and then I love all of that stuff the gameplay here is probably the weakest part this is you know I'm not going to lie once I found out that you really don't have to fight any enemies in order to play this game at the easiest difficulty I'm not gonna lie I took advantage of that and I you know in my first playthrough of this game I did not take many you know moments to really fight the enemies here and level up my characters a whole lot one thing that I did love that took me some getting used to at first was the card battle system uh Tetra battle no what is the game what is this one triple Triad triple Triad is the card system in this game and it is uh it's really good it took me a while to get used to there were many times because I played the uh I played the remastered you know character version of this game and there were lots of times where I'd hop into a battle and I I knew that there was a card that this person had in their deck and I would restart the game so many times and just save you know right before the battle just so that I could hop back into that battle and uh and take that card from them you know I don't know I think I think the battle system as far as you know the card hard battle mechanics go it's really intuitive it's really really good it's got really solid rules to it um if it's not a game already let me know if it's if it's an actual game I'll get into it I'll fight you but yeah I mean even even with the the combat in in battles the Random Encounters in this game even though those aren't you know the most exciting feature of this game I really love this story and same thing with like Final Fantasy 13 the setting here all of the you know bits of lore and how the uh how the summons play into the story in my opinion it's it's a big step up from like something like Final Fantasy VI in my opinion you know I I really like just all of this stuff that the game does we also get to see just more tetsuyamora designs and I love Kingdom Hearts I love I love the way he designs his characters you know Final Fantasy 8 it's just got him it's just got those characters man they look awesome now before we jump into the top three real fast again go ahead and in the comments below let me know how you would rank all 15 of the Final Fantasy games but at number three we are going to say Final Fantasy 15. there's a lot to talk about here with Final Fantasy XV I'm not going to you know talk a whole lot about just everything that there is in this series uh because really Final Fantasy 15 is a series of media you know there's mobile games there are uh you know if there's the main game there's the ultimate edition with all the DLC and all this stuff there's the online game uh which is basically an entirely separate game on its own there's the novel which has like four different short stories that all take place in the world there's the anime I mean there's there's a lot here talking about the game just Final Fantasy 15 its own you know I haven't gotten around to playing the DLC to be honest the last time that I played Final Fantasy XV was back whenever it originally came out and even still I know that the game is a lot better now with all of the many updates all of the DLC included if you just take 15 as it is right now I know it's a better experience but man even back when I played this when it first came out this was such a big deal for me I remember just waiting for years for this game to come out you know I wasn't waiting you know since 2006 like many other people you know back whenever it was versus 13 but I remember whenever they changed the name I remember whenever it was no longer versus 13 anymore and it was not really considered the fabula Nova cristalis lore uh but you know at a point in time it was and and then it changed to be the official next Mainline entry in the Final Fantasy series and that was such a hype moment for me and I was just so excited to play it ever since then the last single player Final Fantasy game to come out before this was Final Fantasy 13. A lot of people weren't a huge fan of the way that that game played and the next game after that was 14 which like we know is an MMO this is where the series completely changed its whole you know formula from being a turn-based RPG to going into full action RPG mode I personally love it I love action RPG games like I said too I was introduced to Final Fantasy as a series from Kingdom Hearts which is my favorite action RPG series of all time there are some things that I don't like about the combat and to be to be honest with you I actually didn't even notice these issues the first time I played it which is also another reason why I have it so high but looking at it now I can definitely see that you know the criticisms that people have for the gameplay are totally valid the main thing being the way that you attack enemies and that you dodge enemies in this game whenever you are killed by an enemy as well I mean realistic I don't know if I ever actually got a game over whenever I played the game the moment that yourself and every other you know character in your party dies you can just immediately open up the menu pop a phoenix down give the rest to your teammates and then just hop back into battle and act like everything's normal the way that magic you know uh Alchemy I guess you if you want to call it that the way that all that worked it was kind of broken I mean you could you know take down really really high level enemies at a really low level with just making different kinds of you know magic bombs and stuff like that and you could kind of exploit the way that you could level up in this game in a in a very unique way the main thing that I actually didn't realize was that you could just hold down the attack button and that would allow you to just attack and Dodge and stuff like that uh when I first played this game I mean I was you know mashing the button like I played it like it was you know a Devil May Cry gamer a Kingdom Hearts game or something like that and uh honestly I think maybe maybe that's one of the reasons why I liked the combat so much because I didn't realize um that I was not playing the game properly if that makes sense I was just tapping the you know the attack button and it was allowing me to pull off all these Combos and you know warping all of that stuff was really cool you know there's a lot here about the gameplay that I really like and yeah I don't know when it comes to just playing this game I I really enjoy it also exploration you know this is an open world game there are uh you know especially back when it came out it was a bit more limited as far as how you could Traverse and you know explore the land and all this stuff but you know this was a big open world I mean this was the first um huge open world like this other than you know the open area design of Final Fantasy uh 14 back whenever you know it was in that state when 15 came out you know 15. I mean this open world games were the thing back whenever that came out I don't think people really had open world fatigue just yet and I think at this point today I think people are really actually gravitating back towards more open World Games you know it was kind of at a high for a little bit people felt burnt out and now it's back at a high again it's very interesting um you know how the community has been reacting to these sorts of games but I think today if you were to play Final Fantasy 15 today I think you would have a really really good time and I personally was never one of those people who looked at Final Fantasy 15 and said this is not Final Fantasy um because it is it's it says so in the title it's it's Final Fantasy it's actually the 15th Final Fantasy and uh the 13th game was also uh the 13th Final Fantasy game and um you know I understand people just wanting it to kind of go back to the roots you know back before we jumped to 3D back before we jumped to the PS2 era you know uh or the PS3 era but Final Fantasy XV you know I don't mean to make some sort of controversial statement here but I love everything that it does um I think it's a really great time and if you've never played 15 before I think it's I think it's a good uh it's a good one to play even if you've never played a Final Fantasy game before I don't see any reason why 15 would not be a great starting point for you our runner-up in second place is Final Fantasy VII so kind of like with what I was saying with you know I love jumping into these worlds that have so much that you can dig into and have multiple ways to kind of eat up pieces of this story like the whole 15 universe and then the 13 Trilogy as well uh as well as just the whole fabulous stuff the Final Fantasy VII universe is really really interesting to me I think that there are a lot of good things that Final Fantasy VII does and people sing the Praises of Final Fantasy VII rightfully so I think the things that people love about the game the game does really well you know there are some things here and there that I have not quite enjoyed though about Final Fantasy VII I think whenever people really started clamoring for just more seven content you know that's really around the time that advent Children the movie came out but Square Enix since the release of Final Fantasy VII has kind of Taken Cloud's character and they've shifted him into a character that feels a little disingenuine to the character that we see in the original Seven like I said I was introduced to the series from Kingdom Hearts I liked cloud in that game I was I think I was really expecting this sort of uh really goth kind of like Advent Children you know Vibe uh whenever I was playing the original Final Fantasy VII and yeah like I said I mean there are little moments here and there where he seems uh really you know intensely you know lonely to himself but man Cloud just has so much character there's so much depth to him in this original game and it's fantastic I love just seeing the character grow uh the cloud is easily one of my favorite characters of all time and the the older I get the more I I just kind of look at the trends that square it has continued to follow just when trying to develop cloud and um it it almost it almost feels like we played a different Final Fantasy VII now I love the Final Fantasy 7 remake I really like the Advent Children movie I love Crisis Core like I said earlier but outside of just the games themselves and to continue talking about characters here this was really the first time that I was properly introduced to Barrett and I was playing Final Fantasy VII whenever I first found out that I was going to be a father so around the time that I was playing this I I had a lot of that sort of stuff on my mind and man let me tell you playing this game and seeing Barrett develop as a character and seeing how he loves his daughter and he would do anything for his family and the people that who he loves uh and most importantly his little girl um man just as a father of girls that was something really special to me and uh I mean it really solidified Barrett as one of my favorite characters in the entire Final Fantasy franchise as much as I love the universe of Final Fantasy VII and you know games like Crisis Core and I even really liked Dirge of Cerberus as well Final Fantasy VII's characters I think are the besides besides Zach and Crisis Core you know I I really love Zach and Crisis Core I think just the characters that we see in the original Final Fantasy 7 game are the best versions of all of these characters compared to every other thing that we've gotten in the Final Fantasy VII Universe you know another thing that I really love about Final Fantasy VII is the Materia system this is some of the most uh in-depth story and gameplay Titan that we get in the entire series sure we have plenty of stuff happening with the summons and things like that and other Final Fantasy games but the Materia system one is you know a really interesting uh plot point you know with a live stream and you know Mako energy and stuff like that uh it's it's very pertinent to the entire story but it's also I think one of the coolest gameplay and uh you know ability systems in the entire series I think it's a really intuitive system and you know if I'm being totally honest I didn't even quite understand uh the Materia system to its fullest until I played Final Fantasy VII remake and that's when I was like oh so that's that this is how material Materia is supposed to work yeah I mean Final Fantasy VII is is such a fantastic time I mean there's very little that I really dislike about this game um you know there are some things here and there the snowboarding stuff I mean it's kind of become a meme nowadays but man it's stuff like that not not a great mini game in my opinion but where the characters lie where the gameplay and the story connect with one another and just all the plot twists and stuff I mean this game has almost everything even in regards to stuff like plot twists and story details I mean you're gonna you're gonna be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't at least tried about Final Fantasy VII even if they're not a gamer my own mom I mean she played like Killer Instinct back whenever she was younger but even she knows the plot twists and things like that in Final Fantasy VII all in all fantastic game it's I think it's well deserving of my second place position in this list and last but not least in first place we have Final Fantasy 9. forgive me as my voice is going out I think allergies are finally catching up to me while I'm filming this video Final Fantasy 9 is easily my favorite Final Fantasy game of all time it's it's really up there probably in my top favorite games just in general of all time there is so much that this game gets right even some of the more controversial stuff some some things that people don't like about the game I I typically fall on the side of I really like it in this game the card battle system is called Tetra master and and it's a little bit different than triple Triad you know it's there there are some similarities here and there but overall it's a different game and personally I actually think I prefer Tetra Master over triple Triad and maybe it's maybe I'm a little biased I played Final Fantasy 9 before I played Final Fantasy 8 so I learned the system first but I think it's really easy I think I think it's uh you know super simple I if it was a real game I would definitely you know try to pick it up and play it but there's a point in the game where you know this optional card game becomes mandatory there is a tournament in a city and uh it's a card tournament and you enter and in order to continue and progress the story you have to play in the tournament now I know for a lot of people making that sort of optional thing a mandatory story requirement is uh it's not great for a lot of people there are some there are plenty of situations where I I feel the same way but here I mean like I said I really like the card system I think I'm pretty good at it too so I mean whenever this happens in the game for me personally I didn't find it you know too big of a deal and realistically that's the only kind of I mean that's one of the very few flaws that I can find in this game there is just so much about this game that I love and on top of just the mini game aspect there's the Chocobo treasure hunter which is actually something that I only checked out for the first time in my most recent playthrough of the game and at this point you know I'm playing the game annually now I've played this game so many times like this is this is seriously one of my favorite games of all time and in the the treasure hunter there is there are areas in this game that you will not be able to find you will not be able to you know explore certain areas of in this game unless you do some of the optional stuff like the Chocobo treasure hunter there are just so many layers to this game like I said every time that I'm playing this game it's something new you know whether it's something new I discovered it's like something I never knew about before or just a new experience something that's never happened to me like there there is just so much to constantly be explored in this game another thing to mention too is this is the very last game in the Final Fantasy series that the creator of the Final Fantasy games hironobu sakaguchi it's the last one that he got to work on you know being as Hands-On as he was for the entire series up to this point so naturally I mean last game that you're gonna be working on you got to go out with a bang and in my opinion I think that's exactly what they did I mean this game is in homage it's a huge Love Letter to every everything that Final Fantasy had been up to this point all of the 2D games all of the 3D games the more sci-fi kind of cyber punk you know aesthetic and some of the uh the more you know medieval fantasy aesthetic as well this Blends all of it together into just such an amazing world and an amazing cast of characters an amazing soundtrack like everything here is just top tier Final Fantasy I I really think that this is if you just want you know a meal of every single you know ingredient that is Final Fantasy um at least up to this point I think this is probably one of the best things that you can experience and the other thing too I mean this game just has so much heart and so much soul and in my opinion I I think one of the strongest you know beating hearts of this game is Vivi the character Vivi I think you know without getting into too much spoilers here I mean Vivi is one of my favorite video game characters of all time there are aspects of life that are explored in this game that up to this point have not really been explored in video games as a medium personally for me going through this game and the time that I did I felt like the characters here in this game were some of the closest friends that I ever had at that point in time and that might that might sound a little sad but these are I mean you know video games have been a part of my life for so long and and playing this game at the age that I did I can't I couldn't be more grateful for it I mean there there is so much here to the story so many themes here that just deal with things like morality life and death you know like that might sound trophy to almost any RPG nowadays but man the way that it explores these tropes with the characters it's like no other I've yet to really experience many other video games that have explored themes like this before outside of all of that the gameplay here is really really fun I am a I'm a big fan of uh the equipment system that they have in this game Final Fantasy VII had the Materia system you know and you can swap that sort of stuff out you know changing what abilities each character gets and all that but here in Final Fantasy 9 each piece of equipment so you know your gloves your shoes even your weapons and you know all of that stuff every single piece of equipment has an ability attached to it as you fight in battles you collect what is called AP or ability points and each point goes towards that ability that is on the equipment of your character each ability has a max level of ability points and once all of those points are filled up in that specific ability you have learned that ability on that piece of equipment and you no longer have to have that piece of equipment on your character anymore in order to use that ability until you learn the ability you have to have that piece of equipment on so that you use that ability but once you've learned it you can swap out the equipment still have that ability and you can kind of be pick and choosy with which equipment do I want do I want the high stats right now or do I want the ability associated with maybe a weapon or you know a piece of armor that has you know lower stats do I want that right now and you know there's you're going to be spending a lot of time inside the menus in this game and for me personally it's not a huge deal I like the menus in this game I love the equipment system just going through deciding you know what your bill abilities I want attached to my characters things that I can afford and things like that but yeah I mean Final Fantasy 9 has been my favorite Final Fantasy game for a really long time and every time that I think it might change it always just solidifies itself right there and who knows maybe Final Fantasy 16 will change my mind but we'll see anyways guys that is my list and my ranking of each and every Mainline Final Fantasy game in the series let me know down below what your ranking of all 15 games are do you hate my list do you totally agree with me whatever I mean let me know I want to know your list and lastly I mean go ahead and click the link in the description to join the Discord we're slowly growing over there as well as the patreon over there you'll be able to get videos like this a whole entire day early so you can you can join the the conversation in the Discord a little earlier and things like that it's not necessary but if you want to help the channel grow do that as well as subscribing hitting the notification Bell hitting the like button and all that stuff so with all that out of the way I hope you enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next video bye

Channel: Overleveled Games

Views: 21,581

Keywords: Ranking Final Fantasy, Top 10, Top 15, Top 5, Square-Enix, Final Fantasy, FF, FF1, FF7, FF7 Remake, VII Remake, Rebirth, FF16, Final Fantasy XVI, FFXVI, Cloud, FFX, Tidus, Kingdom Hearts, Ranking Kingdom Hearts

Id: GPTbzOzCyCQ

Length: 53min 28sec (3208 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 07 2022