It's that time for Final Fantasy again...

[Romana]

9. It's my favourite, so I'm saying that. The characters are amazing, the entire feel of the game is great, and I love it.

[cupn00dles]

Play XII. It's the best FF since VII.

~ In fact, ZealitY, I think you should try playing Vagrant Story, if you already haven't.

Edit: Lord J, out of curiosity, have you ever played Vagrant Story?

[Kyronea]

XII is good, if you want to play a single player MMO.

But if you don't--which most of us don't--it's a piece of crap.

[saridon]

X has crybaby Tidus the eternal whiner, without him the game would have been quite good but Tidus makes it horrible, that and one of the villains acts like a gay Sephiroth wannabe.

You're talking about Seymour. I'm pretty sure that he's not gay. Or were you trying to use that as a slur? In which case you're in trouble...

gay in the stereotypical sense of how he acts like a pretty boy for most of his appearances, granted he becomes ok later but before then he's horrible.
They should really give up on the Sephiroth like characters, Kefka is the only one who can really compare to him.

[Glennleo]

XII is good, if you want to play a single player MMO.

But if you don't--which most of us don't--it's a piece of crap.

This is definitely somewhat true.

It does feel like a MMO, but it isn't total crap. I like to think of it as a bridge of the sphere grid, and of an MMO.
So yea if you hated the sphere grid way of leveling up, and you hate MMO's, then FF12 is a very bad fit for you.

[cupn00dles]

XII is good, if you want to play a single player MMO.

But if you don't--which most of us don't--it's a piece of crap.

Ridiculous. FFXII is the first final fantasy to run away from the gameplay, plot scope and story emphasis cliche. No wonder children, fanbithces and retards hate it.

[Kebrel]

IX: This was vary entertaining, vary much an old fashion feel I thought, and it has Vivi one of the best SE characters. The only problem is the main story some what lacking.
X: This was vary fun game, but the story doesn't hold well too many twists that do not make sense, And the only characters that are entertaining or well deified were Rikku and Kimarie(I mis-spelled this). It good but not great I recommend getting it if you see it in a bargain bin. X-2: This game has no story, not one what so ever. The combat system is terrable.
XI: haven't played it.
XII: This one isn't bad, I am playing through this one now. The combats is a lot like an MMO so it may take a while to get used to it. Story wise its average, It is vary mission based finish quest A then quest B....then Quest Z, there is no over arching goal that I am aware of. But I feel this is the first FF the captured the atmosphere of large scale wars.

So IX is better then XII which is better then X which is better then X-2.

[V_Translanka]

You should have a PS2 anyways...is it $250? I thought I got mine for cheaper than that...I dunno, but they're pretty cheap now-a-days and so are the games!

IX is a great game, and I think you might like it. It's not really like VII or even VIII in terms of story. It's more of a laid back, oldschool feeling (which they kind of try to stress), adventure. The real meat & potatoes of IX, though, is it's awesome characters, which mostly (one or two are the exception) get really good development. I personally think it's the best of the numbered PSX FFs (FFT taking the cake in the PSX FF series), though I also really liked VIII and didn't like VII very much at all...so you can take my advice any way you want, I guess...

The X series (I don't think I can think of them as seperate games) is okay and probably the easiest to find & cheapest of the options. I wouldn't say it is anywhere near the worst of the series (not even X-2, which I enjoyed enough to call it good), but certainly not among the best. When I played X, I ended up playing Blitzball as much as questing, which I suppose you can call a positive & negative aspect. I mean, sure, it's got a great mini-game, but the fact of the matter is that the quest (very LotR in the beginning) is kind of boring at times.

X-2 I don't see as a sequal so much as just picking up where X left off. The mission system is kind of hit or miss (I personally didn't know how I'd feel about such a system, but ended up being okay with it). The New Game+ feature is nice, but since there aren't very many branching points and the couple of different endings are only slight variations that don't add a whole heck of a lot...I liked the Dress Sphere system ok (same old ability system as many others, if you ask me). Overall, I'd call both X games AVERAGE.

I haven't played XII though, so I won't recommend it (I'd recommend DQVIII though! which, by the way, has a playable XII demo)...From what I've played of it (see; last parenthesis), it kind of plays like a MMO...It's kind of nice to have action-oriented gameplay, but I've never liked leaving my party members in the hands of some damn computer AI (ever since Seiken Densetsu II/Secret of Mana)...even though XII seems competant enough.

But seriously, you didn't get into FFTactics? It's got such a nice story, though...V_V

[Kebrel]

FFT for the PSx was terrible I thought. I like the fights but the dialog, story, and cut scenes were so bland. I couldn't see how could enjoy them.  But on the plus side the version for the GBA was near perfect. Different characters and different story, but the same combat system, made it one of my favorite FF games.

And on a side note the A.I. in XII is VARY, VARY customizable. But to make it any good you need to play it a lot.

[V_Translanka]

The only dialogue problems in Tactics would have the translation at fault...And Tactics Advance was boring. Not only was it a mission based system (better than X-2's though it may be), but the ability system was completely changed (and instead mirrored other FFs). Maybe the real answer to the SRPG question would be the Tactics remake for PSP...^_^

And the story was great! I don't know what game you were playing, but it was an awesome, back-stabbery, good time!

[Lord J Esq]

GRAMMAR POLICE!!

Kebrel:

Than = "in regard to"
Then = "at a subsequent time"


Cuppa:

No.

[Burning Zeppelin]

IX. 9. Nine. Neun. Nove. Neuf. Nau. November.

Kstimoos.

[ZeaLitY]

Here's a question:

If Ultimecia sucks, and Sephiroth rules, which game has the best villain?

[Kyronea]

Ridiculous. FFXII is the first final fantasy to run away from the gameplay, plot scope and story emphasis cliche. No wonder children, fanbithces and retards hate it.

I can't speak for others, but I'm not having a fanboy reaction here. I don't like it because I really did not enjoy playing it. It was boring, trite, and unfun, with a crappy plot and equally crappy characters. It was not a fun game.

[Silvercry]

You can't really play X-2 without playing X first, as X-2 completely invalidates the best part (maybe even the whole point) of X.  Though I can recommend X-2 for its awesome take on the ATB.  Its the closest to twitch gameplay you're likely to find in a Final Fantasy.

Play IX if you prefer pre-VII FF's.  Its a nice throwback to those days, though the mini-games make me want to scream.

Play XII if you want to play the best Final Fantasy in the last decade.  Only Mark Hunting drags it down.