For me it’s
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Final Fantasy Tactics
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Final Fantasy VII
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Final Fantasy XI
The three games I keep coming back to in the franchise.
Tactics has the best writing imo as well as gameplay.
Visually speaking VII’s aesthetic and music are peak FF.
And then when it comes to getting lost in the lore and world of a virtual game, I like XI.
Granted all 3 share similar themes like good writing, music, gameplay, etc. but those are my standouts.
How about you?
🥇 Twelve
🥈 Fifteen
🥉 Bravely Second
I played twelve to 100% completion as a kid (except killing Yiazmat) so it’s formative to what fantasy games are to me. The incredible worldbuilding of Ivalice is something that I’ve yet to see done in another game.
I adore the boy band of fifteen and even though I think the plot is trite and perfunctory, it’s still one of my favorite games because the camaraderie is so strong. It really captures the (final) fantasy of having friends and time to spend with them.
Do the Bravely games count? I think they do. Anyway, the second game has the most fun combat system out of any jrpg I’ve played. The plot’s cheesy, but it executed it very sincerely which is refreshing and I’ll never forget the moment where
endgame spoiler
you break the dimensional barrier between the game and the Celestial Realm and you see yourself through the cracks in reality. As in, it’s literally YOUR FACE on the screen being rendered in real time through the 3DS front-facing camera.
Bravely has at least as much Final Fantasy DNA in it as FFV, so yeah, probably.
Come to think of it, it’s really strange how the bravely games didn’t get numbers, but the two MMOs did