Squeenix The Five Tiers of Final Fantasy Games

[Thac0]

My superior opinion

Spoiler

Tier 1: IV, VI, X
IV ushered in the golden age of SNES FF, VI perfected it. X is just a damn good compromise between production value and good gameplay and I love the spherogrid
Tier 2: V, VII, IX
Games are in here for very different reasons, V has best gameplay, IX is most charming, VII has a cool world and characters. All of them excel in one area and are worse in others.

Tier 3: III, X-2, XII,
III is the first FF I would call a proper FF, outclassed by later titles. XII has the amazing gambit system. X-2 has hot chicks and a pretty good combat system with atb and dress spheres but is utter shite story wise.
Tier 4: I, VII:R, XIII-2
FF I did not age well, but I yet have to play the NES version with spell slots and no automatic targeting. I suppose they made this worse with updates. XIII-2 is the best of the Fabula Nova Crystallis. VIII:R manages to capture the character very well and has fun combat but not much else.

Tier 5: II, VIII, XIII
FF II is a bad SaGa game, not a Final Fantasy. Cool ideas and I am thankfull it spawned SaGa but the execution is very rough. VIII is absolutely ruined by drawing and enemy leveling, has some cool ideas and the best minigame tho. XIII is just boring, a game that has literally nothing besides combat.
Tier 6:
IV The after Years, XIII-3, XV
lol

Edit: MMOs not rated since I cant compare a game that takes 500 hours to one that takes 50. I liked XIV ARR tho.
Spinoffs not rated because there is a billion of them

After long consideration I changed my tiers

1st: 8
2nd: 4, 5
3rd: 1, 7, 3
4th: 2
5th: 6

Due to a continous typo you swapped 8 and 6. Very solid list otherwise!

 

[Grauken]

My superior opinion

Spoiler

Tier 1: IV, VI, X
IV ushered in the golden age of SNES FF, VI perfected it. X is just a damn good compromise between production value and good gameplay and I love the spherogrid
Tier 2: V, VII, IX
Games are in here for very different reasons, V has best gameplay, IX is most charming, VII has a cool world and characters. All of them excel in one area and are worse in others.

Tier 3: III, X-2, XII,
III is the first FF I would call a proper FF, outclassed by later titles. XII has the amazing gambit system. X-2 has hot chicks and a pretty good combat system with atb and dress spheres but is utter shite story wise.
Tier 4: I, VII:R, XIII-2
FF I did not age well, but I yet have to play the NES version with spell slots and no automatic targeting. I suppose they made this worse with updates. XIII-2 is the best of the Fabula Nova Crystallis. VIII:R manages to capture the character very well and has fun combat but not much else.

Tier 5: II, VIII, XIII
FF II is a bad SaGa game, not a Final Fantasy. Cool ideas and I am thankfull it spawned SaGa but the execution is very rough. VIII is absolutely ruined by drawing and enemy leveling, has some cool ideas and the best minigame tho. XIII is just boring, a game that has literally nothing besides combat.
Tier 6:
IV The after Years, XIII-3, XV
lol

Edit: MMOs not rated since I cant compare a game that takes 500 hours to one that takes 50. I liked XIV ARR tho.
Spinoffs not rated because there is a billion of them

After long consideration I changed my tiers

1st: 8
2nd: 4, 5
3rd: 1, 7, 3
4th: 2
5th: 6

Due to a continous typo you swapped 8 and 6. Very solid list otherwise!

Common misconception, there are people who truly hate 6 and love 8

 

[Thac0]

Common misconception, there are people who truly hate 6 and love 8

Why tho? I have occassionally visisted various FF fansites for years and I have never seen someone putting 6 low, ever. Even VII and IX, which are usually the critical darlings, get put low more often.
High 8 happens occasionally, but usually from people who either played it as their first FF or people who are really into that 90s leahter vibe and put FF7 in the same tier.

 

[Lord of Riva]

8 *is* pretty bad though, level scaling is shit, drawing is a damn grindfest and all of them came from the same orphanage.

so gameplay bad (apart from the aspects the other games just did as well) and story even worse. I am not seeing it.

 

[Grauken]

Common misconception, there are people who truly hate 6 and love 8

Why tho? I have occassionally visisted various FF fansites for years and I have never seen someone putting 6 low, ever. Even VII and IX, which are usually the critical darlings, get put low more often.
High 8 happens occasionally, but usually from people who either played it as their first FF or people who are really into that 90s leahter vibe and put FF7 in the same tier.

I've seen the occasional posts of people who dislike 6, but usually, they get drowned out by all the rest. I just hate the game for always wrestling control from you and dictating where the narrative goes and what characters you are allowed to play at every moment and then it focuses on characters I find incredibly annoying. Other FF games do that too to some extent (as do jRPGs in general), but 6 is really obnoxious about it.

 

[Lemming42]

FF6 steals control away from you and replaces your party far less than FF2 and FF4, surely. The entire second half (or so) of FF6 is pretty much entirely freeroaming with a party you choose yourself, whereas FF2 constantly swaps your fourth party member out without any warning and FF4 chooses your party for you for the entire game.

FF6 does have a huge problem with making you sit through endless cutscenes and boring droning dialogue in the first half though. The plot isn't anywhere near interesting enough to justify it and everyone's an asshole except like Celes and Sabin.

 

[Grauken]

FF6 steals control away from you and replaces your party far less than FF2 and FF4, surely. The entire second half (or so) of FF6 is pretty much entirely freeroaming with a party you choose yourself, whereas FF2 constantly swaps your fourth party member out without any warning and FF4 chooses your party for you for the entire game.

FF6 does have a huge problem with making you sit through endless cutscenes and boring droning dialogue in the first half though. The plot isn't anywhere near interesting enough to justify it and everyone's an asshole except like Celes and Sabin.

FF2 I didn't like much either, as for FF4, your main protag is almost always the same for the entire game, unlike FF6, so I didn't mind it much there

 

[Thac0]

Yeah FF6 is a bit like DQ4 in that it is composed of two halves. First individual character stories which heavily swap your team around, then a second half where you assemble the full team freely to complete the game.
Never annoyed me in either game, I like that it makes me use the shitty party members and makes me come up with uses for them. And unlike DQ4 FF6 at least keeps the party size big enough all the times so that battles dont become chores with 1 or 2 guys.

 

[Ash]

Tier 1 Peak FF: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Tier 2 Decline from Peak: 10, 10-2, 12
Tier 3 Playable: 2
Tier 4 fucking boring: 1, 4
Tier 5 Disgrace: 13 and anything after

No spinoffs included though I've played a bunch. Also have not played 3

 

[Volourn]

Tier 1: FF8

Tier 2: FF4, FF6, FF10

Tier 3: FF1, 557, FF9

Tier 4: FF3, FF5, FF12, FF15

Tier 5: FF2, FF13

 

[Tehdagah]

12 is possibly the most broken and repetitive Final Fantasy game

 

[Lord of Riva]

12 is possibly the most broken and repetitive Final Fantasy game

It literally plays itself if you aren't retarded.