What is your favorite Final Fantasy game?

I've always had a really spotty history with the Final Fantasy games as I'd always get bored of the gameplay and stop playing at some point and move on to something with more interesting gameplay. However, Final Fantasy Tactics is an exception in that I not only enjoyed almost every moment of that game, but it's also the only FF game I played to completion. I loved the gameplay, the story kept me interested, the art direction was terrific, and the character designs were pretty neat (even if I did mistake Ramza for a girl when I first saw him). It's unfortunate the orignal PS1 game had a somewhat dodgy translation, but I loved it all the same. Now if only the Advance games were able to follow suit... On a side note, despite my history with the FF games, I was able to get pretty far in FF4 before quitting due to boredom, and I could see myself going back to replay FF9 in the future (seriously, the latter had a fantastic art direction with what I found to be really likeable characters. I remember enjoying it plenty before quitting... not sure why I stopped playing it, now that I think about it).

Kingdom Hearts. Doesn't count? Damnit. Fine then, Final Fantasy X is my favorite. I bought it on a dare, and ended up loving the shit out of it. It was my first JRPG and I have zero regrets with it. Tactics Advance is my number two, and XIII comes in third. One of these days I'll finish VII (never made it to second disc), and play VIII, IX and VI. Then maybe my top three will change. I also really liked both Dissidias, I, IV, and XII. All great games from a great series.

FF4 (IV) No doubt about it, best of the series, Edward, Cecil, Edge, Palom/Porom, Kain, Yang, Golbez, Rosa, Rydia. All of them have a special place in my heart... and besides that the game itself ITS JUST TOO FREAKING AWESOME

Without a doubt in my heart FF VIII is my favorite. I've always wanted to play FF IV and now that I've got my friend it for Christmas for the DS I want it even more. I also really enjoy XIII but to each their own I guess. :)

I'm gonna be different and say XII, i saw a few others say that too. It was my first (real) experience with Final Fantasy and I dumped time into it. I also enjoyed FFVII until about 2/3 of the way in my PS3 died and with it my save (I was playing the PSN version). I'm about halfway through FFIX right now and so far it's great and Steiner is hilarious. I feel as if IX will become my favorite when I beat it. although no matter what XII will always be my first Final Fantasy and because of that it will always be one of my favorites. I also won FFXIII-2 from this here site, gamesradar earlier this year and I absolutely loved it. Threw about 40 hours into it in a month. Noel & Serah are great characters. Play that game even if you haven't played XIII (which I haven't). Final Fantasy is cool.

12 is fantastic and 9 is fun, funny and very enjoyable. I would definitely try 10 after you finish 9, better graphics and AMAZING story line. I'm a huge fan of the series, just thought I would throw my 2 cents your way!

I always laugh when I think of FFX. It was such a badass game, then FFX-2 happened... But my favorite was XII. That game had my favorite combat system because it felt like an MMO on a private server.

Final Fantasy IX easily. By the way, if anyone chooses Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles then shame on you!

Tactics and VII

VII, VIII, IX and X are the best in the series, hands down. Those 4 games have more character, story and atmosphere then most games combined.

FF VI of course!! loved the sprites, monsters, characters, villains and story. just epic!!!

Favorite Final Fantasy ...I guess it would be 7, then Tactics or 6, followed by 10 or 4. My first Final Fantasy was 7, and I played it in 5th grade. After I beat Super Nova spamming Sephiroth, I wanted to play them all to experience that emotional attachment. And only Tactics, 6, 10, and 4 gave me any.

I'm very surprised that no one picked IV. There's usually at least one advocate for it in any conversation like this, and also in spite of its many, many shortcomings. That said - my favorite is VI, and for the following reasons: 1) Every player character in the game, except perhaps the two secret ones, gets at least one great moment to shine, which causes you grow very fond of them. Try playing the "describe a character without talking about what they do or look like" game with any of them, and see what happens. 2) Kefka is one of the greatest villains in anything. Unlike most other RPG villains, he's not some great evil force that the rest of the game's denizens whisper about in hushed tones throughout. He's as active a part of the game's story as any of the other PCs, and his gleeful insanity, present whether he's bitching through the bars of a prison cell or laying waste to an entire village, is hard not to love. Also, he is the first video game character who provoked a genuine emotional reaction from me. When he poisoned Doma and killed Cyan's wife and child, I was hoping I'd get to tear him limb from limb. 3) For its time, and even through today, the overall presentation was an absolute joy to behold. Go play the opera sequence again, and tell me that wasn't a dry run for some of the spectacle that would show up in Square's later games. I'm also fond of VII and X, but VI will always be the best for me.

1) FF IV 2) FF VI 3) FF IX

My favorites are 5, 12, Tactics, Tactics A2, and Dissidia (NOT 012) For me, the thing that makes or breaks an FF game is the battle system, I will not put up with hours of boring battles to experience the story. (13 is a special exception I will get to later) I list 5 because it had one of my favorite job systems, multiple jobs and abilities with stats carrying over and such? just awesome, lead to lots of strategy, the two tactics games are evolutions of that. but I do like Tactics/A2 more, because they took the job systems to new heights, with tons of skills and complexities, both are basically equal in my opinion, but Tactics of course had the better story. 12 is definitely my overall favorite though. It's battle system was to me, sort of like an RPG/RTS hybrid. You had to manage gambits carefully, and I enjoy seeing well built systems work efficiently and plow through basic battles with little effort, while bigger battles were massive affairs of resource management and strategy. The license grid was an okay idea, it made every character fairly equal which is great, and let you diversify your party's skills however you want (though by the endgame basically everyone could do everything) Ultimately, the gambits make FF12 awesome for me, it's like building a machine to do tasks and having the satisfaction that you made it. now with that... FF13 had simultaneously a great and the worst battle system in the series. It definitely looks amazing, flashy and generally fun to watch. but it's not fun to play. Because of basically one thing, the auto battle. It's easier to hit the auto battle function then manually select your abilities, and the AI for it and your teammates is so absurdly good it takes almost all the strategy out! the paradigm shifts are just a crappy way to limit your parties abilities and waste time, and that's supposed to be where the bulk of the strategy is from. Even worse, after the unified battle/overworld of 12, we are back to battle transitions! but they aren't random either, you see the enemy, engage, and are warped to an empty space for the fight, then another warp back to the overworld. it's jarring and idiotic. Also, like FF12, your characters positions in the fight are important, area spells and such target a specific area. but you can't control how your characters move! they mostly stay in a formation like traditional battles of old, yet your foes often space out and make area of effect attacks less useful! This isn't helped by the games notorious linearity. It's not just that you are given zones about as linear as a stage from a 3D sonic game, but also that you can only reach a given power level for a certain area. Leveling up (which is literally just like normal leveling up except you need to go into a menu, pick the class, and hold the confirm button for a few seconds and maybe pick a single optional thing to grab, waste of time) is limited to a certain extent for every area! what the heck! this basically means if you have trouble with a boss, too bad, you can do nothing about it, no grinding, no sidequesting, no way of raising your power at all. you need to get lucky in the fight and hope your party leader doesn't die. Complete idiocy. My other least favorite FF is 10... for most of the same reasons as 13, though it's not as bad. real quick petty comment, I hate the standard battle music, so it made almost all battles annoying to me. otherwise, linear zones, linear zones, linear zones... but at least you can backtrack and do sidequests to power up! also, it had a similar issue with leveling to 13, sphere grid was a tedious time waster until it finally opened up and you could stop specializing your characters and give them more skills. another petty thing, Yuna's voice is fantastically annoying and so is her personality (It's not my fault but I'm sorry anyway! and I'm going to say I'm sorry in this annoying voice!) Dissidia is special. I like it, a lot, but it's too different from the others to rank in a list of my favorite FF games. The story was odd, but at least mostly made sense, the battles are fantastic, music is fantastic, etc. 012... on the other hand. has exactly one redeeming feature, new characters I like. (Yuna is the one I don't like, because of her weak gameplay and again, annoying voice/personality, if they used 10-2 Yuna I wouldn't mind really) Everything else is terrible and annoying, equipment in general is even more of a bitch to get (why do I need to grind the story mode dungeons and this new labyrinth crap! the duel arena was great and too the point!) Assists totally wreck the balance, and the AI began cheating even worse. Slipping into fighting game language for a second, they can skip their moves end frames and dodge instantly, this is in addition to being overleveled, they explicitly cheat the battle systems. Making grinding for gear even worse. Assists are crap, they nerfed EX modes and most accessories, 012 is generally not as fun as the first.

TL;DR I'm more opinionated on gameplay systems in the series than the stories, also I used all 5000 characters for the above, and didn't even get to say all I wanted too.

VI for me please! I've enjoyed the series as a whole, but my memories of VI stick with me a lot more than the others.

FF started going down the drain after FF X. I loved FF 7 and FF 9. FF X was acceptable. Everything after that ,crap.

You are wrong.