Community Tier Rankings

Final Fantasy Mainline Entries

This page may be updated as more rankings become available.

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1. solidification

solidification is a prolific creator of fan-made achievements across different game genres and especially in the world of Final Fantasy mods. You can follow solidification’s set-making journey here.

General thoughts from solidification in speaking with FFV Central:

1 – easy to pick up and play and just blast through with a lot of different challenge runs

2 – decent story, strong gameplay, completely marred by its overworld design

3 – mechanically a fun idea, but it feels really lifeless and barebones

4 – strong story and strong characters with well-defined stat usage such that parties feel appropriate (or appropriately challenged) for the enemies/bosses/dungeons they’re forced into

5 – nigh-endless challenge run replayability

6 – what a great game that is completely overruled by the hacks that do it better

7 – don’t care for its presentation of plot and character arc as the game opens up

7-R – brings the world to life better than 7 ever did and the gameplay is top-notch, as expected by the team that made Kingdom Hearts 2

7-R-2 – still great but marred by overuse of minigames that destroy the pace of an already overly large story

8 – amazing story completely ruined by its gameplay

9 – perfect story, perfect characters, and a personal favorite ability learning system

10 – everyone can do everything is getting dull, but at least the story is decent

10-2 – the best mechanics of any turn-based game with a very down-to-earth story of healing and growth and just the right amount of camp and cheese

12 – everything looks muddy and everyone looks like a Who from Whoville that I can’t take any of it seriously

13 – a story that actually feels driven by the characters and not by the player with a lot of focus

13-2 – 13, but better, but it keeps crashing on Steam so the player experience is lessened

2. Casual Tom

Casual Tom, an avid Mega Man player, is a streamer and content creator who focuses on blind playthroughs of romhacks while occasionally throwing some speedrunning into the mix. As a staff member of Final Fantasy IV – Ultima, Casual Tom often features Final Fantasy mods on his streams. You can follow Casual Tom via YouTube, Twitch, or Twitter/X.

General thoughts from Casual Tom in speaking with FFV Central:

2 I just really like the story and 9 the gameplay

1 I just hate having to pay to revive people

And 3 is just like, hard to make myself play

7 has too many stupid mini games and I don’t care about the characters or story. Plus the worst ending of any game I’ve ever played. But great soundtrack.

I don’t have many good things to say about 8 other than gunblade

Additional context:

I just rank 4-6 at the very top, along with tactics [and dimensions]. 10 is just right behind those [and tactics a2]. Favorite PS1 FF is 9, least favorite is 8.
NES trilogy I rate above PS1 trilogy but I’m still not a particularly big fan of those. Though I do love 2’s story and characters.

9 falls apart by like, the last boss fight. 7 falls apart at the last disc. And 8 falls apart after like, the intro lol. ….
9 I mostly enjoyed okay but I felt the mages were underpowered

4 and 6’s endings were a tough act to follow

5’s is weak compared to the other two
5 is the most replayable, but 4 is pretty [replayable] too due to how short it is

6 has regrettable gameplay oversights but great presentation
5 just has minor issues. Worst thing I can say about it is doublegrip isn’t compatible with jump

…6 is very easy
4, worst thing I can say is it doesn’t have varied environments compared to 5. It’s all cave, tower, cave, mountain, cave…
Plus a bit lacking in qol features, but it’s not super fair to fault it for that

[1 and 3 i’d put after FFIV TAY and Tactics Advance in the same tier]

3. clymax

For clymax’s projects, click here. You can also follow him on YouTube, or Twitter.

General thoughts from clymax:

My personal criteria for this ranking are as follows.

Explorability – yes to FFV Merged World post-Pyramid, yes to FFVI WoR, and yes to FFX post-airship

Non-linearity – i should be able to get destroyed by way higher leveled mobs if i want or just by complete accident. i should be able to do things in any order i want, to a certain extent

Character customizability – OK for characters to have different strengths and weaknesses, but i wanna be able to have anyone not just usable but viable as, say, a healer

Game speed – no, i don’t want to farm using Knights of the Round lmao (also check out RosoDude’s FF9 fix for this). !Fight in FF8 takes way longer than in FF2, so thanks, realistic animations

Replayability – an entry scoring high in the previous four aspects should automatically also be relatively replayable

Story – intentionally not a factor in my ranking. i can appreciate a good story, but it’s not why i play a game or why i enjoy gaming in general (you should see the story/dialog i cut from my FF hacks, although out of mercy i added back a toggle for turning it back on lol)

oh, and FFIX’s score got lowered cuz I can’t for the life of me find Curaga

So, what do you think? Comment below, or come check us out on Discord.

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