Community Tier Rankings

Final Fantasy Mainline Entries

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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. xJ4cks

xJ4cks is the producer of the Clean series of mods and is a core member of the translation team for FFV: Heroine Trilogy. You can follow the work of xJ4cks here or check out his bio here.

For the explanation of this ranking, check out the blog post here.

4. Nintenja

Nintenja is the producer of the popular Pixel Freemaster mod for FFV among other mods. You can follow his work on YouTube or RHDN. Also check out his project page here.

General thoughts from Nintenja in speaking with FFV Central:

FF6 Is a masterpiece in every way im my mind. Graphics, sound, characters, story. Its only limited by the SNES. Each character having their own unique style is awesome too. Kefka is one of the greatest villains ever and he actually succeeds in his plot.

FF7 is [a]nother masterpiece that created an awesome almost steam punk world that felt dirty, desperate, real, and expansive for it’s time. Story, settings, characters all perfect. GFX have aged poorly in the character models department as a product of early 3d games. Sephiroth an amazing villain with truly moving motivations. Materia system rivals only FFV for customization.

F[F]9 is maybe the most ambitious and impressive PS1 game. A 4 disc tour de force with a great story, gfx, characters, and music with amazing exploration.

FF8 Went for realistic GFX and cutscenes and was a 4 disk technically very impressive game. Junctioning isn’t everyone’s cup of tea however its a huge step up from FF7 in the character model and map designs.

FFIV Great moving story, grandiose tale however some of its story beats feel a little cliche in retrospect.

FFV has an amazing job system which lends to replayability and experimentation. Also has great exploration with having 3 world maps by end game.

FFX ditched the world map for an area selection screen and has horrible voice acting for Tidus imho. It has nice GFX and a decent story for its time, however i find it very overrated simply because its so revered which to me isn’t warranted.

5. PharaohRobDad

Aside from being a fan of the Final Fantasy series, PharaohRobDad is an avid Mega Man modder and runner. You can connect with PharaohRobDad via YouTube, Twitch, MMLB, or the new Mega Man Romhacking Discord here.

General thoughts from special guest PharaohRobDad in speaking with FFV Central:

Final Fantasy Rankings (including everything I have played, cuz if you include the remake and X-2, imo, should include After Years and tactics)… but if they are in ( ) then it means they aren’t mainline to me. Also this is what I think is BEST not FAVORITE. 5 and 10 would be in different spots for sure if I went with favorite. Also not including the GBA ports, which might make FF6 go higher than 8 for reasons I’ll go over later. Also not including games that are actually a part of the mana/saga franchise, mostly gameboy games.

SS-(Tactics)
S-9>5>7>8
A-6>4>(FFT:A)
B-2>(Crystal Chronicles {GameCube version})>1>(2 After Years)>(Dierge Cerberus)
C-(10-2)>(FF:MQ)>10>13
D-3{DS}>12{original version}

If they aren’t listed I have not played it, except I listed 13 but I have seen my friend play through the majority of it to have an opinion.

Analysis

I think 1 is a landmark game, and if I were to rank NES games only, I would probably put it as an A because it’s an A for the hardware, but pretty much every game since has surpassed it.

For 2, I like the story and the characters and the environments a lot, I also enjoy a challenge, but the broken level up system is rough, but it’s a big improvement over 1.

As far as 3, yes, the job system rules, but literally everything else about this game is a step back from 2 and 1, the story/characters/environments are bad and so is the progression and just everything about it is bad.

FF4 is a landmark game and I love the fact that 95% of the game is seen either through the eyes of Kain or Cecil, iirc you don’t see any scenes they aren’t a part of other than like 2. The writing is better AND THERE’S A WHALE ON THE MOON OMG. But as far as a dungeon crawler, it leaves a lot to be desired and it’s kind of ugly, sorry.

I think 5 is maybe the best one, the story is underrated and different, the characters are smaller and so they get developed more than other games, the music is amazing, the environments are varied and beautiful and Ex-Death is one of the best vilians in FF history. Job system is implemented perfectly and as far as end game stuff, there’s 3 super bosses to tackle so going through and mastering each job and leveling up and grinding and finding everything is worth your time.

6, well, I think having 50 characters is a dis-service and I think Kefka might be the most overrated character in any video game ever. He’s in like 5 scenes and yes, him using the magicite to capture the espers was cool, but all he did was move some statues, wow, what a bad ass (end sarcasm), people like be like “OMG KEFKA WON”, mother fucker I didn’t see any credits. It’s like saying Scar from the Lion King won after watching the entire movie. Yes, that’s more of an issue with the fan base, but I digress. There’s no reason to grind in this game as there’s no reason to, you can beat this game without trying. It’s ugly and dark most of the time, I think outside of sprites and mode 7 stuff, 5 looks and sounds better by a lot and has better characters. FF6 gets worse every time I play it.

I think 7 is an awesome game and the more I understand about psychology, the better I think the game is, there’s more to do in this game than the older games, the music is god tier as far as mood is concerned, there’s actual bonus content as far as the weapon fights (I’m american so I played the US release), I think Sephiroth/Jenova are great bad guys with much more charm and are in the game and make a difference in the plot all through out, the way they tell the story is better, though I will say it does look kinda ugly with time.

With 8, I have the opposite reaction as 6, it gets better every time I play it, I learn something new in the plot, I understand the characters better, and I find replaying it is more fun because there are so many ways to play the game that aren’t contrived like other ways to play it. Squall went from a hated character who is a baby to me understanding him more the older I get. The music and the mood are just out of this world. There is a possible future if I replay the FF games again that I will put 8 ahead of 7. I don’t know if it will go ahead of 5/9, never tactics, but yeah. The card game is 11/10 and breaking the game is a lot of fun. FF8 when it is good it’s the best FF game and when it sucks (the prison) it’s among the worst.

9 is what FF6 wanted to be, the big cast of characters all (other than Amarant) get a long explaination of their plot, and relevant plot and side quests and everything. When the stories branch and you have to play as different characters, it is done masterfully and I like the way you gain abilities and the story is great. Kuja is one of the best characters in any FF game and he is introduced at the right time, Vivi is cool, and while I don’t condone Zidane grabbing Garnetts but on the ladder, he is a really well made character. The only bad part about FF9 is when Zidane loses himself towards the end, it doesn’t fit his character and the “Friendship is magic” thing felt put together last minute as they didn’t know what they were doing, and I guess Garnett losing her voice being a gameplay mechanic sucks too. I think Necron makes sense as a final boss, he was either the eidelon that was protecting the world from destruction, the guardian of the crystal similar to MOG protecting Eiko, or “the devil”.

10, oh boy, uh, I played through it when I was in college and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. The characters are annoying, the battle system sucks, blitzball sucks, I don’t really like how it looks, voice overs are annoying…
I’ve tried to replay FF10 multiple times and I couldn’t even make it past the first peer before i just nope out of it.

I did play 10-2 and I had ironic fun with it, thought it was a fun divergance from the normal FF experience, tied up some plot holes, but I wouldn’t count it as mainline similar to not counting dierge of cerberus of after years.

12 Oohhh man, I didn’t even recruit the first party member before I sold it to a used game store. Battle system is just an MMO, it looks overstated and it was just a bad time.

13 watched my friend paly through it, looks like a hallway simulator but it opens up towards the end and looked like a fun time.

The only playstation 2 RPG I enjoyed was Star Ocean 2 and kind of Kingdom Hearts, and I played a few of them. It was part of me being older but it’s also the fact that everything after 9/11 changed, and video games went from an art form to being a business, so they couldn’t go as far and deep with the stories and challenge authority the same way that they did, at least in this generation of video games, without being like GTA where it’s parody and not like real exploring.

Xenogears ruined RPGs for me though, that game is just so much better than anything else that has been released as far as characters and story it’s just completely unfair to compare anything to the depth and scope of that game, and it’s not even finished really. I think Tactics might be a better game because the gameplay is better and the way you develop characters outside of story is better. I think Chrono Trigger and Xenogears are the perfect pair because they are Yin and Yang from each other, Chrono Trigger faces similar issues and lets the player come to their own conclusion and Xenogears brute forces them and explains the characters beliefs about them and just like, sensory and brain overload. But I would say that you should play Tactics and Chrono Trigger and FF 5 and FF9 before you play Xenogears, then you can just not play anything else.

6. 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 FFIX fix for this). !Fight in FFVII takes way longer than in FFVI, 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)

finally, i recommend Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song if you like FFII

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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