Greetings Friends, somewhat rare game post. This is mostly just a mental exercise and a self review of past opinions; blog format is so borked I don't think I can actually formulate it as a list so I'll just copy paste the notepad section here momentarily: Tactics, 6, 4, 10, 12, 5, 8, 7 Remake, 1, 7, 2, 9, 13, 3, 15, 7 Rebirth, 16; don't care about the mmos. Tactics has the best non voiced (though it is voiced now) story in any game and the best character in any game in Delita though you could take Gaunter O'dim and I would be fine with that choice as well. It's also the best game mechanically in the tactics genre aside from Front Mission 5 and arguably XCOM 2; great game; sort of killed its own genre by being so good I guess with everything being compared to it and Tactics Ogre afterward...................................................................................................................................................................................................................For a long time 4 was my best final fantasy, I'd say 10 or 15 years straight; I've played 6 and 4 like 25 times each under various conditions and it comes down to how much do I still enjoy it at this point; most recently I've played both on a Super Famicom with actual cartridges and what not; actually both games have really cool and weird bugs/glitches that work on actual hardware so that part is a wash even though the 4 one is more useful I think the Opera House glitch is also fascinating. Sketch glitch doesn't work very well on the JP cartridge so didn't screw with that much (also probably wouldn't since it could be unhealthy to the cart). I think FF6 pre world of ruin is the best game of all time pretty much but World of Ruin botches that even though it's decent enough; it's just not utterly flawless like the rest of the game. That said the WoR grind is strangely appealing the last 4 or 5 times I've played, dunno if its just the habit of doing it or the music when you get the Falcon; who knows. The biggest thing is being able to beat the final boss with any party at any level; I used Umaro and Relm this time who I've never used before and it was a blast. Just coming up with a party to farm Brachosaurs is fun in and of itself and as Celes and Terra become more and more comically broken the game becomes increasingly silly and enjoyable; even in Pixel Remaster (where MBlock is fixed) those characters are basically invincible; just a good time all around. I think conceptually I'd still say 4 is better because Whale, Golbez, Kain, Rubicante etc. but this time out 6 is the victor.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................10 is basically a flawless masterpiece all around, best turn based combat system in any game period; and then the protagonist is unbelievably fucking terrible and thats what shoots the game in the foot. No Tidus and 10 is also maybe the best game ever, but Tidus is there and straight garbage so that's it for that argument, it's still like a 9.5/10 though albeit it tends to elude my top 20 games of all time lists. 12 is awesome and 12 zodiac with 4x speed is even more awesome. 5 is the third most replayable, 8 with speed up options is also quite so plus Triple Triad. 8's story is a mixed bag but aside from Tactics 4 and 6 (and 10 if you exclude Tidus) the series hasn't really had many good stories so it doesn't really bother me much; the strength of Final Fantasy has always been the gameplay, if the story happens to be good that's a bonus on top........................................................................................................................................................................................................................7 Remake has one of the best soundtracks of all time and fantastic gameplay; great usage of the characters and set the stage for Rebirth being good (it wasn't, at least not particularly); great stuff all around. 1 still holds up and is the main NES one I would want to replay though I've more recently played 2 and 3 on Famicom; the Tower of Mystics music in 2 is amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsMQnlL8qw0 Considering how ancient the game is the fact that 1 still works at all and is fun is remarkable; most NES games are terrible. Original 7 (and 8) are big parts of my childhood and hard to parse entirely but aside from particular affection for the characters it's just generally a pretty good game with a cool level up system and good characters; lots of better JRPGs. I like 2's leveling system and did get a second Excalibur to drop from an Iron Giant (1/64 + 3/64 I believe) for my run of Pandemonium on actual hardware (Famicom) so that's cool.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................9 is good for 1.5-2 discs and Chocobo Hot and Cold then it sucks. 13 has issues but a fantastic and super difficult combat system and the hardest boss in the series (Bart Part 2 if you don't grind); I don't have that much desire to replay it or Lightning Returns though; XIII-2 I kind of did everything already. 3 is just worse 5 it's a neat game for a Famicom game though. 15 is pretty damn good considering how much hate it got, love Adamantoise and the platforming dungeon; I'll play the DLCs at some point. 7 Rebirth would be a good game if it was 60 hours long and the ending didn't suck ass but it's like 150 hours long and the ending is terrible and sets up the next game to also be terrible (gameplay/outfits for Tifa aside); of course I'm going to wind up playing that too. It does have the quality of Remake's soundtrack but again there's too much of it so you need to trim the fat and make it more polished; fat chance with Nomura in charge. 16 I've played both DLCs and around 10 hours of the beginning at this point; I will play through the entire thing when it goes on PS Plus; it has very good core gameplay and a pretty solid story (if slow moving); very bland art design except for a handful of characters and very poor exploration systems; 13 had that problem too but the story was compelling enough for me at the time so it didn't bother me much. It's cool as a character action game because not many of those exist; still like an 8/10.
