As a Tactics Ogre fan since the mid 90s this post is heresy.
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What's the best written Final Fantasy game?
- Thread starter cvbas
- Start date
the ending is amazing. I still remember the twist at the end of act 1 and my 13 year old self was flipping out.
tactics, 12, 7 (story wise I think it's solid with great characters and the "wacky" late gen stuff isn't fucking stupid like 8 and 9 were), 9 has great characters and the first two discs are outstanding then it falls to shit.
FFX would be okay if Tidus wasn't a whiny twat that said "my old man" so much
Square buying out Quest and using Tactics Ogre characters as a cameo many many years later doesn't make it a Final Fantasy game.
IX's one of my very favorite video games and it nearly tops my answer when it goes totally existential at the end. That the game became about Final Fantasy while still being ostensibly about the characters and main game plot was miraculous, so the final boss sequence is one of my favorite ever. The wonderful tight-loose pacing, extraordinary set pieces, and all-time best cast grant it a charm all its own.
That said, it's clearly Tactics: War Of The Lions. I don't even like those types of plots or characters, and, as a really religious person, I really wanted some heroes within the Church. Nevertheless, it's one of gaming's best stories, perfectly parceled out so that the twists land with gusto. The dread and desperation I felt between and during battles dirtied the game's formal whites. It works in a way that requires no player assumptions, and, bonus, it melds with the gameplay quite well.
I'd say War Of The Lions, IX, VI, XIV, II.
That said, it's clearly Tactics: War Of The Lions. I don't even like those types of plots or characters, and, as a really religious person, I really wanted some heroes within the Church. Nevertheless, it's one of gaming's best stories, perfectly parceled out so that the twists land with gusto. The dread and desperation I felt between and during battles dirtied the game's formal whites. It works in a way that requires no player assumptions, and, bonus, it melds with the gameplay quite well.
I'd say War Of The Lions, IX, VI, XIV, II.
I'm not really so sure. Heavensward and onwards made quite a few deliberate changes to the ARR cast to make them more interesting. A lot of the rote JRPG tropes that they started with got discarded or written away, and replaced with better personality traits.
I get the impression that the writers had to make an effort to undo what ARR did to a lot of the cast in order to get good characters.
My vote is FFVI and Tactics. But if I had to pick only one I'd say FFVI. There is so much subtle story telling going on between the various playable characters. The themes are decently mature without being overtly heavy or cringy. The fact that your imagination plays a large part in the story telling helps a lot in my opinion.
It's absolutely Tactics, no question. It's not just that the characters all have their own consistent voices and the interplay between them is exciting; the game is brilliantly paced and structured from start to finish.
Long-winded commentary on runners-up follows:
VI has some amazing moments, and tons of its design decisions are all about getting the player to love the characters. The first half of the game is actually pretty damn well written, IMO; I think the World of Ruin is brilliant in a lot of ways but the writing fell off a bit there (with some exceptions, many scenes have characters spout generic dialogue written for any character to speak the lines, because you could bring nearly any party to that scene). It's still an excellent leap forward for the series when it comes to storytelling and juggling a large cast.
X does fantastically well with its core protagonists; I think it's one of the games where the design of the world really felt like the writers came first. Almost every single boss fight is tied directly into the storytelling somehow (this is hardly standard for FF outside of Tactics); the cast is just the right size and the core throughlines of the story are so strong that watching them debate their different points of view on this or that feels compelling and true to what you've seen of those characters. I think it runs into some problems toward the very end of the game, if only because it *really* becomes the Tidus/Yuna/Auron show and everyone else sort of stops having anything to say. I think FFX would have benefited immensely from a Chrono Trigger-style "one major fully-produced endgame/postgame sidequest per character" approach instead of those awful minigames.
XII has an absolutely stellar *localization*, and the massive amounts of lore in the Bestiary are an utter delight, but the structure of the story becomes a little bit disjointed, and one gets the sense that there's a lot going on offscreen that we never really get to see. Still, the quality of the localization and some of the voice acting is high enough to make this one pretty compelling in spite of its flaws.
Long-winded commentary on runners-up follows:
VI has some amazing moments, and tons of its design decisions are all about getting the player to love the characters. The first half of the game is actually pretty damn well written, IMO; I think the World of Ruin is brilliant in a lot of ways but the writing fell off a bit there (with some exceptions, many scenes have characters spout generic dialogue written for any character to speak the lines, because you could bring nearly any party to that scene). It's still an excellent leap forward for the series when it comes to storytelling and juggling a large cast.
X does fantastically well with its core protagonists; I think it's one of the games where the design of the world really felt like the writers came first. Almost every single boss fight is tied directly into the storytelling somehow (this is hardly standard for FF outside of Tactics); the cast is just the right size and the core throughlines of the story are so strong that watching them debate their different points of view on this or that feels compelling and true to what you've seen of those characters. I think it runs into some problems toward the very end of the game, if only because it *really* becomes the Tidus/Yuna/Auron show and everyone else sort of stops having anything to say. I think FFX would have benefited immensely from a Chrono Trigger-style "one major fully-produced endgame/postgame sidequest per character" approach instead of those awful minigames.
XII has an absolutely stellar *localization*, and the massive amounts of lore in the Bestiary are an utter delight, but the structure of the story becomes a little bit disjointed, and one gets the sense that there's a lot going on offscreen that we never really get to see. Still, the quality of the localization and some of the voice acting is high enough to make this one pretty compelling in spite of its flaws.
I think VI, IX, X
I never played tactics, is available somewhere? I really enjoyed tactics advance 1 and 2...
I never played tactics, is available somewhere? I really enjoyed tactics advance 1 and 2...
I'm basing it off of 5.0 Shadowbringer. 5.3 is just stat padding
It felt like them saying "No, this wasn't a fluke. Watch us do it again."
yoshi-p and Natsuko Ishikawa (shadowbringers lead writter) should 100% get to lead their own project.
for some context of just how much people love the story she wrote a literal standing ovation at pax west last year
This where I'm at. Ffxii's plot is not always the best but the writing is pretty rad. Tactics is the best FF in almost all respects.
X and X-2, easily for me. XII has the best localisation and dialogue but the actual story being constructed is one of the series worst so it just can't hang. VIII also gets a nice respectable runners up space for me.
IX of the ones I've played. IX and VI are probably the only Final Fantasy games I've played where I felt the stories were real good, and it's a pretty tough choice. VII has a decent story. X is below average, the XIII trilogy started out okay and got really really bad with each additional game, VIII's is really bad. Looking forward to playing through XII and Tactics as they've been in my backlog. Also looking forward to getting deeper into XIV. Only been playing for about a week and I'm really enjoying the game, but the story up to where I am (at about lvl 35 in-game) has been pretty bad, but I hear it gets really great with the expansions.
Tactics and XII. Honorary mention to V for going all in on the sillies and it works.
Most of the games have interesting worlds and setups, but even the best ones (including FFT and XII) drop the ball once the plot inevitably goes all in on "get crystal and kill bad guy"
Most of the games have interesting worlds and setups, but even the best ones (including FFT and XII) drop the ball once the plot inevitably goes all in on "get crystal and kill bad guy"
5.3 is the finale to the story arc? Good to know.
I'm just getting back into it after finishing 5.0.
In terms of the story itself: Tactics, VI, IX, and X are all excellent. Never heard a bad thing about XIV's either.
In terms of dialogue/localization quality: XII. An absolute masterclass in translation and performance.
In terms of dialogue/localization quality: XII. An absolute masterclass in translation and performance.
I'd argue that FFT actually delivered.
No argument from me on XII. It's insane how it starts to poke at something really interesting and ambitious in the very final hours of the game, only to vaporize into "defeat badman, save world". I remember the stories of its troubled development, and when I finally played it I was happy to see that it didn't seem obviously worse for wear. Then the story withered and died with incredible haste. That was a real moment of recognition.
Echoing most of the thread here in saying Tactics, VI, and XIV. XII is up there too.
VII's story is actually complete nonsense, but in the best possible way.
VII's story is actually complete nonsense, but in the best possible way.
FFXII is the very first FF that I have played that failed to inflict any emotional impact whatsoever in terms of story and characters. When it ended, all I could say was Huh, is that it? It just felt overall very flat to me.
As for the topic, FFXIV no question.
It's the finale to Shadowbringers story arc but overarching story arc of the game since ARR should end in the next expansion.
6 is my favorite cast and story but everybody saying 14 is making me want to slog through the mmo leveling grind to see.
They pretty much wrapped up everything from the Shadowbringers MSQ in this patch and tease a bit of what's to come with the sort of end credit cutscene (there's no credit). The actual lead-in to the next expansion should start with 5.4.
10 for me, despite some janky dialogue and convoluted storytelling in places, this game still has the best/most interesting world building and most likable cast. It all just feels so unique and memorable, and man, that ending....
Also shoutout to 15 for being a fragmented, undercooked, barely coherent mess for most of its playtime, yet still managing to pull off an incredible last 2 hours and making me cry. I will miss my boys.
12 was a disappointment for me, great dialogue writing for sure but the characters didn't do much for me, and the story just whimpers out - FF without a cathartic finale is just... weird
Also shoutout to 15 for being a fragmented, undercooked, barely coherent mess for most of its playtime, yet still managing to pull off an incredible last 2 hours and making me cry. I will miss my boys.
12 was a disappointment for me, great dialogue writing for sure but the characters didn't do much for me, and the story just whimpers out - FF without a cathartic finale is just... weird
