I'd like to know what would be the preferrable Final Fantasy game to introduce me to the series. Not something 4 discs long (if I can avoid it) and something I'll be able to jump right into and learn relatively easily. I'd prefer PS1, but if it must be a GBA/DS rehash, it'll be good enough.

I've considered FF7, but before I go and buy that I want to be certain it's the best one to start with. I know Glyde used to reccomend FF8 to me.

GO!

I Hart 8

X-2

Accessorize!

8 is the best, but start with 4 on the GBA. Or even 1.

Noooo. I tried 1 on GBA. It just...there was absolutely no guidance, whatsoever. I found no story, and eventually just got LOST. Admittedly, didn't put THAT much time into it, but I still, after 3 or 4 hours just got lost.

7. 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7.

7!

7

How about some..you know, reasons? I'm talking to kirby on MSN right now, and 8 is sounding pretty damn awesome.

because 7 is the best rpg ever?

Thanks.

If you don't give me better reasons I'm buying FF8. Partly because FF8 sounds very easy to get into and not EXTREMELY demanding.

I beat FF7 without EVER staying in the same place to level up and without ever knowing how to use magicka (and I still dont)

I once heard something like FF8 is most Western of them Final Fantasies, and I think it's a great game, so start with it then.

I started with FF7 though, I still prefer it.

9

FF6. It's not easy, it might not be your favorite FF, but it's got that simple charm in an RPG that makes it easy to love. Either that or FF4. From there, the other Final Fantasies will seem like cake and you'll be able to enjoy the storylines a lot more (although any of them are enjoyable if you take your time instead of trying to rush through the games), and appreciate the universe as a whole. They're actually pretty much the solid basis of every Final Fantasy on the PSX/PS2.

Thanks.

It may make me appreciate the universe better, but how about difficulty? I, for some odd reason, have trouble sticking with a 30+ hour game. I just lose interest generally. I really want something I just sit down, pop in disc 1, and jump right in. Not something where I need to go do every last quest/minigame/what have you to beat the game, but something where I can take a middle path and complete them if I feel like it.

Final Fantasy 6 isn't a "disc" per se. It's a cartridge. SNES FF3.

It will be out for GBA come November or September or something, and you can get it for PSX. To be honest, you can obtain it for the SNES for about 30 bucks if you're dedicated, and then there's always alternate online channels. I played it via emulator (when I legally had the game--I lost it in a move though :() on my old p120 (good god it was painful) and even back then it was awesome. Good stuff.

It's hard, to be sure, but it's one of those games you just have to be tactical with, and make a save before every MAJOR decision.

Edit: My first play through took almost 110 hours. But I was also level 99 by the end, had every item, had everything you could want (all spells etc), and had beaten the game to death. My last playthrough was about 25 hours, but you could probably shorten it if you wanted to. To be honest, that game taught me to enjoy lengthy games.

I too hart 8, and therefore I hart Kirbs too.

The junction system is awesome.

I have to agree with you on that one. Although there was a vague story in there somewhere, it was mostly a story point followed by several hours of nothing, then another story point, followed by more travelling...

At one point while I was playing it I stopped because I was busy with college. When I picked it up again, I had *no* idea what I was supposed to be doing. 2 was slightly better in that regard, but you've still got to keep up to speed with what you've been doing.

6. It's on PS1, it rocks, it's one disc, and it's got some absolutely classic lines.

Or 7. Three discs of cinematic story goodness and rockin' music.

Or 8. Four discs of more realistic (if slightly pixelly world and battle graphics) and my favourite score.

To be honest, most people started with FFVII, since that was the first one released on PS1. So I'd go for that.

7 or 8

FF8 is absolutely not the best FF game to start out with. Seriously, this is not a thread asking for your favorite RPG - it's asking for the best RPG to introduce the guy to the series. And FF8's Junctioning system, while rewarding and easily exploitable, is not easy to get into in comparison to other games' system. Not to mention that the extreme usefulness of playing cards in this game, how monsters level up with the player (and how one should avoid leveling up in this game as a result), how the new limit break system is best exploited, etc. are not going to be immediately obvious to a FF newbie. Why do you think so many people played this game summoning Guardian Forces over and over again when it originally came out despite of the fact how boring that is?

I'm not trying to dissuade you here (yeah, right), but if you absolutely want to play FF8, keep these things in mind:

EDIT: Yeah, this is rather long. Sorry.

1) You do not want to level up in this game. Your strength does not depend on your level, only on the magic you junction to your stats, and enemies get stronger if you level up. How do you not level up? In the very beginning of the game (by checking your computer desk) you get the Guardian Force (or summon) Quezacotl. Equip (or 'Junction') him to Squall. Make him learn the ability 'Card' (in the GF menu) by fighting some battles or just proceeding in the storyline. After you've learned the ability, go to Junction -> Ability and make sure card is in the top menu (the one with Attack). Now, go to the beaches anywhere in the world until you fight a battle with Fastolification - F enemies. Damage these guys a bit, and then use the card command on the enemies. The lower their HP is, the higher the chance of carding them successfully. Once you do that for both of them, you gain 6 AP but no EXP. This way, you can make GFs learn new abilities.

2) As for actually getting stronger, use the Draw command to draw magic from any enemies (like water, cure, etc.). Outside of battle, by going to Junction -> Junction -> Magic in the main menu, you can then add the magic to one of your stats, increasing it. Different magic spells have a greater impact on your stats than others.

3) To get a big HP boost for your characters early on, go to the town of Balamb, preferrably as soon as you are able upon first leaving Balamb Garden. Go to the Balamb Item shop and buy as many Tents as you can. At the end of your first mission (the Dollet mission) on top of the communications tower, you will fight Biggs and Wedge, and then the story Boss Elvolet. Draw the Guardian Force 'Siren' from Elvolet. Siren has an ability called 'L Mag-RF' (Life Magic Refinement). Using this, you can turn the tents into Curagas (1 tent for 10 Curagas), and then junction 100 of them them to a chracter, massively increasing their HP.

4) Limit break time! This is where the gameplay system completely falls apart. In step #3, you gave Squall a huge HP boost. Well, whenever his HP is low (his HP becomes yellow) you have a chance of activating your limit break. Give an order to the other two characters in your party, and when it's time to give Squall an order, press Triangle (the menu button) like mad. Normally, this would skip Squall's turn for the turn of another party member, but since the other two have already been given commands, Triangle goes right back to Squall. Press Triangle quickly over and over again until you hear the limit break sound and an arrow appears next to 'Attack.' Press right on the controller, and use Squall's Renzokuken. Do this all the time (while keeping Squall's HP in the yellow) and you can quick anybody's *** in the game.

5) Play the card game. It might seem really difficult at first, but if you stick with it, it can be really rewarding. Quezacotl has an ability called 'Card Mod' that let's you turn cards into items. With abilities like Time Mag-RF (Time Magic Refinement), you can then use those items you got from the cards to get powerful magic to junction to your stats. It gets really fun and addictive (and believe me, I normally hate card games).

6) I guess the last thing is where to get strong magic to junction to your stats. In #3, I discussed how to get Curaga for your HP.

Notice: When I saw I'm converting something, that means I'm using some Refinement ability that gives the needed results. Make your GF learn these types of abilities first.

HP: Curage (see #3)
Strength: Water (drawn from enemies in the first few areas of the game), later Quake (the T-Rex and Armadodo cards can be converted into Dino Bones, and Dino Bones can be converted into Quakes with Diablo's Time Mag-RF).
Vitality: Meltdowns, Gayla cards can be converted into Myster Fluids and then into Meltdowns.
Magic: Death, Tonberry Cards can be converted into Chef's Knives and then Death magic.
Spirit: Reflect, drawn from Biggs the second time you fight him

7) The most useful Guardian Force in the game is Diablos. Remember random battles in other FF games you've played? Since you don't have to fight them with my approach, you would want to get rid of them completely instead of having to run away all the time, right? Well, before setting out to Timber, Cid gives you a 'Magical Lamp' (this happens automatically as part of the main storylin). Use it to fight Diablos. When you win, he joins your array of Guardian Forces. You can learn the Encounter-Half and after that, the Encounter-None ability from him. Random battles - gone forever! However, almost all Guardian Forces are important because of the refinement abilities they can learn (example: Time Mag-RF). Here are the Guardian Forces Locations.

8) Once you get the airship, go to two islands on the World Map (they aren't marked) called the Island Closest to Heaven and the Island Closest to Hell. A map is right here. The islands are written in green on this map. With Encounter-none equipped, go around the edges of the island while pressing the action button to find hidden draw points. Ultima is the best spell in the game (Junction it to strength) and you can also find Full-Life here (Junction it to HP). Do this a few times (the draw points take a bit of time to recharge) and Squall will be unstoppable with his limit break.

In retrospect, I think some of my steps are a bit extreme. However, with the above, once you understand it, FF8 is the easiest FF game ever made.

[QUOTE=- Tony -]6. It's on PS1, it rocks, it's one disc, and it's got some absolutely classic lines.
[/QUOTE]

You shouldn't play FF4, 5 or 6 on the PS1. The games' ports are horrible and there are numerous bugs, and most annoying of all, battle slwodowns that don't exist on the SNES. Final Fantasy Anthology (with FF5/6) and Final Fantasy Chronicles (FF4/Chrono Trigger) are not good for anything except having them as collector's items and to see the new cinematics they've added to the games (and you can download those or simply rip them from the PSX disk).



All FF games are going to require some serious time committment just because of the sheer length of the games.

If you ask me, the best game to start out with is FF7. The materia (or magic) system in the game is extremely easy to understand and the game gives you a great story with a reasonably modern presentation. Furthermore, there are no tricks to succeeding in this game at all. It's possible to go through the game at a gradual pace and still do fine. Just be sure to get a Restore materia for every one of your 3 active characters (to heal your characters). If by any chance you ever hit trouble, there are usually some areas where you can gain some EXP relatively quickly and be back on track again.

Also note: if you grow tired of Disk 3 (namely the Northern Cave, the final area of the game) and just want to rush to the end, note that there is an EXP trick in the game involving magic pots that you could exploit if you so desire (Playstation version only).

Once you've played FF7 and understood how a modern FF game works, it might not be such a bad idea to give FF8 a try.

Yeah, but it's a godsend for those not graced with the old consoles. I've never even seen a SNES in real life.

hey knobz, i'm sure that the islands closest to heaven/hell are on the map.

[QUOTE=Mr. Stafford]hey knobz, i'm sure that the islands closest to heaven/hell are on the map.[/QUOTE]

Could be. I don't remember if they are or not.

I completely disagree with Knob but don't have the time to argue.

FF8 can be played WITHOUT all of that, and still be fun as hell. The game allows you to get only as deep into it as you want. BECAUSE of enemy scaling, you can just play to your own style and still have fun. The first time I ever played, when I was like 12, I didn't use ANY junctioning the ENTIRE game, got NONE of the extra GFs, and used VERY little magic, and I still had a ton of fun.

7 is FAR too mind numbingly slow to play. The storyline is slow to come, and some people don't even LIKE the story (A thousand people hate me, now). 8 is easy to jump into and enjoy right away.

I tried to make it easy to understand for someone new to the game and add some additional (but not totally necessary) tips.

The quick rundown:

1) Learn Card, card Fastolification - F
2) Tent -> Curage for Squall High HP
3) Spam Renzokuken
4) Encounter-None

This is sufficient to beat the game and requires less effort than any other technique I've ever heard of. Sorry you 'completely disagree' with it, but this way, I can go through the game spending 90% of my time simply progressing the storyline and a negligible amount of time on battles.

Playing FF8 like that is the most boring thing ever. I've played by leveling up the entire party to 80, so the other party members didn't scale down the monster level, and *STILL* beat it. Not leveling up = no challenge

[QUOTE=Glyde Bane]Playing FF8 like that is the most boring thing ever. I've played by leveling up the entire party to 80, so the other party members didn't scale down the monster level, and *STILL* beat it. Not leveling up = no challenge[/QUOTE]

I find leveling up my party when there is no point in doing that the most boring thing ever. It's simply a matter of opinion. I do enough level grinding in games that actually need it.

Five's Job/Ability system needs to come back. That was a GREAT system It gave the player to customize well.

I started FF with 6 (US 3). I think that's a good game to start with. Excellent story. Not that bad magic system (although I don't like it). FF VII is not the ultimate, greatest, most terrific game ever created. It is a good game, yes. I enjoyed playing it. Personally, I think you should start with the SNES games.

What's the fun in killing everything with one hit?

Wow, you have 9999 hp and everything is level 1. Weeeee

[QUOTE=Glyde Bane]What's the fun in killing everything with one hit?[/QUOTE]

Let's ask someone in prison!

I lack a SNES, so should I buy the PSX adaptions?

And if kirby claims that he found 7 very slow to play, can anyone back this up and give explanations? I played Legend of Dragoon on PSX, and while I realize it was a PSX game, I found the graphics annoying and the game itsself kinda "Bleh..". It just didn't appeal to me. It took forever to even get my first guy to be a dragoon, and from there it was just building up my Dragoon power meter thing and using it. (I never beat the game, never got off disc one)

And I've only heard LoD compared to FF7 is all, and if the two are that closely related, regardless of what other FF games are like, I'm not going to attempt FF7. I just don't want something that's the equivalent of LoD with a few key changes. I'll see if I can get FF6 on GBA when it comes out, and I'll get FF8 on PSX to tide me over in the mean time. Atleast, that's what I've decided so far.

And the only reason I'm going with FF8 is because I spent close to half an hour discussing it with kirby, and it just seems great to me.

Having played Legend of Dragoon, I can say FF7 is much much better. I personally thoroughly enjoyed LoD (though I only got to disk 3), but to each their own. It was definitely not for the faint of heart.

I still say FF6, just because FF7 can be VERY confusing if you don't know what you're doing, and the only parts I got stuck on in FF6 were on the island and getting to ZoZo the first time around.

to tell you the truth, I played all the way through FF7 on my first attempt.. it took me 3 tries to get into FF8 and then finally beat it.. there was no real driving force that made me WANT to beat it.. atleast not as much as there was in 7... they REALLY make you hate the bad guys in FF7... which makes you want to keep playing

Start with the first, duh! God I remember when we got that game when it came out... Problem was my brother bought it and there was only one save slot, so I didn't get to play it for a while... And I was so young at the time that, well, I gave up on it pretty early. Few years later though I finally got around to beating it.

But really, is there any question?

[QUOTE=Vincent Valentine]9[/QUOTE]

Ironic...

I would have to say 7.

Alright, so while I wait for FF6 to come out on GBA this fall (I'm too lazy to get an emulator up and running) should I go with FF7 or FF8 to get me into the series? I don't want something overwhelming, that'll immediately turn me off.

FF9 isn't too bad for starters. Probably the easiest of the three, except MAYBE osma (I still found him easy...)

Don't need to wait for the GBA version. It was released for Playstation with 5 as Final Fantasy Anthology.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00002R28C/103-1369066-1891824?v=glance&n=468642

FF7, because I still go back and play it sometimes when I'm bored. There's just so much to do and explore, it really doesn't end.

There's the Ultimate Weapons to fight, the Gold Chocobo to breed, all the limit breaks and weapons to find, all the secret materia to find...It's just a great game, and it's so memorable too.

ff8 is what consumed my teenage-hood into the final fantasy series. great game.