That's it, we're ranking Final Fantasy games

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(originally streamed on Dec 28 2022)
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[@taylormerrell8510]

2:44 "How are we doing everybody?" 20:53 Tier list is brought up 25:34 FF1 29:29 FF2 33:14 FF3 35:22 FF4 36:48 FF5 39:40 FF6 45:14 FF7 49:22 FF8 52:35 FF9 55:55 FF10 59:48 FF10-2 1:03:01 FF11 1:06:35 FF12 1:10:40 FF13 1:17:14 FF13-2 1:21:18 FF13-3 1:26:09 FF14 1:29:38 FF15

[@keymo9480]

This helps sooooo much. Thank you!

[@deanospimoniful]

The opera sequence does a lot to develop Locke and Celes's relationship. It's not inconsequential.

[@hadriennogueira3726]

2:41 Dan

[@enistoja]

A reason to put 6 in S tier is that you can suplex a train. The intro is superb, music is grand, lots of humour, but really any game that lets you suplex a train gets an automatic three tiers added for sheer moxie

[@einootspork]

S for Suplex

[@sofer2230]

This was the most controversial content I've ever seen from the Floyds. I'm living for all the hot takes.

[@withbravado1548]

I absolutely adore your channel. Thanks for making such nice videos for me and my family to watch together

[@Soumein]

I will give credit to 13's linearity: the story kept reminding us about our inevitable fate to destroy Cocoon, so hallways and lack of choice help align that thematic. I just kept feeling like a rugpull was coming any second now, and it never happened. But that's on me and my expectations, not necessarily the game's fault. Code White!

[@Ahrpigi]

I first played the original NES Final Fantasy around '94, and didn't get to play any other Final Fantasy until 9. It was *wild* seeing the progression, the remaining similarities, and all the little nods and Easter eggs to past entries and FF1 specifically!

[@Hazelduff]

Downright headbanging my nods to this list! While I *do* appreciate different perspectives and have found criticisms of my own fave FFs to be fair, it *is* still nice to see people rank and overall feel same about the franchise like I do, at least the ones I've played.

[@Furitaurus]

FF4 is great, one of my favourites. People talk about one winged angel being the best FF villain song, but I tell you what Golbez's theme is wonderfully over the top vilainous despite being a very simple song.

[@kristophergathercoal5044]

I just beat X-2 today and totally agree. I had no idea i would like this game because it looked so silly but, I loved it. Was it silly and girly? Yup. Was it awesome? Also yup. And the combat system was one of the best FF combat systems and I also found it quite challenging, even if the story was mostly side quests lol

[@deanospimoniful]

Don't do it, Dan. You'll make people mad.

[@rmsgrey]

Some thoughts: I haven't really played anything before VII (okay, that's not technically true - I've played III, VI up to the final dungeon, and bits of the other four, but I remember pretty much nothing from any of them - VII onward are where I've replayed enough or recently enough to have opinions) nor the MMOs. For VIII, while not inventing Junction Machine Ellone might bypass the plot, it would also create a grandfather paradox, and who knows what that would do to the timeline. As the story stands, you have a single consistent timeline, with Laguna, Kiros and Ward bumbling through adventures with occasional assists from the future, culminating in Squall's conception, and Laguna finding himself overthrowing Adel and becoming ruler of Esthar. Then future Squall arrives at the Orphanage, where he gives Matron Edea the idea for Garden and SeeD, and Ultimecia passes her powers to Edea, then the main events of the game's present happen, then, in the far future, the party arrives, defeats Ultimecia, and returns to the present. People in the comments mentioned both my main problems with X's systems - the Sphere Grid is just too fiddly to control, and would have been significantly improved if you could pre-commit to a planned path (spending spheres in advance) that your characters would then follow as they gained SP - potentially altering the plan (refunding unused spheres) any time you can access the menu. Failing that, removing the backtrack cost would reduce the pressure to plan ahead. Meanwhile, the experience system requiring characters to actually take a turn in combat just makes grinding more annoying since, rather than finishing an encounter in one or two attacks, you have seven turns of passing and swapping characters around before one or two attacks... Personally, I would rank X-2 above X - it's just that much more fun to play, and the New Game Plus means that grinding for post-game content combines naturally with replaying the story and exploring different branches rather than being stuck in the post-game wilderness with nothing to do except grinding. It also offers a lot more freedom rather than taking you along a prescribed path with minimal side content - 90% of the game is side content, with relatively few story missions, and it's up to you, particularly once you're into NGP, how much beside the main quest you play. For me, while XII does a lot right - the gambit system demonstrating what has been clear for ages in the series: that battles are mostly won in the menus beforehand rather than in actually making decisions in combat - the difference between having memory cursor turned on in the settings and tapping X repeatedly and letting gambits play themselves out is pretty minimal - it involves the exact same level of in-combat decision making, and only marginally different physical dexterity. While it does a lot right, the story gets bogged down toward the end, with the Great Crystal and Pharos being just a slog to get through; there's a lack of side-content; and the randomised chests just mean you can't even rely on a guide to optimise your route. I'd be tempted to drop it to B tier, mostly for the amount the late game drags and how checked out I was toward the end of the story. Personally, I'd put XIII-2 over XIII and LR - it doesn't have XIII's problem of the entire game being the tutorial for the post-game content, the maps are more interesting than XIII's linear corridors with different skyboxes, and gives you a lot more freedom to revisit previous locations even if progress is still mostly "get through this area then get dumped into an apparently unconnected new area via cutscene". Meanwhile, LR just doesn't come together for me. XV, I mostly agree with Dan - it starts strong, then fizzles. I've got very little interest in replaying it, and would personally put it behind XII and X-2.

[@NojhLivic]

Yay! Finally someone else who also read the codex of FF13 while playing. I too was amazed at how much the localization of the cut-scenes missed the mark on what the story was trying to convey. I also agree with you about Hope. If you take Hope's character purely from the cut-scenes, he's incredibly annoying and acts irrationally. The codex gives you some of us inner motivations that don't show in the cut-scene, which humanizes him much more.

[@Null9797]

Still haven't played Dwarf Fortress, but I do take pride in having beaten Ancient Domains of Mystery in Ascii mode.

[@Tyler-sy7jo]

Brother as a character in X-2 is one that when I originally played X-2 I found was funny/endearing. I was in junior high at the time. When I later went back as an adult, I realized "Wow yeah this guy's just one big pile of problematic behaviour attempting to be greenlit as humour." As a result, yes. Brother is a really terrible character and that he never really gets addressed outside of "Oh that's just Brother being Brother lol" is a problem. And this is in the same game that gave us Wakka who started out being incredibly bigoted and very racist... Then as the game went on had it shoved in his face how not okay his thinking was and he grew from that. Brother didn't have that moment. Ends the game being just as much of a creep as he started. Basically he's just a couple rungs short of the "perverted old man" trope that Japan seems to still insist is high class humour.

[@Sientir]

I've played a good chunk of FF13, and the battle system never clicked for me. It just felt like it would rather have been Kingdom Heart's battle system. XD I did like FF13's world building, though, at least what I saw of it. I've not really played many FF games, though. Just some amount of 13, Tactics Advanced, and Crystal Chronicles. I haven't beaten any of them.

[@radlee13]

Clearly FF2 is the best game ever made as it rewards you for playing the entire game with only 2 shield equipped. No I haven't go mad from brawling in front of goblins for 10 hours to try overcome the difficulty curve

[@letfireraindown]

When you said 13³ ended on earth I was expecting it to zoom down to Japan and Tokyo and Akiba specifically and show an idol concert

[@fishor6527]

my top 2 are 12 then x-2 but then id put 13-2 as an A with 13 just behind it - id put 13-3 as D - shocked that we were so different on that era

[@supinearcanum]

The totally objective Sonic judge says that, "The Best Final Fantasy game is in fact, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. I will be taking no notes on this obviously true fact." XD

[@Lukz243]

There were some interesting takes regarding the FF13 trilogy And I feel weird that FF12 didn't click with me whilst it clicked with so many people, perhaps I should retry As for the tier list, great tier list, even though I disagree a thing or two

[@TJ-vo3rv]

I've tried playing 12 so many times. People keep telling me how great it is, but something about its just doesn't vibe with me. Something about how much it feels like a single-player MMO, perhaps.

[@megabyte01]

Sonic tier list, or is it too soon?

[@Zahnzak]

I'd put 8 up in A, but I admit that's nostalgia talking, it was my first Final Fantasy game.

[@Ahrpigi]

I'm that way with FF1, I love it but it's nooot a good game anymore.

[@NaramSinofAkkad790]

I love final fantasy 1 the most out of any of the 8bit games just for the world alone. I love traveling the ff1 world so much and the slow unveiling of that world as you upgrade your traversal options is just so well done. Obviously never play the nes original. (my preference is for the GBA remake.)

[@Ahrpigi]

To me there's still something special about the extra chunky pixels and harsh edge on the sounds and music of the NES original. It's rough to play though.

[@Namevah]

I had fun playing through the GBA version of Final Fantasy II, but I assume that Square made a lot of little changes to increase its user-friendliness. I can't imagine how obnoxious that the original version played, although I'd probably say that about I and III, as well. Anyway, I enjoyed Final Fantasy II on GBA enough to look into the SaGa series, so there's that.

[@zane0144]

A big fan of you and FF. But when you said the game with the best job system isn't customizable it hurt so much.

[@sbsanan95]

Sonic games tier list next?

[@JM-nothing-more]

Revenant Wings had the issue of being a sequel that ran with the most boring members of the original party, Vaan and Penelo

[@lordgohan5907]

OG Ff12 is my favorite ff. My only problem with ff12 zodiac age is it wasn't balanced for the new battle system so it becomes too easy over time. Bosses that were challenging in the OG I killed in 2 or 3 hits. Yes hits. The only challenging parts are if the enemy uses magic since there's no holding delay between characters casting so they can all just cast instantly at once.

[@pyrosianheir]

4 was my first final fantasy game and the one that I've come the second closest to finishing. (actually finished 15, was on the final dungeon of 4, got to right before putting Cloud back together in 7 back before the Remake came out) Between it, and Fire Emblem, and Pokemon, and each having been built on the notion of defined roles for the characters, I've just... never gotten on with Job systems. Characters stats, and whether they're a caster or not, and so on, to me, should be dictated by who they are. And as I've gotten more into TTRPGs where some of the best characters have their reasoning for the class baked into their backstory, I've just become more set in my ways in that regard. If I'd had more exposure to job systems in my younger years I'm sure I'd be more okay with them, but as is? Not so much. Edit: And then, of course, 4 also had one of the biggest active party sizes, with 5, but then the rest only have like... 3, maybe 4, and I just.... lemme use more of my guys man! Like Dan was saying, it's such a small active party size. Like, even if I can't use everyone, which is understandable, at least lemme use like... well, 5. It just feels better.

[@andrewgrant6516]

What about Final Fantasy Mystic Quest?

[@Edranair1]

I would've bumped XIII up to the bottom of B tier, purely because Sazh's character while he's on his adventure with Vanille is really solid and I love the man that he is for that section - the tired dad who just wants to get back to his son and adopts Vanille in the meantime - plus his scene before his Eidolon fightis one of my favourite scenes in all of FF. Too bad the rest of the game is so bad 😅

[@NaramSinofAkkad790]

Ah yes X-2. My very first final fantasy game.

[@supinearcanum]

Lol if you did a Sonic Tier list based on pain, you'll just end up with 06 at the top and then probably descend backward to like, the Genesis options, with Generations probably being the least painful of the later options likely XD.

[@SuperPaperPokemon]

I wish they did another game in the world of XIII. The games were apparently awful, but the larger lore was apparently rad as flip.

[@ericfredette7406]

Trying to collect all of the X in FFXIV is a task and a half. So if you want to rank the music I recommend looking it up rather than collecting

[@Egeslean]

From 6 onward it seems I differ from Dan quite a bit. 7 is high A (held back by some issues) 8 is high D tier 9 is A, right behind Tactics 10 is B tier 10-2 is C tier, the only thing good about it was the combat 12 is behind 7 for me 13, 13-2, and 13-3 are all D tier for me, below 8 15 is easily low C, bad characters, bad gameplay, poor story, missing story that needs to be found OUTSIDE the game 7R is simply low C, don't care for the combat (magic/items limited, hack and slash crap), it's not a REMAKE IT'S A REIMAGINED GAME AT BEST/SEQUEL! It pads out the time sooooo much it makes it bad, has no weight to the story, it's being made in a way to try and milk people and they can't even give a decent timeline for when the various parts will come out. It's all but trash. If it wasn't a 'remake' of another game, it could have been good, but being a 'remake' of an old game (thus being connected to it) makes it bad to me. Tactics would be solid A right behind 7.

[@lordgohan5907]

I agree with this list

[@ExtrumComics]

I rank FFII as rank S.

[@Ahrpigi]

Might be an unpopular opinion, but the way you described FF11 really makes me think about Elden Ring.

[@DeathStraw]

FF9 ❤

[@leoramidox]

FF7-RE?

[@andrewgrant6516]

I thought 6 was the same game as 3?

[@keymo9480]

12 just was not my cup of tea at all. I loathe it.

[@thunderthebright8469]

The problem with FF XIII as a whole is that it's poorly explained. The combat system in 1 and 2 has a lot more depth that the game doesn't tell you: the game does encourage you to input your own commands but doesn't really tell you there's a way to repeat your last inputted string; ATB refreshes when switching through paradigms; If you really wanna game the system, knowing what your fellow buffers/debuffers will do lets you diversify what you do. But the game doesn't push you to do this and doesn't even tell you what you can do. I love XIII, but I understand it's not great. In my opinion, FF XII as a trilogy gets better in terms of gameplay and much worse in terms of story as it goes on and I can live with it.

[@TimeFreeze]

It's VI! Are you all serious? It's VI! Oh gosh. Dan why do you do this to me?? Rhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa. VI is the best. It's VI.

[@Sphagnopsida]

💙

[@TJ-vo3rv]

I know tier lists are entirely subjective and so forth, but it feels weird to have only FF9 and 14 in S tier. My own feelings regarding those titles aside, surely at least one other game besides 14 is at least as good as 9, no?

[@wavesofbabies]

Too High: VII (C), IV (B) VI(B), I(D), III(D) Too Low: VIII(A), Tactics (S) But that's just nitpicking. Good list overall.

[@dinotech3416]

Holy shit there’s another person who doesn’t like 7… what’s your take on 7 I’m intrigued haha

[@wavesofbabies]

@@dinotech3416 I think my #1 complaint of the game is it meanders sooo much. Like I know all FF games do before it, but it just feels so much worse in VII for whatever reason. Just so much extra fat that doesn't serve character growth, plot development, or even really world building. People remember the good moments that stick out in the game. They don't remember the 10 hours of filler between those moments. Other than that it's just got the same problems I would say every ff game has before it: characters aren't fleshed out enough, it's localization is spotty, the writing doesn't land those big moments as well as it should... But now in a shell that is uglier than its 8 and 16 bit counterparts with a less charming, less magical ost.

[@adamtideman4953]

FF6 not ranked as the best Final Fantasy game? You've made a powerful enemy today, my friend. The next time you're on a train I'm gonna supplex it.

[@adamtideman4953]

And then I'm gonna do a Kefka laugh!

[@ioannisvihos8222]

It was great but it seems like its torturing you so please do not do more of these