I had to go with XIV on this one. The sheer breath of music in the game is incredible. It in fact holds the world record for most pieces of a original music in a video game and that was before the latest expansion. A lot of it is also so SO good. Also the crystal tower raid series remixes of III tracks are amazing. III's soundtrack is a contender for sure.

X is my runner up. Third is probably VIII despite it being one of my least favorite games in the series it has hot bangers in there.

Final Fantasy 8, liberi fatali, blue fields, don't be afraid, man with a machine gun, the oath, fisherman's horizon - to name only a few. There are so many amazing tracks on that album. A close second would have to FF 15, it has some epic music.

FFVIII, hands down.

"The Man with the Machine gun" & "Shuffle or Boogie" are most people's go-to's, but damn near every track in that game is fan-fucking-tastic.

Though I've enjoyed every Final Fantasy i've played's soundtrack. FF15 had some surprisingly great original tracks. and then there's the "BEST" FF music thing...

(I unironically love this song)

The VIII love is interesting.

I remember Man With the Machine Gun which is definitely a classic but then it's a big void of the card game theme and ominous latin.

There are tons of great ones (including the older entries, I'm not really sure why you'd write those off so easily) but personally XIII is probably the standout. It's odd, because it feels like the point where they stepped a little further away from the traditional "sound" of Final Fantasy at times, but that battle music is absolutely phenomenal. I have a ton of love for the soundtracks of XIV and X as well, so they'd come in a close second and third. But I could listen to just about any music from the series and have a good time.

It's very extremely unquestionably XIV. For silly reasons it's an unpopular opinion and I get that, nostalgia is a powerful force, but Soken's music has completely surpassed Uematsu's scores imo.

It's also a lot of fun when XIV takes a moment to just get real weird.

Gotta just love the music from FF11 Online!

@enderz: It's True.

This second one is the theme of someone dragging an incredibly ornery Crab into a corner where 5 other people are huddling for safety.

X is the one that speaks to my heart. I mean, even if it was just "To Zanarkand" that would still be my pick.

The obvious answer to me is 14.

Even if IX is not the best, I think it is the most underrated.

The only FF game I have played is Final Fantasy Adventure for the Gameboy, and that isn't even really a Final Fantasy game. But I did play Final Fantasy Theatrhythm: Curtain Call for the 3DS and that has most of the songs from the entire franchise in it. VI is my favorite just based on that.

If you like rhythm games at all, check out Theatrhythm.

Fascinated by the love for XIV, but then I never played it.

Am torn myself. I played FFVI - FFXII, but dDon't rightly have a favorite soundtrack. I find standout themes or tracks in every game, but rarely does a game's entire musical catalogue sweep me of my feet. So I'll leave with one of few pieces that genuinely gave me goosebumps. If I remember correctly it doesn't recur, other than the specific early part of the game it's played.

This is the one, the only place where Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles get to be on a list in a positive way.
It has a moving soundtrack with stellar instrumentation and the main score is easily my favorite of the entire series.

With CC as a clear number one, FFVI slides into second and then VIII and IX battle it out at third.

Type-0 remains my choice of FF game I wish were more deserving of its music.

Is this the "FFXIV music appreciation thread" yet? No? Let's fix that shall we? It's difficult to express just how varied of a sound track this game has, and how high of a bar Soken's music sets. From slow moving emotional tracks to full orchestral themes. From Saturday morning cartoon music to whatever Papaya is.

And hey if you miss that old business from Uematsu don't worry he's around to bring it for XIV too.

Although it's not my favourite Final Fantasy (IX is), there's a few tracks from FFVIII that make my heart feel a very weird pain.

But also, hard to forget this monster:

You can pick and choose individual tracks that stand out from any game in the series, but in terms of the overall quality level of the entire game OST, it's FFX, no contest.

I played the gba version of FFVI probably 10 years ago, and I still instantly remember songs from that game when I hear them. It's just incredible.

@vikingdeath1: Crazy Chocobo singlehandedly made me grit my teeth and finish XIII-2, a game which I was otherwise not enjoying at all. I was like "this song is so hilariously good, I now owe it to this game to see it to the end."

I don't remember the various FF soundtracks well enough to pick a favorite, but I will say that my favorite FF song, even though it's a bit of a cheat because it's not actually in a game, is the Black Mages version of the boss fight music from FFVII. This my personal most effective pump-up song i.e. my "Eye of the Tiger". Feel like I can do anything after listening to it.

For me VI is the best overall sound track is the best, but “Battle on the Big Bridge” (or Gilgamesh’s the,e if you prefer) from V is the best track in the series.

Side note, if you ever get a chance to go to a Distant Worlds concert, go for it, a fantastic show and a great atmosphere (aside from the cringeworthy amount of cheers anytime a VII song is played).

6 has the best everything.

It's funny, I only relatively recently played through Valkyria Chronicles for the first time, but as soon as it went into the intro movie I was like "That sounds familiar...".

I won't vote as I couldn't claim an encyclopedic knowledge of the soundtracks, but of the ones I have played (7, 9, 10 & 12), 12 is the one that I'm most likely to go out of my way to listen to.

This is like the Beethoven for Snes JRPG's

XI is far and away better than anything Uematsu has done but the general gaming public tends to forget that game ever existed. If we're talking specifically Nobuo Uematsu joints then I vote VIII.

Seriously though, Uematsu is a charming composer but he really doesn't compare to the greats who worked at Squaresoft/Enix.

final fantasy music has always seemed so generic and boring. not a fan.

I love IV, VI VII and X's soundtracks and generally all of Uematsu's work on the series. They've done good work without him but it'll never be as memorable.

I'm gonna go with IV because I see it as the series first shining beacon of greatness I guess. Did you know they remade that 16 bit game in 8 bit? I feel like the soundtrack passes some sort of test for sounding great after that whole conversion process.

Here are some of my top picks

Troia https://youtu.be/0DBpxDPDe48

Main Theme https://youtu.be/D_BdMOBqcJk

4 Archfiends https://youtu.be/1s1lxHq8zPk

Cave Music https://youtu.be/zYOIQatsN0Y

Ordeals https://youtu.be/F1HV-8CdjzU

Red Wings/Opening Music https://youtu.be/H-W8b4DOofg

Theme of Upset https://youtu.be/j4kDPlqq6pI

Giant of BABIL https://youtu.be/j0d_Q3uLrSo

Not my favorite overall but I do want to give a shoutout to the rendition of Stand By Me in FF15. Was a really inspired choice and a high quality track in its own right.

@geirr: FFCC is good!

For me, it's gotta be FFIX. Too many strong tracks that, importantly, I can listen to and enjoy outside of the game itself. Too many entries in FF have great music that I can only enjoy listening to while playing the game. FFCC has my second favorite OST for that reason, but XV rounds out the top three for having incredible music that I just don't like listening to during my day-to-day (except for Somnus). That's a problem I have with Yoko Shimomura in general, though: great music, not great idle music for me.

I've only played FFXIV and FFIII (I can't point out any memorable songs from it, but I also have bad hearing & was playing with low volume)...

A lot of the music in FFXIV's expansions were (final) fantastic, though! Anything but the mount theme music.

I'm a fan of the ost from 9 but I know I'm a minority here. Granted I like most of the other ones too.

I want to say 7 or 13-3, but it's 8.