by mento
Hey Choco-bros and Moo-gals to a list celebrating the 35th anniversary of what was famously Squaresoft's last-ditch effort to keep Sakaguchi and co. from knifing strangers for cash like a pack of destitute Tonberries. After saving the company (or at least giving it a stay of execution for a few decades before it got really into NFTs for some reason) Final Fantasy has gone on to enjoy many sequels and spin-offs and even if playing thirty-five games from the same franchise sounds like an absurd number it just so happens to be the exact amount that I've spent any considerable time with. Hell, and these are just some of the ones that got localized.
For each game I've attempted to narrow down what it was they introduced to the franchise or otherwise did to set themselves apart, followed by whatever memories I could pull from the ongoing degradation of my mental faculties. (I'm just kidding around! I'm still as sharp as a... uh, one of those umm... hmmmm... oh. Oh no.)
The plan, though not one I'm particularly committed to, is to keep updating this list with another Final Fantasy game each time the anniversary rolls around. Future candidates include the promising Final Fantasy XVI and the latest in the always reliable rhythm series Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line. (There's a few other older possibilities too, such as Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates or, sigh, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII.)
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December 1987 Significant For: Starting the whole shebang. A Mento Memory Memento: I got here late, playing the Dawn of Souls remake for GBA, but I guess what sticks out most is that Final Fantasy was still in the mindset of being a Wizardry pastiche with an entirely player-created party of no-name jobbers. The franchise would eventually return to voiceless cipher characters but not for many, many more years.
December 1988 Significant For: Heavier characterization and a level-up system based on actions performed rather than arbitrary XP milestones. A Mento Memory Memento: It's the game where you smack yourselves in the shins for hours to increase your defense. This was also the closest the series got to a graphic adventure game, using keywords to further conversations and finding smart ways around fighting unbeatable odds. It's the only mainline non-MMO FF I couldn't bring myself to finish but maybe I'll give it another whack someday. My shin, I mean.
December 1989 Significant For: Starting the divisive SaGa franchise. A Mento Memory Memento: Not technically a Final Fantasy game but was branded as one overseas so I'm counting it. I appreciated that they got weird with the first GB spin-off: your party consisted of mutants, robots, and monsters along with humans and each race had a different development system for character growth. SaGa wouldn't get any less strange from there either, though I'd argue it didn't get any more playable either.
April 1990 Significant For: The Job system. A Mento Memory Memento: This is another one I played after the fact, with the much more accommodating 3D remake for DS. Having those versatile class-switching mechanics was such a coup for the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole for the many different ways you could tackle the game's encounters but having to constantly switch over to the right mage class to shrink everyone to access certain towns and dungeons really got old.
June 1991 Significant For: Starting the less-divisive Mana franchise. A Mento Memory Memento: Also technically not a Final Fantasy but also was branded one overseas so I'm also counting it, also. Seiken Densetsu 1, or Secret of Mana 0, or Trials of Mana -1, was a pretty deep action-RPG kinda doing the Zelda exploration and dungeon puzzles thing on top of that. It was an impressive package for a GB game. Thankfully, you no longer need to stare at a tiny lime screen to play it these days: it's part of that recent Mana compilation.
July 1991 Significant For: Considerably more confident story-telling and characterization. Moon shit. A Mento Memory Memento: This was the first FF I really fell in love with, if not the first SNES RPG I played, and I recall getting floored by the dramatic deaths of certain characters throughout the story. I also remember adoring its soundtrack: a common strength in FF games to come. I also want to say that III had summons but IV was when they started personalizing them all, with you having to negotiate with them for help.
October 1992 Significant For: Being the first FF game built specifically for westerners. Dumb westerners. A Mento Memory Memento: My actual first Final Fantasy game, as it was the first to be released in Europe. Very simple genre-onboarding type that had a bunch of ways to cheese it if you were really impatient. Presentation was still good though—the silly monster designs really lent the game the lion's share of its easygoing personality—and I'll go to my grave saying it has the best soundtrack of any SNES Final Fantasy.
December 1992 Significant For: The Job system. Only better now. A Mento Memory Memento: Like the rest of the western world at the time, I only encountered this one thanks to a booming emulation and fan-translation scene. The stories are becoming a little more out-there now—Alternative dimensions? Werewolves? Evil tree gods?—but that's part of this game's off-beat charm. These days the game is regularly run as part of a charity event that randomizes which jobs you're able to use, so it has a remarkable shelf life for a game Square didn't originally bother to localize.
April 1994 Significant For: The ambition of its scope and that mid-game twist. A Mento Memory Memento: It took three attempts to finally beat VI because each time I underestimated just how massive this game is, and how it turns into this big open-world thing with lots of threads to pursue after the mid-point. They really stretched what the SNES could handle to its absolute limits. A 16-bit technical showcase in addition to being one of the best FF narratives (and ensembles) in the series. I also vividly recall spending way too long learning new monster techniques with Gau in the Veldt and then barely using any of them.
January 1997 Significant For: The jump to 3D and finding mainstream appeal, if only temporarily. A Mento Memory Memento: It took a while for me to get into Sony's ecosystem, so I first played this on PC instead. I don't recall the keyboard and mouse control scheme to be the most intuitive thing ever conceived but the game carried this popular mystique around it at the time that really made you want to play it and take copious notes about the lore. They weren't kidding about it taking things to the next level: it did for console RPGs what Super Mario 64 did for platformers.
