Ranking of Final Fantasies + Introducing ATACS

First we ranked Super Mario. Then we ranked The Legend of Zelda. Now we're back, this time to rank the Final Fantasy games.

This was the trifecta of game series that we always wanted to rank, and ironically enough, Final Fantasy was the original inspiration. My brother set out on a personal quest a few years ago to play through all the main Final Fantasy games. I had completed that same quest a long time ago, so I said offhand that we should compare and rank all the Final Fantasy games once he was done. Once that idea gained some traction, we thought why not do some other franchises too? So we rounded up some like-minded friends, tackled Mario and Zelda while we waited, and when my brother capped off his run with Final Fantasy V earlier this year, we knew it was time. So this afternoon we came together and ranked all the main Final Fantasy games best to worst.

To cover some logistics, we only did the main, numbered, single player games. That is, Final Fantasies 1-15, minus the MMOs (so 13 games in all). Sure, we could have delved into the wild world of spinoffs and sequels and what have you, but that felt unnecessarily convoluted. Plus, not enough of us have played too many spinoffs, just the odd Tactics or Theatrhythm here and there. We decided to keep it pure and simple, which I think was for the best (for time purposes if nothing else). It's worth noting that there are story spoilers abound in this thing (not to mention some detailed gameplay talk). We got a lot deeper into some games than others (I'd say VI, VII, VIII, and X have the heaviest story spoilers), but pretty much every game has something we mentioned that could be considered at least a minor spoiler. While that's likely obvious when debating the Final Fantasy series, it's probably worth clarifying that yes, there be spoilers.

There were 5 of us on the panel, most of which were on our previous rankings: myself (they call me 'Flex' on the podcast... don't ask), my brother Nate, our host Paul, Ryan, and Stephanie (all longtime friends). The result was a roughly 4 hour melee to jockey in favor of the Final Fantasy games we did or did not like relative to the others. In all honestly, this one was relatively civil, despite some clear disagreements and the occasional heated moment. And more importantly, I think we all had fun with it :) I'll post the final ranking below, behind a spoiler tag. Listening to the arguments will make the list make a whole lot more sense, but I also don't begrudge anyone who doesn't have time to listen to a 4 hour podcast! It should also be said that, as with all of these lists, it often becomes a compromise. Nobody gets every game where they want it, but rather our opinions and preferences get melded into some sort of consensus list. As much as I try to fight for the "correct" ordering, it turns out people can be really stubborn about such things ;)

1. Final Fantasy VI
2. Final Fantasy VII
3. Final Fantasy VIII
4. Final Fantasy X
5. Final Fantasy V
6. Final Fantasy IV
7. Final Fantasy IX
8. Final Fantasy XII
9. Final Fantasy
10. Final Fantasy XV
11. Final Fantasy III
12. Final Fantasy II
13. Final Fantasy XIII

As for said podcast, you can listen to it in 2 ways, and as I explain these methods I also have our broader podcast to plug. Called 'ATACS' (which stands for 'Adults Talk About Cool Stuff'), these friends and I have been podcasting every other week for some months now (plus some other rotating cast members who didn't participate in the Final Fantasy discussion). Given that, we pulled our Ranking of Final Fantasies podcast into the ATACS fold, and it is listed with all the other episodes: regular episodes, our other rankings, and even a GOTY 2016 special we did. If you're interested, all of these (including this Final Fantasy discussion) can be found here:

1. Direct mp3 downloads here

2. YouTube playlist here

All future episodes and specials will go to those same locations as well, if you care to keep up in the future. Podcasting has been a lot of fun, both talking about video games and figuring out the technology to do it. I think we've gotten better at both over time- I think we're more natural talkers now, and I've worked a lot on our audio quality (occasional hiccups aside... we had one person with a poor connection at times in this FF discussion for example). We'll keep doing it too :)

Anyway, enough about that, I think that covers it. Thanks for reading/listening, and I hope you enjoy the list and/or podcast! Feel free to post your own Final Fantasy rankings thoughts, as I'm sure something on that list rubs you the wrong way :) Who knows if we'll do more rankings on the future; that's all we had planned... but I have other ideas I may try to convince people on. We'll see!