I am also including X-2 in this entry. On its own I feel weird about ranking it against other entries and I think it's fine to be a package with a game I already consider my favourite game ever just generally

I best this game for the first time in 2022. I immediately started a new game and beat it again. It's been a long time since I've fallen so in love with a game the way I did with this one. If I had been more open to it when I was a kid, maybe it would beat X. But it's hard to say.

All time classic for a reason. The cultural perception of this game is very different from the reality of its writing and themes. I think Square has done its best to cheapen this game over the last 25 years. Still, it's just very good. It's not FF7's fault what came after it.

I am a strategy game sicko and the intersection of this with FF2 to 5 to Tactics as a progression of mechanics in Final Fantasy in the 90s is just candy to me. It's also just a good story.

Played this for the first time this year after being disgusted by FFXVI. While I fell for FF8 hard for Story reasons mostly, I fell for FF2 for mechanical reasons. It's very interesting and different from the rest of the series. I went and played some SaGa games after this and was delighted. This game is unfairly maligned to me and it has been harder than I expected for 3, 4, 5 and 6 to stack up after playing it.

This entry is tied with VI.

As far as hitting the fun things about Final Fantasy, XV knocks it out of the park. Charming characters, a story that is trying to hit broad ideas while retreading the themes FF has always kind of been on, incredible monster designs. Ideas! This game is fucking going for it in a way I can really appreciate it. It slips up here and there, and when I played it in the year it came out it did feel unfinished. Still, I am fond of it. I think if it wasn't so full of open world slop I am exhausted by very quickly it would be even higher on my list. We'll see when I get finished with it again.

This entry is tied with XV.

I went back and forth on it a bit as I made my way through it. By the end, I was very satisfied. I think their are too many characters in it and that dilutes the emotional weight of the story enough that it can't crack the top 5 for me. As a game? It's got a scope the last three games in the series just couldn't touch. You see very clearly how they got to 7 from here. Excellent game, turns out all the nerds ten years older than me were at least a little right about it.

Interesting game. Charming and the blueprint for the systems FF will spend the rest of its days circling and expanding and improving upon. It is extremely charming and I mostly enjoyed it. It's also just way too grindy and there isn't really any thematic substance. And the ending left me kind of meh.

This game sucks