I'm a 24-year-old male and a huge fan of Final Fantasy as a whole. While I don't claim to know all of the numbers and stats of every game, I consider myself knowledgeable about the lore. Final Fantasy has never ceased to amaze me with its cross-references and bits of trivia, which I live for.
I can say that I have played every English version of every Final Fantasy game multiple times over unless they are relatively new (save for the gameboy games that evolved into the Mana series). I have played Final Fantasy XI since late 2004 and am both a White Mage and a Puppetmaster. I have also played Final Fantasy XIV since launch (except for a 10-month break ending just after update 1.18). On XIV I consider myself a crafter first and a combatant second. I am the proud owner of the Axe of the Luminary, which requires 21960 gathering attempts to earn.
I feel that the series is losing much of its popularity due to a few changes in themes. One is the more recent protagonists' lack of any baffling identity crises beginning in Final Fantasy XII. This theme is present in the more popular titles beginning with Final Fantasy VI and carried over until Final Fantasy X.
Another evolution leading to the series' current recession is, to me, the use of artificial intelligence for the player's party. While it is neat and inevitably faster for a battle to be run automatically, the lack of any direct action on the player's part makes it difficult for the player to assume the identity of their party members. The most imersive battle system of the main offline titles, to me, is in Final Fantasy VIII, which featured the gunblade trigger control.
Oddly, both of these themes are at their peak in games made between the transfer to Sony consoles and Square's merger with Enix. I don't know that I can blame Enix for the decline of the series, as the technological capabilities of the games were drastically improving around the time of the merger. All the same, I feel that there are very few games coming out in recent years to show any semblance of how it feels to play the older games..
I find it is very difficult for me to find a favorite title in the series, so excluding online games, here are my picks based on platform:
NES: Final Fantasy II - The first game to not have anonymous party members, and also the first game to use proficiency levels as opposed to main levels.
SNES: Final Fantasy IV - he first game I played to its end, and a game with a refreshing lack of heavy customization options. this makes an excellent choice for a first-time FF player.
PSX: Final Fantasy IX - While I really love VIII, and I agree VII is a good game, IX is everything good about the old and the new, with tons of cross-references for me to play with.
PS2: Final Fantasy X - Exaggerated though they may be, the characters are far more colorful and memorable than those in XII. Also, X-2 is good for what it is, even if it doesn't live up to X's legacy.
PS3: So far, Final Fantasy XIII-2. Versus XIII has yet to see a release date, let alone be released for me to play, but I expect it to be amazing.
PSP: Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy - Making cinematic replays is something of a hobby for me. I even started writing a narrative :)
History: <sefirosu>; at birth knowing other mako gene clones of sephiroth known as sephiro and seferoji born of genofa made file and reports,certificates as his children with his own mother or women cyon possibly named yuika from mideel worked at the weapon shop dealing with soldier and
the cold war his other two seiyon/cyon anceint kind grew very strong lql's of
60'70s very powerful potential not effected by damage or very much maggi/ spells or skills immune/nullified by jus eferything while sephiroth delt similiar strens lqls 50s as their projtion and work heirosakishyma and the Mnt Niber mako inducting reactor genefa process as with a shinra worke kebuto kun and yune fukushyda noreiga study the to others seferoji , sephiro the to girls seem to take as ey signifcant other due to the famiine power an wealth studying was infamir virtue an power with the kept of the anceint an cetra knowqing more of the cyon genofa thet they had known of their exist as they study grew sephiroth seem to dissapear due kloud and zahkerye tempts to stop the shinra soldeir sephiroth as seem to dissapeade in a reactor core mako indusion
vaspor kloud injury heals along with zahk's throung mako tanks back at the shinra reactor shinra's study an knowledge of the other cyon of sephiroth was
unominuos
, as the familiarty grew with projtion file s reports of the two while kloud an zahk were on their to neyo zidgar 347 yeras before the making of the coming with zeo stigma incident of the genofa stem zells with mako poisoning they bagan 2become
missing seferoji as well as sephiro hadn't seem to be ey known absence of were they be said to be the drakoniak land near zehemith had come along from or so near a cofe mytheria, snake rifer with mount nyotai 146 miles from mideel other whyte plains sygaion grasslands iszles ... ; , as the n, wotei warriors groups gengs heard the research teir
seek and council for sephiro seferoji with their other aquintnnze klyde, yorey, yossoft, o'miya' syraioj and riyria, uzzieh yuika yakoza, kayura, feye, keichi, noah, shen and two beasts rej xvii, szenjo the similiar of red xiii and second taming and kind of known as rej' xvii as well as szenjo
ey group ,company klan known of the shengtzsu kension shengjyon shogun shengsu; known as kawanori wonzsei , dealing, working with the number sefen and four
koshimon style keade and kession
the gruop and klan seem on relasion an realtors with mideel , wotei , jyunnon , glaciers near sector working their territories as with their wey to neyo zidgar
known as kawanori wonzsei with koshimon shrine kazuya koshimon keade of the izzaiori villiages near mount nyotai, whyte plains and snake rifer with town kalled shonnen working with ey woman known nilia koji from sontei sarjoshla
with shinra an other known studies of abyssinian exist of kind kreature ghouls monsters draggons serpeionts zolon an so forth the klan groups grew strong with wealth knowledge strength health with their town of their korinthyon, skondonfaion seiyonmese xzikano naturality history with sokoreijtzsu and shogun shen thet of their streng
lifestyle an lifing they became a force unmagined or spoke of they exist wos known feirly after as well before avalanche had begun their branch an rebel allegianzes toward shinra they had branched out without the planet
forlorn the koshimon shogen klans an groups had begun around the naturals of other personifis h'nong ... to be continued thoruogh other confidential files an reports with shinra an znx
kotsuchiro-nori k, yoshijtzsusheiqo-u'chiyoma R , 3047
0 47-3 7056-37 4-607 M, Mtzsushyma Mtzsofskji , R /shinra research 63rd floor , shinra 2nd klss soldier;
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