It's hard for me to pick. It's between VI and VII. I'm one of the rare few in this group who started with FFI on the NES. FF II (US, IV JP) really got me hook to the series and FFIII US (VI JP) blew my mind as far as how the story goes. FFVII was such a leap in terms of graphics & gamplay as far as using materia for magic & other things you would normally get depending on what character you had but then each character had special abilities that grow with you. Then you had great cut scenes. At the time, the move for an RPG to go 3D was huge. I think the only other game I played at the time that was 3D was Wild Arms...that game came out before FFVII and FFVII did a better job (if that was even possible) with their 3D models. So that made the game even look better. Now FFVII aged horrendously IMO. FVIII still looks pretty good even though it's a PS1 game. I think more than anything, I would love to see a FFVII remake in any form except for phones, is because it's long over due to have some decent graphics for such a great game.
The great debate of whether FFVII is better than FFVIII. They're both great games. What drew me in more towards FFVII probably was it's crazy story line. The first play through I didn't really know what was going on...but I knew a few things, Cloud was one of my favorite characters & two, hunting down Sephiroth was fun as hell. What an adventure. The story itself wasn't mind blowing but it was interesting enough because there was such a mystery involving characters & relationships. I had to get to the end to find everything out. I really liked the combat...it was traditional with enough change to make it feel fresh. And Sephiroth was the perfect villian. You wanted to kill him because of all the horrible stuff he did and yet as the game got further along & you put more of the pieces together, you kind of understood why he did what he did. Never was a villian so complex. Kefka of FFIII was also a villian who made you want to hunt him down but he wasn't as complex as Sephiroth. Kefka was just straight power hungry & crazy. You can almost sympathize with Sephiroth because he started off a good guy. Then you find out what drove him mad. FFVII had so many elements that made it a great game.
When FFVIII came out, I loved the new artist direction of the game & the school of mercs vibe. How you had to fight the GF to earn them. I'll be the first to admit that I was one of those people who was not a big fan of the draw concept as I felt it disrupted the flow of combat. I also was very adaptive to the junction concept. I use to put whatever where ever. My second play through, I was much more aware of this fact. I was on the fence with the fact that monsters would level with you. It was cool that I didn't have to grind but then that also ment I wasn't going to overpower monsters unless I found the right items to put on the right statistic. The story was good but never grabbed me like previous FF games, I never cared about the villian in this game. The rivary with Seifer was much more interesting to me. The cast was hit or miss with me. Though the cast of FFVII was the same. But I liked the cast of FFVII better just because of how mix match they were. You had a variation of different backgrounds. But nobody beat the cast or variation of FFVI. I never gave FFVIII the proper attention I usually give FF games on the second play through. I kind of rush through it the second time also. But I do have it on my computer & bought it off the PSN so I'll definitely be getting back to it. Now that I'm a seasoned RPG vet, I can better understand & appreciate the game. Or maybe I'll like it less. We'll see.
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