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Loved Tactics. An amazing story line, with all the intrigue and death and such, it's what I think Shakespeare would have done if he was in charge of writing the story for such a game...

IX and VI were both great, becuase they have some excellent characters in them, ones that don't plumb the depths of angst from the get go (Cloud, for example).

Couldn't stand VIII. I think the whole lack of a major fantasy element in a game with the word Fantasy in the title turned me off. Also, note that VIII's main character, when he shows up in Kingdom Hearts, goes by a different name. I honestly believe he did so in order to distance himself from the game that was FF VIII, sort of a witness protection kind of deal.

About the only other FF game that really got me excited was IV. One of the better storylines, I felt, and a final boss fight worthy of being the final battle. I wasn't able to just waltz through it, unlike the ones with most of the others (another reason why I loooove Tactics... The final 20 or so battles were tough enough that I had to pull out every stop just to survive them. Fun stuff).

And this is why Tactics is such a great game... I played it through that way the first time, changing out the brave souls who had been with me from the get go with Orlandu and Agrias and the rest, but the second time? Kept the whole party the whole way. Kept away from calculator, and tried to give everyone one martial class with one magic class for backup. THAT was fun. Sure, white mages are tough, but a dragoon/alchemist never runs out of spell points, and can get around the map a bit faster, with more HPs to survive helping out the poor guy who's getting triple teamed. In other words, the game can be as challenging as you want to make it, I guess, which adds a ton to it's replay value. That, and the music. Great score to the whole thing.

Note that I mention Cloud as my number 1 dislike for being angsty. And while you had to do some leveling up with all the guys in 6, even the ones you wanted to just toss off the airship at a high altitude, the ones not in the party did gain half the exp of the ones you were currently using... much less of a hassle then drawing out 100 worth of a spell from an enemy in 8.

Now that I think about it, that's probably the reason why I hate 8 so much, and why it feels so non-fantasy to me. You don't cast spells the way you do in every other FF game, before and after, by spending spell points. Instead you have to draw them, from either set points on the map or from enemies. And THEN, you junction them with you GFs, which helped power up your characters. So, you could either cast the spells, and slowly weaken your team in the process, or you could not use them and keep in top shape. It felt like I was being encouraged to NOT cast spells, and that's what killed it for me.

To tell you the truth, I love VIII. The only problem I have with it (I've owned it since I was about five) is that it scares the crap out of me still. When I first got it, I got to Ragnarok. That's as far as I got for the next... I believe it was four years. It was those stupid things roaming the halls... I don't know why, but monsters chasing me didn't exactly make me feel comfortable going to bed by myself. But, after a while, I got to the point where I could play games up to about Silent Hill level without cringing, and I went back to it. Then it got frustrating because I couldn't figure out how to kill them. Those things caused me so much pain. And even before that, I hated where you had to rescue Rinoa in space. It took me FIFTEEN TRIES to get it done, and that was the last time I played.

Other than that, it's a great game. Myself, being the patient person I am, ALWAYS gets all the spells I can carry for my characters. Also, just something so I can brag, I beat Omega and Ultima Weapons both without using a single hero or holy war item. They were easy for me (maybe it was Eden and EVERY SINGLE RENZOZUKEN ENDING WITH LIONHEART that did it. I'll never know).

They make your characters invincible. Hero Drink for one, Holy War for everyone. And the Lionheart kicks a**. Next time you play the game, figure out how to get it as early as you can and ALWAYS keep Squall in the yellow. Use Aura if you can. It's so much fun to just make mincemeat out of thirty tonberries (My most hated nightmare) in just 45 minutes-1 hour. And about the items, I find that items are invaluable in FFVII. This may just be me, but using every other turn to cast healing spells, only to find you don't have enough MP when you really need it, and finding out that you don't have the item to take care of it, can screw you pretty bad. That's why I always keep a healthy stock of the latest healing items. And the status condition ones. God knows how many times Maiden Kiss has saved my life in that game.

Another thing about FFVIII. I don't know if I'm alone on this, but I LOVED the Boost feature that you use with your GF's. It just makes it feel almost as if you can control them.

I know! It was really sad to me (don't laugh, FF is pretty important to me), seeing as the thing had the wings of an angel, and all it was doing was protecting others. Then it just HAD to get killed.

I got FF III DS for Christmas, started playing it a couple days ago. Not bad, although I'm not terribly fond of how MP works, and the whole Mini thing was really frustrating. The job system is nice, though, although I'm dissappointed that blue mage isn't one of them.

I'm going to start from the beginning here. One, Sephiroth wasn't trying to destroy the planet, he was going to ABSORB it. In doing so, he would have gained the power to completely destroy (and/or absorb) the entire cosmos, given enough usages of this cycle. And also, Kuja was very easy for me, despite your claims that he was tough. I had a harder tmie with Bizzaro than him, and that's saying something. Necron was hard as hell for me, but other than that a pretty ok boss, though one that just happened to pop in randomly at the end, which I do NOT appreciate, especially in a really good story like IX's. Also, I liked the rest period at the end of X, one I figured was SORELY needed at some point. The final battle was one of SENTIMENT, not CHALLENGE. It was meant to represent Yuna throwing off the chains that bound Spira, but having to get rid of her best friends in the process. Does that make any sense to anyone?