My Understanding of the Final Fantasy Series

Edit 2/27/2026: When I wrote this, I wasn't planning any FFII, FFIII, or FFV runs. I now am. But to add:

• Final Fantasy II: Nothi-- well wait, it adds a class or job system or something, right?
• Final Fantasy III: Nada
• Final Fantasy V: I heard it has a cool song called "battle on the big bridge" or something. That is all.

Now, back to your originally scheduled post.

So, my whole point of doing this is that I know very little about Final Fantasy as a series, because I have played very little of it and have definitely never finished one. So, here I'm going to record my general impressions/thoughts of the series and of each game. This way, once I get finished with the game in question, I can see what I was right or wrong about. So, no need to correct me at this point, until I finish a game. Just cringe and bear it.

The Series as a Whole:

• Ok so all of the games don't take place in the same world/timeline??
• I can only imagine then that the only thing that ties the series together is that somewhere in each game there is a character that wears a lot of belts
• And maybe a melodramatic but tragic love story
• With some Character Backstory Dark Secrets :tm:
• and some twists that the bad guys are actually THE PEOPLE IN POWER
• Aren't there two dudes that appear in each game? Big and Wedge or something? Or maybe that was something in Star Wars

Final Fantasy I:

• Everything I know about the first Final Fantasy comes from 8-Bit-Theater. In other words, I'll be sorely disappointed if the Black Mage in my party doesn't become the ruler of Hell.
• The only thing I remember about Final Fantasy is that I got very angry that I had to buy and use an item in order to save and that it felt like it was a really bad idea to use a party without a white mage (even though I did and will anyway)

Final Fantasy IV:

• When I was first trying to figure out what the heck Final Fantasy was as a tween I was very upset that I couldn't find anything about Final Fantasy II and III. And then I was more angry that IV was printed as "II" in the US and VI as "III". I basically gave up on Final Fantasy at that moment
• Tragic love story??
• Dragon Knights?
• Main character is Cecil? AND HE HAS A DARK PAST(??)

Final Fantasy VI:

• Calling it now, I bet this one will be my favorite, because I am a huge 16-bit-era-nerd
• I think the main character in this is a Girl??
• I played this for 3 minutes in like 2012 and I think there were robots in the beginning and I think the girl had some special powers
• There is an opera scene! I know this because there is a part in Undertale where they parodied it. I bet it is important.
• Kafka! Is this the one with Kafka? Isn't he a clown? Nevermind, I'm not looking forward to this
• Moogles!

Final Fantasy VII:

• OMG TeH BesT GaME EvAAaAAAAaAA!;!1
• Cloud is a very Brooding and Super Important Hero
• There is a girl named Aerith or Aeriss and she dies and it's very Tragic
• Cool guy with gun for arm?
• Sepheroth is the bad guy but a lot of teenage girls in the early Aughts were sooo thirsty for him. Also people really like his theme song
• Cool lion that can talk??
• I actually watched Advent Children with one of my friends (I torrented it for her I think because neither of us had a PSP) but all I remember was that it was pretty, I had no idea what was going on, and the phrase "Dilly-dally Shilly-shally"
• I actually saw the first bit of the game when the same friend as above brought it over and played it, but I just remember there was a train and I was very bored

Final Fantasy VIII:

• Apparently everyone hates this game but also a lot of my FF-loving friends say this is actually the best one so ???
• Squal is the main character and from what I've gathered the game devs were like "OK so people really liked that Cloud was super mysterious and dark and brooding so what if we made this guy THE MOST dark and brooding?!"
• There are a lot of acronyms in this game. Like SEED. Also they're in a school and it's flying???
• Is this what Waltz on the Moon is from?
• There is a card game with some SWEET MUSIC (Triple Threat was it?)
• A lot of these people were in Kingdom Hearts I think

Final Fantasy IX:

• I actually put a few hours into this game once, like 5 or 6 years ago. But I don't remember a ton. There was a rat girl and I had to ring some bells?
• Main character has a tail but everyone ignores it
• Vivi is a black mage and is adorable
• There is a girl that is a princess but is pretending not to be ala Princess Jasmine
• Guy in armor with weird eyes??
• I have little to be sarcastic about with this game. I think I'm going to like it.

Final Fantasy X:

• HAhahaHAHAHAhaHAhaHAHAHAHAHAHA
• I've actually seen the most out of this game than all the others because everyone I've lived with since being on my own has played through it once
• Tidus has daddy issues and oops doesn't actually exist??
• Yuna is the Love Interest and Perfect Selfless Female and apparently super great for cosplaying
• Blitzball!!! sucks
• My fiance bribed one of our friends with like 5 amiibo to dodge lightning for like 3 hours
• Bad guy with bad haircut

Final Fantasy XII:

• Is actually Star Wars???
• I hear very little about this game so I expect it to be a disappointment
• I remember when it came out people seemed really excited about how pretty it was
• I honestly know nothing else about this game