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FINAL FANTASY® XI: FREE TRIAL [PC DOWNLOAD] | Square Enix Store
Final Fantasy is a strange series. Its ups and downs over the years have arguably been caused by its most appealing central idea: that every entry is set in a new universe, with new characters and completely different systems.
This means the series has sometimes alternated between being an innovator and out-of-date—but it has remained more or less enjoyable for three decades. At its best, Final Fantasy will give you an adventure you’ll never forget, a combat and progression system that you’ll obsess over, or characters you’ll have a real affinity for.
Sometimes, it’ll give what might be the best minigame in history opens in new tab. And other times, it’ll give you a laughing scene opens in new tab you’ll wish you could forget. With most of the worthwhile entries on PC now—minus I and II, and spin-offs like Crisis Core—we thought it’d be a good time to discuss which mainline games are the best. Since this is an argument that’s been going on for years with a lot of near-identical outcomes, we’ve included an extra factor here—how the games’ PC versions turned out informs the rankings here, since it’s so inconsistent across the series.
Tell us your choices at the bottom, and enjoy. Samuel Roberts: This isn’t my personal favourite Final Fantasy, but it’s an impressive, MMO-infused RPG that’s the best of them all when it comes to combat systems, progression and how well its art has held up since its original release on the PS2, 12 years ago. Those factors are probably what most players are interested in, and so I feel comfortable calling it the best.
It just doesn’t have much heart, or a story I like, or a decent protagonist. I like it when Final Fantasy has those things. It does have a British version of Han Solo, though. I’m a big Balthier fan, and if I could be him I would. Tom Senior: There were apparently a lot of rewrites and story-shuffling during development and it really shows. Luckily 12 has my favourite RPG systems of any Final Fantasy and the fast-forward command added by the remaster means I can blast through zones, level up quickly, and test out new party lineups.
Plus the story never quite gains momentum. Final Fantasy has never been good at telling stories about politics, kings and queens. Give me a good party of pals who go on a journey and kill lots of cactuars. It just, uh, kinda disappears and then completely falls apart in the last third of the game. But before that: great stuff! The world and writing, like in Matsuno’s Final Fantasy Tactics, are fantasy by way of Shakespearean tragedy, with a quippy rogue, a dutiful but disgraced knight, and a princess forced to step into a leadership role she never expected.
There’s some great wartime politics to dig into here, though the throughline never quite explores them as much as it should. But the flavor that story brings sets it so far apart from your typical teens-save-the-world JRPG. It’s also hard to overstate how much FF12’s world design—broken up into MMO-like zones, where everything is the same scale, rather than a world map or the disappointing list of locations like FF10’s—adds to the believability of it as a place.
It feels like a proper world you’re exploring, at a level of fidelity no Final Fantasy game had delivered before. Wes: Final Fantasy 9 is that one game I’ll probably wax poetic about for the rest of my life. It just has such heart. It’s a game that feels joyously made, celebrating the Final Fantasy series up to that point and the end of Square’s insane hot streak during the PS1 era. It’s peppered with in-jokes and references that manage to never be obnoxious or exclusionary; if you don’t get them, they just add more flavor to a world already overstuffed with personality.
You can take Final Fantasy 9’s opening hour as a case study for what makes it special among the series: you’ll control three separate characters at different points, and during that time you can freely run around a city collecting tons of hidden items and gil caches, meet characters who will have small, cute narrative moments a dozen plus hours later, kick off a sidequest that lasts the entire game , play a minigame, learn FF9’s card game and collect some rare cards, and participate in a wonderfully entertaining fake sword fight that was designed for this one scene and never used again.
That’s really Final Fantasy 9 in a nutshell: it’s so dense with things to do, with hidden delights, and with creative design that goes above and beyond, it’s hard not to be charmed by the sheer love that went into every area. And the PC version will run on pretty much anything. The battle system isn’t the best in the series, but everything else more than makes up for it. I do love the story, though.
There are some great moments, usually involving sad-eyed black mage Vivi. Also, it has the best world map theme. Despite being an MMO which understandably will turn some away , FF14 is a sincere love letter that captures all of the whimsy and drama of the earlier entries in the series.
It’s a shame that you’ll have to endure a painfully dull level-up process, but once you get to the later chapters of A Realm Reborn and into the exquisite Heavensward and Stormblood expansions, Final Fantasy 14’s story begins to rival some of the series’ best.
In between the usual MMO grinds, there’s an emotional, character-driven story of betrayal and revolution all set in a more medieval fantasy aesthetic that is a welcome departure from the spikey-haired, leather-clad look of later Final Fantasys.
Its endgame can be a little repetitive, but everything from the dungeons and raids to the crafting and job system are so beautifully realized and fun that I’m not pulling my hair out waiting for the next update.
Tom: At this point it feels like Final Fantasy 7 has been dismantled, digested, and rendered down into a puddle of memes, and I struggle to detach the game from powerful feelings of nostalgia for the many hours I spent extracting every secret from that world map. However, I really think the story holds up. Sephiroth starting Cloud down through the flames of Nibelheim is one of the best moments in any Final Fantasy game.
The Weapons that appear later in the campaign roam the map, ready to be challenged as soon as your gear and party were strong enough. Don’t fancy that? Breed and race Chocobos in the Gold Saucer, or go and find the secret party members Yuffie and Vincent. I play it every couple of years, and always find it just as captivating as the first time.
I think the variety is a big part of it. One minute you’re fighting a giant mechanical scorpion, the next you’re trying to out-squat a wrestler to win a powdered wig. The world is great too. Every location has its own distinctive personality, from the high-tech militarism of Junon, to the cosy sands of the Costa del Sol. And I love how the arrival of the meteor transforms the mood of the game, with NPCs getting new dialogue to reflect the coming apocalypse. It’s a proper big, exciting adventure, especially when you unlock the Highwind airship and can explore the map largely unrestricted.
Andy K: I remember being disappointed with 10 when I first played it, because it got rid of the explorable world map that I loved in 7, 8, and 9. Instead you’d just pick locations from a map interface, which is nowhere near as compelling as actually walking around yourself. The world map was such a Final Fantasy icon that I’m baffled they got rid of it. I enjoyed the game overall, but this change meant I never really felt like I was on some grand journey.
The world didn’t feel as convincing somehow, like a series of disparate places artificially strung together. There were some great locations in there, though: particularly the rolling hills of the Calm Lands and the stormy Thunder Plains. Samuel: This is my favourite Final Fantasy game by a long way. Blitzball is a great minigame that connects well with the main adventure, once you understand how it works, and the way the game explores religion is pretty risky for a mainstream RPG.
It also has a progression system and end game that can keep you playing for tens of hours afterwards. The PS2 version came out at just the right time for me to fall in love with it I was 14, basically , and I play it every three or four years. I also disagree that getting rid of the world map was a bad thing—FF10’s world is a little too linear and paves the way for 13’s long corridors, but it does feel strangely real to me, in how much personality there is in individual places like Kilika, Luca or Guadosalam.
The fact it has no major cities, because this unstoppable force keeps destroying them, neatly explains why it’s a world mostly made up of small tropical settlements. I’ve never really loved Final Fantasy , honestly, with its straight-to-VHS-style follow-up story about lovers from years ago or some bullshit, but when I played the PC version a couple of years ago I had a new appreciation for it. It was the first Final Fantasy game with an all-female cast and it has a very different, fun energy to It’s almost like 15 in how the friendships at the heart of the game are a big part of why it’s an enjoyable journey, even if the overarching story is bad.
Square Enix completely redid the combat and progression systems, which they really didn’t need to do to get people to buy this direct sequel. I also liked seeing the world of Spira several years later, with new locations and additions to existing ones, as well as granular bits of new story that tell you what happened to all its characters.
I wish there were fewer recycled assets and I don’t love the musical numbers, but hey, not every Final Fantasy game is going to be my thing. I liked listening to developer Nina Freeman talk about the game on this podcast opens in new tab. She makes a good case for why it’s better than I thought it was back in You get to guide your four good lads through a lazy summer, beating up wildlife for cash.
After the constraints of 13, the open world feels enormous, and it’s extremely pretty. Also, the food. My god, the food.
Samuel: This is how I feel—a cynic would say this is a game of nothing more than empty spectacle. But how can you not enjoy that journey? It’s like the opposite of Final Fantasy endearing, full of character, and the combat is stylish but has little going on beneath it.
The story is The king is killed, and you come back and kill the guy who is your relative from thousands of years ago, who now sits on the throne speaking in a British accent. Is that right? Anyway, who cares when the summons look this cool:. My favourite thing about FF15 might be the hidden Pitioss Dungeon, a combat-free puzzle labyrinth which sparked a Dark Souls-level lore investigation from dedicated players read the Reddit thread here.
It’s apparently been debunked somewhat by the FF15 team and the game’s DLC, but I choose to believe it’s real because it’s better than much of the game’s actual story, and makes me wonder which elements of the cancelled Versus 13 made the cut.
Andy: I love the breezy road trip feel of It’s an infectiously sunny, colourful game, and the bond between the car boys is quite convincing. But as an RPG it left me cold, which is almost entirely the fault of those utterly banal sidequests. Everywhere you go you’re being given tasks to complete, but they’re flatly written, unexciting, and tedious. I could have ignored them and focused on the main story, I suppose, but I hate having uncompleted quests in my log. So I just quit the game and never returned.
Samuel: I agree that most of its sidequests are terrible, although I do like the hunts. Fewer but better quests should be how Tabata and company make side content in their next RPG. Tom: The first quarter of the game, culminating in that assassination attempt, is absolutely banging. The plot drifts off in weird directions from there and eventually collapses into a succession of giant plot holes. It’s a great ride, though.
Final Fantasy XIII Free Download Full Version PC Game
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