Final Fantasy Video Games Bucket List

Cloud's landmark, genre-shaping JRPG (1997).

The 1987 original that saved Square: four Light Warriors, a job you pick at the start and a time loop at the end.

No experience points - your stats grow from what you do - and the first game in the series with a real story.

The job system proper, twenty-three classes swapped at will, and the last of the trilogy that never left Japan for years.

Square's first MMO, from 2002, where a party needed a healer before it could leave town; the servers are still up.

Cecil turns from dark knight to paladin; the first Final Fantasy with a real story.

The MMORPG rebuilt from a failure; A Realm Reborn to Dawntrail with the best story in the series.

Tidus, Yuna and the pilgrimage across Spira; the first voiced Final Fantasy.

A thief, a princess and a return to the series' fairy-tale roots; the fans' favourite.

Fourteen playable characters, an opera and a villain who wins halfway; the SNES peak of the series.

A linear thirty-hour corridor into Gran Pulse, with the fastest battle system the series has had.

A war of succession in Ivalice fought on isometric grids, with job classes and a script about class.

A prince, three friends and a road trip in a black car; ten years in development.

Ivalice, the gambit system and a political plot; Matsuno's last Final Fantasy.

The job system at its most flexible, and a tree that talks.

Squall, junctioning and a card game better than the combat.

Out of Midgar into the world map, Gold Saucer and the scene everyone knows.

Clive Rosfield and Eikon battles in a Game of Thrones Valisthea; the action Final Fantasy.

Midgar expanded to a full game with real-time combat; the first part of the retelling.