The Journey Begins

At some point in every hardcore RPG fan's life, they must decide whether or not they can handle the ultimate test. It isn't easy, many hardships await down the long and winding road but it must be completed. People travel the path for many reasons: fame, glory, honor, pride, but regardless of motives, the path remains and only the truly worthy will make it to the end.

That's right, I have decided to begin my own quest through every single Final Fantasy game ever made, as close to the original versions as I can possibly get. My plan is to include, not only the main entries 1-14 but also any and all side stories, sequels, prequels or random games that got Final Fantasy stuck on it. Since I do not speak Japanese nor do I have the means to play any Japanese games outside of emulation, I have decided to stay purely within the realm of english-released titles. However, in the interest of sticking as close to the originals as possible, I will try and find NES/SNES versions of the early games that have been translated. If I can't find them though, I'll have to go to the GBA/DS re-releases. Here is the complete list of games:

-Final Fantasy (1987)
-Final Fantasy II (1988)
-Final Fantasy III (1990)
-Final Fantasy IV (1991)
-Final Fantasy Adventure (1991)
-Final Fantasy V (1992)
-Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest (1992)
-Final Fantasy VI (1994)
-Final Fantasy VII (1997)
-Final Fantasy Tactics (1997)
-Final Fantasy VIII (1999)
-Final Fantasy IX (2000)
-Final Fantasy X (2001)
-Final Fantasy XI: Online (2002) + Expansions
-Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (2003)
-Final Fantasy X-2 (2003)
-Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (2003)
-Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus (2006)
-Final Fantasy XII (2006)
-Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (2007)
-Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (2007)
-Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (2007)
-Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (2007)
-Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (2008)
-Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (2008)
-Final Fantasy XIII (2009)
-Dissidia: Final Fantasy (2009)
-Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light (2009)
-Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (2009)
-Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord (2009)
-Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (2009)
-Final Fantasy: Crystal Defenders (2009)
-Final Fantasy XIV (2010)
-Final Fantasy Dimensions (2010)
-Final Fantasy XIII-2 (2011)
-Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy (2011)
-Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy (2012)
-Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (2013)
-Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (2013)

Unsure:
-Final Fantasy Legend (1990)
-Final Fantasy Legend II (1991)
-Final Fantasy Legend III (1993)
-Chocobo Series
-Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding (2005)

Please let me know if I missed any too. Remember, I'm only going with ones that have been released in English at some point in time. Let me explain the ones I'm unsure about for a moment. While the Final Fantasy Legend series (released for the Game Boy) are Final Fantasy titles in name, they actually were just given that title after development. In fact, in Japan, they have never been released under the FF name (instead being called SaGa) and they are no longer published under that name since the SaGa series became popular on the Sony Playstation. This combined with the fact that I have actually already played all three of these games in my youth makes me question the desire to play them again. The Chocobo series I'm more leaning towards do them as they are technically Final Fantasy games and I have no real reason to exclude them other than the fact that there are a million of them, they're crazy hard to find and most of them probably suck. VII Snowboarding I'll play if I can find a ROM of it but since it was released as a mobile game back before Android, iOS or any of that, I'm not holding my breath. Also, it's really just a port of the minigame from VII anyway so I'm not missing much.

I haven't decided yet whether I will play them in order of release or with their respective main series entry. I may mix and match these too. While it's not vital to play Dissidia and Dissidia 012 together, it'd probably be nice to play Final Fantasy IV: The After Years directly after Final Fantasy IV. I'm just not sure.

So is this an insane goal? Probably. But having been introduced to games in about 1995, I missed many of these games and the ones that I played, I played without any sort of context. For that reason, I want to go back and try appreciating these in the way I might have if I was really playing from 1987 on. Needless to say, this blog will just be the first of many. I may not make it all the way through and I reserve the right to call it quits at any time but I'm going to do my best to make it through. Look forward to my thoughts on Final Fantasy in the coming days.

Game hard!