Square Enix Sale - Which Final Fantasy?

Personally speaking, I'd wait for the Steam Summer Sale. 50% off isn't that great a deal unless you're really wanting to play a FF game right now.

I have all of this list.
I want FF 9 and X/X-II ASAP
Hope in the future FFT WotL comes too and 12

But I'm missing 13 / 13-2 / 13 LR and I need it !

FF7 > Lightning Returns > XIII.

Those are only ones I played and FF7 is probably in my personal top 10 list.

I'd say IV or VI myself, VII tends to get the most hype and while I do love it I'm personally more fond of the other 2.

If you're gonna buy one of them, I recommend you to avoid Final Fantasy VIII, unless you're good at fixing bugs & crashes.

8 is my favorite. I will fight any 7 fans who want to even debate that 8 is not better.

5 definitely is runner up thanks to the huge variety of classes you can choose, I must have replayed it a couple of dozen times over multiple consoles and handhelds.

13 easily the worst, if you want to get into the newer ones grab 13-2. I never played Lightning Returns so that could be great too.

EDIT: These opinions are based on the console versions of the games.

If just one, then IV or VI, as they have good mechanics, long story, and replay value for both story and to refine your battle skills.
VII is a nice one-off game, but it is more like some experiment for the 3D ones before they got the recipe down to a working mix. VIII is similar, but the battle system will feel weird and you pretty much have to play it twice to get the story as it is mostly written in the form of small references.

Oh and as someone who is playing FF Type 0 HD on PS4, I am going to throw that out too. It;s fantastic, Despite it being an action title it is more like a FF game then any of the most recent titles in it's purest form.

I would go for ff lightning returns as i want to finish the trilogy.But as for those who you ask i would go for ff7.Clearly one of my favs

From this list, 7 if you prefer the 3D style, 4/6 if you favor the top-down 2D style.

Personally I'm waiting for 1&2 so I can do it proper and start from the oldest; not that it matters too much since the stories don't intertwine for the most part.

I would say 7 is the most favored choice. Although I really liked Type-0

In that case I´d buy FF8, because its my favourite after FF6.. and sadly I really can´t stand the ugly sprites in the new FF6-Version.

Generally speaking I´d say:
1-3 = If you really love the series and want to experience everything, they are fun enough.
4+5 = Very nice, but not best.
6-10 = Can´t go wrong with any of ´em!
Newer ones = Nice JRPGs, but not really Final Fantasy.

Old games and the mobile ports are quite overpriced.

get type0 or the 13 trilogy. (13 trilogy is still better than overrated fantasy 7 grabs popcorn)

I'd say 7 & 8, and LR-13, because these game aren't on my library. But, based from game's story , i'd prefer buying 7 first. (I'm still waiting for 9 to release)

I like 6 but wouldn't want to buy this port so I would go with 8 instead. 7 isn't a bad choice but I finished it again 2 weeks ago and was quite underwhelmed

I can't really remember 3-4-5. I didn't have trouble with 13, it's slow but not bad. 13-2 had better mechanics/story flow but felt kind of dumb.

I like 7 the most but it's graphics aged very badly and may be a dealbreaker for somebody. I would recommend the 6th one as it has the best combination of great gameplay mechanics, story, graphics etc. but I heard the port is bad so I don't know.

I cant find the all option in the poll.

I stop buying FF series since FF XIII Lightning Returns,
I'll just consider FF died since X/XII.

Best would be VI then VII

7,8,9,10 are all the best lol 9 is for sure my fav, but i love 8 after that

Get VI, then mod the horrible sprite changes out of it.

excellent games have a bump!

I don't get the FF XIII hate... Devs just used newer gameplay mechanics...

Hm late to the party (mostly because I spent last 2-3 days playing nothing but Lightning Returns) but here are my two cents. I only played FF from VII to LR with an exception of skipping those MMO's. However....

FFVII is most acclaimed of the whole bunch. Plenty of side quests, engaging story and personally one of the greatest soundtracks of all FF games. But that is only if you can force yourself to sit through annoying Midgar since the game really kicks off once you leave your initial position and get access to some transport on Disc 2.

FFVIII is an entry level FF and it doesn't take much to figure out drawing and junctioning magic and after you figure out limit breaks the game is a walk in the park (also I should mention that enemies level up with you, even bosses, so that's convenient)

Now, what it is to say about the XIII trilogy.......first one is kinda fun despite being obnoxiously linear with only a couple of side quest (and only one spot in the game where you have some freedom to roam around) and the stagger mechanic takes so time to get used to. You should be ok with it if you can stand the linearity (it almost got me to the point of quitting the game once or twice but I pulled through). As for XIII-2, I never played that one since it is one of the worst optimized FF games on Steam so have that in mind. Maybe it will work fine for you if you can afford to gamble. Finally, we get to the last entry in XIII trilogy and the game I've been playing constantly for the past 3 days. It took them 2 games beforehand, but LR finally manages to get some things right (yet not all). You only control one character here with the same old stagger mechanic and mastering that on top of changing garbs (costumes with different attributes) during the battle should get you to the end of the game. What is interesting about LR is that they introduced this end-of-the-world shtick where the game will end in 13 days. One game day is 2-3 hours of real time and you don't really have a lot of freedom to roam around and grind monsters as much as you would want to. It is entirely manageable if you're lucky with knowing the proper order of main + side quests but I would recommend using the guide to get the most out of one playthrough since there is a good chance you'll miss out on most of the side quests if playing blindly.