Where do I start...?

I was reading an article on Kotaku and one of the comments was from an earnest (I assume) young (I assume) man who claimed to have never played a Final Fantasy game...

...THAT I SHOULD LIVE IN AN ERA WHERE THIS IS EVEN POSSIBLE!

Ahem.

Anyways, this (I assume) young (I assume) man was curious as to what game he should start with.

Now, it is no secret that Final Fantasy shaped my life. I'm not going to say it was a "driving force" or anything so dramatic, but from the day I poured out a giant, plastic novelty Coke bottle filled with change so that I could count out the $30 it would take to purchase the original Final Fantasy game on the original NES to the day I died a little inside playing the atrocious mess that Final Fantasy had become after renting Final Fantasy XIII, it's safe to say that my preferences in video game settings and even genres has been completely shaped by this series. I might be playing Madden 2013 and drinking a beer RIGHT NOW if it weren't for this then-unassuming little game that exploded into one of the most prolific series of all time. It might also be the source of my general displeasure with the once-noble JRPG. Nostalgia being what it is, I may have, ingrained in my skull, a Socratic ideal for the JRPG that has been tainted over the years into a terrible and terrifying debacle of form-over-substance and labyrinthine, convoluted plots that are absolute train-wrecks to try and follow, let alone enjoy. (somewhat like this last sentence)

In any case, I found this to be a fascinating question as I, quite characteristically, overthought the whole affair. What this (I assume) young (I assume) man was really asking wasn't what game he should play first, but how he should shape his entire playing experience of a prolific and extremely long-lived game series.

Naturally, I have a few thoughts on the matter.

I thought it would be an interesting practice in theory to go through the series and look at each game in turn, listing out the pros and cons of starting with each game and what it might do for this (I assume) young (I assume) man in question. In doing so, I will provide a critique of each game (keeping in mind that I have not finished, nor even played every single one) and postulate on where the series as a whole went terribly, terribly wrong. Or where it didn't. Whatever.

Old, old school (I really have to come up with a better name for this span): Final Fantasy - Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy: The original Final Fantasy is where the whole legacy began. At its base, Final Fantasy's story plays like baby's first D&D campaign. A group of four characterless adventurers meet in a tavern to stop the local bully. A series of events eventually brings them into conflict with the series' biggest bad (as seen to be leading the "bad guy" team in the series-crossover game Dissidia, voiced by the frankly magnificent Keith David). Really, there isn't much here for the story. It's a bare-bones experience that is basically a series of nonsensical events strung together into a simple "Gotta Catch 'em All" quest that seemed quite elaborate at the time.

Gameplay-wise, Final Fantasy set the stage for basically every game that followed up to even Final Fantasy IX. You wandered the overworld from place to place (or just walking in circles to incite the local wildlife so you could slaughter hoards of critters for their money and valuables...and, y'know, to practice fighting so you could best even bigger, badder wildlife on the next land mass you came to). There were some neat things here. A minimalist class system meant subsequent playthroughs could be worlds different and, at the same time, you could impose challenges on yourself outside of the game itself (who didn't try the four white mage challenge?) and even a little bit of token customization (it was pretty neat to be able to change your characters' names...even if you were limited to only four letters) that helped make your story your own. The class system would return in subsequent games, but with the exception of Final Fantasy III, the customization would not. Though you were able to rename your characters in many of the sequels (up to and including Final Fantasy VII, if I recall), you were always playing the characters the game assigned you with your own names inserted in the place of Cecil's or Bartz' or Cloud's or whoever's. This wasn't Skyrim, boys and girls.

So, how does the original Final Fantasy rate on a starting place for those new to the series? Well, besides the iconic value of it being the very first game of the series, not very good. While the plot did introduce some aspects that would be repeated over the course of the series, I would say that Final Fantasy is just too old of a game for folks new to the series to start with. It just hasn't aged that well and, really, it's not really that indicative of the rest of the series. Some aspects were retained, if only symbolically: the two schools of magic (white and black including the iconic appearance of their respective specialist mages, who themselves return in many Final Fantasy games), the existence of four elemental crystals (and their respective "fiends"), airships, turn-based combat (which in itself isn't unique to the series, but it is certainly a staple of the series), etc, but really, the modern series itself, the games that people attribute the name Final Fantasy to, are just too different for this game to be a good starting place, even if one were to pick up the DS remake. Though the mechanics set the stage for the series as a whole later on, from turn-based battles to the need to grind up on random encounters before proceeding to the next area's challenges (not a unique system to Final Fantasy, but one present in every Final Fantasy game to date), I'd say pass on this one and come back to it later.

Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III: So it pains me to say this, but I have never played either of these games. It needs to be noted here that I am not talking about the western releases under the names Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III, which were actually Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI in Japan (it kind of sucked to be a Japanophile in America back in the early days...), but rather, the actual second and third games of the series as released in Japan.

As I understand it, Final Fantasy II is a rather forgettable and I can't really comment on it save to say that it would start the series down a more intricate story-based path than the first game, which had a very minimalistic story. Final Fantasy III is also noteworthy for introducing a dedicated class (or job as it would later be called) system wherein your characters could gain experience in jobs, giving them different skills and making them stronger in those skills as they progressed. According to the Final Fantasy wikia page (-_-), there were 23 jobs in the game, many of which would make prominent returns in other games. Notable mainstays of the series like the dragoon, the dark knight, the summoner, and bard, originated in this game, while the perennial white, black, and red mages returned in their iconic appearances. The existence in this game of summoners is also important as summoning became a mainstay of the series later on with every character in later games being able to perform this iconic magic type.

As far as places to start your Final Fantasy experience, I can't really recommend either of these games however. Taking my opinion here with a grain of salt as I have played neither of them, Final Fantasy II is never really raised as an iconic entry into the series. In fact, no one really talks about it at all. Final Fantasy III seems interesting with its job system (in fact, just reading about it makes me kind of want to try the game...and I hear it was recently released for Android/iOS! I'll have to check into how authentic it is), but since this mechanic never returns in the series with the notable exception of the absolutely amazing Final Fantasy Tactics and slightly less amazing (but still quite good) Final Fantasy Tactics DS games, I'd have to say as a dignitary of the series as a whole, Final Fantasy III probably isn't a great place to start.

Final Fantasy IV: (please note, this was originally released in the US as Final Fantasy II) This is the second Final Fantasy game I played and may be my second favorite overall after Final Fantasy VI. Keeping in mind that I have never played Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IV set the tone for the rest of the series as far as story went. While the gameplay went mostly unchanged with the notable exception of the the ATB (active time battle) system, which returned in every game hereafter until Final Fantasy IX (as well as a number of other Squaresoft/Square Enix productions, like the PHENOMENAL Chrono Trigger), Final Fantasy IV truly saw the story shine through as being both intricate and engaging. This was the first game of the series where I truly felt attached to the characters I was playing (I suppose this is no surprise given the fact that it was the second Final Fantasy game I played...), where I felt a connection with the characters themselves beyond what they could do for me in terms of beating the game. The twists and turns were intriguing without being so convoluted as to be difficult to follow (which would become an unfortunate mainstay of the series in later games). This was a game that had actual character growth, if not an immense amount of depth (the characters were somewhat shallow, all things considered) and would set the bar for later games in terms of both character development and story engagement.

All things considered, our theoretical Final Fantasy noob could do worse than to start here, though I would say tonally it would not be my first pick. While Final Fantasy IV would set many standards as far as characters and storytelling, it is very different in terms of tone and setting. Final Fantasy IV is set in essentially a medieval setting. This was back when RPGs seemed to have to be primarily fantasy (though Phantasy Star rather mixed things up and I wish I had gotten more into that series in general) and developers were afraid to delve too deeply into actual innovative and unique territory as far as setting was concerned. In this regard, your ragtag group of misfit heroes interacted with elves and dwarves and though you flew around on airships, these airships were powered by magic and had large propellers. While there was some deviation from this seemingly high fantasy setting late in the game (spoiler alert, you go to the moon), for the most part, it was pretty down to Earth almost Tolkienian stuff. Ironically, Final Fantasy became much more about a unique and vivid blend of fantasy and sci-fi rather than straight up fantasy as the series progressed. So, while Final Fantasy IV was the first game in which you could root for a character, laugh with them, cry with them, and feel like you were right there as they underwent their own personal trials and tribulations, I would say this should be second or third on a Final Fantasy queue at best because of the tonal changes that the series underwent into its iconic prime later on.