Bought a DS Lite over the weekend. I've never played a Final Fantasy game, and I know nothing about the lore. How do I start playing Final Fantasy on the DS? The numbering confuses me.
Posted Mar 29, 2016, 9:47 PM UTC
Frankly the best FF game on DS is the fact it can play the GBA ports. Dawn of Souls includes the remakes of 1 and 2, and they ported 4~6.
The native DS games are mostly offshoots. Revenant Wings was a real time strategy game and FFTA2 is turn based strategy.
Ah, ok. Thanks for shedding some light on the other DS FF games. So the earlier FF games available through GBA are pretty good?
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The DS version of 4 is excellent. Challenging battles, great script, and doesn't mess too much with the original. Highly recommend. 6 is still better tho ;)
The games aren't connected unless they're direct sequels (X-2, XIII-2 etc.) so you shouldn't care about lore.
With a DS you have access to the first 6 games through DS and GBA. I personally wouldn't recommend III since some features are locked behind the online features that are now discontinued. If you want a DS game specifically, I recommend IV instead.
The numbering is weird because some games weren't released outside of Japan originally. IV became II and VI became III once they hit America but today they are mainly known as IV and VI and that's what you're going to find for your DS.
Oh, I didn't know they're not connected- that's awesome. Yeah the numbering is whats really confusing about that. So what was IV in Japan became II in the US? And so should IV (On the DS) be a good place to start? Relatively new to this RPG/JRPG style too. I bought Chronotrigger when I bought the DS and I've been playing that which I've been somewhat led to believe is similar.
Exactly! II and III were skipped so it renaming it to II instead of IV was the logical thing to do in America (even though it came back to bite them).
I think IV is an excellent place to start but be warned that the DS version is one of the hardest Final Fantasy games to date. You might have to grind quite a bit to beat certain areas.
Other than that, the GBA version (while not the definitive version) is in my opinion a better place to start and VI is also much more beginner friendly. However, the DS version of IV features voice acting and is a much more modernised version and isn't a bad place to start. Your choice really.
Thank you for the explanation! And the advice! Glad to know their not connected- that makes it a lot easier. So really you could play the games in any order?
No worries, just happy to help!
Yes, you can play them in any order you want and honestly, I recommmend picking what seems the most interesting to you. The only game I would recommend waiting a while for is IX, since it is filled with references to earlier games that added a lot of charm to the game in my opinion
You've made an excellent choice by playing CT before FF. I find it to be far more accessible to the casual gamer while still retaining the depth and quality of old Squaresoft titles. It's a great springboard to older turn-based FFs. My personal favorite is VI...the GBA version is slightly inferior due to crappy sound and bright colors, but has a better translation than its SNES counterpart.
Good luck and enjoy!
Awesome, thank you! Yeah Chronotrigger has been really awesome so far. Do you feel that Final Fantasy IV is an adequate starting place until I can find an affordable copy of VI?