Greetings everyone! With the 30th anniversary of Final Fantasy happening this year, I felt like it would be nice to do a little something special for it all year long. For the 25th anniversary, RPGamer posted a great feature highlighting our experiences with each game in the series along with a ranking of different categories for the series. While we still might do more closer to the end of the year, I decided that I wanted to return to each game in the series for a refresher.

I've already played and reviewed some version of all fifteen main games and then some, so this will not be an ordered return and in many cases it will not be a complete playthrough of the games. I simply want to get some hands-on time each week with a version of each of the main titles, be it five minutes or thirty hours. Along with this, I will be trying to get some time with many of the series spin offs as well. From there, I will blog my expereinces here. It could be me ranting about the draw system in Final Fantasy VIII, talking about Kuja's hips, expressing my joy at making progress toward FFXIV's Heavensward content, or raving about how great the Active Dimension Battle system in FFXII is. So I hope you enjoy and join my party for this journey.

Final Fantasy (PSP)

Once I decided to start on this adventure, I figured what better than finishing up a partial playthrough of the first Final Fantasy on PSP. I was about two hours into this already and had just started my quest into the Melmond area to visit the Earth Cave. After I got started back, I couldn't put it down. While my goal isn't to complete all of the Final Fantasy games I touch, if they hook me I plan to keep playing until I have a reason to stop.

This playthrough was pretty easy like all of my others until the final battle. My Warrior, Master, Ninja, and White Mage needed some serious boosting to out damage Chaos. I would get close and then he will heal up with a Curaja and I couldn't outdamage him with my first strategy. After a couple of misfires, I finally took him out by just healing every single turn and using my Ninja to Haste and Temper my Warrior and Master over and over. First game has been touched and is done.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (PS4)

Around the same time I started up Final Fantasy on PSP, I also resubbed to Final Fantasy XIV. I've been slacking since finishing the main 2.0 campaign and have spent most of my time leveling Paladin and most recently Ninja to go with my level 50 Warrior. I'm hooked on getting tons of AF gear, but am finally ready to move forward, and I chose Ninja to take into Heavensward. While I might regret that later, I dig doing some blameless DPS for awhile. The tank bashing still stings a few years later.

Final Fantasy III (PSP)

After I finished FF, I saw that I still had Final Fantasy III installed on the PSPgo and decided to dive into it. I beat it on DS years ago, and it holds a place at the bottom of my main series rankings because of this version. I enjoyed what I played of the NES fan translation I sampled years back, but never finished it. After fifteen minutes of slow combat and the dull first intro dungeon, I opted to set this one aside. If I don't return, I don't care because I've met my goal of touching it. That said, I might consider the fan translation again for comparison sake.

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection (PSP)

Final Fantasy IV has been at the opposite end of my favorites list from FFIII. It's my nostalgic favorite for many reasons, so I fired up the PSP version and have just barely gotten started. Will update with more playtime on this soon, as I'm ready to head out with Cecil and Kain to Mist.

Final Fantasy Type-0 (PSP, Fan Translation)

I also saw that I still had the PSP fan translation of Final Fantasy Type-0 on the system, so I loaded it up and found a save eight hours in that I'd started before the official PS4 release was revealed. I couldn't remember what I was doing or where I needed to go next, so I think I'll put this aside for a fresh restart down the road to help contrast this with the HD version I beat more recently.