Every Single-Player Final Fantasy Game, Ranked From Worst To Best - Page 15 of 20

7. Final Fantasy X (2001)

History hasn’t been kind to Final Fantasy X, because when you get memed as a game that’s too linear and people like to post the laugh scene out of context, it’s hard to come back from such a bad faith framing. But to this day, both it and its sequel feel like the last time Square really knew what it wanted a Final Fantasy game to be.

Final Fantasy X is unapologetically structured like the pilgrimage it is. This is a non-stop walk through the world of Spira, and you’re meant to feel this fleeting sense of just passing through every city and village Tidus and Yuna visit. But on the way, you play through one of the series’ best battle systems, which leaves behind the “ATB” stylings of the previous six games for a more traditional turn-based format. It mixes things up with a party of specialized characters you can switch in and out of battle at will, making fights a series of if/then statements that is strategic, and helps keep fights fresh many hours in.

The world of Spira is one of Final Fantasy’s best-realized, as it illustrates the dangers of a religion-dominated society in which those in power use fearmongering and tradition to hold the society hostage, sacrificing their young to fuel a never-ending cycle of death, suffering, and manufactured shame. Final Fantasy X is a confident, unapologetic commitment to a world and design philosophy that, while divisive at the time, still stands tall as one of Final Fantasy’s most concise, well-understood games. Honestly, it hasn’t felt like a mainline game has lived up to those ideas since. – Kenneth Shepard

6. Final Fantasy X-2 (2003)

If Final Fantasy X was an exploration of how a society could be beholden to oppressive systems and beliefs and freeing yourself from them, its sequel, Final Fantasy X-2, is all about deciding for yourself who and what you are now.

While valid criticism can be thrown at this first direct sequel in the Final Fantasy series for reusing a lot of assets from its predecessor, it’s fascinating for completely recontextualizing the familiar world of Spira. Having banished the perceived linear progression, rigid combat styles, and oppressive power structures of Final Fantasy X, X-2 injects its characters’ newfound freedom into every story beat and design decision. Now, you can explore Spira freely and come and go as you please. Characters aren’t beholden to different archetypes like they were in the original edition of X, and can use the Dressphere mechanic to change abilities on the fly. On top of all those design changes, Yuna is free to explore who she is now that she’s no longer being offered up for slaughter by the religion that has shackled the people of Spira for so long.

Final Fantasy X-2 has so many great things going for it. Its fast-paced battle system is fun and frenetic, its poppy, melodic soundtrack injects a flamboyant flair into every moment, and even in its departures, it feels calculated in how it builds upon the original game to create a natural expansion on its world and characters. It started what became a trend for Final Fantasy by being the first sequel, but unlike the expanded universe nonsense Square Enix is attaching to the Final Fantasy name these days, Final Fantasy X-2 answers the “what comes next” question with thoughtfulness and a desire to do right by what came before, rather than just expanding on a franchise because people will buy it. — Kenneth Shepard