WHICH IS THE HARDEST FINAL FANTASY GAME?

I think 2 - I was stomped by random encounters just for walking off to an unintended direction.

All the others made me quit from a complete lack of challenge.

I still haven't beaten FF1

FF2 on the NES is extremely tedious due to the low rate of stat gains. Even with the Cancel button cheat you can only gain 1 point per fight and the game requires a lot of grinding.

I think that FF3 can be more difficult though, especially when you pick unsuitable Jobs against certain bosses.
I don't know if the DS remake is better.

FF1 becomes much easier after the Marsh Cave. And FF 4 through 10 are rather easy.

for some reason FF5 strikes me as the hardest, though my mem'ry on it's a bit foggy. I think I had a tough time against pretty much every boss when I first played and that made it fun. Other final fantasies didn't have bosses as consistant as that.

Honestly, it's hard to say. What defined 'challenging' has evolved and changed considerably throughout the series. The challenge of say, FFXIII comprised from quick decisions and on the fly adaptation is different from say, FFIII's 'fuck you' marathon no save dungeons and bare bones combat.

However, some FF's are harder and easier than others objectively I'd say, and on the fairest note of comparison, I'd say FFIV was the most overall, consistently challenging.

Even then some enemies in FFII were still really brutal. Cockatrices come to mind there as being the biggest bastards in that game (Coeurls are bad too, instant death on their attacks) due to their Petrification with their regular attacks. It was easy to game over on them super easily. And the Imps in Mysidia Tower are evil too, what with AoE Confuse...

If you want my honest opinion, since I've played a good chunk of the series myself, and multiple versions of the games, I'd say it'd go in difficulty of these (from what I've seen and what I've played):

FFII (NES)
FFIII: NES/DS. Both have their issues, some are flipped completely in one version to the other)
FFIV DS: I don't care how many people say this game is easy, it's just not. There's easy, and then there's bullcrap. And this version of the game has the most bullcrap of all of the versions).
FFV: It's genuinely difficult if you don't know what you're doing at all, and even then sometimes certain enemies/bosses can still be tough)


Those are what I'd consider some of the biggest challenges in the series. On the flipside, what I think are the EASIEST in the series...


FFVII (C'mon, you can pretty much snooze through this game no problem. There's a couple bosses that's mean and the Weapons are nasty, but other than that it's not a hard game at all. Can pretty much hold Circle and win every fight just about)
FFVIII: If you don't know what you're doing, it can be rough. But know what you're doing even a little, and this game becomes a massive joke. Even MORESO when you fully understand what you're doing
FFVI: It teethers on easy and medium difficulty, just because of how the game itself is. Again, some enemies/bosses are rough and whatnot, but overall the game is super easy due to what the characters are capable of, and even moreso once you get access to good magic
FFIV: It's honestly not that hard I feel. A couple rough spots, but overall not too terrible in difficulty (except dumb Dark Bahamut. I HATE YOOOOOU)
Crisis Core -FFVII-: This is probably due to the Missions making the player super overleveled and overpowered. Really no consequences for doing them (unless you're playing JP version, in which case dying in a mission will result in a game over unlike all other versions...).


That's all I'll note on the games. FFIX falls in-between all of those in the medium difficulty I feel, same with FFI/FFX/FFX-2/FFXII. Just my two cents on the whole matter!

Several different types of difficulty people are talking about:

1) How hard the game is to learn. FF Tactics tops this chart by a mile.

2) How much grinding the game expects you to do. I'm not actually sure this qualifies as "difficulty," it just means the game lets you choose between experiencing difficulty and spending time to get stronger. FF11 wins this one, with FF14 coming in a close second.

3) How little room for error the game gives you on most of the individual challenges, assuming you know how to play and are the right level. FF11 wins this one again easily. Other games have a few hard bosses but only FF11 has consistently hard normal enemies.

4) How little room for error the game gives you on the hardest challenge in the game, assuming you know how to play and are at maximum level. This is probably an impossible question to answer and everyone will have a different answer because most of the "difficulty" for most of these uberbosses is in realizing the correct strategy, not in the actual execution. At this point you're talking about one optional battle, not about the game as a whole, so it's not really answering the question of "hardest FF game" anyway.

author=JosephSeraph
first battles in ff5: you have 36hp and enemies deal 5 damage
first battles in ff7: you have 360hp and enemies deal 6 damage

First battle in FF7R: You have no health and the battle is a cutscene

man you guys are really clever

Until you get good old Orlandeau anyway.