Hardest Main Series Title?

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

Note that this is for hardest overall, so if one game has a really hard part but is otherwise pretty easy, it doesn't count. Otherwise we might as well just be voting for the hardest superboss, which we already have a topic on. (though we don't have a poll afaik. Hmmm...)

For me, it has to be FFIII. The endgame in particular is rather brutal due to there be no opportunities to save in the last two dungeons, which are super long and hard as fuck. Hell, in the last dungeon, you can't even escape to the world map to save real quick! While other game have parts harder than FFIII, I feel overall III is the most difficult to beat. I have heard the NES versions of I and II are pretty hard, but I've only played the PSP and IOS versions of those ones, which I found to be pretty balanced in difficulty, not to tough, not too easy, which I think is an excellent achievement on SE's part, making once notoriously hard games more fair without making them too easy. If only they could have done that with III... Hell, according to some people, the DS/IOS/PSP/PC version(the one I've played), is actually harder.

As a matter of fact, III is the only one I'd even classify as difficult overall, other than maybe FFIV DS. The rest are pretty balanced in terms of difficulty, and many have exploits to make them outright cakewalks, but III has no way to make it outright easy, other than maybe getting 4 level 99 Onion Knights with complete sets of Onion Equipment. If only Sage and Ninja weren't nerfed(though they're still among the best classes in FFIII).

I do have yet to play the MMOs though, so I'm not sure how difficult they are. I do plan on getting them once I get a job so I can pay the monthly subscriptions though.

What do you guys think?

 

[RedFFWolf]

Good question. Let's see, I've played V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2 and XII. When I was younger, I likely would have said IX, but I have played each of these titles in the last two/three years and now I think it might be XII. Certain battle give you a lot less room to breathe, ya know? That, and stumbling upon rare game in tight spots was a little daunting; the game wasn't below dishing out very hard enemies in early stages; and you could wander into a location far beyond your average level. But, including XII, I haven't had much struggle with any of them lately.
I'm gonna mull over this question some more before I vote - I could be missing something still.
Maybe I'll just have to play them all again and may just have to call in sick to work. What a shame

Spoiler: Side Answer

In terms of trying to complete the games in full [i.e., from the fighting perspective], I found X and X-2 to be the hardest (without Zanmato'ing everything). You'd want to be reaching high levels and stats before fighting the hardest of the hard [Dark Aeons and Arena for FFX, and Via Purifico and Fiend Arena especially for FFX-2, where the HD version of the Cat Nip accessory puts you in Berserk and Slow, hence can't spam Trigger Happy]. I know the question's from an overall perspective, but I figure it worth including this section because it has a broad range of enemies amplifying the difficulty rather than, say, one extra difficult boss or section.