r/FinalFantasy's Elimination Game

cold_spirit

cold_spirit

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Alex T
r/FinalFantasy's month-long Final Fantasy Elimination Game just wrapped up. There were 14 polls in total. In each poll, users were asked to vote out their least favorite FF. The winner would then be removed from the next poll. Here are the final results:
  1. Final Fantasy X
  2. Final Fantasy VII
  3. Final Fantasy IX
  4. Final Fantasy VI
  5. Final Fantasy XIV
  6. Final Fantasy IV
  7. Final Fantasy XII
  8. Final Fantasy VIII
  9. Final Fantasy V
  10. Final Fantasy III
  11. Final Fantasy I
  12. Final Fantasy XV
  13. Final Fantasy XI
  14. Final Fantasy XIII
  15. Final Fantasy II
NHK, a Japanese public broadcasting station, ran their own poll earlier this year. According to NintendoLife, "The poll asked viewers to rank their favourite games, characters and more from the series, with a whopping 468,654 votes being cast in total." Here are NHK's top 10 FF games:
  1. Final Fantasy X
  2. Final Fantasy VII
  3. Final Fantasy VI
  4. Final Fantasy IX
  5. Final Fantasy XIV
  6. Final Fantasy V
  7. Final Fantasy VIII
  8. Final Fantasy IV
  9. Final Fantasy XI
  10. Final Fantasy XV
There's some interesting overlap between these two polls. The same games appear in the top 5 (in release order: VI, VII, IX, X, XIV). Additionally, FFX is the winner in both Japanese and English speaking audiences, with FFVII right behind it. I hereby announce Final Fantasy X as the "most popular" Final Fantasy yet. Congrats X!
 
Makoeyes987

Makoeyes987

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Smooth Criminal
I look at the bottom 6, and it just proves we will not be able to survive much longer as a species. We can't keep doing this, something's gotta change, folks. Time is running out.

We can't keep perpetuating this lie about XIII or even XV. Nature can't keep correcting us. Our children's children are going to grow up believing a vicious lie and we'll only have ourselves to blame.
 
null

null

Mr. Thou
AKA
null
I thought XV was pretty darn fun. Not sure where I'd rank it, but I wouldn't vote it out before I or III or even VIII. Aside from development hell and DLC hell and in-game commercials and being hyped as the VII killer, I'd imagine its reputation took the biggest hit from being compared to The Witcher 3 (which actually sold well in Japan iirc). Most of the top FF games didn't have iconic peers; Square's biggest competition in its golden age was (checks notes) Enix.

On the other hand I don't know what XIII's beef was (never played it rofl). But it wasn't competition from the West. If anyone played Mass Effect 2 in Japan, it was probably both at gunpoint and by accident.
 
Lulcielid

Lulcielid

Eyes of the Lord
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Lulcy
The japaneses at leats have seen the light and discovered IX is not worthy to be in the top 10.
 
Leafonthebreeze

Leafonthebreeze

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AKA
Leaf
As someone who played XIII when it came out, as a student with time to kill on it and was was hype as all hell for it at the time, that game was disappointing. I actually tried replaying it for the first time since then last year (on the original 360 no less, oh god the loading times), it's still not good (and I still haven't finished it, although I got a lot further). It's a corridor followed by hours of grinding and you have to really put the effort in to make yourself care about the characters. Fang is the only good one ;)
 
Makoeyes987

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
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Smooth Criminal
It's not easy but I will happily carry the burden of my Focus through these long and winding corridors.

I will keep XIII, Agito and XV alive. The black sheep of the franchise. Maybe one day one of them coughXIIIcough will have a Renaissance 15 years from now and get a remaster that adds some nice expanded content to enrich it's base experience.

Maybe one day.
 
ph14basicbitch

ph14basicbitch

shinra merch buyer
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koda
The NHK poll was from 2019-2020, before Remake was even released.

You can see the full results on the NHK webpage: https://www.nhk.or.jp/anime/ff/ranking/

Some of them have statistics. For example, you can see that FF7, FF9 and FF15 are more popular / voted on by women.

In my opinion, the top 10 character is spicy as fuck, as it has Emet-Selch coming in 6th (Sephiroth was 11th).

BTW, I feel I should mention that the NHK was voted on by having users select multiples. So the results don't reflect "1000 people only voted for [Game X] or [Character B]", but rather that 1000 people had [Game X] and [Character B] in common.
 
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cold_spirit

cold_spirit

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AKA
Alex T
Odd follow-up, but Final Fantasy VII recently took 3rd place in TV Asahi's Top 100 Video Games of All Time. Kitase even made an appearance. The poll was taken by 50,000 people in Japan.

Breath of the Wild came in 1st, Dragon Quest V took 2nd. Final Fantasy X rolled in at 9th place.

For the record I know rankings don't matter, it's just interesting to me is all

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1475443578373820420
 
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Makoeyes987

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
Not surprising results.

Zelda goes hard, particularly Breath of the Wild.

Dragon Quest is Dragon Quest, one of the most popular RPGs in Japan for decades.

The fact FFVII is hanging with titans like that in a 50k sampling of the Japanese audience is incredible.

That shows that outside the more narrow population of FF fans, which the December 2019 poll sampled, FFVII holds a broader audience level of popularity. FFX is popular and well regarded, but it's more high in the FF fanbase than wider non-FF devoted fanbase.
 
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Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Administrator
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Yop
Lulcielid said:
The japaneses at leats have seen the light and discovered IX is not worthy to be in the top 10.
Click to expand...

user was banned for this post

:monster: jk, IX had probably the most charm of any FF game out there, but they really dropped the ball with the ending / final boss.

Also I've never played any Dragon Quest game, is it in any way appealing to western audiences?
 
ForceStealer

ForceStealer

Double Growth
XI was the first one I played. It was reasonably enjoyable for some old school JRPG gameplay rendered in HD. But when I had to get the macguffins for the third time I checked out. Still I feel I got my money's worth, lol, playedf about 50 hours.

Also not a fan of Toriyama's artstyle
 
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ph14basicbitch

ph14basicbitch

shinra merch buyer
AKA
koda
It's certainly nostalgic for people. In the aforementioned TV Asahi poll, DQ 5 was voted the #1 game amongst responders in their 50s, and another DQ game was #1 amongst people in their 40s. It's also known for influencing/inspiring a lot of jrpgs that came after it. In true "Seinfeld did it first" fashion, if you've played other JRPGs, the DQ probably isn't going to feel very "unique" to you. I guess you could describe it more like "cozy" or "familiar"?

I'm not a fan of Toriyama's art personally, but considering Dragon Ball's popularity and how recognizable it is, it's no wonder that's a part of DQ's appeal.
 
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