The Final Fantasy series

Best games i've ever played, though quality has waned from FF10 and squaresoft/enix have never reached the heights of FF7.

I played the first few, in the good ol days

I believe the best two to date are X and VII, although X-2 was an unfortunate foray into a new style which didn't quite work. The brilliant character work, the stories, unique artistic style and the music (Nobuo Uematsu is a genius) all combine to make a very immersive experience. It is one of the few game series that I would label "mature" in nature. Not that it deals in necessarily mature themes, but it has developed to a stage where it is on par with literature in terms of technical brilliance and artistic merit. Although, there is a sort of artistry in taking down 30 or so people from around Australia and New Zealand with a single bullet in Battlefield 2.

I wasn't aware there existed a Final Fantasy 13. The game currently under development is Final Fantasy 12, which will be released in the not too distant future.

I haven't played it. It's coming out in a couple of weeks. On the SQUARE-ENIX site there's not mention of a 13 

I would also like to know. I hear only good things about it so far, from usually reliable sources.

Spot on Balaam, but would give Dirge a lower rating, very uninmaginative and plain boring. Plus, the final boss is way too easy which drives me insane.

If you want, like me, to do everything in the game, then the final boss will be a push over completely. But yeah, in all honesty I could have beaten the final boss in FFX with Tidus alone and half health. I had him that sooped up that he got three attacks in before anyone else got to move..

I've enjoyed the Final Fantasy series, from about III-VI (The US NES golden age) and then from FFIX-FFX-2. They all share in common a fantastic setting and for an RPG has surprising replay value.

Of course I've never played FFVII and at this point I refuse to play it, as it started the whole blonde effeminate speedy main char vs. the grey-haired effeminate dracula-esque villian, which I feel has totally limited the surprise factor in the more recent Final Fantasies. Which is why I liked the direction they took in X-2, since it was different.

Call me a cynic, but was X-2 not a quick spin off to cash in on the huge success of X, and did it not rely on highly sexualised female characters to distract attention away from the poor gameplay??