i expect this games to be in the final top ten:
secret of mana
super mario rpg
earthbound
chrono trigger
final fantasy III

with chrono trigger winning the top. man the snes had the best games! althought not all of them will be in the top ten because if they do that they will get serious hate from every kid that started playing since the 2000's. they will be at least in the top 20, i didn't even expected to see shadowrun in the list!

FF7 is definitely better than 8-10. I didn't get through 12, but my friends that did tell me it was amazing. 13 was trash.

I may  have been 8 when I started playin VII but like I said, I realize i did not fully understand it then. I was a few FF games in and wiser once I got to VI. At the time of playing VI for the first time I had no favorite in the series, so I see my interpretations of each title as fair as possible. I mean do you cling to VI simply because it was the swan song before the death of the FF-SNES era? I doubt you do so Why is it fair to say FFVII is only liked because it was many's "first"? Persona 3 was my first in the series, but I like P4 more than it. Mind you I was blind to all the supposed marketing hype around VII as well because I never saw the commercials. I got a front row demonstration of all of them and assessed from there.

about FFIV...

The ORGININAL text(not the updated more fleshed out dialogue from the many updates) was pretty horrendous to me. I would have to play the games again to find some of the utterly cringe worthy things the characters would say, plus there is the famous Spoony bard thing. Now the updated versions do wonders for the story to me, especially the DS version with the chibi FFVII like graphics. Even SE admits that the original game had truncated dialogue mostly due to the cartridge limitations. This was only corrected in later remakes.

VI's script was much better written but not on par with what I fell in love with with FFVII later on. I find the previous FF games before PS1 to be far more simplistic in story than the ones after(until XIII that is) .You might be right about the formating of the way everything is done, movie vs play. Yet I see it more like a well written Soap Opera rather than a Movie. The movie feeling doesn't register for me till X and on.

9 was good, but it didn't capture the amazement to me that 7 brought.

Also: successful troll is successful

My favourite FF was XII which was the second I played (first was the FFIII DS remake). I just fell in love with that game and it has remained one of my favourite games ever since. I can't really say it is the best though as my experience with FF is very patchy (at least the main series). I've played bits and pieces of most of them at some point but only X, XII and XIII to completion. This is something I hope to correct soon but I have EPQ and Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 to get through first which are taking me a while (going for maxed Social Link playthroughs). There is a lot of other RPGs mentioned in here that I haven't even necessarily heard of before that sound like they are worth checking out. *sigh* So many things, so little time :G

Hmmm... possible games for top 10...

Baldurs Gate 1 & 2, FFVI & VII, Chrono Trigger, Mass Effect 2, Skyrim, Star Wars KoToR, Planescape Torment, Fallout 1-3...

No matter what order they put this is going to result in forum wars

I specifically said that wasn't why people liked it best.

I said specifically you liked 7 best because you were too young to appreciate FF games when they were younger.

It was the first that caught your eye, which you yourself mentioned, and it was the first of the "new style" final fantasy games.

As such, what a "final fantasy game should be" is based around FF7.

For Persona games, 4 is like 3... just better.

7 and 6 are very different in terms of exuction, plot detail, and writing focus.  The SNES ones are just more cerebral.

Also, no... the SNES version FF2 is still better written then most final fantasy games from a technical and narrative perspective.  They couldn't fit everything in there... but they still fit in plenty, and tended to do so well.

As for me by the way.   My first Final Fantasy was the first.

lol I saw that but then got distracted.

On another note, I am fairly disgusted at Persona 4 being so far back. It is seriously one of the greatest games of all time and does something entirely unique with the characterizations of your party members. I don't think I have ever felt so attached to a team as I do with P4's cast. It felt like I had really made friends in a distant town and I would do anything to keep them.

THAT is underrated.

@Kasz
By your definition of objectivity no one's judgment can be taken seriously. You seem to lean towards the idea that Bit era FF games are somehow written better than more recent entries. By the law that I was too young to appreciate the older ones, doesn't that mean you could simply be to old to appreciate what the 3D era FFs had to offer? All FFs are a bit different yet hold on to key traditions as a series. They are all very much alike yet vastly different all at the same time. You could very well be wearing the Rose Tinted Glasses of the "Back in my day..." variety of thought. By that rule, people always think a certain style of what they grew up with is better than what came before and after it when they are honestly not all that different. If this is the case we are both slighted by our upbringing with the series.

Except both FF6 and FF7 were "within my day.".   I was 15 or 16 when it came out....

Though, you specifically mentioned where your problems lie, mistakingly thinking they were a defense.

I've played the Final Fantasy games and have frames of refrence for what gaming was like when each game was released.

I've seen the evolution first hand and know what it was, giving me a fairly objective view of  the franchise.

This is a stark difference compaired to you, who before even playing the games or being able to understand them had specific games catch your eye via watching other people playing them.  Additionally catching your eye out of order, and at a time when you yourself admit you couldn't fully appreciate any of the games.

A good example is the Godfather movies.

A lot of younger people today don't like the Godfather movies.  Why?   Because they weren't watching movies back then.  They don't have the frame of refrence of what filmaking back then was, compaired to the filmaking of today where everything jump cuts to keep the audiences attention fully stimulized.

Older people can apperciate the Godfather and later movies... because they know and appreciate both types of filmmaking... rather then being spoiled by the more "instant gratification" type of movie.

Then again, a lot of younger people still like the Godfather, because they are able to get it.