I hated the law system.  It was a pointless addition to make the game harder.  Never beat it because the last battle had nothing but monsters, and one of the laws was "don't attack monsters".  Couldn't find an anti-law for it either.  Fuck that game.  How about we just kill the judge and then kill the monsters.  We're also trying to overthrow the guy making the laws, so why are we following his stupid laws?  Fuck that game.

I'll agree this entire argument is awkward because you keep making assumptions.

I'll leave it at that and carry on.

You're the one assuming things my friend. I just quote what the SE boss said...

If you thought Tactics Advance was too hard you were doing it wrong lol. Original Tactics had this horrible scaling system. When a battle starts you cannot see the turrain nor the enemies you will be facing, you pick your party, so when you get into battle the enemies are always like twice your level. God forbid you are trying to level weaker characters. Advance didn't do that but instead they just gradually go up in level as the game progresses. Then of course there is the Laws which if you choose your party well(you can see the battle field and turrain before you pick) it should be easy. If an Law says "No attacks" I think that just means physical(Its been a while) so you can use magic, or if it means all attacks you just confuse or tame them and force them to attack each other. Even if they don't die, they will get heavily penalized for doing so, rince repeat till you win.

Tactics Advanced created a far more unique tactical game. The only SRPG that created a comparably different layer of tactical ingenuity would be Jeanne D'Arc on PSP. That game forces you to really think about your surroundings. I will never forget storming in on this castle only to find the main hall was locked. Had to send one character through a window, shimy across a ledge, and break into the main hall. This was all while my team tried fending off a couple of dragons in the hallway. Battles were INTENSE! Not to mention it is one of the few SRPGs I have played where they went the extra mile to make it 3D unlike most developers (Love Level 5).

I don't understand why IGN even bothers. It's like they run out of ideas and decide, "Hey, let's do another top whatever list. That'll stir the pot!".

It's lame.

FFVII and Chrono Trigger repping the top 2? FFX in top 5? FFVII>FFX>FFIX>FFVI>FFIV?!?!!!

Ahhhh....this is how it should be! I would probably rate them about the same exact way(minus the Pokemon and Mass Effect in the Top 5). :D

Great list so far.

Yeah I can't say I agree with the top ten being 80% Final Fantasies and Pokemon.  

Kasz said that he things all the FF pre PS1 days had better writing......seriously?  The same way my views could possibly be skewed by the fact I approached them out of order, his can be skewed by the fact he grew up seeing FF as a certain way(like he said 2D play scripts as opposed to FFVII+'s "movies"). This is the epitome of the "Back in my day..." mind set. 

My argument is that generally speaking FFVII is seen as the best of the series, Sales say so(10million strong), The developers say so (http://andriasang.com/con1ny/wada_on_ffvii_remake/) , almost every reader poll says so(listed earlier), most fans you run into will say so (me). Now everyone is not going to have the same opinion, this can be expected of anything. It just has become much more apparent to FFVII fans of the tirelessly "Its not as good as you all think it is" crap. You get a million and one articles that utilize FFVII as the "eye catching" game  it is....then totally rob it of any merit or power, litterally they start explaining why they did not give it a top spot or another. Why would you have to explain this if you aren't taking a jab at it's fans just for kicks? The reason why journalist do this is because everyone knows pissing off fans gets their attention more than making them happy. Sensationalism. This is the birth place of the Non Conformist Conformist mindset which feeds this inner need to make yourself stand out by being different rather than the social norm which in itself makes that the new social norm(because everyone wants to stand out but if everyone stands out than nobody stands out).

I explained how I did not form a serious opinion on any of them untill playing more than half of them.Yes, I started with VII, yes it was the first to catch my eye.Yet FFVII catching my eye is a point in it's appeal, not a mark against my objectiveness. The fact earlier entries couldn't grasp a person from just looking at it shows how little appeal they have(I understand the graphical limitations of the time but doesn't make this untrue). If a game can't hook someone from watching it or playing it a bit, isn't that failing Good game making 101? Its not like I had never seen a 2D game before, I owned an Atari and Sega Genesis,neither of which had yet defined me as a gamer. Every game I ever loved had the power to hook me within a small amount of time watching it Any game that didn't yet I forced myself to play, usually felt indifferent about it.

@Kasz

You said earlier that those who have played the entire series in order from start to finish are a definite minority. You believe if everyone played the earlier ones that they would think more like you do. Gamers like you are under the harsh impression that it is all on the merit of it's hyped release, that it doesn't deserve it. You seemingly rebuke the idea that just people like it best period. Basically it feels to me that you and those like you are trying to tell FFVII fans our opinion is warped because we didn't play the 2D ones first, buy yours isn't although you could be suffering from rose tinted "back in my day.." syndrome. Yet a few people even in this thread played other entries before VII and still find its their fave, and then there are some who played FFVII first and still like another best.

Final Fantasy is the second best selling  RPG franchise(1st Pokemon,2nd Final Fantasy, 3rd Dragon Quest cuz no one outside Japan buys that crap) period. It doesn't just sell cuz of it's pretty looks. It would only make sense they have some of the best RPGs around and most highly rated.