ff9 is truly the greatest final fantasy game ever created.

FFVIII....yeah, suck it.

I'll throw in my vote towards Final Fantasy IX. I loved its homage towards the earlier final fantasies, every character had its job class and stayed there.
Vivi; Black mage, Zidane; Thief, Steiner; Knight and so forth and so forth. Plus untold homages towards the other final fantasy's. Including 7.

I liked 9's characters better than 7. Give me Quita over Cait Sith any day. The story made more sense to me, and isn't getting more confusing as the years go by. Graphics and gameplay were alot of fun, and the characters felt more like final fantasy. Staying with their job classes, Zidane being a thief, vivi a black mage, steiner a knight and so forth and so on.

If ya want a list of my preferred final fantasy's... its as follows.

Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy V
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy XII

Well as long as you let the OP know you are just pulling his leg, I wont hold it against you lol. I hate it when that happens. The second someone mentions FFVII everyone jumps to bring it down because its the most popular and the love to see the fans of that game go butt  f*ck bananas!

Nothing ticks me off more then an FF VII hater!(I have a feeling I will see a hundred replys on everyones adoring hatred for FFVII now)

Final Fantasy VII is, but only because it was my first JRPG EVER, i was ironicly 7 Years old when i first played it lol it was destiny!

But with my bias towards VII aside i cant really say since i've never liked IX the characters were to kid-ish imo. aswell as unrealistic.

final fantasy 9 was an awesome game and is in my top 3 rpgs of all time after Chrono Trigger and Tales of Symphonia. I tried playing Final Fantasy 7 on a few different occasions over the years and I can never stay interested enough to play through the whole thing. I would agree that 9 is better than 7.

FF7 is the winner for me. FFIX didnt do it for me however it still finished it like all final fantasy series.

However best Final Fantasy overall isnt on this thread and that is FFVI

I liked FF IX quite a bit but I believe that FF VII is the superior title.

VII for me, I didn't like IX very much, the story was too weak and most of the characters were annoying, the game never took itself too seriously and it suffered a lot for me with that. The battle system wasn't too good either, it worked but it was a bit too rigid, I'm not the biggest fan of preset characters, I prefer when you can choose their paths a bit more to your liking
VII, on the contrary, has a great customizable battle system, a fantastic story full of the twists I like and some amazing characters like Cloud and Red XIII, one of the best RPGs you can find on the PS1

Final Fantasy IX, no question asked.

I liked VII, but it doesn't match up.