19. Final Fantasy II
To be fair, most of the earlier titles in the Final Fantasy series can't quite live up to today's standards. Simpler plots, graphics and gameplay make it harder to compete, but they do deserve a spot in history. At number 19 we have Final Fantasy II, the first 'sequel' in the series, that wasn't a direct continuation of the first Final Fantasy, but told its own story with its own lore, background and characters. FFII did a few things differently to FFI. For starters, it had a stronger, more driven story. It was an interesting if lengthy romp with a good degree of drama and emotion. The major downside with FFII is with the leveling system, known as a proficiency system where you level-up the attributes you use the most. While that sounds good, and has been done well in other games, in FFII there are drawbacks. To increase your life bar, your characters need to get hit a lot. Seriously. Which means you need to constantly be taking damage to reach good levels or, as many found out, you could just whack your own characters during an easy battle to level up quick and easy. The weird balance issues with the leveling system is one of the main reasons you'll find FFII near the bottom of many Final Fantasy ranking lists. A quick note that the first appearances of Cid and Chocobos were in this game.