Ranking Every Final Fantasy Spin-Off Game

Final Fantasy is a household name in the world of gaming. From the original release of through to this year’s long-awaited remake of Final Fantasy VII, the ‘main series’ of fifteen numbered games are amongst the all-time greats, critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

Complementing these are a host of sequels, subseries and standalone spin-offs that range from the well-known to the obscure, as well as a number of films, anime series, audio dramas and books that expand the universe even further.

Keeping track of everything is an almost impossible job, but what follows is a comprehensive attempt to definitely rank every secondary game in terms of their overall quality. Few can hold a candle to the series’ well-established classics, but as many are worth exploring as worth ignoring entirely.

There are several titles that have been omitted for not fully meeting the criteria of being a ‘spin-off’, including enhanced remakes (such as XII: The Zodiac Age) expansions and add-on scenarios for Final Fantasies XI and XIV, games only released on mobile phones (such as Dimensions, Brave Exvius, Mobius and Record Keeper), games from other series originally released under the Final Fantasy name for marketing reasons (the first Mana and first three SaGa games), and games from related but otherwise distinctive series (such as Chocobo, Kingdom Hearts, Bravely Default and Vagrant Story).

After the success of the original Final Fantasy, Square Enix actually skipped releasing Final Fantasies II and III outside of Japan, instead releasing Final Fantasy IV as Final Fantasy II (and then VI as III) to create a numbering system that still confuses many to this day. The reasoning for this was that II, III and V were believed to be too complicated for American gamers to follow and unlikely to succeed as a result.

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, also known as Final Fantasy USA and Mystic Quest Legend, was their answer to this quandary. A game aimed solely at audiences they considered too stupid for complexities such as a job system, status effects, a world map or manual equipment setups, it was idiotproof and almost insulting to play.

Much of the game involved moving from point a to point b, engaging with near-braindead enemies that politely waited for players to attack them and then repeating the process ad infinitum

Square Enix re-released the game on the Wii Virtual Console in 2010, indicating that they aren’t as embarrassed by it as they should be. A disaster unworthy of the Final Fantasy name, Mystic Quest is up there with some of the more diabolical freemium mobile titles (such as the infamous All The Bravest that boasts a score of 25 on Metacritic) as the worst that the entire series has to offer, having no positives bar a few catchy musical tracks.