I’ve been wanting to jump in on the final fantasy universe for a while now but I’m not sure where to start.
To be clear, I don’t have hundreds of hours to play the whole series. Someone told me that each game tends to be somewhat separate from the series as a whole.
So what is the most recent game in the series that I can start with that is worth it to play and wouldn’t confuse a newcomer?
Don’t start with XIV then!
All of the FF games – baring the ones that are explicitly sequels, like X2 – are totally separate from each other, you can jump in anywhere. At most you might miss some references or easter eggs.
If you want the most recent then, that’d be XVI, although I’d personally recommend looking up what the gameplay is like in the different games and starting wherever you feel you’ll have the most fun! There are some weirder ones out there, like crystal chronicles (my own first final fantasy game) and tactics, so you have a lot of options!
Hah, no kidding. Before I read that remark in the OP, I was going to mention it given it’s completely free up until the end of Heavensward, but given OP’s disclaimer and how many people get filtered by the slow burn of ARR it’s probably the worst suggestion in the case.
… or maybe that’s FFXI (much as I’m loving it!).
I wonder how many hundreds of hours I have in that game now… I’ll
/playtimenext time I log in. I’m still in the patches after Shadowbringers, but I’ve also been known to focus more on roulettes and such than actually making progress in the main storyHah, snap. I’m also somewhere around the end of 5.3, and have far too many hours logged (comes with levelling all jobs to somewhere between 70 and 81).