Ever since the original Final Fantasy debuted in Japan on the NES on December 18, 1987, the series has become one of the most popular franchises in all of pop culture. Of course, a big part of the appeal of these JRPGs is the characters who make up your party and bring so much life to your journey. In honor of all these heroes, we thought we'd ask you to help decide which Final Fantasy party member is the best.
Is Cloud your favorite? How about Terra or Balthier? We've selected 95 permanent party members from the mainline entries (This means no Sephiroth or Beatrix as they were temporary party members!) and some extras from sequels/spin-offs to "Face-Off" against each other two at a time. Will you choose Tifa over Cecil? Or Noctis over Vivi? The choice is yours...
Click here to start voting in the Final Fantasy Party Member Face-Off!
What is a Face-Off?
Like the name suggests, a Face-Off pits two things against one another and you decide which one is the superior of the two. In this case, you are voting to determine who the best Final Fantasy party member is. It's possible to see certain characters multiple times so you can keep voting for your favorites to ensure they get ranked higher than the rest. IGN's resident team of Final Fantasy experts pre-selected 95 amazing party members for you to choose from the original Final Fantasy through Final Fantasy XV, with a few popular extras thrown in. These get randomly paired up and each time you pick a winner, it's tracked.
How do you determine a winner?
When voting ends on July 6, we tally up the total number of "wins" and "losses" each Final Fantasy character has, and create a ranked list based on your choices that will go live on July 7. The character that won the most matchups will be crowned the "winner," and in the event of a tied number of "wins," the party member with the least "losses" will take the top spot. If you continue to keep voting for your favorite character, they'll have a better chance of ranking high on the list. You can vote as many times as you want until the Face-Off closes.
How do I know when I’ve clicked through everything?
It's difficult to know when you've seen every Final Fantasy character included because they are matched randomly and there are so many possible match-ups. Playing until you vote for all your favorite party members or ensuring that certain characters don't get in the winner's circle are different options you can take with a Face-Off. By deciding the winner throughout all these matchups, you're ensuring that your picks for the best Final Fantasy playable character will have a fighting chance to reach the top of the list.
Which Final Fantasy party members have you included?
The list of Final Fantasy party members has been decided by IGN staff, with characters from the original Final Fantasy through Final Fantasy XV included. We've also included a few characters from sequels and spin-offs, like Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Crisis Core -Final Fantasy-, as many of these characters are important to those overall stories as well. We've decided to limit the face-off to permanent party members from primarily main series entries and their sequels/spin-offs, instead of all playable characters, as that would introduce some fan-favorite villains that temporarily joined certain parties and may skew results (Sephiroth!).
Also, we LOVE Final Fantasy XI and XIV as much as you, but we decided to include only the main series games that let you have a playable party, even though those MMOs have some incredible characters. Who knows, maybe they will show up in a future Face-Off?
Click here to start voting in the Final Fantasy Party Member Face-Off!
For more on Final Fantasy, check out our review of the Yuffie-centric Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade - EPISODE INTERmission and details on the world, heroes, and story of Final Fantasy 16.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.