http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3164719Final Fantasy VII: Worth It
Let's be frank: Final Fantasy VII is a goddamn mess of a game. Even the graphical style is ridiculously inconsistent, to say nothing of the shallow wreck that is the Materia system. Even the story sucks: an overly complicated mess that replaces good writing with sloppy complexity. But it's still worth playing just for the experience: This game changed everything, not just Final Fantasy, and it's an essential title for anyone who cares at all about the medium's history. Just don't be surprised by how much it sucks.
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Kingdom Hearts II: Not Worth It
After the success of Kingdom Hearts, a sequel was inevitable. Unfortunately, Tetsuya Nomura's team didn't bother fixing the original's flaws, like the button-mashy combat; instead, they focused their efforts on amplifying its worst excesses. The story, simply mysterious in the first game, has turned into a bloated, ill-conceived mess that makes Compilation of Final Fantasy VII look like a Dick and Jane primer. Gameplay "depth" comes in the form of a lame contextual action button. And Mickey Mouse is a posturing goth. A travesty.
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Final Fantasy XII: Worth It
A bold rethinking of what Final Fantasy can be, FFXII merges the real-time, free-roaming enormity of FFXI with the single-player plot structure of the rest of the series, resulting in a game that spans the gulf between MMO and solo RPGs and feels nearly as much like a Western-developed game as it does a game of its Japanese vintage. Possibly the boldest game in the series -- and one of the best.
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Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Not Worth It
Marking Square's long-awaited return to a Nintendo system, Crystal Chronicles bore the burden of massive expectations...and lived up to none of them. Which isn't to say it's a poor game, but it suffers from some terrible design decisions. The need for a party member to carry a bucket around is one; the need to invest in a massive tangle of GBAs and link cables is another. A promising start, but hopefully its potential will be realized by its Wii and DS sequels.
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Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings: Worth It
FFXII's sequel is a far cry from the vast, somber PS2 RPG; instead, it's a lighthearted portable game that nips at the heels of the real-time strategy genre. While hardcore RTS fans will find it horribly lacking, as a simplified take on FFXII's gameplay, it works pretty well. And it's nice to see Vaan finally get to be a real main character, for once.
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Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars: Not Worth It
This Square/Nintendo crossover could be seen as the spiritual antecedent to Kingdom Hearts and Paper Mario -- but it isn't as good as either. It's visually dated and sports a combat system that seems like a primitive sketch of what would be perfected in Paper Mario, and even the amusing hidden boss that parodies Final Fantasy's highfalutin pretentiousness isn't quite enough to make up for the game's shortcomings.
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Final Fantasy VIII: Not Worth It
The follow-up to Final Fantasy VII took the series in new and unexpected directions, much to the surprise of everyone who expected FFVII Part Two. Materia and armor were replaced by a system that allowed characters to fuse magic spells to their various stats, and summoning monsters became a more intrinsic part of the gameplay than in any previous Final Fantasy. Its daring efforts made it a remarkable (and controversial) experience at the time, but unfortunately, it's vaguely unplayable by current standards due to sluggish battles and a story predicated almost entirely on preposterous coincidences. A streamlined remake wouldn't be so bad, though....
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Final Fantasy Tactics: Worth It
While FFVII was off in the future being superficial, Square's B team was exploring a more traditional setting, expanding FFV's genius job system into something even better, and grafting it all to challenging strategic gameplay lifted from Tactics Ogre. Sony's original English script is a disaster, but the gameplay remains endlessly addictive.
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Secret of Evermore: Not Worth It
A sort of try-hard sequel to Secret of Mana, Square USA's sole creation was a good effort but dragged a little too often to hold up to the years -- and its clumsy alchemic spell system certainly didn't help. The Final Fantasy cameos were a cute touch, though.
