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The Elder Scrolls series vs. Final Fantasy series?

Which is the best?

  • The Elder Scrolls Series

  • Final Fantasy Series


Results are only viewable after voting.
Currently these are the two biggest home rpg series not f2p out there, and that goes double as much for home consoles. Strangely I never see them compared despite the constant Wrpg vs. Jrpg debates on the internet.

This thread isn't about what your favorite rpg is, this thread focuses specifically on these two series and which of them you like best. Both have had a plethora of releases and spin-offs, like Redguard, a 1998 third person action adventure spinoff taking place in the TES universe, and Dirge of Cerberus, a third person action game taking place in the FF7 universe.

Both series have influenced many games, although one may say that TES influenced more of the games we've seen the last several years, but FF has influenced nearly the entire Jrpg sub-genre for better or worse, so one could say they are comparable in influence in some respects.

If you have read this far you should notice by now I'm just trying to fill up the page. Tell me which series is your favorite and vote.

Random pics

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Both are great but an awesome FF game is like nothing else. I feel that Fallout has done open world better than Elder Scrolls for quite some time. Skyrim was great in many ways but New Vegas WW past it in general.
 

Aenima

Member
Final Fantasy. Even if they are far from SquareSoft quality FFs, they are still great storytellers with interesting combat mechanics and artstyle.

Elder Scrolls. Are better Role-Play games though and give the player much more freedom for role playing. So totally diferent franchises doing totally diferent things.
 

Vagswarm

Member
Elder Scrolls for me. Much prefer the open world medieval fantasy setting. And the worlds are really, really open. I couldn't believe all the stuff you could do in Morrowind, although my favorite is Oblivion. I don't really like the combat in any of them though. You'd think that with 500 years in development, they'd have some kind of decent combat system.

I was never the biggest fan of Final Fantasy, even during the NES & SNES era. VI was my favorite, although IX is pretty amazing.

Fallout is better than both of them as far as my personal tastes go. Love that setting and everything about it.
 

Optimus Lime

(L3) + (R3) | Spartan rage activated
Elder Scrolls. There's less of a chance that I'm going to be required to role play as a hairless, concave-chested, effete boy who struggles with a dark secret. I just want to play some alpha male moron who breaks things with hammers.
 

Aion002

Member
I like Final Fantasy....

a lot GIF


And I finished almost all of them multiple times...


While the only TES (Skyrim) that I played had the save file corrupted at 30 hours or so and I never bothered to play it again... It had some cool things, but also some really terrible things.

Final Fantasy all the way for me.
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
Tough, but overall Elder Scrolls has maintained and increased its quality while FF has been a roller coaster with a very dark period from FF12 - FF15. Elder scrolls has had no such bleak period.

so I’ll give the nod to Elder Scrolls, but both are my favorite series!
 
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Mozzarella

Member
Hard one, and to be honest weird comparison, what is the reasoning behind it? they are not similar at all.
But when i do comparison like this i take average of all games.
The Elder Scrolls has 5 single player games, I have only played 3 and i enjoyed them, Morrowind is the best and its one of the best Open World RPG, followed by Skyrim and then Oblivion. Those games have detailed lore and probably the best sandbox open world freedom in whole gaming medium, the exploration is cool and there's a lot of fun to be found in the game, the mods also are another huge part, great mod community and mod support.
The stories are the weakest part, however lore is good, the second weak part is the combat itself but the gameplay as a whole makes up for it.
Final Fantasy has 5 games i enjoyed, I played from 6 to 13 and then i skipped 14 and played 15 and remake of 7. The ones i enjoyed are 6 and 7 and 9 and 10 and 7remake, boring take i know. They have better stories and characters than Elder Scrolls games but the side content is weaker, the gameplay in terms of combat was more engaging but outside of it was dull.
Soundtracks are tricky as both have great OST.

So 3 games that i would rate: 10, 9, 8 (avg: 9)
Vs
10 games that i would rate: 10, 9, 6, 9, 8, 4, 7, 4, 6, 8, (avg: 7.1)

Numbers/Ratings may not be 100% accurate as i have quickly thought about them, but they are more or less around that verdict. It may be -/+ 1 but the avg diff will stay.

Edit: forgot to include tactics lol, thats around 9, would raise the avg to 7.22.

Another Edit: i dont like doing the avg method to compare, since its not really fair, Final Fantasy series are like episodic, each game is each own story, while Elder Scrolls is connected via the lore, and they have timeline, that helps to establish the series better, Final Fantasy is a series in name only, i think this point kills the whole comparison and makes it meaningless.
 
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TrueLegend

Member
Lol i like how many copies of oblivion and skyrim you have to compete against final fantasy. Final fanatasy games are way better taken together but elder scrolls lore is my favorite one so far. The world of Elder Scrolls is incredibly rich in fantasy elements but the games have always underdelivered. Its just that creation engine's modding capacity made these games unbeatable in terms of value they offer in experiencing fantastic stories. A mod for skyrim called "The forgotten city" won writers guild award and is now releasing as its own seperate game. Thats the power of this game series, due to modding ofc but that makes it long lasting. Both are good though. I want all Final Fantasy Remade like Resident Evil series but thats just me.
 
Final Fantasy has some of the best music in gaming period. They push the boundaries in cinematic quality every gen and there’s always a thought provoking storyline with them.

Final Fantasy allllll the way. Even their spinoffs have bangers. Tactics is a top 5 storyline in FF no doubt
 

bender

What time is it?
Morrowind was my first TES and the only game in the series I've liked. It's an all-time great and I've never bothered to go back to the older games. I really like Final Fantasy IV, VI, VII, IX and Tactics. The choice is pretty easy but Morrowind can stand toe to toe with any of my favorite FF enteries.
 

WizeVibez

Banned
I like more FF games than ES, but how much I love Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim trumps the entire final fantasy series which I've been playing since 1997.
 

ZehDon

Member
Peak Elder Scrolls trumps peak Final Fantasy for me, so Elder Scrolls it is.

Final Fantasy had it's time, but its largely failed to reinvent itself to stay relevant, unlike other long-running series like Resident Evil, save for the FF MMOs. VII Remake had a decent battle system, even if its implementation was a little wonky, but its about a generation too late for that to be enough for FF to get back on top. Elder Scrolls has become more casual, sure, but the change from Morrowind to Skyrim shows clear evolution and massive improvements across the board. I'm extremely excited to see what Elder Scrolls VI has in store, while I don't really care about FFXVI at all.
 

Kagoshima_Luke

Gold Member
Morrowind is one of my favorite games of all time and skyrim is amazing. That said, FFXIV is head and shoulders above ESO and FF IV, VI, VII, IX and XII are some of the best JRPGs in existence.

I give it to FF.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
I am very torn, but Morrowind, Oblivion, Morrowind, Skyrim, Morrowind, Oblivion…mmmh just something beyond the expected. If you can try VR Skyrim (PC or PSVR) you will understand even more why I went with The Elder Scrolls.
 
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BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
To my eyes and tastes, this isn’t even a contest. The Elder Scrolls are so far beyond FF, this question may as well be, what has the better graphics? Uncharted 1 or The Last of Us Part II…
 

kanjobazooie

Mouse Ball Fetishist
I used to enjoy old FF games from the 90s-00s, but FF15 turned me away from the series for good. How did we go from Lightning (😍) to a boy band?
On a serious note, I'm sure the games are still solid. They're just not for me.

ES have been amazing since the DOS games, and I hope ES6 comes out before I get too old for long-ass RPGs.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
You do know the last Elder Scrolls came out 11 November 2011. The last Final Fantasy came out 10 April 2020 and won a load of game of the years. The next Elder Scrolls is 4 or 5 years away. The next Final Fantasy comes out next year. Plus it has a better MMO.

Eso is going strong mate, released last month a new expansion.
 
Hard one, and to be honest weird comparison, what is the reasoning behind it? they are not similar at all.
But when i do comparison like this i take average of all games.
The Elder Scrolls has 5 single player games, I have only played 3 and i enjoyed them, Morrowind is the best and its one of the best Open World RPG, followed by Skyrim and then Oblivion. Those games have detailed lore and probably the best sandbox open world freedom in whole gaming medium, the exploration is cool and there's a lot of fun to be found in the game, the mods also are another huge part, great mod community and mod support.
The stories are the weakest part, however lore is good, the second weak part is the combat itself but the gameplay as a whole makes up for it.
Final Fantasy has 5 games i enjoyed, I played from 6 to 13 and then i skipped 14 and played 15 and remake of 7. The ones i enjoyed are 6 and 7 and 9 and 10 and 7remake, boring take i know. They have better stories and characters than Elder Scrolls games but the side content is weaker, the gameplay in terms of combat was more engaging but outside of it was dull.
Soundtracks are tricky as both have great OST.

So 3 games that i would rate: 10, 9, 8 (avg: 9)
Vs
10 games that i would rate: 10, 9, 6, 9, 8, 4, 7, 4, 6, 8, (avg: 7.1)

Numbers/Ratings may not be 100% accurate as i have quickly thought about them, but they are more or less around that verdict. It may be -/+ 1 but the avg diff will stay.

Edit: forgot to include tactics lol, thats around 9, would raise the avg to 7.22.

Another Edit: i dont like doing the avg method to compare, since its not really fair, Final Fantasy series are like episodic, each game is each own story, while Elder Scrolls is connected via the lore, and they have timeline, that helps to establish the series better, Final Fantasy is a series in name only, i think this point kills the whole comparison and makes it meaningless.
I honestly can't compare the 2 as they are 2 different genres in the RPG space.
Apples vs oranges.

These are all horrendously unintelligent and lazy arguments. They are both major rpgs franchises, of course they dont have the exact same mechanics, if all the rpgs didn't have differentiation then it would be pointless. It's a simple choice.

If I compared the Elder Scrolls or FF to another in their same sub-genre that was much more radically different you wouldn't see these types of post. Only when Wrpg and Jrpgs are compared do you see these types of responses on the internet.

Yeah they AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THE SAME THING guys holy moly.
 

Markio128

Member
I love them both for different reasons; FF for the memorable characters and stories and TES for the freedom and adventure.
 

Ellery

Member
Final Fantasy. Even though the decline was BRUTAL following X.

Lightning Return was a decent Spin Off, XII was meh, XIII was linear and meh, XV was open world garbage and VII R was good again (not as great as PS1 masterpieces, because episodic -> lacks pace at times/too much filler content).

The masterpiece final fantasy games are just too good though. Can't really compare it to the Elders Scrolls
 

Metnut

Member
Not really a fair comparison. Final Fantasy is a live series with new games that come out while Elder Scrolls is a dead series looking at a 15-20 year gap between games.
 
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