So I bet this came up before but with new editions to the Final Fantasy franchise, I'm curious what are folks love FF music, and if so what are your favorite albums and if specifically favored tracks?

My faves from greatest to least:

- FF III

- FF IV

- FF VII

- FF I & II

- FF VIII

- FF 11

- FF X - 2

Ironically, it's nearly in chronological order.

Uh Black Mages and...Black Mages.

Oh! How could I forget the Black Mages!

Also worthy notable are FF8 Piano, and Tactics...

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. :P Favored tracks: everything by Ryuji Sasai, heh.

<awaiting someone to say Mystic Quest isn't a real Final Fantasy game...>

Not that it matters - I'll agree with Sasai totally ruling that disc...

As for mainstream incarnations...

The SNES Final Fantasy titles rank as my favorite in VI, IV, V order

I really haven't thought long and hard about the PS1 scores for awhile, I'd probably go with VII on top

I like I and II on the NES but I've always found three to be rather flat outside a few tracks like Battle 2.

FFT, FFTA, FFXII, FFXI (excluding expansions) > FFX > PSX and SNES era > NES era

FFVIII OST ftw.

SNES FF > everything.

Yup.

1.  FFIV
2.  FFMQ ties with FFVI
3.  FFXII (Blasphemer, I know, but it was a breath of fresh aire and really helped me discover Sakimoto)

IV and VI have the most nostalgia factor for me, and are thus solidly entrenched at the top of the heap.  VII would round out the top trio.

As far as the main series goes, VI is definitely my favorite.  VII would be pretty close, but the sampling just irritates me these days (though I could listen to SNES osts all day).  VIII and IV are also quite good.  IX I consider as overrated as the game itself.

Spinoffs: Mystic Quest is AMAZING and one of my favorite game soundtracks; if only Ryuji Sasai would do more game music... And of course there's Crystal Chronicles, which is sublime.  I can listen to that soundtrack constantly without tiring of it.

Arranged stuff: have always had a soft spot for the FF8 orchestra album, despite the random screaming at the end of FLWV that totally ruins the track for me.

FF6 is my favorite, followed closely by the FF6 Piano Collections and FF4.

1. Final Fantasy X - Nakano and Hamauzu did a great job on this one; all of my favorite tracks were done by those two.  Uematsu was... well, he was Uematsu, and I was glad his work wasn't all over this soundtrack.

2. Final Fantasy IV - It's the last Uematsu soundtrack I actually liked.  Into the Darkness, Fight 2, and Within the Giant are still some of my favorites.

3. Final Fantasy IV: Celtic Moon - Interesting (in a good way) arrangements, fun to listen to.

4. Final Fantasy IV: Piano Collections - More good arrangements here, and one of the few piano albums I still like.

I'll have to hand it to FFIV and FFVI, followed by FFVIII.

I currently have most of the FFIV albums:

1. Celtic Moon
2. Original Sound Version
3. Piano Collections
4. DS OST

I intend to get FFVI's Grand Finale and Piano Collections next, followed by FFVIII's orchestral album (FLWV) and Piano Collections.

Sample first!  It's easily my least favorite FF arranged album.

It's worth it alone for the Prologue/Tina's Theme. I fell in love with that song the first time I downloaded it years back. I'll probably do a re-sampling, but I also remembered Mystic Forest being a favorite. Spinach Rag was my least favorite track, that I remember.

I've lost count how many times we've done this poll here, but I'll play once more:

For OSTs, FF6 is best followed by FF5 and then FF4.

For spin-offs, FFMQ is best followed by FFTA and FFCC.

For arranged stuff, FF Mix is best (yeah, I went there) followed by Chocobo Racing.