For over twenty years, the Final Fantasy franchise has identified itself as a turn-based JRPG series, only to experience an entire genre rewriting with the 2020s. Hybrid combat was introduced with FF VII Remake in 2020, followed by FFXVI which featured action combat at the level of Devil May Cry in 2023, and FF VII Rebirth which offers open world action in 2024. All of these have helped shape a new lineage of _modern action Final Fantasy_ games that compliments the series' turn-based legacy. JRPG fans of the franchise who were raised on FF VI to FF X have either loved or mourned the series' shift to action gameplay. Now, there is a large enough body of work to rank these games on their own merits.
This ranking focuses on the ten action Final Fantasy titles that have come out since 2006. These include both mainline titles (FFXVI, FF VII Remake, FF VII Rebirth, and FF XV) as well as spin-offs and remakes (Crisis Core Reunion, Stranger of Paradise, Ever Crisis, World of Final Fantasy, Type-0 HD, and Dirge of Cerberus). The entries are ordered from worst to best along with comments from JRPG fans expressing what each title offers, where each game stands in relation to the series' new high point, and which titles reward players for embracing the series' genre shift.
How We Ranked Every Modern Action FF Game
Each entry received a score based on five different criteria: The depth of the combat system, the story arcs payoff, the audio-visual quality, accessibility for genre skeptic JRPG fans, and the replay value post credit roll. The scoring for main entries is based on the action-Final-Fantasy framework created by the Yoshida-Hamaguchi-Naora-Tabata teams. Spinoffs and remakes score based on how they add or change the context of the action template. For example, Crisis Core Reunion is simply a port of a 2007 PSP game World of Final Fantasy is borderline action-hybrid (more than pure action), but they all share the post turn-based DNA that defines this lineage .
The pure action Final Fantasy games that earned their placement through the depth of their combat systems were weighted higher. These combat systems stand up to the rest of the action RPG genre (Bayonetta, Devil May Cry V, NieR Automata). If the story arc's advanced the franchise's narrative tradition it was scored higher than if it just borrowed the brand. The 3rd place ranking of FFXVI shows the audience divide reality despite it being the highest production quality. The #1 ranked modern entry for the franchise goes to FF VII Rebirth. It is viewed as the modern peak for the franchise as it incorporates the open world JRPG synthesis that FFXIII attempted and FFXV was able to achieve only in part.
10. Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (2007 DS)
Dirge of Cerberus ranks last and it does so decisively. Released 2006 PS2 (Dirge of Cerberus is Square Enix's first Final-Fantasy third-person shooter), Dirge follows Vincent Valentine's WEAPON-arc continuation after FF VII as he battles the Deepground organization under Midgar. The shooting mechanics are out of place as Square Enix have never done third-person shooters and it honestly feels clumsy compared to the action games (Gears of War, Devil May Cry 3, Resident Evil 4) of 2006. What kept Dirge in the conversation was the backstory of Vincent and the fight with Omega Weapon in the end that resolved some of the original FF VII storylines.
When JRPG fans reach the modern action-Final-Fantasy lineage in 2026, they will find Dirge of Cerberus a historical curiosity. It was the first time Square Enix attempted to experiment with the FF brand. The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII era (Advent Children movie, Before Crisis mobile, Crisis Core PSP, Dirge of Cerberus PS2) laid down the groundwork for the modern Remake trilogy which is the first time the action-FF formula was executed properly. Dirge ranks last because the overall execution failed, but it earns its place on this ranking because it is canon-essential context for understanding how the action-FF lineage developed.
9. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (2003 GBA)
Type-0 HD is ranked #9 mostly because of how good the action-RPG framework is, but how bad the platform availability is. Originally released in Japan only as Final Fantasy Type-0 on PSP in 2011 and later as an HD remaster on PS4 and Xbox One in 2015, Tabata's wartime-academy action-RPG HD remaster brought Type-0 to the global audience. Type-0 HD featured 14 playable cadet characters from Class Zero, a magicite-combat system, and a real-time action battle system that emphasized aggression as opposed to a defensive-strategic turn-based system, making it one of the most innovative games of 2011 and keeping it that way for 2015.
Type-0 HD was ranked lower because of the remaster and it was also because of the camera, the repetitiveness of the missions, and pacing. These all required patience from players that are used to the more linear stories of JRPGs. Type-0 HD is the game that links the PS2 era games to the modern era for those who have finished Final Fantasy games and want to play the action-rpg games. The Akademia-Orience and Class Zero settings deserve their cult classic status, and this is partially because of how limited the audience is that it is ranked #9.
8. Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (2007 DS)
Due to the chibi-style Stack combat system, World of Final Fantasy has a somewhat unique placement on the list as it technically falls on the line between action-based and turn-based systems; the combat is turn-based and tactical, but the presentation is purely action-RPG. World of Final Fantasy was released in 2016 on PS4, VITA, and later on PC and Switch. The story follows twins Reynn and Lann as the explore the world of Grymoire and collect creatures known as Mirages (which are also monster companions). In combat, players stack the Mirages on their heads for combat variety. The combat system is visually presented in a way that makes it seem like a cute action RPG. This means that players can approach it more readily without FF stigma towards turn based games.
World of Final Fantasy ranks relatively lower than it should due to the fan-service density. All of the original FF characters appear in chibi form and damn near every remix of any mainline FF game appears on the soundtrack. Completing it once won't do justice to the references to post-game content, especially its competitors. Many hardcore JRPG fans find it disappointing because the game tends to be presented as more of an action RPG than it is but it is still highly regarded within the JRPG community.
7. Tactics Ogre Reborn (2022)
Ranking #7, FF VII Ever Crisis is an episodic mobile and console action RPG that is part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and retells the franchise's main story through hundreds of small bite-sized chapters. Released in 2023 for iOS and Android, with Nintendo Switch and PS5 slated for 2024, Ever Crisis spans the original FF VII, Crisis Core, Before Crisis, and Advent Children, and is divided into episodic content drops that expand every month. Combat is real-time action with switching characters and limit breaks that is ATB influenced and more similar to hybrids than pure action; however, the episodic free-to-play monetization structure puts it in the modern action FF category instead of the pure turn-based main lines.
What places Ever Crisis at #7 is the baffling contradiction of an FF VII retelling in a mobile game format. The combat is very good, the character art of Akihiko Yoshida holds up, and for a long time there has been Compilation-era narrative coverage in one easily accessible location, but the gacha-style character progression coupled with the episodic-release pacing is challenging for JRPG fans who are used to the complete-story-on-purchase model that the franchise has built its reputation on. For completionists, Ever Crisis is a must. However, for newcomers to FF VII, the higher-ranked FF VII Remake Intergrade is a better starting point.
6. Final Fantasy XII (2006 PS2)
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is the 6th best game for Team Ninja and their Soulslike-action take on the original Final Fantasy game from 1987. In the game, players take control of Jack, Ash, and Jed, and fight through areas like Cornelia, the Chaos Shrine, and battle the four Fiend Lords using the infamous meme from the game's announcement trailer. Released in 2022 for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series, and PC, S of P is designed like a job-class action RPG with 28 different classes obtainable through progression. It features gameplay that rewards players for using the Souls series style mechanics of positional play, parries, and an affinity weapon system. The trailers with Jack's catchphrase "defeat Chaos" and Jack's character were meant to serve as a mask for what turned out to be an entertaining action RPG underneath the meme.
For JRPG fans, Stranger of Paradise is the action RPG that focuses most on mechanics rather than story, as the story is designed to be B tier action movie. The main draw for players is the job system and difficulty, owing to the game's Soulslike curve; paring options, and class system. Ranked 6th due to Team Ninja's design philosophy attracting more players from Nioh/Wo Long than fans of the older Final Fantasy games.
5. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (2017)
For the record, Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition is ranked number five for the open world action RPGs, and surpassed the genre shift Final Fantasy was attempting since Final Fantasy XII. It was released in 2016 for the PS4 and Xbox One and the Royal Edition expansion in 2018 added Insomnia-fall, the Royal Pack, bug fixes, and vehicle and combat additions that were not included with the launch. The road-trip that Noctis, Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto take is through the most expansive open world of any Final Fantasy game that has ever been released and includes day/night cycles, real-time dynamic weather, and Regalia driving segments that drove the PS4 hardware to its limits more than any other JRPG of that generation.
The combat system was divisive at launch and reviews were mixed for the Final Fantasy series. Noctis's warp-strike-and-parry combat style was real-time, and moving away from the turn-based ATB system completely changed the expectations for the series. The pacing issues surrounding the narrative (and the slow-walk sequence in chapter 13, and the missing subplot threads that were turned into DLC episodes) frustrated even the most patient fans of the franchise. The most significant narrative-truncation criticism was addressed by the additional content in the Royal Edition that was set in Insomnia. It has earned an open-world ambition score of 5, and for the modern identity of the road-trip dynamic, it has ranked most highly among the four protagonists.
4. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles (2025)
As the modern remaster of the 2007 PSP cult classic, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion brings Zack Fair's complete story to current-gen consoles, ranking it at #4 on our list. Released in 2022 on all platforms (Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series, PC), Reunion takes the Digital Mind Wave (DMW) combat system from the original PSP game and modernizes it with new controls. Reunion also features voice acted cut scenes (Caleb Pierce as Zack gives one of the top FF voice performances) and overall visual improvements that were not possible on the original PSP game.
Reunion belongs in the action-Final-Fantasy lineage most with its combat system. Summon DMWs in the middle of a fight, customize your attacks with materia, and experience a real-time character action system that predated FF XVI by about 15 years. The story is the same emotional gut punch that the original 2007 game had. Everything from Zack's Nibelheim arc and Modeoheim mission to the C-Sector reactor and Wutai final battleground confrontation with Genesis. All the story points that were directly connected to the original FF VII and laid the groundwork for the Remake trilogy. Reunion is the best and cleanest pickup for modern platform Compilation of FF VII completionists. For new Zack-arc audiences, Reunion is the canonical story.
3. Vagrant Story (2000 PS2)
Final Fantasy XVI is ranked at 3rd place due to how the success of production met the audience split brought controversy to how it was received. The game was released on the 2023 June for PS5 with a PC version being released on 2024 September. FFXVI was produced by Naoki Yoshida, who was involved in the revival of FFXIV, with Hiroshi Takai as the director and Masayoshi Soken as the composer. Ryota Suzuki, a veteran of Devil May Cry V, also worked on this game. The game boasts an Eikon combat action mechanic system which is the most ambitious for the franchise. Players can use Clive Rosfield to wield the Eikons of Phoenix, Garuda, Ramuh, Titan, Bahamut, Shiva and Odin and combine them with their free form action combos to unleash their full potential.
The story of the game, contary to popular belief, did not sit well with the fans. The story is mainly revenge driven and more closely resembles that of Game of Thrones rather than the mainline FF franchise. The frame of the story contains political fantasy Western RPG elements which leans away from the traditional Japanese RPG framework. Given how there is no party management system, the build customisation aspects that are long running expectations of the game series are gone. This is why the game is ranked at a 3rd place as the Soken soundtrack and peak technical execution were hurting the placement. This is in contrast to FF VII Rebirth and the FF VII Remake which are ranked above. These other games show that modern action FF games can preserve the narrative traditions of JRPG along with the franchise's identities like FFXVI does when it sheds them. The game is ranked higher individually for being an action RPG over being a JRPG.
2. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (2007 PSP)
As the second installment in the modern action-Final Fantasy lineage, FF VII Remake Intergrade is also the first installment in the new trilogy for action-hybrid combat system that has been under development for decades starting with FFXII. It's foundational for the new series. It takes the original PS1 FFVII Midgar opening — about 10% of the total story — and expands that into a 30-hour title. FFVII Remake was released in 2020 on PS4 and got a PS5 upgrade in 2021, followed by a PC release in 2022 (first on Epic, then on Steam in late 2022), and is the first in a series of action-RPGs that use ATB-driven real-time combat with a tactical mode that has become the hallmark for this trilogy.
OF course, the game also captures the essence of the FF VII story, whether it's the Cloud, Tifa, Aerith or Barret combat dynamics in the Avalanche bombing mission, the Midgar reactor traversal, the Mt. Corel encounter, the Shinra Tower assault, or the final Sephiroth fight which ended the game on a deliberate canon-divergent cliffhanger. And Yuffie's INTERmission DLC expanded the Wutai Resistance subplot but also added the combat system mastery that informed the character roster for FF VII Rebirth. And since it was ranked #2, that means that Rebirth ranks above it because it extends and improves directly on this foundation. Intergrade is also a stand alone title, and is the action-FF entry that taught Square Enix how to do this, without it FFXVI's design language and FF VII Rebirth's open world peak wouldn't have been possible.
1. Final Fantasy Tactics (1997 PS1)
According to numerous reviews, Rebirth is set to be the greatest Final Fantasy title and open-world RPG that the franchise has been trying to produce since FFXII's 2006 gambit-MMO experiment. Rebirth releases on PS5 February 2024 and January 2025 for PC. Set after the Midgar Remake, it features Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, Red XIII, Yuffie (and eventually Cait Sith, Vincent, and Cid) as they traverse the Western Continent, Junon, the Mythril Mines, Gold Saucer, Cosmo Canyon, Nibelheim, and Forgotten Capital, covering the open-world midgame of the FF VII original game over a period of 100 hours.
New combat features include Synergy Ability and Chocobo-traversal for world exploration. Rebirth contains the Queen's Blood card game, Gold Saucer mini-games, and offers flexibility in Materia loadouts. Also, it has world-zone density that requires players to spend a significant amount of time in each region. Hamaguchi, Soken, and Naora created the best soundtrack and presentation the franchise has seen since the original FF VII. The Forgotten Capital sequence and diverging canon ending have become some of the most controversial and discussed story elements of Final Fantasy. Rebirth is ranked #1 because it is the best modern action-Final Fantasy title in terms of range, depth, production, and narrative. FF VII Rebirth is clearly the best choice for JRPG fans considering the modern-action-FF question.
The Modern Action FF Series at a Glance
Final Fantasy's main series games typically utilize turn-based combat, while action-FF games include real-time combat. Starting with Dirge of Cerberus and ending with FF VII Rebirth, there is a linear collection of games utilizing action-RPG mechanics. Based on the most recent peaking titles (Crisis Core Reunion, FF VII Remake Intergrade, FFXVI, and FF VII Rebirth), it seems that the previously unresolvable battle design issues that plagued the franchise with FF XV have finally been solved. In the most recent collection of games, the action-FF games take the franchise in a novel and interesting direction with new gameplay and narrative options. For fans of JRPGs that have concerns over the loss of traditional turn-based combat, the ranking suggests that most linear path in the collection of action-FF games would be the least steep: begin play with FF VII Remake Intergrade, then transition to the open-world Rebirth, then play FFXVI, and finally play Crisis Core Reunion for added content on the Zack story in the FF VII trilogy. For those that seek to explore the action-FF game collection's historical context, the spinoff games offer the most breadth. With the completion of the trilogy's first part (currently titled Rebirth Part 3) on the horizon, the future appears bright for the action-RPG iteration of Final Fantasy. The action-FF games have become the new standard for the franchise.
Where should JRPG fans start with modern action Final Fantasy?
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (2020) is the cleanest first-pickup. It is structurally complete as a Midgar-scope story arc, runs on PS4, PS5, and PC, and establishes the action-hybrid ATB combat template the modern Remake trilogy uses. Once Intergrade lands, FF VII Rebirth (2024) is the natural next step — together they cover the original FF VII story across the open-world midgame. FFXVI is the alternative entry path for players who prefer European-fantasy framing over FF VII's cyberpunk-mythology continuity.
Is Final Fantasy XVI actually a JRPG?
FFXVI is a Japanese-developed action RPG with Final Fantasy branding, but it intentionally sheds many traditional JRPG conventions — no traditional party-management layer, no random encounters, no turn-based ATB combat, no overworld map traversal in the classic sense. The combat system designed by Ryota Suzuki (Devil May Cry V veteran) emphasizes DMC-tier action depth over the strategic-defensive turn-based template. For strict definitional purists, FFXVI sits at the genre boundary. For the broader audience definition (Japanese-developed RPG with FF-canonical mythology), FFXVI counts as JRPG-genre — but the genre-shift commitment is significant and divides long-time fans by design.
Why does FF VII Rebirth rank #1 above FFXVI?
FF VII Rebirth achieves the open-world action-RPG synthesis that Final Fantasy has been chasing since FFXII's gambit experiment in 2006, combined with the franchise-narrative weight of continuing the FF VII Remake trilogy. The Synergy Ability combat additions, Queen's Blood card system, Gold Saucer mini-game density, and Forgotten Capital sequence collectively produce the strongest single-package modern Final Fantasy experience. FFXVI reached production peak in different territory (linear Game-of-Thrones-tier narrative + DMC-tier combat) but the audience-divide reality places it below the FF VII Remake trilogy entries in this JRPG-context ranking. Both are excellent — Rebirth earned the consensus modern-FF peak placement.