an extensive collection of mini-games, there's a lot to do in just about every Final Fantasy game.

But whether it's due to development constraints, hardware limitations, or the simple reality of a game's format, some Final Fantasy games are a lot harder to 100% than others. Here are the ten hardest Final Fantasy games to complete in full, based on my own experience, average completion times, and platinum trophy rates.

10 Final Fantasy X Requires A Little Too Much Grinding

Monster Hunts & Dodging Lightning

Final Fantasy X is best known for bringing the series into a whole new dimension, graduating from 3D characters on 2D backgrounds to full 3D environments. It's also one of the hardest games in the series to 100% for a couple of reasons, the first of which being the Monster Arena sidequest. This activity requires you to capture a variety of different fiends from all around the world, which means a lot of jumping around, a lot of grinding, and a handful of very difficult boss battles.

In addition, FFX has one of the hardest Ultima Weapon quests in the series, requiring you to dodge 200 consecutive lightning bolts in Thunder Plains. Miss a single one, and the counter resets. Weirdly enough, you only get a Bronze Trophy for completing this challenge, but that's prevented all but 6.8% of PlayStation players (per PSN Profiles) from getting the Platinum.

9 FFX-2 Has Too Much Missable Content

100% Requirements Are Complicated

The direct sequel, Final Fantasy X-2, got a bit more of a mixed reception. While some loved its different take on the characters and world of Spira, others disliked its markedly different tone. Where FFX starts as a mostly linear game, then opens up a bit when you unlock the airship near endgame (like many other Final Fantasy games), FFX-2 starts you off in the airship, and lets you explore the world freely at your own pace.

However, FFX-2 is still divided into chapters, many of which have sidequests, and most of which are missable if you proceed too far into the story. While you don't necessarily have to complete every single sidequest to get 100%, enough of them are attached to trophies to make the Platinum difficult.

8 Final Fantasy 3 Has A Huge Difficulty Spike

Lots Of Grinding Required

Final Fantasy 3 was the first game to introduce one of the series' most iconic recurring elements: the job system, which allows characters to change their class and attributes freely. Although the job system naturally requires a bit of grinding, its flexibility makes this one of the easier Final Fantasy games overall - until the very end, that is.

FF3 undergoes a huge difficulty spike in its final chapters, with nearly every enemy having access to its most powerful magical abilities. To make matters worse, you have to complete the entirety of the final dungeon, the World of Darkness, in a single run - there are no save points once you enter, so if you die at any point you have to start the whole thing over.

7 Final Fantasy Tactics Has Too Many Recruitable Characters

All With Unique Unlock Conditions

Fondly ed as one of the best Final Fantasy spinoffs, Final Fantasy Tactics takes the series' unique approach to storytelling and brings it to a tactical turn-based RPG format. Many players have called for a remake, but they're obviously not ing the pain of trying to complete FF Tactics 100%. It's not available on current-gen platforms, so trophy data isn't exactly up-to-date, but the issue is with its character recruitment system.

Final Fantasy Tactics was also released in an enhanced remastered version, called War of the Lions.

FF Tactics has a ton of recruitable characters (including two guest characters from FF7), but many of them have several special unlock conditions that are incredibly easy to miss. If you skip certain sidequests, lose certain party , or don't have the right allies with you at the right time, you can easily miss one, and be unable to recruit them for good.

6 Final Fantasy 13's Platinum Needs Tons Of Rare Materials

The Upgrading System Is Tough

Final Fantasy 13 received mixed reviews based on its linear first half and the relative weakness of its sequels, but it's still a landmark game in the series in of visual style and real-time combat. The game opens up significantly in its second half, but that's also where many players begin to struggle with it. FF13's Platinum requires a whole lot of grinding, in no small part because of the Treasure Hunter achievement.

This requires players to collect every single weapon in the game, which means engaging with the game's upgrade system and collecting a wide variety of rare drops from monsters around the world. Only about 4% of Xbox players have marked this achievement, according to True Achievements. Add that to the difficulty of some of its endgame bosses, and you have a truly tough Platinum.

5 Final Fantasy 12 Has Lots Of Optional Content

Trials & Espers Galore

Final Fantasy 12 shares a lot in common with its successor. In this game, you may only directly control one character at a time in real-time battles, but you can set limits on your other party ' behavior using a complex system of if-then statements called Gambits. In effect, it plays like an MMO - and that comes along with tons of MMO-style optional content. That begins with summonable spirits you can collect all over the world called Espers.

In addition, the Zodiac Age version of FF12 includes some really challenging optional battles in what it calls Trial Mode, which is necessary for 100% completion. While you can easily find all the Espers with a guide and a little patience, completing all 100 Trials takes a lot of...well, trial and error.

4 Final Fantasy 15 Is Littered With Side Content

Plus, Optional Megadungeons

Final Fantasy 15 is probably the truest open-world game on this list. While it's decidedly linear in its second half, and you do have to unlock certain parts of the map in order, you can more or less roam most of the map freely after a certain point in the game. There are lots of optional sidequests (many of which demand a lot of back-and-forth), including a wide variety of different monster hunts, ranging from the simple to the strenuous. Suffice it to say there's a lot to do - but the real challenge begins in the postgame.

FF15's postgame dungeons are among the most difficult in the series; there are five of them overall, but you must complete the first four to unlock the last and hardest of them all: Pitioss Ruins. This dungeon is truly massive, and hard to discover - you need to follow a very specific sequence of events to even get into Pitioss.

3 FF7 Rebirth Has Too Many Mini-Games

The Platinum Is A Slog

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is the second part of the remake trilogy, and it's much larger than the first one. Besides a huge open world with tons of optional content, Rebirth includes almost 30 separate mini-games, which makes its Platinum nearly impossible to achieve. The issue is that you have to beat almost every single one of these mini-games on multiple levels of difficulty in order to win the associated trophy, which means you'll have to dedicate a significant amount of time to almost all of them - and some of them are surprisingly hard.

Director Naoki Hamaguchi even apologized to the Daily Star for making the Platinum so difficult. This amount of bloat was frankly unnecessary, and something I hope to see part three of the trilogy leave behind. Otherwise, it could be trouble for the future of Final Fantasy.

2 Final Fantasy XIV Is A Huge Time Commitment

How Much Time You Got?

As an MMO, Final Fantasy 14 is obviously the odd man out here - but that's precisely what makes it so difficult to 100%. It dwarfs every other game on this list in of size, taking multiple hundreds of hours to complete, especially when including all five expansions and smaller content updates.

Besides that, completing every bit of content in FF14 requires engaging with Savage and Ultimate raids, which are incredibly difficult, and require highly optimized gear and near-perfect performance to complete. Doing so almost invariably requires collaborating with a focused raiding group, which can be difficult to find and coordinate timing with.

1 Final Fantasy 9's Platinum Relies On RNG

Your Mileage May Vary

Final Fantasy 9 is one of the hardest Final Fantasy games to 100% because of its reliance on RNG. Like most games in the series, FF9 includes a side quest revolving around collecting each character's Ultimate Weapons. Here, though, many of them are tied to the Chocograph mini-game, which is subject to a great degree of randomness. There's never any guarantee that the particular Chorograph you need will spawn, nor that you'll find it before the time limit is up. In other words, you'll have to do a lot of grinding on a very tedious sidequest to earn the Platinum.

Besides that, FF9 has a ton of missable content, from optional battles to rare dialogue scenes that only spawn during specific story moments. Its jump rope and foot race mini-games are easily as difficult as FFX's lightning dodging, but they're only available during specific parts of the story. All that makes this the hardest Final Fantasy game to earn the Platinum for.

Sources: PSN Profiles, True Achievements, Daily Star