The Final Fantasy franchise's cover art has evolved significantly over the last 35 years. The series' beginnings feature ultra-simplistic covers for games like Final Fantasy 2, and evolved to the stunning hand-drawn works that characterize games like Final Fantasy 6, and has grown into the more recent covers that rely on rendered 3D graphics like Final Fantasy 15. The Final Fantasy franchise has pretty much tried it all when it comes to cover art.
Since basically every main series Final Fantasy game boasts at least one alternate cover (for different release regions) and the franchise itself has a plethora of different spin-off titles, there are close to 100 different covers to choose from when deciding on the best Final Fantasy covers. These games, though, have some of the best designs.
5 Final Fantasy 7
It's easy to applaud the cover of Final Fantasy 7 after playing the game, but even when the game was first released, before Cloud Strife was a household name, this cover was still special. The visual of Cloud looking up at the Shinra building is a stunning image, but the design choices here are intriguing on their own. To offset the eye-popping white background with Mako-inspired turquoise accents makes for a cover that is hard to ignore.
It's probably cheating a bit to include artwork inside the case, but the depiction of Sephiroth walking through a wall of flames located on the right inlay completes the package. It is visually a perfect contrast— Sephiroth's image is mostly black and red, whereas the front cover is mostly white and blue-green. Not only is it beautiful, but it also left fans immediately intrigued as to who this mysterious Sephiroth character was.
4 Final Fantasy 6
Though it was released on the SNES as Final Fantasy 3, the Super Famicom version, released as Final Fantasy 6, got a much better cover. The Super Famicom release laid out the steampunk, dystopian aesthetic that informs the game, and let fans know immediately that this was going to be an entirely different experience from previous Final Fantasy titles.
The cover itself consists of Final Fantasy 6's Terra Branford piloting Magitek armor as she looks out over the city of Vector. The drawing bears all the characteristics that made Final Fantasy artist, Yoshitaka Amano, so beloved by fans: a whimsical yet intense style inspired by Japanese woodblock prints.
3 Final Fantasy 11 Ultimate Edition
There may be more covers for Final Fantasy 11 than there are atoms in the universe. The initial release, each expansion, and multiple collected editions each have at least one cover, and there are also covers for different regions and their respective expansion variants. Final Fantasy 11 has more covers than any other Final Fantasy title.
The best is Japan's cover for Final Fantasy 11 Vana'diel Collection 2 which bundled the initial game and the four expansions that were available at the time, but a close second goes to the cover of the more recent collection, known as Final Fantasy 11 Seekers Edition, which adds in the fifth expansion, Seekers of Adoulin. While Final Fantasy 11's time has come and gone, there are a handful of features that could be added to Final Fantasy 14 from the original MMORPG.
2 Final Fantasy 10
This title has an ostensibly terrible cover, showing just a shot of Tidus standing, fully clothed, in the water. Still, the cover for Final Fantasy 10 is oddly effective. Not only does it have an absolutely beautiful color scheme, but it showed off the massive step-up in graphics between Final Fantasy 9 and Final Fantasy 10.
For what it's worth, though, if Square Enix had opted to use the front page of the game's manual as the cover rather than the actual cover, Final Fantasy 10 wouldn't be such a polarizing choice for this list. The cover of the manual does the same job of highlighting the game's graphical improvements over its predecessors, but it sports a more powerful, emotional image of Tidus and Yuna, one of the most beloved pairings in Final Fantasy.
1 Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn
Very few games have had a comeback like Final Fantasy 14. After rebooting in 2013 after a failed launch, Final Fantasy 14 has slowly risen to become one of the most popular MMORPGs on the market today. As it continues to bolster its story with expansions like Endwalker, the game shows no signs of slowing down. During its initial reboot, Final Fantasy 14 came out with a pair of iconic covers that are up there with any in the Final Fantasy franchise.
The Collector's Edition took Final Fantasy 14 back to the franchise's roots by plastering a Yoshitaka Amano cover on the box that is up there with his earliest work. It was breathtaking, immediately recognizable, and everything that fans could have wanted. The cover for the game itself was equally epic, displaying a massive party engaging in battle with Diamond Weapon. It signaled a renewed interest in Final Fantasy 14 and helped assure fans that the new iteration would be a game that was true to the Final Fantasy franchise.