Final Fantasy is one of those rare constants in the gaming world, with every year seeing another release for the RPG standard bearer. And while the numbered entries in the series get increasingly experimental, it's the Final Fantasy spin-offs that often allow Square Enix to really flex its creative muscle. From Final Fantasy Legend all the way up to , spin-offs are where FF gets experimental, with varying results that simply beg to be ranked.

At the outset, we disqualified possible entries like Chrono Trigger and Bravely Default, because true spin-offs must contain actual FF elements, be it characters, settings, or monsters. From there, our catalog included genres as diverse as fighters, kart racers, and rhythm games, all connected by a devotion to Moogles and Chocobos. All have now been ranked for all time (until we update it again), so read on to see where your favorite side quest ended up...

Looking back on its mid-’90s release, perhaps fans were a little too harsh on Mystic Quest. Released on the SNES in place of the more challenging Final Fantasy 5, Mystic Quest is meant for western gamers might be unfamiliar with the basic concepts of role-playing games. All these years later, when Mystic Quest isn’t standing in FF5’s shadow, this modest adventure isn't so bad.

From a design team led by veterans of the SaGa series, Mystic Quest is undeniably stripped down to the RPG basics, but it gets those basics right. If Final Fantasy’s massive exposure in the west hadn’t made it redundant, it would still function as a fine primer for the series, and RPGs in general. Meanwhile, the soundtrack remains essential, and is arguably the most underrated in FF history. Should you never pick up the game, at least give the music a listen.

3D brawlers like Tekken and Virtua Fighter were in vogue in the 32-bit era, so even RPG publishers like Square did their best to cash-in. FF's owner started a partnership with developer Dream Factory to helm the imperfect Tobal series, and the teams were looking for a fresh start with Ehrgeiz. The wild fighter has a weird cast of characters and some projectile combat to make it stand out, but its enhanced PlayStation port has a secret ingredient: Most of Final Fantasy 7's cast is playable.

In the late ‘90s, few games were bigger than Final Fantasy 7, but Square steadfastly avoided exploiting its popularity with FF crossovers. Bringing Cloud, Sephiroth, Yuffie, Tifa, Zack, and Vincent into the wacky arenas of Ehrgeiz was certainly unexpected. Ehrgeiz hasn't aged the best, but there's a charm to its manic, unbalanced combat, and said charm extends to its dungeon-crawling/brawling hybrid Quest mode. If you can forgive its dated looks, it's a fine distraction for FF completionists.

No series has truly 'made it' in terms of spin-offs until it has a kart racer. Chocobo Racing finally made Final Fantasy’s karting wishes come true in 1999 by having the series’ signature chubby bird head to the raceway. The yellow fowl competes against other beasts like Mog, Bahamut, and Cactuar, with FF8's Squall and Parasite Eve's Aya sneaking in as unlockable kart enthusiasts to fill out the roster.

Square does an admirable job channeling Mario Kart 64 and Crash Team Racing, even adding some signature Final Fantasy locations, spells, and abilities to shake things up. However, using sprite character models that clash with its polygonal world means Chocobo Racing isn't all that modern. Enjoying it now makes you wish Square Enix hadn't cancelled a 3DS sequel. Still, blasting around in the Chocobo's rocket boots and hitting competitors with Firaga will always be a little fun, so the classic is worth searching out.

Another of FF's cutesy side games, this time the doll-sized Chocobo goes underground to search out his fortune in an expansive series of random caves. The iconic bird is accompanied by a brand new Cid, a young man out to collect treasure so he can build - you guessed it - an airship. There's also a ton of amnesia, just to check off another Final Fantasy trope. Made in the famously hardcore mystery dungeon style, each step the Chocobo takes is matched by the unseen enemies, which adds a lot of planning to the action-strategy mix.

What puts this one over the Chocobo's previous mystery dungeon game on DS? The colorful Wii graphics help, but it also separates itself from other Roguelikes by borrowing the core FF job system. Cid and Chocobo can switch up abilities, and the dungeons adapt to reflect that, adding to the dense game's replayability. Plus, there are few things cuter than seeing a Chocobo dressed as a Black Mage. The 2008 game is the last of the Fables sub-series, marking the end of an all too brief collection of all ages FF games.

This is one of the Chocobo's simplest titles, but that doesn't mean this FF spin-off should be overlooked. Arriving on the Nintendo DS when the touch controls still felt novel, Chocobo Tales follows the title character's quest for magical story books that expand into numerous minigames. Usually the bottom screen recreates some classic FF actions, from casting magic to steering in a Chocobo race.

There's also a card game mechanic that works almost as well as the touch controls, and the lovely child's book art design helps to cover the occasional misfires. Chocobo Tales also offers up multiplayer variations on some of its best minigames, making it a rare FF treat that can be shared with more than one person. If you're tired of the FF's dark and brooding side, Chocobo Tales satisfies like a potion in a boss battle.

FF gets more and more complicated with each entry, and while innovation is welcome, sometimes you're nostalgic for a nocent time. You know, with less existential dread and more saving princesses and crystals. The 4 Heroes of Light is just such a throwback, drawing inspiration from the earliest FF titles, while streamlining many of the best parts and adding new facets to the combat.

There's the Crown system, a clever, hat-based approach to the standard FF job system, and the Boost mechanic to turn-based combat means fights take a bit more planning. The character design apes the spare style of FF's DS remakes to great effect, and the music is grand enough to fit its legacy. The only major negative to the game is that it's overshadowed by its spiritual successor, Bravely Default.

One of the newest entries on the list, Type-0 is a game that seemed like it would never be available to English-speakers. Released late on the PSP, Sony's portable was dead by the time Type-0 came to the system in Japan, dooming it to stay unlocalized forever. But the HD port to PS4/Xbox One makes dreams come true, so consider it a gift even if the militaristic game isn't perfect.

In case you've yet to see our , the game's biggest issues are some obtrusive menus, finicky camera, and merely tolerable voice acting, but there are definitely some positives to be found. The tone is darker and bloodier than any FF before it, including an opening segment where a bleeding Chocobo is executed by soldiers. The grittier feel and intense circumstances win out most of the time, and it has a singular style many recent FF games lack.

Final Fantasy 12 is a very divisive title for the fanbase, offering a plot that's either compellingly complex when exploring a massive world, or annoyingly obtuse and lacking in a clear main character. Strange, then, that the late-era PS2 game would see a slimmed down spin-off on the DS of all systems. Stranger still that the side story is essentially a real time strategy game.

Taking place midway through FF12, Revenant Wings also has Vaan as the leading man, but with the decidedly less messy goal of being a successful airship captain. FF12's battle system is helpfully streamlined with RTS mechanics, allowing for armies of the signature beasts to be at your command. And the game’s chapter structure makes it easier to play on the go. Revenant Wings is just the type of light epilogue its heavy predecessor needs.

This fighting game is officially pronounced Dissidia Duodecim, but don't hold that odd titling against it. This is a dream crossover for longtime fans, bringing together the beloved leads from almost every FF entry, from Cecil to Lightning and everyone in between. And the story does its best to service the fans who've always dreamed of seeing Cloud and Squall smash each other with their ridiculous swords. (That’s sounds dirtier than we mean.)

The action does its best to keep up with the premise, even when the gameplay gets more stat-based than a brawler like it requires. [012] is also both a remake and a prequel to the first Dissidia, making it the ultimate Final Fantasy fighting game, for now anyway. If you never checked out this celebration of everything FF, it's worth downloading to your Vita - or PSP, if you can find it.

In 1996, the Final Fantasy series officially left Nintendo's systems and went exclusively to PlayStation. For fans that grew up with FF on the SNES, it was a sad turn of events, and it made the eventual homecoming all the sweeter. But Crystal Chronicles changes many of the series most established elements. It ditches active time battles and solo exploration, replacing them with speedy teamwork and innovative dual screen play.

That innovation comes at a cost, namely three Game Boy Advances and three cords to plug them into your GameCube to make for ideal co-op. Predating tablets, the DS, and Wii U Gamepad, all but one player control their character with a GBA, using the extra screen to manage attacks and items. If you have all the tech, exploring the miasma together makes for some engrossing couch co-op, and none of its sequels could top the original's unique approach.

For a very brief period of time, WiiWare seemed like the hot place to publish short-but-sweet games. Before Square Enix abandoned the platform like most third parties, it released two surprisingly fun tower defense games as Wii downloadables. Spinning off from Crystal Chronicles - itself a spin-off - My Life as a Darklord is slightly better than its predecessor, mainly thanks to the darker edge of playing from the bad guy's perspective.

Set right after FFCC: My Life as a King, you play as Mira, the new Darklord who commands a kingdom's worth of monsters. Would-be heroes keep invading her tower, so you set up special traps on the fly to keep them from reaching the dark crystal. Fighting wave after wave will keep your attention, as will the nefarious thrill of playing as a big bad in an FF title. My Life as a Darklord is perhaps the best original game WiiWare ever saw - too bad you can't download it from anywhere else.

Did anyone expect a team-up between Final Fantasy and Disney to be one of the most popular series in modern gaming? Kingdom Hearts is just the action-RPG to prove it possible, and while later entries may ease up on the FF content, the original game features Cloud, Aerith, Squall, and most of FF10's cast in major roles. Their more complex emotions and backgrounds deepen the world of Kingdom Hearts in ways Mickey and the gang’s unending positivity can’t.

Beyond the confusing sight of Aerith talking to Donald, the story of Kingdom Hearts is a heartfelt one of love, loss, and friendship. Sora must master the Keyblade to find his best friends, and he'll have to vanquish almost every notable Disney villain to do it. The core FF titles that follow adapt some of Kingdom Heart’s combat, and Kingdom Hearts’ visuals and soundtrack hold up well in the recent HD rerelease. Kingdom Hearts has grown into something much bigger, but it all began here, as an excellent Final Fantasy spin-off.

One of FF’s most consistent features is its music, with composers like Nobuo Uematsu, Masashi Hamauzu, and more crafting some of gaming’s most harmonious songs. If you were ever going to make a spin-off rhythm game, it’d need to be massive to soak in just how many wonderful tunes are in the series’ catalogue. The more than 200 tracks included show Curtain Call is just such a game.

Virtually every FF title, spin-off or otherwise, is represented in Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, all with at least a stage or two exploring a given game’s best moments. More than any other release on this list, Theatrhythm: Curtain Call is the most succinct recognition of Final Fantasy’s legacy, while also being a quality music game in its own right. Tapping along with your stylus is catchy fun, making another listening of ‘Eyes on Me’ feel special all over again.

Crisis Core is a prequel to one of the most beloved Final Fantasy games ever, but rather than focus on its main characters, it tells the story of the mysterious Zack Fair from SOLDIER. A friend of Cloud’s, and Aerith’s first boyfriend, Zack only made a brief appearance in the original game. His past was ready to be explored, and we're glad Square Enix finally got around to it. Crisis Core fleshes out Zack's history, and creates a poignant story that’s very much worth telling.

A contrast to the moody leading men of the series, Zack is likeable, friendly and easy to connect with, which makes the inherent tragedy much more heartbreaking. The game looks gorgeous on PSP, with memorable cutscenes and great gameplay. A fast-paced action-RPG, it is designed to be played in short bursts, delivering what fans have been waiting for... Well, short of a full-on remake of of Final Fantasy 7.

Final Fantasy Tactics seems like a potential misfire. It cuts out the fancy graphics and much of the storytelling, and triples the amount of stats, a potential recipe for boredom. But instead of putting players to sleep, Tactics is a cult success, and at launch FFT made the hardcore genre more famous than ever to western gamers. Despite some excellent sequels, the original and its remake are still kings of the isometric battlefield.

The demanding turn-based combat keeps you saying ‘just one more’ over and over again in each grid-based map, but the true main event is the Job system, which uses Final Fantasy 5’s masterful class mechanic, beefing it up with an even more diverse set of skills and abilities. Assigning jobs to the massive roster of characters allows an incredible amount of team customization that consistently rewards trial and error. Later sequels try too hard to mix things up, making the originator not just the best in the sub series, but the best spin-off in Final Fantasy history.

Those are the best side games that FF has ever seen, but what are your feeling on the rankings? I'm sure you want to just dive into the comments and tell us how right we are. Well, get on it already!

And if you're looking for more things fantastical and final, check out .

Things are starting to fall into place for Rise of the Tomb Raider. While there's still over half a year between us and the earliest possible release for this holiday 2015 title, we're finally starting to get whispers of what the game might look like. And by 'whispers', I mean a roaring avalanche of information that came with GameInformer's , which centers entirely on our intrepid lady of tombs.

All this new knowledge, combined with our own exclusive Rise preview session (which you can hear about in the video below) have shed a lot of light on what Lara's new adventure will entail. Secret societies, bigger tombs, a mythical city and the return of old friends - there's a lot to catch up on, and you can find it all packed into the following slides. Onward!

At the start of Rise's E3 trailer, Lara's in therapy, talking through the trauma inflicted by her fun-filled excursion through Yamatai. Or rather she's not. Because explaining what happened to her would sound completely insane, which apparently puts her in an unfortunate spot. "Lara feels like an outsider in the real world," explained creative director Noah Hughes in an interview with GameInformer. "Her next expedition is a way of dealing with the trauma she's been through, but it's also a way of finding peace by chasing any shred of evidence that what she saw was real."

That's suggests there's going to be a big focus on Lara's questionable state of mind in Rise, especially when you consider Crystal Dynamics' handling of her story in the meantime. The currently running both make a big point about how the trauma she experienced at Yamatai is still affecting her. While we can certainly expect Rise to delve more deeply into Lara's PTSD, don't expect her to spend the entire game at the doctor's office. She's got something to prove to herself.

Lara Croft's explored so many exotic locales, racing to beat nondescript bad guys to magical treasure, that 'thwart supernatural scheme' probably shows up right before 'buy milk' on her weekly to-do list. Rise looks to stick with that tradition, sending Lara to the frozen tundra of Siberia to discover the legendary invisible city of Kitezh. An ancient city that supposedly sank to the bottom of a lake when its citizens prayed for salvation from an invading Mongolian army (not sure how much better of an option that is, but all right), Kitezh supposedly contains the secret of immortality, and Lara's ready and raring to raid for it.

A setting like Siberia definitely ups the ante in terms of survival. Say what you will about Yamatai and its population of murderous cultists, at least it was warm. The unforgiving weather Russia's northernmost parts is bad enough, particularly since Rise promises to utilize a dynamic weather system, but throw in hungry bears and wolves intent on having Lara for breakfast, and it seems like everything's going to want her dead. More than normal, even.

Lara already has to deal with horrendous weather, vicious animals, and the trappings of her own psyche, but why not make things interesting and throw in a malevolent secret society? While Lara had to deal with the fanatic exploits of the Solarii cult in her first adventure, this time she's up against a well funded group called Trinity, which is very interested in getting to Kitezh before she does.

This organization was named dropped in the first game, where secret GPS documents referred to them and their interest in supernatural phenomena, so they've technically been in the picture all along. The group showed up in person in the Tomb Raider comic as well, and it's members made a sincere effort to blow up Lara with a rocket launcher when she tried to protect one of their assassination targets. Expect them to take up the mantle of trying to brutally kill Lara at every turn, though probably with more advanced weaponry. Oh boy.

Lara may have been anchored to a single location for her last adventure (for obvious, deeply traumatic reasons), Rise is apparently going to offer a little more variety. GameInformer reports that the game will take place in at least two locations, and though we already know about Siberia, the second spot remains a mystery. However, they're will apparently be stark geographical differences between the places Lara will visit, so wherever she goes next, it won't end up feeling like a rehash.

Most of the images we've seen of Rise so far focus on Lara's romp through a winter wonderhell, with the exception the one above, which looks distinctly desert-like. Given that ominous-looking helicopter overhead, our guess is that Lara's going to go all Amazing Race to find scattered clues about the magical city she's trying to get into before her enemies find it. Or is that too Nick Cage?

We've seen Lara leaping toward sheer rock faces before. By now she's no stranger to the old 'jump at a wall and stab your axe in at the last minute so as to not die' trick. But we haven't seen her do that while hurling herself over what looks like a half-mile deep mountain chasm, after being chased off a cliff by a giant marauding bear. We're still uncertain how much platform jumping will feature in the gameplay itself, but if it's anything like that little stunt, it looks like the platforming genre itself may be getting a gritty reboot.

In addition, Crystal Dynamics has noted its commitment to one more, very important thing. "We'll have more tombs in the game featuring a full spectrum of puzzles," says Hughes. "Some tombs are much larger than in the last game... We want puzzles to make logical sense, so the solutions to the puzzles in this game won't always be some confounding security system of the ancients; it might be that Lara just needs to navigate the space in a way that subverts its original intent." While that may seem a bit vague, it definitely feels like a step in the right direction. Given that one of the main criticisms of the original reboot was that it lacked a proper selection of crypts to plunder, a renewed focus on the thinky-bits Lara's known for is nothing but good news.

While combat was a big (big, big, big) thing in Lara's blood-drenched Yamatai trip, and she had an impression set of scavenged weapons at her disposal, she's since upped her arsenal. While she was previously able to upgrade her arms with random salvage, Rise will use a tricate crafting system, which will let her to alter her weapons for different purposes. Advanced traversal, for example, or choosing whether to give her bow greater ease of use, or greater stopping power. She'll also be able to build things like traps and explosives, which give her all sorts of fun ways to destroy anyone who gets in her way.

This new system is already being compared to the scavenging mechanic in The Last of Us, which seems pretty apt. We can't say we mind though, because that system made collecting even random junk feel important while encouraging us to explore the game world. Hopefully Rise doesn't totally shadow TLOU, since variety's the spice of life, but but we're excited to see what a new team with new thoughts can do with a mechanic that good.

Whether this is a good or bad thing comes down to perspective. While some fans enjoyed the interplay between Lara and her comrades, particularly in her efforts to protect Sam, others felt they were needlessly tacked on and detracted from her badass adventures. Still, depending on how they're used, it's nice for Lara to have a humanizing element that keeps her from looking like an indestructible human pincushion. Either way, we still not sure of their role in the overall game, so the months ahead will tell how that's going to shape up.

As you may remember from the small fan-based nuclear explosion that detonated last August, Rise of the Tomb Raider will be Xbox One and Xbox 360 exclusive when it releases this holiday season. However, , though it's not yet confirmed how long it will last or what other consoles it might touch down on in the future.

While this is a frustrating move for anyone that doesn't have ready access to a box of X's, there is hope yet that the exclusivity window will be short. And hey, who knows? Your patience may be rewarded with a .

So that's everything we know about Rise of the Tomb Raider for now. But expect fo to start pouring out like the brains of so many arrow-perforated mooks very soon indeed. Keep an eye on this article, and we'll update it with every fact that arises as we move towards the game's Holiday 2015 release.

And while you're here and snuffling around for E3 info like a pig looking for video game-scented truffles, check out some of today's other reveals. Like .