Square Enix has moved from game play to game tales. This occurred at FF7. Not that FF7 was a bad game, but it was a noticeable shift in design direction. It wasn't so much the merger of Square and Enix, but that the cost to produce cinematic game play was increasing more exponentially than the companies income. So rather than focus cut back their is more focus to sell you on story. Their are of course some times where certain elements of the game are better than others.
FF7 was well balanced since PS1 starting the shift, FF8 had a horrendous core game, FF9 was a tribute to the older style that wasn't appreciated, FF10 hit a good cord with many, FF11 was limited to online(why?), FF12 was trying something new, but many didn't like the political real type story.
Squilliam: On Vgcharts its a commonly accepted practice to twist the bounds of plausibility in order to support your argument or agenda so I think its pretty cool that this gives me the precedent to say whatever I damn well please.
