The characters in FF VII have all the personality of wet cardboard. The story sucks, it plays like it was written by a emo 14 yr old drama freshman . They were more interested in showing off their new SGI workstations than making a coherent tale. And the lousy 20 second ending FMV in VII was a disgrace after the epic ending sequences of IV and VI that were nearly an hour by themselves. Advent Children had better story execution than VII the game.
FF IV and VI are the best FF games. FFIV is tops for story no doubt. It’s just classic Shakespearean tragedy; a story of betrayal, redemption, friendship, sacrifice, justice, etc. VI is cool too but something about IV's narative and focus on pure linear play write like story with no "kool kustomizingzors" or "733t battle systemz" or "mini games dawg" distracting you.
You just don’t see that in many modern games anymore. 99% of the game dev goes into graphics and HD nades and mad tyte spolisions bro and they basically have a programmer or financial adviser spend 5 minutes writing out the story.
Final Fantasy started it’s present day decline starting WITH VII IMO.
And this is no nostalgia. You are reading the opinion of someone who’s favorite game of all time is Xenogears, and I only played Xenogears for the first time in my 30s in the middle of the 360/PS3 era decades after it's release. Prior to that it was Final Fantasy IV. It took another game from the 90s that I didn't play until two decades later to top my previously favorate game of all time from the 90s. All the games I've played since the SNES and PS1 era through 360/PS3, how can a clunky outdated blockly 240p PS1 game be that good? And then after all these years something like Ni no Kuni comes out that touches that special spot in your soul like the 16/32 bit JRPGs once did that confirms that your tastes haven't changed at all, that indeed it's the games that have changed for the worse with all their focus on mainstream casual appeal and maximum investor profits these days.
So yes, there was something special in the games of that time that just can’t be matched today save for some games like Ni no Kuni or The Last of Us that the developers really put their hearts into and try. Where is that sincere charming and tragic story? Enough with the Im too sexy for my gun-sword-transforming-robot-with-a-goatee garbage.
Ni no Kuni is how a modern JRPG should be, FUCK the casual mainstream CoD/Madden playing masses. My god that overworld map. See? It's not hard guys.
And Xenoblade Chronicles...
I stopped paying attention to Final Fantasy after VII. It's like they were thinking HOW CAN WE DISAPPOINT THEM MORE THAN LAST TIME?! HAHAHA! Eventually you just get tired of being trolled by those you once held on a pedastal.
