IMO, yes.....especially Square, I really liked them during the SNES and PS1 generations....they started to decline since last generation....in my opinion, of course.

The short answer: Yes

yes

Before. The golden age of square was the SNES + PS1 era.

They made awesome SNES games, kept making awesome PS1 games (well, Bouncer was dubious) and got mainstream attention.

On the PS2, the only game I'd consider on par with their PS1 days is FF10, and even that falls short a little bit. KH might too, but come on, Disney?

So Square went downhill after the merger, but the trend started well before the merger.

And Enix, well, I dont know them as well but from what I remember, their games have always been pretty similar, lots and lots of grinding. Though it seems after the Square merger Enix became a bit more merciful.

I'll go with yes too! Damn that Final Fantasy movie! Plus Square-Enix is just too long... (Yes, I'm lazy)

No question about it. I don't know how much the merger had to do with it, but SNES/PS1 era Square was amazingly reliable. Now most of their best games are remakes of SNES games.

I think Sakaguchi's departure hurt them more than anything else.

I don't think the merger was the cause of the decline of the quality of their games, I think it has more to do with that fact that Sakaguchi left S-E as well as their other good game designers

Thats the only AAA title made by "squaresoft" on PS2 lol.

OT, they were better off seperate. Now you can't even get any quality game from them within a 3 year window if anything by them can even be considered quality now lol.

yes

They're now even the ones developing one of thier flagship titles: DQIX...think about it. The only game S-E is known to be actively developing internally is FFXIII yet, it has now taken what? 4 years?