Amen to that :P

Maybe though I don't expect much from SO4. 

SO3 had some really nice moments but was overall pretty forgettable.  A lot of the stuff that could have been really fun or useful like inventing makes you wait forever to fully use it.  The plot was bland and supporting characters/party members received pretty much no development outside of the core group (you know who they are).

There were lots of problems with it actually.  It was only by playing Xenosaga directly afterwards could I see just how bad Star Ocean 3 was.  Even with Xenosaga's problems (yes it has a few too), it's a superior game almost all the way around.

It pains me to say this, but Kingdom Hearts IS overrated.

Honestly, it is a flawed game, and unless you play a certain way so the game runs perfectly (as I accidently did the first time I played through it) you'll see it's got some glaring issues. I discovered this on my second play-through.

I still love this game though (KH1) and I liked KH2 (I was disappointed by KH2 to be honest), because for a company like S-E (square soft back then) to step so far outside it's comfort zone with this game (Untested Mashup AND action RPG, for the traditionally turnbased company) made me appreciate it more.
More important then anything else, it's this that made me love this game.

I am not understanding most of the hate for SO3 since most of the haters seem to hate it just because of the plot twist. In fact, most people seemed to like SO3's battle system.

EDIT:Guess this is what happens when you hype a game too much

I could not agree more with this post. The level designer in Kingdom Hearts 2 would never work on any game ever again if I had any say.

Overall, Kingdom Hearts is essentially a glorified beat-em-up with some light RPG elements thrown in. I liked the first game because it was a novel idea, and didn't take itself too seriously, keeping the plot relatively light. I didn't like the second game because it did the exact opposite: tried to be "deep" and "mature" and ended up ruining what made the original game entertaining. Unfortunately Square just cannot seem to avoid throwing in the amnesia sequences, split personality crises, and teenage angst that ruined the later Final Fantasies.

KH2 was your typical pretentious waste of space, why people say it was the better of the two is beyond me when most gamers agree KH2 was a sin against the wellfair of mankind. I guess it's proof that if you put enough emo-tastic hot topic Animu imaggery into something it's garanteed to at least be a hit with the 13-year-old "ZOMG!!! Sephiroth is so moe/badass!" crowd.

Right around the time people start to realize most anime is really not that good is around the same time most people begin to realize Square-Enix doesn't really make that good of games anymore.

What's wrong with a deep and mature story?  I don't heard anyone complaining about other games that have deep, mature stories

Nah dude I disagree I loved the game. I enjoyed the story as well.

Final Fantasy XII is fucking amazing though...comparing the two may be the reason Kindgom Hearts disappointed you. Keep in mind I first played the game less than a year after FFX had come out.

Most gamers liked KH1 and 2 from what I can tell

 FFXII was such a mediocre product in my eyes that the only people who even accept it as decent, I've convinced myself, are those who have no clue what it could have been. I swear if they make anything an androgynously emo FFX clone such as FFXII was, people will fall all over themselves for it on principal of the game's image and presentation alone. Sigh, you probably prefer the new character designs of FF7 Advent Children over the old ones of FF7 itself too... sigh... youngins these days...

Will people buy into anything if it presents itself with a pretentiously flashy facade of stale gaudy art and is featured on a black box of some variety with the name SONY on it? I don't mean to be attacking your personal opinion dude, you've been nothing but respectful in presenting it and I appologize for not returning the favor in voicing my own opinion, but I cannot emphasize how much I loathe this standard of image/style over content in JRPGs beginning with the PS2. Everything is just a timid copy of FFX anymore, in fact it was Square-Enix's insistance of turning FFXII into FFX that drove the game's director out of the Company out of disgust and frustration resulting in a progressively delayed and mitigated end product.

Van and Penello were about as extraneous to the story of FFXII as DS/PSP spin-offs were. Balthier and Fran were suppossed to be the pirate-like Han Solo and Chewbacca of the story but just ended up being a lame Robbin Hood and the toking Ass & Titty Noble Savage of the only non-human race human enough to be allowed in the main cast by the xenophobic developers. Bausch looked like he wore his sister's clothes and served little more purpose than to be eye candy for Bara Yaoi fans. And Ashe, Ashe was perhaps the most unrelateable, distant and inacessable main female character of any FF game to date, she didn't even have any romantic or emotional investment in any of your main party, the dude she was married to was dead and outside of looking exactly like Yuna, she brought nothing to the fray other than being the sole bond that connected the main party to the story that seemed to be taking place inspite of them.

Seriously though, if you love these games, don't let someone like me make you feel bad for doing so, I'm just frustrated by these trends and the resulting loss of so many things that could have been. Whether I'm right or wrong, people like me will always be there in the wake of change, speaking of the golden days, that all too often, never were.