"I'm starving!"
"My sides are sore."
"Could do with a bath."
"I could use a little food..."
"Is that virtuous?"
At what point did SE and the final fantasy series really lose it's "magic"?
Final Fantasy VIII.
I enjoyed the original NES game when it came out, as well as the two games released on the SNES in North America. When I ditched my Sega Saturn and bought a Playstation, I picked up FF7 as well. I haven't played FF7 since that first time I played it (late 1997), but I certainly enjoyed it at the time. It's certainly vastly overrated, but it was still a good game.
FF8 started to lose me by the end of the first disc (of 4). This was where Square's obsession with making CG movies really started to become apparent. In addition to the emphasis on cutscenes, FF8 seemed to be where they really started imposing more of a distinct personality on the main playable character. Yes, the main characters in the earlier games did develop more distinct personalities as the series progressed, but FF8 was where I really started to feel like the main character did not represent me in any way. This was a major point of contention for me with Xenogears as well (Fei: "Waah, I don't want to fight!" *runs away*). The seeds were planted in FF7, to be sure.
Square marketed FF8 as a very character-driven "love story," but I spent most of my play time drawing magic spells from enemies in random battles in order to boost my stats by junctioning. I got money just by walking around the map for long enough. There wasn't much in the way of customizing how my characters were equipped. I completely lost interest in playing by the 20-hour mark. It was just too tedious.
In my opinion, Square peaked with Chrono Trigger, which I think was and is better than Final Fantasy anything.
I have a used copy of FF9 that I bought well into the PS2 years, but I have yet to get around to playing it. I played through FFX and enjoyed it, despite the linearity and fucking annoying main character. I mostly liked the battle system and the sphere grid, plus it was pretty to look at. FFX-2 was unbearable. Had no interest in FFMMO. I put a good 40+ hours into FFXII and found it quite enjoyable for a while, but it eventually just started to drag on for far too long. The combat system didn't bother me; I saw it more like KOTOR or Baldur's Gate than an MMO, to be honest. Never played any of the FFXIII games. FFV looks just as unappealing.
Looking back, I see FFVIII as the beginning of the current philosophy on FF game design. FFIX was a deliberate throwback and FFXII was an attempt to break out that got reined in near the end. I'd much rather play Dragon Quest.
