I've seen this issue skirted in a number of topics, but I thought I'd ask it outright.

I just a read a post my sdm in the Final Fantasy II forum where he says something along the lines of "FFII as an RPG is awesome, but as a Final Fantasy is just so-so." It got me to wondering, do you, as a fan of Final Fantasy, tend to be a harsher judge on a Final Fantasy game than you would be if it were just a regular game? Or, do you think you are more predisposed to like it because you want to like it? Are there any Final Fantasy games that you think would have utterly failed if they weren't called FF? Are there any that you think might have been rated and received a bit better if they weren't FFs and thus held to a certain industry standard?

For me, I would say that I'm probably in the minority in that I can honestly say that I feel predisposed to like a game just because it's called an FF game. I like this series, I like Square Enix. The games make me happy, and to be honest, I don't really want to dislike their games and lose faith in them. So, maybe sometimes I play dumb or lower my standards/expectations a tiny bit so that I can be very happy with the final project. It just makes me happier to be happy with SE than to spend time finding faults in their games, and to worry myself wondering if they're capable of producing games that move me anymore.