I disagree. FFIX and some others before it were pretty cool and all, but I think the ones after were great as well. I also feel the author failed in explaining why its successors don't live up to that greatness, just, "this and this and this were different than what was in FFIX" and a couple of those "this"s only apply to games before FFIX if you think about it. There are just so many contradictions all over the place, such as "Forget futuristic worlds - simplistic medieval charm is what Final Fantasy is about" when several games before FFIX had future worlds, FFX did not for the majority of the game, and FFXII was a medieval world.

So yeah, FFIX is pretty fun (and I kind of want to play it again now) but this article isn't so great. One thing I do agree with is that the graphics aged better than FFVIII before it and FFX after. In a few more years FFX is going to be omg so ugly.