I kind of blame FFVII'spopularity for this shift, even though the games were still good after that. I've been doing playthroughs through the earlier games and I noticed something - hey, we don't get characters who are there to look cool or to be badass, neither do we get a teen's journey in order to grow up. No, in IV we get Cecil, who is already a grownup and has to live with regret and we see him try to overcome his demons. V's Bartz is in the middle of his journey, and while he still has the traits of a shonen manga hero - what with helping everybody he meets, we don't get a romance plot, and the story is surprisingly different than other JRPG standarts. And then we get to VI, where every character has a huge baggage of experiences - nobody is here to grow up or fall in love. Sure, love is a huge theme, but, surprisingly, the romantic kind really gets only small focus (what with the Locke/Celes/Rachel triangle). Heck, we don't even get a central character. These three games really show how they tried to make us rethink some things that are a staple of shonen manga and JRPGs as well...

And I guess, after VII, when they started making big money (and I believe, after X - even more so then), I think this is the point where they started to feel this obligation to aim for a specific demographic. Case in point - how many main characters after VII was older than 18? I mean, the whole cast of VIII was 17/18 (with Quistis (18) being the team mom and a battle-hardened veteran/teacher... yeah...) I know age is not the only indicator here, but I kind of notice more and more cliches later on - expecially after X. And they're not even cliches extablished by earlier FFs - they're from anime, manga, whatever is popular with the younger crowd...

I personally would love some of it to change. I'm really starting to get sick and tired of playing the same game over and over, only with different character models and a revamped battle system. I had hopes for Versus XIII, but now it looks like it's vapor wear, and I am really starting to believe - judging by all the interviews - that it's not going to change. I mean, it looks like it's going to be a fun game, but I guess we're still gonna get tween drama, so that poor little adolescents can understad...

And yet, I don't get why they have a problem with giving the characters more mature problems out of fear that people won't understand them. Take a look at Persona 3. I believe it was rated OK for teens in Japan. It's very popular there. And yet, the themes touched on in the game are usually considered mature. I mean, after playing through it once again, I noticed it even clearer - the game is about death, dying and coping with death - be it the death of a loved one or oneself. This is a difficult subject even for adults. And yet the game deals with it quite phenomenally - it takes its audience seriously and doesn't beat about the bush - the characters react as any normal human would in their situation, it shows how ugly it can get, as well as what good things may happen. And I don't think any of the teens loving this game had trouble understanding that. This shows that a game may be more mature, deal with more universal themes than teen drama and simply saving the world, and still sell well with the target demographic.

I'm sorry, this post is kind of chaotic, but I'm kind of writing whatever comes to mind now Anyway, bottom line is, I believe we need change. I don't want to keep playing the same game. I would love it if SE stopped focusing on appealing to their target demographic, and instead try to make another simply good game, with a fresh perspective, and some new interesting themes, instead of once again saving the world and growing up, since OMG, I've already saved the world and grown up like 80 times....