Sounds like I wasn't too far off? :o Unless I'm still misunderstanding. xD But yeah, basically you thought both games were about as good quality-wise as each other, but you have OK feelings towards one while having negative feelings towards the other, based on pre-existing standards. It's a large chunk of why these days I try my hardest not to get caught up in hype. When I played VI through to finish the first time, it was after endless hype at EoFF and honestly I just felt... tired? Bored? I dunno. There were a lot of great things in that game but my expectations were to be dramatically amazed like I was in most new FF games I play. But I just wasn't and that annoyed me.



I think it's important to lower your expectations as much as possible before going into a game, regardless of the anticipation you might have for it. It's tricky, I know. I just like basing my expectations based on money, I guess. If I pay full price for a game, I expect to be entertained to a decent level, and to experience something that feels somewhat new, so I'm not just paying for the same thing all over again. I remember when people criticised L4D2 for basically feeling like an expansion. That's me with every Pokémon game. xD But yeah. L4D2 I enjoyed despite paying full price because the only thing that they really could change were the maps and enemies - everything else was crucial to the formula. And I guess you can say the same for Pokémon, but the amount of work that goes into creating a Pokémon world just feels so much incredibly less than what you get out of a home console game or whatever.

Final Fantasy is a gold mine for me because I know that whatever I'm going to play, it's going to be new, and I can experience that new-ness from scratch. To have a solid number of games in the series held to such a high standard and still be coming up with new things every game, I love that. I love learning about each world and character. But I can understand if other people are more concerned with learning about new kinds of Pokémon and how new types can be mixed up better or something, I guess. I just feel like it's something that they could charge half price for and still be able to have insane profit from. People are suckers for them pocket monsters and they just don't seem very difficult to make compared with other things in home console games. I guess I wouldn't mind Pokémon so much if it just cost less. xD

Overall, though, I just rate each game for what it is. With Final Fantasy, I expect each game to be very different from the last one and the ones before, with a few common elements. Rag tag team of adventurers build up their strength and save the world, fixed characters, fixed personalities, chocobos, moogles, that kinda thing. Perhaps I'm just easily pleased beyond that.

One home console game that did disappoint me was Duke Nukem Forever, if anything. That game did not warrant me paying full price, but I did it. Oops.

I wonder, Momiji: Given your different expectation levels, would you be okay with paying more for one game than the other based on the standards you hold to each series? Would you have paid twice the price for a game you felt was 8/10 than a game you felt was 4/10?