Now this is getting ridiculous. Say what you like about VII's battle system being flawed as hell but don't ever try to tell me VIII's or IX's were an improvement in any regard. Especially IX, which has arguably the most painfully slow and tedious gameplay of any JRPG ever. Yeah the story started getting a little weird in some areas but I'm sure a lot of that could be attributed to the dodgy translation and retcons from the compilation. On its own I think it still (mostly) holds up fine.