Say what you willl . . .

[Vincent, Thunder God]

Well, don't ignore that the opinions might actually be valid.

A lot of people started with VII. VIII was not as good as it. IX was worse still. X took a breather and was a better game than its predecessor. X-2 was largely despised. XI was not even the right type of game. XII was worse than IX. XIII was worse still. XIII-2 took the series further down. XIII-3 still further. XIV decided to not even be a Final Fantasy again. And XV was a car driving simulator.

So, it's not that it's some cycle of just hating on the most recent game. It's that Final Fantasy has been steadily getting worse and worse and worse.

I can actually agree with most of that except for IX being bad and X being better than it.

IX really needs an HD port, to be honest. Even at the time of release, it's graphics didn't look great. It pushed the PS1 way too hard, even with the stylized aesthetic.

There's also a lot of aspects of it that irk me, personally. I'm not a fan of several of the character designs (although personalities and story moments tend to be great), I despise some of the mechanics (Trance especially). And I absolutely loathe and hate the game for putting a unique reward in the game that you can only get by speedrunning it and skipping out on everything good about the series. RPGs exist to immerse yourself in the world, explore, watch events, and talk to people. Not to rush through.

I didn't know about the speedrun weapon until just the last few years, but I would never play through the game that way anyway - it's just an optional secret there for those who do want to try a speedrun. I can see what you mean about the graphics in the original PS1 version but I believe the recent PC/PS4 port has improved the graphics (haven't tried it yet). As for the mechanics they didn't really bother me. I enjoyed the world of the game because it was quite unique in the series, the OST was great and I thought the story was pretty good. I've never actually finished it though - got close to the end and then never completed it (similar to VII).

EDIT: Lol, the VIII thread has become a IX thread.