I agree with the OP. Squall, Tidus, and Vaan, ruined Final Fantasy for me. Square admits that they want to follow George Lucas, and take something that can appeal to everyone, and make it with only kids in mind anymore. They basically admit they don't know how to do real drama, and let 15 year olds write their melodramatic plot twists or whatever. I see more characters being whiny, rather than actually feeling something. Nobody ever questioned the intensity of how much anguish Celes was feeling that she actually attempted suicide if you failed to save someone dear to her. And yet on the same token, nobody can take the fake and over-acted whiny angst that Tidus continually cries over during the course of his game. There's unrealistic, and unrelatable melod-drama. And then there's real, palpable, relatable drama. You may not have to be an adult to appreciate it. But I tend to believe you do have to be a little immature to actually appreciate melodrama. So I'm more inclined to believe Final Fantasy games these days are indeed for kids. And Square themselves have admitted as much

I would take something like, say, Xenoblade Chronicles. A JRPG with legitimate drama, with good, solid writing, to take as an example of where Final Fantasy probably could have been going. I bet kids can enjoy Xenoblade Chronicles. And it's not littered with characters who spew nothing but angsty unrealistic emotion that they should be writing down in journals rather than acting out on screen

It doesn't have to be a zombie game, or talk about the fall of humanity, or even have suicide and death and sex-slavery to be something adults can really appreciate. But I would definitely appreciate it if they would stop with the melodramatics of their characters, and send their writers to some sort of writing course, and teach them the difference between the two. Either that or Final Fantasy is just legitimately not for me anymore. Because my days of investing in angsty teens (or younger!) trying to "save the world" is just too unrealistic for me to suspend my disbelief for anymore. Which is sad for them, and sad for me. But that's my two cents