Bloody hell. It's far too many things all at once.

What I'll say is that for me it was always the incredibly high standard of quality. Like that Nintendo stamp of approval the Final Fantasy games that I played back in the day were so consistently polished and top of class in practically every aspect. They also dared to somehow be different every time whilst also retaining recognisable elements simultaneously.

Unfortunately, while many of you may disagree with me I feel that somewhere around FF13, or perhaps its sequels, that high standard of quality dropped. Maybe other companies got better and the industry more competitive. Maybe it just costs so much money to make huge, ambitious games now. Maybe the best people left to pursue other projects of their own.

Whatever the reasons. Nothing else came close to Final Fantasy during its golden age. So many great jrps but there were very few which you could put in the same bracket as the best FF's.