"The meat tends to go to my lower half!"
Miko, take this woman to more Yakiniku restaurants IMMEDIATELY
FF9 has some of the best thematic ideas in the entire franchise. Vivi and Kuja grappling with death is something that literally every human on earth has an emotional understanding of, it's fundamental to the human condition and that's part of what makes the game so good.
To be fair to the original FF7, however, I think it's very good. But that's at least partially because the original team was
also working on it and wasn't letting the shittier writers run completely rampant. And the ending starts to go into bad Nomura territory anyways, specifically with Marlene somehow knowing what was happening for no fucking reason and Aerith being the sole reason for Holy actually repelling Meteor instead of helping it, despite the fact that the rest of the Cetra were also in the Lifestream and she wouldn't have any more agency than the rest of them at that point (
Which cheapens the impact of her death, she had already cast Holy and it should have just worked instead of needing Aerith again for no reason, remembering Aerith's sacrifice without her face being plastered on the screen as the planet is saved would have been much more meaningful IMO).
FF8 is just straight up bad though. Art design and music are still really good, but the plot is just.... not great.
Why are they in a school, Nojima?
WHY DOES EVERYTHING IN BAD JAPANESE WRITING HAVE A SCHOOL, NOJIMA
WHY