Thanks for the spoilers at the end there!! It's only been 30 years! lol
yeah Ok you do raise a point that the very nature of the plots' focuses are different, which can certainly appeal to different people. IX's kind of intrapersonal philosophising was just something that appealed to me before I even knew what philosophy was. They make such a point of it they even marketed each character with their own philosophical slogans 'To be forgotten is worse than death' and such.
But each character does explore these themes really well, and I felt so much for Kuja towards the end.
As an aside, the music can also determine the rank of a game for me perhaps more than most people, and I'd wager the majority of people would likely rank IX's soundtrack as number 1 - although to be fair, VIII's is borderline on par, I reckon! 7-9 really was the golden era
Lol sorry should have put up a spoiler warning.
Yeah I think most fans of FFIX really felt for Kuja. Often I feel he overshadowed the main characters. I mean he knew all about his origins and about Garland and fought against his fate. And to relate to the point about music I think many players were fans of his theme.
But personally I rank the VII-X era of Final Fantasy music on the same level. I agree it really was Square's golden age. But IV and VI also have some really good tracks too especially with the Black Mages rock remixes.
Cheers to that!