“Eventually Square’s stock went public, and Sakaguchi-san and people on the management side had to focus hard on the financial goals they had to reach, the unit numbers that they had to hit,” says Uematsu.

“That whole mentality started to change around the time of Final Fantasy 7.”

So I was right, the series did turn to crap around that time. I’d put it more in line with the release of 10 though, and 8/9 still had the old school feel.