The short answer is yes, I am losing (well, have all but completely lost) interest in Final Fantasy.
And now, a story:
My first experience with Final Fantasy was watching my older brother play the original Final Fantasy on NES. I was too young to understand the gameplay, but I enjoyed fantasy settings and enjoyed watching him play and sort of explain the story to me. He didn't care to do this, but every once in a while he'd clarify something for me. Eventually he made it to the end of the game and had to battle Chaos. The thing is, my brother, who mind you was five years older than me (and I could not have been more than 9 at the time) would call him "Chay-Os." I never read the name of the character on the screen, I had only ever heard my brother refer to the end boss aloud. This led to an embarassing moment years later, when I was discussing Final Fantasy with a friend and called the last boss "Chay-Os." I make fun of my brother to this day for being a numbskull and not knowing the word Chaos...but we still call him "Chay-Os."
It wasn't until the original was released on GBA that I played through it. My first Final Fantasy playing experience was Final Fantasy II (IV). I remember getting stuck at the part where you had to fly your chocobo...somewhere. I couldn't figure out how bird to fly. I think this was heading toward the magnetized dungeon. Anyhow, it didn't matter, I enjoyed the game immensely up until that point. I remember during little league games, I would talk to another kid about the game, and since I hadn't beaten it and he had, I would pretend that I had as well. I eventually convinced the kid that I had played as Tellah on the moon and that I had equipped him with...whatever the amazing sword you can get for Cecil is.
In return, he turned me on to Final Fantasy Mystique Quest. In hindsight, this may have been a calculated retaliation to my lies. In reality, I actually enjoyed the game. What can I say, I was young and RPG hungry, and the simplicity of the game along with the basic (ridiculously basic, actually) Final Fantasy gameplay appealed to me. Even so, I still hadn't ever owned a Final Fantasy game; I had only ever rented Final Fantasy II and Mystic Quest.
I recently found an old Christmas list of mine, which included several games. The only two I remember are Donkey Kong Country and Final Fantasy III (VI). I got DKC, and I never did get to even play FFIII in my youth. I wonder if my feelings about the Final Fantasy series would be any different had I gotten FFIII instead of DKC. Actually, I still haven't finished any incarnation of Final Fantasy VI, though I do have a copy for both SNES and GBA, now. I really should finish the game, as I've really enjoyed what I've played of it thus far, and so many of you go on and on about Kefka. Sure, he's a jerk for poisoning the water supply, but I am surely missing out on his true evil form. But I digress.
Even though I never did get to play Final Fantasy III, and even though I had never so much as completed any game in the (real) series (I did beat Mystique Quest, for what it's worth), I still had a soft spot for the series. When I first saw pictures of Final Fantasy VII in Ultra Game Players magazine (or something like that), I was excited. Eventually, Final Fantasy VII became the first game I pre-ordered. And, like many people, it was one of the great gaming experiences I had ever had. I had finally completed a Final Fantasy game, and not just once, but several times over! I remember loving this game so much that my friends had to see it. Many of them were so impressed that they went out and bought a Playstation as soon as they could in order to play this amazing game. I liked that; I liked so many of my friends being so impressed by a game that they would buy the system the game was on just for the opportunity to play it themselves. There doesn't seem to be many games that have that affect (in my experience, anyway) these days.
Naturally, with as much as my friends and I enjoyed FFVII, we were all excited for FFVIII. Seeing screenshots, you couldn't help but have your jaw drop. It was amazing. FFVII was unbelievable, but FFVIII simply blew it away from everything we could see in magazines! Then I played the demo. That, really, was when my interest in the series dropped to almost nil.
You have to understand, for me, demos of games were largely new. The only other demo for a (console) game I had played, was Metal Gear Solid's demo, which blew me away. My thinking at the time was something like: The MGS demo was great, and that game was great, so if the FFVIII demo is lousy, then I guess the game must be lousy.
It wasn't until a few years later that I purchased and played FFVIII. For me, it was too tedious an experience, and the story failed to captivate me on any level resembling how FFVII's story captivated me. I would try to push through, but I only ever made it as far as the fight with Cerberus. I'm sure I played the game wrong, but I had enough by that time, and I haven't touched the game in many years.
Final Fantasy IX was never on my radar during its time. My friend (one who had purchased a Playstation just to play FFVII) absolutely loved Final Fantasy X and tried to get me interested, but what he really loved was Blitzball, which failed to resonate with me. To this day I have never played Final Fantasy X (or its sequel), and it was not until I was a junior in college that I was convinced to play Final Fantasy IX, as I was told it was one of the best games in the series. I've only ever made it as far as...a fight with a plant monster after you escape the palace at the beginning of the game. I don't have any problem with the game in the way that I had problems with VIII, but again, it never captivated me, what with so many new games out that I just had to play.
It was shortly after my attempt to play Final Fantasy IX that I learned that my brother (the "Chay-Os" brother) was playing Final Fantasy XI. Now, I had tried Everquest years earlier (when he was playing that), and I just did not care for it. However, it so happened that I had become friends with several of the people he played the FFXI with in real life; friends who lived across the country in some cases, and it seemed to me that, if nothing else, it would be a fun way to keep in touch with everyone. It turned out that, while far from perfect, I found a lot to enjoy in Final Fantasy XI. Not only was I able to play with my brother, who was living in Hawaii (and I in Maryland) at the time, but the world of MMORPGs was a new experience for me, which at the time I was able to invest a ton of time into. Eventually, the time sink caught up with me and I had to quit the game, and eventually WoW made the folks I had played FFXI with lament ever playing such a game. Even so, I still extend an invitation to my brother to pick back up with Final Fantasy XI from time to time. I'm half joking, but I think if he said yes that I would go for it.
Because I did like a lot of the fundamental gameplay of Final Fantasy XI, I was excited about Final Fantasy XII. I had thought that it would be the game to spark my interest back in the series, what with it's new stance against random battles and so on. I got the game for Christmas 2006, and I jumped right in. A few hours later, right around the time Balthier and the broad with the rabbit ears are flying around on hoverbikes, I determined that I wasn't interested enough to commit some 40 hours to the game, give or take. In a perfect world, I'd have so much time to devote to what truly seemed like a promising game, but it may never happen for me. Still, the game is in my collection, if I ever find the time.
Which brings us to the present day. I thought that I would be all over Final Fantasy III (not VI) for DS, but when it came out, there were other games that tickled my fancy, and I no longer had an interest in the game. I've already completed Final Fantasy IV on GBA, so a DS remake really doesn't interest me at all. Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, and the rest of the Final Fantasy VII remakes haven't even drawn my interest, even though I understand one of those games is pretty good. As for Final Fantasy XIII and Friends, they look amazing. At this point, however, I don't even own a Playstation 3. Though I will own one shortly, I still have a tough time reconciling the fact that I've only completed three games in the series. I think history has shown that there is no chance, zero, that I will devote the necessary amount of time to Final Fantasy XIII to make it worth my while. As such, I have no plans to purchase the game.
I did buy the Final Fantasy VII movie, though. I had wanted to see that for so long. What can I say? It was an utter disappointment for me. Great visuals, though (captain obvious overhere). And for what it's worth, my "Chay-Os" brother really liked it. But even he hasn't played a Final Fantasy since XI (and before that, only VII and the original on NES). I'm not as influenced by his gaming choices these days (he is mostly a slave to WoW), but who knows? Maybe if he got a PS3 to play FFXIII, I would be swayed myself. But it seems unlikely.
Then more and more remakes and ports, it's still extremely difficult to keep up with. At this point, I rediscover my love for the DQ series, and DQ8 gets released and is infinitely better than any FF game since the turn of the century. Follow up with FFXII, which alienated me way more due to the battle system and the extremely large, uneventful areas with save points spread out every 45 min or so, than it did by the extremely slow plot progression. The fact that the game was getting constant praise by the traditional-RPG-hater media for "eliminating the tired turn based random battle" element was also annoying and probably contributed even further to my dislike of the battle mechanics. Some of the remakes have been OK, I can certainly say that both FF5 and 6 Advance were decent ports, and the FF3 remix was cool (though I would've preferred a 2D aesthetic), for whatever it's worth.
