You misunderstand me a little, I'm more point out other peoples opinions on the game rather than my own, case in point just look at this thread. While I didn't think as much on the 3 PSone FF's I loved X, for the series it's my second favourite behind VI, with XII joining IV as the 4 mainline FF games I really loved. I even eventually played XIII and while deeply flawed still enjoyed it.
You're talking to someone who started on the genre as a child with the original Dragon Warrior and Phantasy Star, and have always kept a nostalgic love for the genre within a certain set of parameters. This is something that's long past caring but while rabid the FFVII love did annoy me back in the day I could at least appreciate it for helping the genre go mainstream, as plenty of games prior to it never made it to translation. But if you want to use a Star Wars analogy here FF became a sort of Anakin Skywalker as when the genre started to recede back into obscurity during the PS3 gen with so many series being lost which isn't directly Square/FF's fault but then they fart out XIII at the end of the console cycle and there was really no hope for recovery for a good while.
I understand where you’re coming from. I started with JRPGs long before VII, too. And I’m with you: I sort of resent the overall culture surrounding VII, the remake project *specifically*, and to a greater extent Nomura and his entire approach to game design. I don’t think his games are particularly captivating, and appeal to a niche of JRPG/anime that I simply don’t respect. So I’m with you there for sure.
In my mind, though, Nomura and the bloated metaverse of VII is just a single facet of FF overall. And maybe I feel stronger about that than you do because I happened to get into XIV, which really reignited my love for the series overall (XIV almost functions as a museum of FF in some respects).
While I hold JRPGs like Xenogears, Xenoblade, Persona, some of the DQ, etc. in higher critical regard than most FFs, I will always love FF as a series. It’s big and bombastic and captures a certain excitement for me. Tactics, VI, IV, the original VII, XII, X, IX, VIII, these were all games I spent a lot of time on throughout my early adolescence that I will always have strong feelings for.