Quote Originally Posted by Raoabolic View Post
I'm surprised no one has said anything about FFVIII considering the entire concept of time gets compressed into a moment which in effect killed reality itself.
Quote Originally Posted by Rulakir View Post
Why does FFX never get mentioned? The entire game revolved around the "spiral of death". It was a beautiful world and lovely story, but everyone and everything in it was tied to tragedy.
Because at the time, we were talking about the tone of the games, not the themes. Their themes aside, the tones of FFVIII and FFX were very cheerful and optimistic with a nugget of dread. FFVI and FFVII were the exact opposite -- very dark and depressing, with a slightly hopeful message buried underneath. FFVI and FFVII were the flat out darkest the FF series got until FFXV.

While we're on the subject, FFIX was another anomaly; despite its very cartoonish, chibi-cute art direction, that game's themes were dark and depressing as hell. Parental abuse, genocide, betrayal, revenge, suicide, the inevitability of death, loneliness, bigotry, etc, etc.. It had a very cheerful tone on the surface, but when you look at what the story's actually saying, it's one of the darker themes in the series.