Does Yoshi P Hate FF9?

[Cilia]

All of this is mostly a solid read (although I'd probably argue that if we're saying anyone is the split Emperor it's Lahabrea/Hephaistos), but again, that's a lot more transformative than what the OP's bar seems to be, which is 'you can only show love through a hollow direct depiction of Thing From Game'. By his logic, the FF2 fans should be in an uproar that Pandaemonium wasn't very specifically a castle from Hell that has a few monster-in-a-box bosses and then ends in a fight against someone specifically named 'The Emperor'! (And then possibly doing it all again but mirrored this time.)

While this is a bit of a wild take, the actual way it's supposed to be is that Athena is just straight up "the Emperor [Mateus]." Sure, she's got a quasi-scientific bent to her, but they're both sociopathic megalomaniacs who desire absolute dominion, see everyone else as nothing more than pawns for them to exploit, account for (if not plan) their death and come back from the afterworld in an effort to finish their designs, and have a dubious connection to a malevolent otherworldly figure (Satan for Mateus, Ultima for Athena) that probably exacerbated their worst qualities (though they still would have been nasty pieces of work). Hephaistos = Hell Emperor and Athena = Light Emperor still, given outside of the non-canon Savage fight Athena keeps her eyes closed like the Light Emperor and the heavenly pocket dimension you fight her in is obviously meant to reference that, but anyway.

If you want a carbon copy cut and paste from II, there actually is one but it's small and easy to miss - no thanks to II not being very popular as you mentioned. The giant beavers first encountered in Il Mheg that somehow found their way back to the Source are lifted straight from II; our inability to speak with them even with the Echo is a reference to how only Guy speak beaver.

[Cleretic]

If you want a carbon copy cut and paste from II, there actually is one but it's small and easy to miss - no thanks to II not being very popular as you mentioned. The giant beavers first encountered in Il Mheg that somehow found their way back to the Source are lifted straight from II; our inability to speak with them even with the Echo is a reference to how only Guy speak beaver.

Actually, even that one's a curveball. In FFXIV the beavers are a quietly horrifying unexplained something; in II they're just beavers.