>Few games inspired the unexpected wonder and scale that FF7 did. 8 did a little. 9 hit the mark. So did X. Everything after was kinda of numb

The FF games you loved were created by the two talents at the heart of FF: series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu. They left after X. I think the soul of the franchise left when these two did.

I played FF12 about 12 years ago and I couldn't name you a single character (or remember their personality/story) or hum a single music track. I played FF7 25 years ago and there's a few music tracks I still remember, and I can name most of the characters (though it helps that they're popular in gaming culture).