Spira too colorful and samey? Hmmm....colorful, yes, but i think there's enough varation.
VII had that nice cyberpunk, ominous feeling to it. X is back and forth between happy and depressed...the game is kinda bipolar.
Some of the characters (if we forget about the voice acting) were pretty good, especially Auron and Lulu. Wakka pissed me off, he reminded me of Fozzie Bear, only not cool. I liked Yuna, and Rikku most of the time. Tidus...meh...and Kimahri...double meh.
I actually liked the Overdrives for the most part, although Wakka's was annoying (and i was NOT about to play more blitzball than necessary to get his best one) and Lulu's was absolute CRAP. I seriously think someone was on shrooms when they came up with the idea for her overdrive. Doublecast was Vivi's trance in IX, and that was wonderful, especially when he knew Doomsday. But the idea of reducing the power of a spell by 2/3 and making you spin the right analog stick furiously hoping to make enough rotations to at least count for a double cast was idiotic. Not to mention the rotations themselves werent based on the actual rotation, noooo, that made too much sense. They have to be based off your magic stats, so if you're low leveled, you might as well not bother with her overdrive (and i never did).
And that dodge 200 lighting bolts...feh, screw that. That's torturous enough to be on Takeshi's Challenge. But wow, you actually like blitzball? O_O I havent seen many people at all who like it. I couldnt stand it, it was just too confusing to learn. Not to mention that the game thrust you right into the middle of a tournament, which is not the best place to learn to play the game. I woulda much preferred a nice simple underwater soccer version.
