The scale is anything below a 7 is bad. 7 is average 8 is good but not great and 9 and above are great.
It's not that a game getting an 8 is written off it's that a game like this getting an 8 is written off.
Square to me is Kanye West. They've changed and they can never go back to who the fans fell in love with. They can't even relate to who that was anymore. Modern Square just doesn't have it in them to make an almost universally beloved Final Fantasy.
That's the same for JRPGs in general. Part of what made them what they were was the technology constraints (Same with Kanye) now that they have virtually unlimited resources there's no reason to make games like that anymore outside of nostalgia (I miss the old squaresoft, four in a row squaresoft)