what constitutes "fantasy" anyway? Restricting it to set parameters like "it must be medieval!" is a bit odd. FF is not a series like Zelda, Fire Emblem, Castlevania, or even SE's own Dragon Quest where there are recurring motifs, themes, or settings. The whole point of every entry is (or at least was) to do something new, bringing in new worlds, different themes, characters, terminology, so it's always a fresh start.
I agree with this. The thing is more so that a lot of games in early days were either sci-fi or medieval, not really both. Yeah there are some cases (like Phantasy Star for example) where the lines are blurred, but for the most part it felt like the same series had the same recurring motifs. Shit I mean look how long it took Zelda to incorporate "technology"(rather than ancient or alien technology) it wasn't until SS we saw robots fixing things and flying around, and how many Zelda's had passed in between.
The reason FFIX didn't make a big splash during its release was partly because it was obsessed with going back to the series "roots" and as such doesn't really have an identity of its own.
I never liked FFIX, from the first day I saw it at a mate's house, he got to that scene where the villain (or whoever) sees Odin the summon and is dazzled. I was thinking wtf is this nostalgia trip that's being portrayed as so amazing...
It was amazing in VII, that was years ago. IX seemed childish to me and as a fan of both VII and VIII I couldn't feel engaged by it at all.
Yes as Dracula9 mentioned the end of VIII was just weird, but it came with a premise, the characters and graphical style seemed more mature than VII and the gameplay brought a level of innovation with the trigger prompts to inflict more damage during battle. The music was also fantastic, I didn't love the villain or the fact that you couldn't go back after entering the mind-fuck part of the game, but those things aside it was still good. I actually missed X and never got the chance to play it, and although I agree XII's story shifts from Vaan to Ash quite drastically (it should've stayed about Vaan) the game itself was pretty damn good. I was addicted to it for a while and it did have some decent challenges.
I think sometimes disjointed things work and other times they don't. For example - and I'm making up terms here -
Hallway XIII and
Pulse XIII worked for me. I liked the balance that the game had from going to a straight forward narrative into an open-world exploration game. I like that in XV you go from American-style diners into industrial places teeming with spectres cloaked in soldier uniforms that try to kill you. I'm not a huge fan of the main campaign occurring off the map, but the memory system rectifies this imho. It's open areas (most of the game) work quite well, while its hallway sections feel clostrophobic and awkward when juxtaposed with the gameplay (in most instances). Sometimes vastly different things work, sometimes they don't.
Part of the issue Square will have is that they've been capitalising on the success of FFVII for so long now. First it was FFVII, then Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus etc. The game has had its time in the limelight. They even said that remaking FFVII wouldn't happen for many years, then they announced an FFVII remake... Seeing KH4 was meant for the PS3, the VII remake announcement came way too early tbh, it's making Metroid Prime 4 seem like a preemie.
In a sense I believe they do need to re-define their identity and the identity of the franchise - which may well be scatterbrain but that's what works for the franchise as a whole - otherwise they'll just lapse and do the same thing again and again. Why not have a castle that lifts off the ground and hovers like a UFO and call it Highwind Castle? I'm just spitballing here, but many franchises have done things like this an executed them well. Sonic for one, you get ancient ruins loaded with red springboards, it can be done.