If you look at the Breath of Fire series, those games are pretty much as different subsystem-wise as Final Fantasy ever was. And that series changed genres after the fourth entry and nobody is calling that series constantly reinventing nor clamoring for anything but more turn-based entries!

How many series have even made it to its eleventh entry, let alone had ten straight entries of relatively minor change first?

Gaming does not have many examples where sixteen numbered games can differ in such a degree

An interesting thing about the Bravely Series is it lacks the actual reinvention of Final Fantasy. All three Bravely games use more or less the same Job system, whereas one of the cool things about Final Fantasy was how it constantly gave us fresh takes on the idea.

What you said doesn’t make any sense. If it was technology that mandated FF1 be a turn-based game, then FF16 should also be turn-based because clearly we are still lacking the technology that lets you manage an entire party within an action game.

Firstly, I’d like to say that developers are allowed to modify their games however they see fit! However, I’d also like to make a certain point clear:

Microsoft: No, your honor. Outspending Sony to acquire exclusive content was just our old strategy!

“We would have given this game more time and polish if not for it being exclusive” is a weird flex!

It’s great and right that the original artist is being compensated for this! Having said that, this aligns with an interesting discussion in art, namely how different does a derivative work have to be for copyright to no longer apply. This is legally more confusing than it may originally same! As The Legal Eagle…

the franchise has and does need to continually evolve in order to avoid becoming stale and repetitive. Now I’m not arguing that dramatically changing combat is the solution to this, but it certainly is an option

TMW you realize you could say most of the same things about Dragon Quest, but gl trying to argue that series is also fine being an action game!

VIII and IX both had the Wait option. And of course FFX was one of the most turn-based games in the series!

You’re still talking about ten turn-based games, and back then there was never a question of “what is a Final Fantasy?” It was only after the series started to wildly diverge that that discussion took place, and the gaslighting about Final Fantasy “constantly changing” began.

I think if you look at most games today, you’d find the things you mentioned are largely absent. Adding them back into Final Fantasy would actually help separate it from the pack, instead of feeling so me-too like recent entries have.

One of the things that I’ve sometimes said makes Final Fantasy is The Art of War Quote “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war”: In other words, your party and equipment management must meaningfully change combat. The Job system turned classes into equipment, and I think that idea is something that Final…

I think the fact that we’re even having this conversion (again) is proof of a failure. I think one of the things that causes problems is that so many people think of Final Fantasy in terms of story rather than gameplay. But if Final Fantasy is all about the narrative, then why does Final Fantasy V rate so high on…

Most likely. “Steal” is a valid command, but there is no “has item” condition. So you could do something like “If full health: steal,” etc. But any setup leads to potential waste, where you either steal from an enemy with no item, or stop trying to steal before you’ve actually stolen something.

There is an entire ocean between Dragon Quest and modern action games. It’s not an either/or system. Even 90's Final Fantasy games were doing a lot of things that Dragon Quest still doesn’t do to this day.

XII’s gambit system is far too simplistic. You can’t even do something as basic as “If the enemy has an item, steal it. Otherwise attack.” But more importantly, interesting combat has chaining interactions, and the gambit system makes that impossible.

I’d argue that these days it’s action games that have become a dime a dozen and uninspired, and turn-based games are the rare breath of fresh air. But to each his own!