Hot take? I keep seeing ppl salty at all the hyper-realism in Final Fantasy I’m kinda not mad anymore at the series’ descent into “lack of an actual art style” & permanent realism b/c for its mainline entries (excluding 9 & maybe 11) the seeds for this were sown as far back as 8.

Outside of the spinoffs, different art styles haven’t really defined FF. And to be fair, they’d been eschewing away from typical turn based RPG & whimsical fantasy elements for a while now. 16 SEEMS like its got a hard fantasy setting going again but its too early to tell in full

Also I saw someone compare the 16 trailer to having heavy Game of Thrones elements and while I can def see that influence having seeped in — I think seeing that as “the direction from now on” is kinda ludicrous/baseless at this juncture for a number of reasons.

Lately it seems like there’s been a hard lean into sci-fi fantasy tropes or a weird mix of classic fantasy into hard sci-fi for the FF series and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Magitech elements have been in the narrative since what? 4? 5? So none of that is new.

And either way, I also don’t really see the point of complaining about the lack of those elements anymore because those same old school elements are represented full-tilt in games like Dragon Quest (which is also Square). The key difference being the moods of those games.

DQ games have serious elements but try to stay mostly lighthearted in their approach. FF was known for its weirder takes on lightheadedness (see FF9) but as much as many ppl love that game (my personal fave) I remember the folks who loved realism in FF ragging on it *hard* for it

Like... hard enough that we’re at entry 16 and excluding MAYBE 11 we’ve never gotten anything as whimsical as 9 for a mainline entry again. Which is sad but... that’s not the direction they want apparently. And that’s okay.

That’s part of why I gravitated towards Dragon Quest for my classic RPG fix for whimsical settings with a semi-lighthearted/semi-serious fix but that’s my own personal preferences talking. Your mileage may vary and if so, it is what it is.

I wanna clarify something because I dont think I was very clear -- I put "lack of an art style" in quotes in my opening post b/c it's something I saw someone else say that I disagree with.

Also, heavy realism is emphasized far more in the mainline games than spinoffs obviously

That heavy realism leads some human characters to have a number of homogeneous similarities between games but that doesn't mean that different art styles in clothings, weaponry, settings, etc don't exist to tell these games and their casts apart. That's all.

I hope that makes sense hahaha