I’m not the one saying FF got stale, Square Enix was. Why do you think they’ve refused to release a mainline turn-based FF after 10? They think turn-based combat is archaic, stale. That if they make one now, people will lose interest and sales will tank. You guys keep bringing up sales figures as if that disproves my argument when if anything, it ratifies it. After 10 they waved goodbye to classic FF gameplay and it paid off. In their eyes, nobody cares about turn-based combat anymore. If they did these new FFs wouldn’t sell. SE was proven right. Some of you guys are getting way too hung up on my stale comment.
If I was a fan of a series that’s gotten to that point, I’d want them to stop and make something new. FF has the benefit of already having tons of spin-offs so making more of those instead would’ve still left the possibility of another classic numbered game in the future. New fans can enjoy those new games and old fans don’t have to watch the mainline games turn into something different.
“Expands on the previous game”
“Brings back a an old mechanic and improves it”
“Adds new mechanics”
Like I said, pretty standard sequel stuff. They’re all still turn-based strategies. That’s what classic fans want. Not individual mechanics from a specific game. Those themes are in every single FF ever, not just the mainline ones.
.. Just because a game is turn-based that doesn't mean it plays the same, though? lol. A standart sequel would be a game built directly on top of the previous one, and the only FF that is remotely like that is 3 to 1, and even then that's a bit of a stretch.
No single FF game is like the other. There is a familiarity because of the similar elements, definitely, but all of them are different experiences, not only story-wise but they literally PLAY different from one another.
It's not like The Legend of Zelda where, although each game has a central gimmick atributed to it, they all follow the same pattern and general gameplay. You could easily take the "Final Fantasy [number]" away from all numbered titles and release each of them as individual games.
The only reason I don't agree with your stale coment is that it implies it was done purely to follow a trent, instead of the developers wanting to experiment with different things. It was done slowly with different games trying different approaches on bringing more action to turn combat starting from XII, and like someone else in this thread pointed out, part of the reason XV is the way it is was because it was originally a spin off game belonging to the Fabula Nova Crystalis compilation, and then turned into a main entry for numerous reasons.
XV wasn't built from the ground as a new entry in the main series, it was adapted from Versus for numerous reasons.
It's not like I ignore development patterns, company work and stuff. But FF clearly has not gone through what, say, Resident Evil went through where the games started to mutate (pun not intended) wildly to fit the industry for numerous reasons.
This will be my last post on this, though, as I think it started to go off topic and there's no point in arguing further if you have made your opinion on the matter.