I started at 7 and looked forwards to every iteration of the series since then, 8 was more of the same with a weird story, 9 was cute and a good throwback, then I went back to 6 which was a masterpiece, 10 was emotional and beautiful, 12 wasn't great but had cool worldbuilding, being a FFT fan.

Here is when it starts to diverge a little. I would call this the start of 'modern' FFs

I actually liked 13's battle system, it worked out many of the kinks of old systems, like healing after each battle and focused on each interaction as a puzzle to be solved. The story was OK and then the sequels kinda tried to do something different. Lightning Returns had terrible reviews, possible due to the time limit, which is why I never tried it

14 had a bad start and did a reboot to become a well loved MMO, but starting in the first world is such a chore with outdated MMO mechanics as someone who started later

15 was ambitious and unfinished. the first time I was truly disappointed in a FF game.

Then, we have the FF7 remakes, which are amazing, it seems that all the effort, the team members who have passion all signed up for this and it shows, but there's a strong nostalgia bias to it.

Now reading the reviews for 16, it seems there's no real reason to give it a try. At this point, I'm not sure what comes after the final FF7 game, is there a way to make 17 something people would care about?

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[–] enkonju 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I don't really care for them anymore. I think they're still very well crafted games from a passionate team, but I haven't really felt great about a FF game since 10. Ignoring the MMOs:

12 was decent but the story was pretty dry in the first half and Vaan was just not a compelling protagonist at all.

13 was reasonably fun to play after finding the "rhythm" I think they intended from the combat, but I never loved the story or any of the characters aside from Sazh.

15 had a lot of potential in the story, I actually liked the "dudes on a road trip" concept, but that awful sword hanging mechanic was always so unreliable that it eventually killed my progress in its tracks.

After that, I skipped 16 entirely.

The 7 sequel was actually really good, but everything I liked about it came directly from the original or built on top of it in a transparent way. The spooky ghosts and action combat were changes I strongly disliked and endured just to see the extended original story, but I thought they were huge steps back. It was a very good game that constantly had me wishing they just stuck to expanding the original story which is plenty convoluted on its own.

I still haven't played the 7 sequel part 2, but I expect I'll feel pretty much the same - in awe of the world and expanded story but constantly annoyed by spooky ghosts and mediocre action combat.

I really think the 7 sequels show that the Final Fantasy franchise has a place in the modern JRPG scene, but they would benefit from a return to form. I'd love to see the next FF game sporting a fast paced Persona-style turn based combat system combined with maybe an Akira-style dystopian techno-futuristic setting. All the parts are in there somewhere, they just need to figure out how to put them together in the right order.