Ragnarok.Kongming said:
»Games looking more and more disappointing by the day. They need to just ditch the "Final Fantasy" label and it's not a FF game just like the last few games weren't really Final Fantasy games. It's an open world action RPG set in an alternate modern universe featuring several male protagonists. It needs a new name and series title.
This has been said about entries to the series far before you likely started playing it
Your right, it must of been true before Final Fantasy I on the NES .. ohh wait ..
Yes I started that early, buying my friends NES cartridge off him as a elementary school kid. Followed shortly by FFII (FFIV now) and FFIII (FFVI now). In the mid 90's I got involved in the emulator scene with DOS ZSNES and was able to snag a ROM of FFII, FFIII NES and later FFV SNES with fanmade translations I had to apply with an IPS tool. It took your amazing insight to realize this was all a dream of mine and didn't actually happen.
Now with the troll taken care of.
FFIX was the last game I consider a true Final Fantasy. It had a clearly defined protagonist, antagonist, world with renascence level technology with the occasional steam tech thrown in for flair. Final Fantasy 10 and beyond moved into a continuously more "modern" environment in an attempt to appeal to a larger player base. FFXV might as well take place in the year 2010 ~ 2020 in the country of Japan on a road trip from one city to the next.
Yep this is so totally not set in modern year Japan and is an imaginary fantasy land...
At least games like the new Xenogears have a decent explanation, they are a space-faring advanced technic people who are stranded on this alien planet and just trying to make everything work without much support infrastructure.