So your thought process is "8 or 9 out of 10, good enough, no point of striving to make even better games next time"?
Expecting games to be masterpieces is also woefully unrealistic.
I was expecting this game to be a solid 8 and so far its accomplishing just that and its totally fine.
As a person who has played countless rpgs both new and old (especially old), FFXVI set out to be a solid game and its doing so. But its not a masterpiece and thats also fine too.
So true. Because the original poster is someone's alt account, FFXIV isn't becoming more and more linear with every update. It's not like they changed all of the dungeons pre-ShB to be hallways. It's not like FF13, FF14, and now FF16 are basically corridors. It's not like gameplay is being ripped out in the name of "the kids" while those same kids move to more complex games like Genshin and HSR.
Who knew one man could be so widely influential in the development of the RPG? (The OP, not Yoshi-P)
Asmongold, who never even played past Stormblood?
And former WoW streamers like Pyromancer whose viewership dropped by 90% after switching to FF14?
Those popular vids from Bellular and Preach you mean? What are they still talking about...? Oh that's right. WoW and Diablo 4.
I dont think Vagrant Story is a masterpiece, but its certainly visually innovative for its time. Chrono Trigger if it was made today it would most likely be rocking a solid 8. The only reason we hold those older games to the gold standards was due to the fact that we experienced them back when we werent jaded assholes and just enjoyed the game for what it was. Solid experiences.
I actually would hold FFXVI around the same caliber as those games for what it does, but Im sure that would be a cardinal sin. Bottom line, FFXVI is a banger not a masterpiece but a banger is still a banger. There's nothing wrong with that, I feel sometimes people get a bit too deep with their cynical criticism and honestly I only half blame them considering how jarring the industry has become.
I think what helped Chrono Trigger also was because there was no voice acting, and goes for a lot of SNES games back then that ended up being big hits.
I know that it is a weird take, but its just a weird quirk I noticed from Video gamers (its more noticeable how they feel about Final Fantasy X).
Seems like VA voice work can either make people cringe at the game or not at all.
They still do. And back then, they still made a mix of amazing 10/10 games and decidedly "meh" ones for me. I loved Chrono Trigger. I felt Chrono Cross was decidedly mediocre. Expecting "solid" games is what mature, reasonable, rational people do, and then we get pleasantly surprised when a game goes beyond "solid" and becomes a "masterpiece." But expecting nothing but masterpieces is an immature take that only sets one up for disappointment.