"Where has the magic gone?"

[Skyrant_Kangaroomouse]

It has alot to do with the workload that increases with every game generation. While an engine for a NES Final Fantasy was probably done in a month it took years to create the (crappy) Crystal Tools Engine.

There just isnt much time left for the actual game after years of engine coding. Alot of stuff probably looks good on paper but if they cant even display a LSMES with an engine that was in the works for 5 years i doubt they have much choice beside making it mainstream food.

Unfortunately that argument is wrong. Coding an "engine" for the SNES or any 2D platform was as complicated since it was mostly done in assembler and no rapid development tools where available in those days.

All the hand drawn animations, sprites and backgrounds are much more time intensive than simple 3D polygons that get textured, lit and rendered.

I give you a simple example. The scaling of the enemies they have done in FF14 can be done with a few simple parameters. Polygons naturally scale to any size and tessalation takes only a mouse click in modern 3D modeling software.

If you would have done that in a 2D game you would have to hand draw all the sprites and graphics again. Something that would take months not days.

The whole argument about 3D beeing more complicated and time intensive is rubbish.
Why you think people that have no experience in game design can use the free editors to make levels that are sometimes superior to the original game?