What makes an FF game 'feel' like FF? The original FF game was literally just a DnD game by another name, some games feature contemporary settings, medieval settings, sci-fi settings, high fantasy settings, etc, with many of them sharing a few common threads that link them together, such chocobos, moogles, classes, etc.

One of the most consistent things about FF is how much it reinvents the wheel each iteration, from setting to combat to levelling. We've had games where we run around a medieval world looking for magic rocks to driving around the American Midwest in a luxury car that can fly to going to the moon in a mechanical space whale to beat up an alien who is actually the main villain.

A game 'not feeling like an FF' is an empty statement, I'm sure there were people who would have said the exact same thing about Final Fantasy VII when it first came out, now its what most people think of when they think Final Fantasy.