should not westernize FFXIV

[OmegaNovaios]

Graphics grab my attention, game play decides which game I play. Graphics appeal to my eyes which can lead to my heart, game play appeals to me overall which can lead to my heart as well.

Personally I prefer Japanese style art to Western style art, and IMO Realistic graphics appeal greatly to the entire world.

[Randis]

IMO Realistic graphics appeal greatly to the entire world.

This is not entirely true, it is the aspect of 'Quality' that appeals, the more sophisticated and detailed something is the more 'realistic' it seems even if the goal is not 'realism' in a classic sense.
Looking at popular IP you will see that they not have to be realistic at all. Final Fantasy (the spirits within) was very realistic but nowhere as popular as the pixar (and most of the other studios) CG animated films.
Also Many of the popular MMO RPG are rather cartoony.
With a 'cartoony' look i did not mean cellshaded styles or games like angry birds I prefer more painterly and loosely styles over the highly symetric and polished graphics.
Take FFVII or FFIX for example, the architecture had some great charm, everything was a bit uneven, shifted, used up.
It felt more personal and charming. FFXIV offers great texture quality, details, more realism in terms of colors, realistic proportions, high poly count, shader...
It all seems polished, new, perfectly even and symmetric, it lacks certain character.
It is my personal opinion, i do not expect everyone to see my point.

However, the visual appeal of a game dictates for me the mood and i felt more connected to some of the older FF titles.

















(some screenshots are of Vagrant story, last one is xenogears)

i didn't pick out awesome CG movie renderings, those are all simple ingame screenshots, they may look not spectacular this days as they are old.
Hard to show what i mean with a couple screenshots but if you played the games you should know the charm.