Just finished Orbonne Monastery (old content spoilers)...

[MirronTulaxia]

I feel like this is something people need to keep in mind with the Nier alliance raids too.

I mean, the big issue here is Nier... isn't FF. It shouldn't be here. Fanserviceing an FF game is a big difference from something not connected in any meaningful way.

Snip.

Yeah, that's pretty true. I blame it on the developers. Ivalice games don't seem to be exceptionally popular (you can tell as they've pretty much put an end to new ones, and even with the ease of which gacha games are made they couldn't manage to make Tactics S work out), but the developers for a number of things enjoy them so they pretty much just shove as much as they can into it. Though, as far as XII goes it is set in Ivalice, I wouldn't count it the same as XIV or RK or other examples.

Snip.

For me it's just that Tactics... really is very clearly not an FF game. Later Ivalice games manage to integrate a bit better into it, but it's really very jarring and doesn't mesh with the others as well as it should. The story is extremely boring, characters once they join your team pretty much stop being relevant, so on and so forth. Honestly something it could really use is something along the lines of the support system from Fire Emblem, to give characters some time to get fleshed out. But even then I don't think it would fix the core issues. It's just too much "medieval Europe but if the Church was right and demons exist" which... is not a setting I want to explore.

Again later Ivalice games at least manage to do moderately better, but they still suffer from a lot of the same issues of characters just not being very developed, the world is extremely drab, lack of comedy, so on and so forth. Ironically the games that manage to do a bit better on this are the ones Ivalice fans hate too.

[Joven]

For me it's just that Tactics... really is very clearly not an FF game. Later Ivalice games manage to integrate a bit better into it, but it's really very jarring and doesn't mesh with the others as well as it should. The story is extremely boring, characters once they join your team pretty much stop being relevant, so on and so forth. Honestly something it could really use is something along the lines of the support system from Fire Emblem, to give characters some time to get fleshed out. But even then I don't think it would fix the core issues. It's just too much "medieval Europe but if the Church was right and demons exist" which... is not a setting I want to explore.

Again later Ivalice games at least manage to do moderately better, but they still suffer from a lot of the same issues of characters just not being very developed, the world is extremely drab, lack of comedy, so on and so forth. Ironically the games that manage to do a bit better on this are the ones Ivalice fans hate too.

To be fair when a character joins you their part in the story has essentially been wrapped up and they're just along for the ride to see how the rest of Ramza's story plays out.

What really constitutes a "Final Fantasy" game though? As far as I know it checks all the right boxes: it's got classes with specific roles in the party, mystical spells to cast and monster to summon, iconic monsters to fight, the minor conflicts that reveal a greater threat and a turn-based combat system. The only thing I can see that's missing are airships and magitek. That's one of the best parts of the Final Fantasy franchise is that it's not bound to a particular style. For the most part Tactics is more of a traditional Final Fantasy game like I-VI than games like Crystal Chronicles, Dirge of Cerberus or Crisis Core. Or even any game past VII (outside of IX).

It's OK if it wasn't to your liking, but I think it still deserves the title of Final Fantasy.

[MirronTulaxia]

1. My issue is mostly that they should be more developed. I honestly don't feel you get to know the characters very well, mostly it's just constant drama and then they join and that's it.

2. I could very easily go into it in detail, but putting it most broadly as I said the setting is too real world based.

3. I very strongly disagree, it needs some major changes honestly.