You know what makes me sad? Very very sad? I love Square. I love Enix. I have HATED every Squrenix game that I have played. They've all been boring, unimaginative, and uninteresting. I hope against all hope thet FFXII has a storyline of the style I expect from a Square title, and not the boring/uninteresting stuff they've been doing =\\

Er... But FFX didn't have ATB, and that's still the same genre. Neither did FFX-2, as far as I'm aware, and that's in the same genre, for all its crapness. Neither will FF12, and that's still Final Fantasy.

Though saying "ATB" is a bit of a generalisation. FF6+7's ATB is very different from FF8's ATB, which is different again to FF9's ATB.

In fact, now I think about it, the games don't really have all that much in common at all besides the running-around-as-a-character part that makes it an RPG. In FF8 the other characters in your party followed you around. In FF7 and 9, they appeared when they needed to. FFX used some funky camerawork to make them appear naturally, as if they'd always been there.

And they all had different magic systems. Magicite, Materia, GFs, FF9's rather oldschool approach, the sphere grid. ...dress spheres *choke*

FF12 doesn't even have battle transitions, that's a break and a half from tradition :|

In summary, I've changed my opinion. The Final Fantasy games have very little in common other than gorgeous FMVs (if you count the ones they went back and added when they released the old games) and being made by Square (which equates to a strange obsession with Nordic mythology and a character named Cid o_O). And being RPGs, of course.

Which games? A lot of 'em were in production prior to the merger (I think Star Ocean 3 is one of those.)

And yes, Monolith Soft needs to wake itself up and make a game with great gameplay value and not the 20-hour junk I've been playing. Xenogears made you want to say "When the hell is this ending??" and it had to be shortened due to release schedule (and fund cuts, like you said), and that was only ONE out of six episodes. I'm wondering what the hell is going on with them seriously. I know a game designer/some-position person quit not too long ago, but eh... who knows. Maybe they'll give up and make a great book series.

I'm more interested in Mistwalker (New company. I think the creator of the FF series is doing that one) now unless Xenosaga 3 makes up for the last two games.

Xenosaga 2 had the feel of FFX 2 o_O That scared me. Well, not the plot, which was interesting, but the little gameplay it had was FFX 2 style x_x

Sadly, the emphasis seems to have shifted from good gameplay/story to shinier graphics/style in RPGs in general =\\

Really? I didn't play 2 (yet) because I heard it wasn't worth it, especially since they got rid of item shops and all of this other weird junk.

I don't know.. I kind of liked FFX-2 (I didn't have any other games at the time! ), but I definitely know what you mean. Nowadays I can't find any games that I'm interested in buying because they focus on pretty-pretty princess instead of in-depth story/gameplay. I'm pretty much waiting for Kingdom Hearts 2/Final Fantasy 12 and trying to force my way through Star Ocean 3 (I really mean force. My characters sometimes sit on the edge of the screen and don't fight at all), but meh.. starting to give up on the RPG genre until I graduate and get experience to become a Producer at one of these companies. (Square is hiring... )

Some of you may think this blasphemy or whatever, but I am personally not interested FF12 at all. I can't wait for Radiata Stories, Dragon Quest 8, and Fire Emblem for GC.