FFIX was medievalish, but it had excellent character development, a character-driven story, and lost its integrity by purposely making the atmosphere of the game unrealistic and by being advertised as "going back to its roots"
I object. Big time.

It was as realistic as VII or VIII or X or XII. And how does that advert of 'going back to its roots' make it lose its integrity? All it's saying is that the style will be more similar to the early Final Fantasys.