What if Final Fantasy never returns to its roots?

[Wolf Kanno]

In terms of going back to a semi-high fantasy/medieval setting style going back to your roots, I'm not terrible in love with the idea since I tend to dislike high fantasy settings. Not that FF was ever faithful to this idea to begin with, but I felt FFXII scratched the itch of seeing such a setting on modern systems since it's pretty close to that time period (though taking most of its cues from the Middle East and North Africa) once you get over the Star Wars inspired Airship designs.

When I say "go back to their roots" I'm thinking more of treating each game like it's the last one. You know, going into each title to make it the best game possible with the tools they have, no plans to franchise it out, and creating a game that is balanced in both telling a story and being a fun game to play. This is not to say every FF in the past met this criteria but I still feel you get that sense from the games when you play them as opposed to the last few entries that do feel more and more like a marketing team with focus groups were attending the development meetings telling them what they can and can't do. Whether we'll see that time come again is uncertain, we'll probably get a high fantasy setting before the series goes "back to the roots".