Quote Originally Posted by Slothy View Post
Calling FFXIV a mainline FF game is honestly a tad laughable. It's a spinoff in a different genre that they slapped a number on to draw people in.
Except it is a mainline Final Fantasy game. Just because you don't like MMOs doesn't invalidate it as a Final Fantasy game. There are plenty of people -- even here on EoFF -- who could tell you that it is 100% deserving of the Final Fantasy name.

It'd be like expecting a new Half-Life game and getting Fortnite.
False equivalency. FF14 is still very much an RPG at its core like every other Final Fantasy game, it has a multitude of elements from the Final Fantasy series in it, and it still emphasizes its story as the focal point of the game. It's a Final Fantasy game in every respect.

And trying to pretend that FFXV wasn't in development for more than ten years because it got a name change and some team shakeups part way through is a tad disingenuous.
Not really. Versus XIII was in development hell for years. It didn't become the next mainline game until 2012-2013, when the entire development focus shifted and they brought Tabata in to complete the game.

Even if it did take the actual 10 years to make FFXV as you're suggesting: So what? I don't see much value in getting this worked up over it. The game has been out for nearly 3 years at this point. Even I was disappointed with it, but it's a still a decent game and it was well received.

Also, the FFXIII sequels were slapdash sequels to a slapdash game.
They really weren't, but okay.

FFXIII didn't even have a clear direction until about 18-24 months before release, it was remarkably half-assed and poorly made
It really wasn't, but okay.

and instead of developing newer better games they released a couple of quick sequels to take advantage of the fact that at least they'd already built an engine, didn't have to think too hard about writing the world since the foundation was already set, and they could cannibalize as many assets as they wanted to make life easier.
Except most people who disliked the original XIII considered XIII-2 a massive improvement over the original because it alleviated their concerns about linearity, but sure. FF13 bad and Square Enix bad, I guess.