Being a "mainline" game does not automatically make it a good game-- that's kind of what I've been trying to say this whole time. I don't think that invalidates my opinion that it does not feel like the Final Fantasies of the past, because it seriously doesn't, to me. It really does feel like a completely different series with a few Final Fantasy references dotted in-- and I think that's seriously disappointing.

Take Bravely Default, for example-- it's not Final Fantasy and in fact it's its own series at this point, but it's got WAY more of a Final Fantasy feel to it (including the many references involved) despite it not having the series name, as it retains many elements of what has been the foundation of the Final Fantasy series for decades. And I like it!

It's got nothing to do with technology, really. The "radical" differences, I feel, are failed experiments to make the series something it isn't-- and it's only something that has happened in fairly recent history. Pretty much every "mainline" FF game has followed roughly the same formula for gameplay up until X-2, and then that's when the real differences began. FFXIII was painfully linear and the gameplay was simple to the point of being dull. FFXV isn't any better, imo, only the game is open to the point that a little linearity would actually be welcome--... and the gameplay continues to be simple to the point of being dull. What bits of strategy the older games had just doesn't really exist anymore when all you really need to do to win most battles is "hold circle and fly around at the mercy of the battrout camera". You're right, there is a lot of flexibility, but you can only flex things so much before they feel broken. It's rare for a broken toy to feel fun. It happens, but rarely. For me, the only game S-E has done in the mainline series in the past decade that I've genuinely loved is FFXIV, because there's so much time, effort, and love for the game and its players, and it just makes the whole package stellar.

I play for enjoyment factor, too-- and I enjoy looking critically at the media I consume. When I'm not enjoying something, I feel that it's not wrong at all to criticize it-- and just because FFXV is the long-awaited next entry in the "mainline" series, it's not immune to that criticism-- in fact, I'm going to be more critical of a title that they decide to say "yes, this game is one we deem worthy of the mainline title and the legacy behind it".

There are plenty of low quality games that I play for enjoyment too-- because they have other elements to them that retain my attention. FFXV just doesn't do any of that. It's kind of frustrating to feel somewhat pinned against the wall for having a negative opinion of it, too.

There really isn't a "mental checklist" here beyond what any player of any game can't immediately observe. When people play games, they're experiencing multiple forms of media at once, and I don't really believe that anyone can ignore all of those forms and still enjoy the game. There's the visual quality, the musical quality, the quality of the story and characters, and the quality of the gameplay itself. It's not like I'm scrutinizing every detail of the game and being all "OH IT DID THIS WRONG, WHAT A BAD GAME", it's all simple observations. "Sure, the game's pretty. It looks really nice! The music's okay, but there aren't many tracks that have really got my attention, which is disappointing to me since I've liked a LOT of Shimomura's stuff before this-- I find myself enjoying the FF soundtracks while in the car, but the car's an element of the game that I don't like, and you can only listen to the music while driving, and the driving is boring-- and it's kind of sad that I want to listen to the music from past games more than the game's actual music. The plot is kinda hollow and the forced realism of the story makes it so suspending disbelief is really hard. The characters feel one-dimensional and I don't feel any connection with them or concern for them. I don't feel immersed in the game, I just feel like I'm piloting this group of dudes as they do chores. And the combat gameplay frustrates me a lot, because encounters feel very few and far between-- and are very, very short anyway-- literally seconds long-- outside of story battles or hunting quests, but at the same time it's hard to care because as I mentioned, combat is simplified to "you can do other stuff for nifty graphical flair, but you can really just hold circle and get the same results the vast majority of the time. It is kind of sad that I've poured 10 hours into this game and the most fun I've had is putting 99 Fire/Ice/Lightning Energy into a Quintcast spell and doing 9999 damage to all enemies while Prompto catches on fire and screams in agony-- which is another thing, the AI bros die way too easily and I feel like I should have more control over how they behave. Ultimately, I'm just not having fun with it".

Even if I weren't holding it to higher standards due to its namesake, I still think I'd struggle to enjoy the game, but I think I'd be less critical of it, too. As I said, there's plenty of games that really aren't anything special that I actually love a lot-- because there's something I find genuinely fun about them, because when you boil it all down, that's really what matters most, and for FFXV, I'm just not feeling any sense of fun at all.

It's all subjective, but still.