Ah, Final Fantasy. The memories I have of it are nice, but then 7 came along, making it one of the outside points on a lot of things. The fact that it set many of the standards back in the day does not mean that its extreme points of today should be the norm. Rather, I personally found that when they did that, I had a much easier time looking past the series, and found more (and better) gems outside of S-E.
Regarding the bullet points, yes, the first and third are exclusive to Final Fantasy. No, I don't want forced mini-games in my RPGs, and no, I don't need high-end graphics to be in my RPGs; rather, servicable graphics is what I ask for there. Less focus on graphics means I can have more game! And this leads me to the second bullet...
I'll say it outright. I want, and like, my RPGs to exceed 100 hours when all is said and done. To date, only 3 games have managed this: Dragon Quest 7, Dragon Quest 8, and Persona 3. (FES time not included... yet. And P4 fell just short, at 96 hours.) The graphics rush of the PS1 is what led to people accepting shorter (and easier) RPGs; part of this is related to those who had no prior reference point. RPGs taking 40-50 hours on the SNES was the norm, then it went to as short as 10 hours in some games. This is not what I want in an RPG. I want a game that feels like it's given me my monies worth. These days, I have to be more selective than I was in the 16-bit era. Will it be a game that eats my soul? Or will I wait for it to be $15 used? The newer FF games are definitely the latter. And I continue my quest for those that I must have on day 1.
-dunno001
-On a quest for the truly perfect game; I don't think it exists...
