What makes a Final Fantasy game a Final Fantasy game?

[Kasz216]

Words Of Wisdom said:

naznatips said:
Oh, and what makes a good FF game (VI, IX, IV, V) is:

Engaging plot, interesting characters with lots of character development, a fantasy setting, and great music.

What makes a crappy FF game (FFVII, FFVIII, FFX, FFXII) is:

Flashy graphics, dull (or poorly translated) plot, high production values, a sci-fi setting (X and XII excluded from this complaint), and awful characters and character development.

All else held constant, why do flashy graphics make a crappy FF game?

Why do they inherently make the game worse?

The focus on them causes the rest of the problems?  Also there was a lot of "lost" humor in the transition from the sprite based graphics that made the FF games what they were.  The over-emoting and bouncing all over the room the sprite based guys did were funny... while once it hit 3-D the over-emoting and spastic movements became annoying.