| Otter said: Your jumping between perspectives |
No dude you yourself are muddled up on perspective because I was always talking about the decline in Japan hence the point about multiplatform making up for it.
Zelda doesn't have a stronger core experience it has a consistent identity that Nintendo bends approach, mechanics and gameplay around. BOTW, SS, ALBW, TFH, ST, PH and TP all have different approaches but they all retained the series identity what that means is you still feel like it's Zelda regardless of changes. FF is not being unique in each installment it's lost in an identity crisis SE come across as not knowing what they want it to be and this contributes to the long development cycles.
During the FFI to FFIX era the games were changing in gameplay and quite significantly, for example the Materia system in VII requires a different approach compared to the Draw/Junction system in VIII. IX used a build like system for each character in which you managed skills passive skills and equipment, V had an advance Job system that can get very technical etc...
Only thing aligned in these games was how combat was executed.
