Aside from the original sprites looking male and Amano's art seeming to depict male heroes, there are references made to the four Light Warriors being male at least a few times in the original game. I think Princess Sarah's sister calls them her "big brothers", Garland addresses them with a typically male term (can't recall what exactly) and they are refered to as all being handsome by occasional female npcs etc. This is in the original Japanese text and I think some made it into the NES version too. Also, Square didn't really care about sticking to character class conventions since the first named white mage in the series is definitely male, Minwu in FFII.

I still always give my white mage a female name though.

But besides all that FFXV does call back to its roots, about as much as several other titles really. It seems almost every game reuses elements from earlier titles while adding in something new, even if FF had never done an all male or all female party it could draw upon many other aspects of earlier games.

Eeh... nothing alike. That FF root can be splatered on every party based JRPG. Actually, you could replace those screen with dragon quest 1 and a similar effect would be achieved. Its a bit reaching...

To me this made the diference, FF VIII is my fav PS1 game from squaresoft (Yes I played them all and I still play them to date)

Ib going back to it's roots well it deliver same experiance?, I highly doubt that, to me FF IX was the only successor to old schoo; FF, with Kitase now in charge the series will continue in the direction created by FF VII, even though they will use some resemblance to get fans excited

Biggest quistion I have on the new game is will the battle system work?, this isn't a soul game or Kingdom hearts, or any action RPG this is a team based adventure turned into  an action RPG

I too don't mind the change, and if it works I will praise this one as so far all the other things I've seen from this game is promising and exciting

I only wish the game was a wee bit more action-oriented, and that they would just tell the turn-based fans to go play Bravely Default if that's what they want.

FFV as far as I know had a harem as well... 

I mean, just like with every game, it has a chance, but no fucking way a Tabata directed game beats the best mainline Final Fantasy game.

Oh yeah, sorry, my mistake. Final Fantasy IX yeah, that fantastic game with Zell, the SeeD, Ragnarok, the Laguna flashbacks and so many great memories and sequences. Thank you for the correction Chocobo-dude!

Ragnarok, a weapon? Well, it has a 609mm Charged Particle Cannon, so I guess it can count as one. Steiner? Don't remember, is that a Guardian Force that you find? Yeah, probably that.

Lovely, at least they have the lore and FF style there even if the main bit I would like isn't.

We want Final Fantasy. Sorry it's traditional gameplay is something you don't like.... makes me wonder why you are interested in the series really.

Pretty sure all the previous FF games had crystals in some way, sometimes very unobvious. The thing is they are never specifically called 'Crystals'. FFXIII had the leveling system and the idea people turned to Crystal when they completed their thing. FF12 had nethicite. FFX... hardly but the spheres in the game (like in temples). FF9 is obvious. FF8, the Crystal Pillar. FF7 materia. FF6 magecite. FF5 primary part of the story... etc.

So while not obvious, Crystals still exist. Yet this is much like a lot of other lore and stables in the FF world. Chocobos were pretty big in 7 and 9, nigh on non-existant in 8 and 13.