I think it's more that the Final Fantasy series started being directed by someone who really wanted to be a movie director, and his first FF games was FF6; it's enough of a change that I consider FF6 to be the first "modern" FF and FF5 the last "classic" FF. (Yes, I put the line there rather than after FF6.) I also notice that the *feel* of the series changed between FF5 and FF6; FF1 through FF5 feel more FF to me than the later games. (Final Fantasy 2, however, sometimes feels like early SaGa, even though that game and the early SaGas are actually quite different mechanically, and SaGa 1's growth mechanics are completely different from FF2;s.)

It still doesn't explain the glaring balance issues found in early PSX Square games, of which only the main series FF games had the same director; SaGa Frontier was directed by the same person who directed almost every SaGa game (SaGa 3 being the exception, and it shows that it was developed by the team that later did Final Fantasy Mystic Quest instead of the usual SaGa team). yet that game has some particularly awful balance issues in it.

Please don't take this as an insult, I am just curious. You are aware that games don't need that abstract concept of "balance" and that change towards more "cinematic" direction from FF6 onward was accepted positively among the broader gaming audience? Why do you feel "balance" is needed and what should this balance even be?

P. S. And speaking about the Knights of Round, it was one of the most awesome spells from my childhood, which I would not use now because it's animation is really long.

Actually, a game does need some semblance of balance to be fun. When a game is not balanced, the strategy devolves into the same thing over and over again, either because there's an easy and obvious way to trivialize the difficulty, or because the game is so difficult that, unless you use one specific strategy, you don't stand a chance. (It is, perhaps, OK for a game to require specific strategies to win, but only if the strategy you need isn't always the same; in an unbalanced game, often the same strategy is optimal all the time.) On the other hand, in a balanced game, one can try different strategies and still not find the game to be boring or exceptionally frustrating. One needs to strike a careful balance here.

The long animation of KotR is another sign of the direction the series took, and is an extension of the absurdly long unskipable cutscenes that became prevalent in FF6. (There's some of that in FF4 and FF5, but it's not nearly as bad in these games.) You might be able to avoid KotR's animation by not using it, but that won't work for Supernova (since that spell is used by a boss; the only way to avoid it is to kill the boss before it gets used), and it won't help when there's a 5 minute unskipable cutscene followed by a 3-phase boss fight where you are very likely to lose at the start of the third phase on your first attempt (as happens in FFX).

(Also, I'm pretty sure you mean "its", not "it's".)

Really? I don't see this at all.
Tastes differ then. I love adore both SS games, and I adore both BS games (meaning BS1 and BS:I) and I can see they're somehow related, but different personalities. I even like the illegitimate bastard BS2, although it really lacks in some regards. BBethesda?

Because the target focus-group demographic are basically tween git-guds and loot-box junkies, I would anticipate a great many disappointments; I think most developers just simply can't help themselves to chase after the dumb-money. . . it's incredibly lucrative. Consequently, I've lost faith in game-development in general.

A singular example?

Eh, I'd have to say Richard Garriot; if he goes into space again, I hope he stays there. I considered maybe that Tabula Rasa might've been a kind of career-fluke or something, but that Shroud of the Avatar was a straight-up, completely disingenuine money-grab. I guess he blew through that NCSoft settlement faster than he wanted, because the game looks and plays like ambitious desperation smeared all over a Unity canvas. Unbelievable. . . just plain pitiful.

id: Quake was a masterpiece but then Quake2 and Quake4 made me lose any hope in a proper good sequel to the game that started it all. Quake 3 was good tho.

Night Dive Studio: After a successful kickstarter campaign they basically spent all the money (without even asking or telling us) into expanding the scope of the game with the only result of a bunch of concept arts and concept assets.

Then Mr Stephen Kick (after I asked if the development was still financially sustainable) finally told us that there was no money left, apologised and told us NDS would cover the cost and the game would be made.

Now after years instead of a complete game we are getting monthly updates on the status of the game (hopefully) being made and more concet arts.

What really annoys me is that until the money was ours it was fine to spend it on whatever silly and nonsensical thing he thought was right.

Now that he has to pay the development they are cutting corners like slashing the arsenal, changing the lore in idiotic ways to justify them recycling assets: stuff that nobody asked for/didn't belong to the original game.

So the "System Shock is a faithful reboot of the genre defining classic from 1994 built by a team of industry veterans. Remember Citadel" (as stated on the kickstarter page) is going to be a half assed reboot of System Shock and not faithful at all.

Thanks Mr Stephen Kick, good job.

Edit:
Oh clearly I'm never gonna buy anything Night Dive Studios is tied to ever.

Finally I meet a kindred spirit, I did not like Tiberian Sun at all, but if you dare utter those words in the C&C community they will fucking lynch you, I worked as a moderator for a mod long time ago, when I stated that Tiberian Sun was my least favorite of the franchise, there was a fucking petition to not only have me removed as mod but banned as well.

I used to be a rabid Valve fanboy, back in the days of the original half life.

I haven't really played anything from them since the Orange Box

1) I'm primarily a single player gamer, and Portal 2 is the only release since then.
2) I oppose the lootbox monetisation schemes and skin gambiling of TF2 and CS:GO

I've gone to the effort of purchasing the game (I had TF2 before it was F2P) . Don't pressure me into more cosmetic transactions to avoid being shunned by the playerbase as a pauper.

MachineGun Games - modern reincarnation of Wolfensten with as little modern stuff included as possible lead to creation of great game. Then New Collosus was released and you clearly see the decline in quality, but it was still playable and fun, most of the time.
Then Youngblood happened, game so bad not one but TWO solid game developers (MGG and Arkane) failed to make anything that resemble fun shooter.

Obsidian - anything released after Fallout NV sounds great on paper but as a game... nah. They had problems with creating characters that stuck in your head when you quit the game.
You remember their look and class but their story? Blank.
Plus - massive flood of text where. You could cut at least 30% of it and still keep it consistent.

Bethesda - Oblivion gameplay wise was steamlined but it helped the game.
But Fallout3? Look how they massacred my boy... and no, perspective was not a problem as some people stated.

You know, you'd think they'd try to avoid the Youngblood name, seeing as that's also the name of an edgy F tier comic series, made by the infamously bad Rob Liefeld.

It also got very good ratings in game magazines at the time iirc. I suppose after all the hype before release a realistic assessment of the game wasn't possible anymore.
But imo it was very flawed. Campaigns were underwhelming and mostly too easy. And when I tried multiplayer once against a classmate, it turned out that it was quite badly balanced, with some units (especially NOD artillery, but also the GDI orca bombers, against which NOD didn't have much of a mobile defense) being too powerful...matches turned into a frustrating stalemate. I think they patched it later and improved the balance somewhat, but at release it looked like it hadn't been properly tested imo.
I didn't like the switch to futuristic units like Mechs either, destroyed much of the quasi-contemporary atmosphere of the original C&C. Story wasn't anything special either, obviously a filler instalment.
Pretty sad, since the original C&C was undoubtedly a true classic.

Oh, also people would just start games in small maps, turn on multi-engineer (why they had this in from red alert I will never fuck know) and just engineer rush

And yeah original NOD's Mobile Artillery had 100 percent accuracy, and its shots would even TRACK a target.

Re engineers: The NOD subterranean transports were really annoying in this regard, when my classmate played NOD, I always had to pave much of my base because of that. Was just annoying, not fun to lose to such a cheap tactic.
The NOD artillery was just ridiculous, it basically meant that assaulting an artillery-defended NOD base with ground units was suicidal. But to some extent at least the same applied to NOD ground units assaulting a GDI base as well...they would just get slaughtered by Orca bombers (NOD's only mobile anti-air defense were those rocket infantry troops which were really bad). So in my experience it came to a frustrating stalemate where open attacks never succeeded and the game just dragged on and on. Just wasn't a fun or dynamic experience.

Blizzard because of always-online drm.
Monolith because of the crappy boring LOTR-games. What happened to all the amazing IPs they used to work on???
Gearbox because of Randy.

Knights of the Round wasn't that much of a problem. It was way too long to cast/summon it all the time. There were easier and faster ways to deal a similar amount of damage (Mimic materia with Barret's Limit). Most bosses went down pretty fast when your party had that 4x cut materia (4x9.999 damage with a simple attack) on every character.