Apparently Final Fantasy XIV sucks

At least according to almost all critics. Since I don't do MMOs, I haven't got it and never planned to. I thought trying to insert MMOs into the main Final Fantasy series was a horrible idea when FFXI came out, and think it's doubly so now.

I hope this won't be the deathknell of the Final Fantasy series. It certainly doesn't help after Final Fantasy XII and XIII were both radical departures from the tradition of the series in totally opposite directions (heck, Final Fantasy XIII even did away with even a vestigial airship for you to control). Don't get me wrong, I really liked XIII, and I loved XII. The series already feels like its losing cohesion.

If it were to end, then it's a pity they didn't stop with X. That would have been a perfect stopping point, considering both the overall feel of the game and the nice, round number. It also still is my favorite of the whole series. XII, and XIII too, should definitely have still been made, but should have been branded differently. Final Fantasy XII was heavily influenced by the Final Fantasy Tactics team anyway. It was awesome, but it was its own kind of awesome, not a specifically Final Fantasy kind of awesome. Final Fantasy X-2: nah. It's origin was the need to explicate Tidus' fate, and they did a horrible job even doing that. All you had to do was excise one solitary line of optional dialog from FFX which made you think the scene where he comes back might be a dream and it there'd have been no need anyway. Besides, I personally consider it to be a Compilation entry, like the movie Final Fantasy: Advent Children anyway, and not a real main Final Fantasy game.

If XV isn't torpedoed by Final Fantasy XIV, I think it needs to be like Final Fantasy IX: a return to tradition to bring the series as a whole back into focus. Getting Uematsu to do the entire soundtrack, as they did with Final Fantasy XIV (more's the pity!), would be awesome. I also feel like they not only need to have an airship, it should be a freely navigable airship like I-IX had. This need not mean bringing back the conventional overworld map. Seiken Densetsu II and III had an airship equivalent without an overworld map, as did Lost Odyssey for the XBox 360.