@milk: All superheroes. Actually, almost all heroes in modern culture in general span from stories like Beowulf. Heck that can be traced itself back even further. Just because the stories have different ELEMENTS does not mean they are not in the same type of mold.

@captainwonton: It is Ronald Emmerich. He tends to do that all the time.

...Ronald Emmerich. One if the biggest joke and hack directors criticized superhero movies as silly... When he never made a serious non silly story in his entire painful existance as a director. Sorry Ronald. I can belive a superman can fly before I can belive a normal person can outrun cold air. Or that a cable guy can hack into alien technology with a Mac and upload a virus into their systems all in the span of three days of even knowing about these aliens. And do I need to go into the complete ruining of Godzilla he tried to pull? Screw Ronald Emmerich. When his best movie is about going through a portal to meet aliens based off of ancient Egypt, he should lose all rights to criticize anything as silly.

Nobody cares about New 52 Superman. He was so poorly handled through the whole run that it is a good thing that Pre-New 52 Supes is back.

@chuggins9710: What worked in 2001 when Final Fantasy X came out does not mean it will work in 2016. Not with how gigantic game budgets have ballooned out of control to satiate the masses silly obsession with high end graphics. The game industry has evolved significantly since that time. Tastes and standards have changed considerably, and turn-based RPGs are no longer in favor in the AAA industry or for many of the base of players that have come along since that time. When you are now marketing the game to people growing up with Dark Souls, Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, and The Witcher, turn-based gameplay is an archaic dinosaur in the AAA marketplace. Oh sure, it still serves an amazing niche market that isn't going anywhere. Which is why if you want high-end turn-based gameplay, you can't do better than Atlus. I personally love all of their games, but their RPGs are some of the best in general. Heck, many of their games are better than almost any Final Fantasy golden age game. Turn-based games are not going anywhere. Just don't expect an expensive series like Final Fantasy to have it any longer.

@hullabal00: You can't have state of the art graphics for turn-based RPGs any longer. That type of gameplay is archaic and no longer tolerable for a wide audience. Not when they can get such immersive gameplay options in other RPGs that do things better than Final Fantasy can ever do with turn-based strategy. They just don't mesh together any longer. High end graphics means a gigantic budget. A gigantic budget means that the niche market that still love turn-based RPGs are not enough to make back the money that it will cost.

Also, you bring up Bravely Default. Yes, it did do very well. However, that game was a handheld game with minimal graphic capability and with a very small budget. Selling only 1 Million units of that is beyond expectations. However, if you only sell about 1 Million units for a full AAA Final Fantasy game, well... they are hit for a loss. Ya see, when a series gets big enough, not only hardcore fans of a series buy the games. It is now mainstream and has more than just the players growing up with Final Fantasy VI or VII as their expected base. In order to keep the newer demographics, you can't have rather slow and plodding gameplay any more, because those people are not going to buy into that for very long and will get bored very fast. And since they need those players to offset the expected high-end costs of a gigantic RPG with state of the art graphics, it probably isn't in their best interests to alienate them too much.

And finally, Final Fantasy is great because you can have any type of gameplay with it and still be able to keep the heart of the series in tact and similar enough to its roots. The problem with the series right now is that the writing is beyond horrible. XIII and its pointless sequels were beyond atrocious in that way. If XV has a good story, it shouldn't matter what the gameplay is like as long as it is tolerable and at least competently put together (unlike XIII.) Of course, the fanbase totally hated on Final Fantasy XII undeservedly, which is a fantastic game with a very rich story and world to explore. So... I guess that isn't true... :/

@tom_cat_01: Yeah, no. The story had good IDEAS, however, the execution was at best laughable, and at worse, a complete train wreck. Nothing made sense and the motivations of every character was so horribly told that it is borderline impossible to get behind anything they are doing. I can't even play the game any more because of how terrible it all was, and is to this day the only Final Fantasy main title game (discounting the MMOs) that I never finished.

@hullabal00: Then you will have to deal with mediocre graphics and no open world. Final Fantasy is too big and expensive now. Turn-based game play cannot survive in the current market for such an expensive game. This isn't 2005 any more. Not with games like The Witcher , Elder Scrolls, and Dark Souls running around carving into Final Fantasy's market place with open world games that are massive in scope. Sorry, but in order for a series like this to survive and still be AAA, it needs to cater to more than just the Final Fantasy hardcore demographics. And sorry, but the modern day average gamer is going to get bored real fast with turn-based battle systems. They need to adapt in order to stay relevant in this market or they will be left behind and forgotten as a series that couldn't keep up with the times. There are plenty of games available for what you are looking for, though. You want classic JRPG, you aren't going to find better than Atlus games, so your outlet is going to be met. The difference is scope and expectation. Atlus is a niche studio that makes niche titles on a smaller budget. Square is a massive game company that has A LOT of money invested into the Final Fantasy brand and the costs for making these titles show what is at stake.

@Crossel777: The IP is dying. He isn't wrong with what he is saying.

@Blk_Mage_Ctype: Oh, you can do both. Modernizing doesn't mean change everything. It just means that the old gameplay mechanics just aren't going to cut it in the modern gaming market any longer. Final Fantasy is too big and way too expensive now to survive off of that.