FFXVI doesn't surprise me. The game kinda sucked, hype was high which seems in line with the initial momentum, but word of mouth was probably quite poor once people realized it's an ok action game locked to super easy mode and then merged with a 4/10 RPG.
Shame about Rebirth , from what I've heard it's a pretty solid game and released only 4 years after the last one which is pretty decent for modern standards. Personally I skipped it because of the terrible presentation in the demo, games are too expensive now to pay full price on anything but the best of the best.
Foamstars... lol.
And people are gonna still tell me with a straight face that the Final Fantasy brand isn't damaged...
The Square brand is damaged.
There was a time knowing a game was made by Square was enough to get me hyped, sort of like From Software these days.
Now it's pretty hit or miss. There hasn't been a good mainline FF (at least non MMO) in like 18 years (some would argue longer) and the smaller titles are very inconsistent in quality, you've got awesome stuff like Triangle Strategy and mediocre stuff like Diofield Chronicle. It's ok for games to have different budgets and scopes but everything should at least have a minimum standard in regard to story and gameplay.
The retarded names probably don't help either.