I'd guess I'm about half to two thirds of the way through Final Fantasy IV, which feels like it's really zipping right along (it seems to be relatively linear, for one thing). The inspiration for getting all these Pixel Remasters was, of course, the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second part of the FFVII trilogy.
I've been massively impressed with the Remake trilogy. There's exceptional polish and really compelling gameplay in what was clearly a labor of love for those who made it. In fact, it's so good that last year's Final Fantasy XVI feels all the more underwhelming in comparison (I know that there are some who are very happy with the game, but returning to bang out a few more sidequests before the game's conclusion after finishing Rebirth, the game's glaring flaws were thrown into sharp relief).
In fact, perhaps it would be best to kind of triangulate between these three categories. Ever since XII (I'm setting aside the two MMOs just because I think a game like that naturally can't work the same way a single-player game does) there has not been a single new main-line Final Fantasy game to use the traditional JRPG combat set-up, where you have a battle screen and your party of characters lined up on one side and the monsters on the other.
And... I'm honestly finding myself a little more sympathetic with that decision, even if I really didn't like the implementation that XII used.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I believe X is actually the only Final Fantasy game in the entire series to use what I'd consider a traditional turn-based system. Games I through III are closer to that, but you actually queue up each of the characters' actions for the round ahead of time, and it's somewhat randomized as to what order in which they act (this actually screwed me a bit on the final boss of III, because I forgot that I'd want to hit my healer with an Elixir when they had the MP to cast Curaja twice rather than once, and wound up missing a turn of healing and thus not being able to both revive and heal up one of my two martial characters before the boss' giant AoE blast that they do every round hit).
IV introduces the Active Time Battle system, which is something that I've never been entirely comfortable with. In the first three games, there's arguably no reason you ever need to pause the game, as none of your inputs are time-sensitive. But in IV, instead, you have these meters that fill up and once they do, you get that character's menu. The action does not pause unless you've selected one of the options, like Attack or Black Magic, etc. Thus, if you hesitate (or even just lose focus and don't realize you can do something) you can find yourself taking more damage and making the fight harder.
This system would persist through I believe IX, which created a bit more pressure and honestly introduces a greater risk of sloppiness, forcing you to think quickly as to what you want to do. In fact, the ATB system would also be the basis for Chrono Trigger's combat system, which added the clever wrinkle of combo-attacks that require you to wait until both (or all three) characters are active and ready to go.
Flashing forward to 2020, and the launch of Final Fantasy VII Remake, you have something that calls itself the Active Time Battle system, even though it's transparently a very different system. And yet... it's also kind of similar.
The obvious distinction is that the 7R (there, that's probably the quickest abbreviation) games use action-style gameplay that requires you to consider positioning and gives you a number of commands, dodges, blocks, and such, along with enemies that will send out attacks in discrete locations, allowing you to move out of the way and such. There's a somewhat undercooked pure-action game right there (and here my criticism of XVI is showing) but while you can do a significant portion of your damage in this real-time action gameplay, its primary purpose is to build up ATB charges, which you then use to perform the kind of actions you would in the old Final Fantasy games (except "Attack," though every character has several non-spellcasting ability options, similar to a Dragoon's Jump or a Monk's Kick).
This hybrid of action and menu-navigation-based gameplay really feels to me like the perfect update to the Final Fantasy formula. Because while I've felt nostalgic for the old turn-based (even if, contrary to my assumptions, none but X have had actual truly turn-based combat systems) combat, the truth is that it does get a little repetitive and... maybe boring? Granted, you're reading the words of a person who is playing through the fourth title from this series in a row, so I've been steeping in random encounters for many hours in close succession.
Still, I think it's all worth bearing in mind that in Square Enix's now 23-year quest to find some new core gameplay system, I think the 7R system has the legs to give them many titles in the future (I don't know if it's a rights thing or something, but boy would a Chrono-series sequel using this system work fantastically).
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