Wasn't final fantasy 6, the sixth game in that series?
Ass creed etc. are just a handful of games from a list of thousands released yearly.
Were you one of those people who said the Wii was rainbow because it had some "shovelware" on it?
There's never been big Hollywood style industry mentality in gaming before the last gen, it's like summer movies.
Gaming was niche, now there's money in it. blame the PS2.
It's a big circle jerk. They see there's profit if they make it appeal to the lowest common denominator, they advertise, everyone sees the advertisements and thinks that's what they should be interested in, because most gamers are children looking to belong somewhere, then journalists catch on and hammer it home more, leading to more money for the makers and more advertisements, cycle that for a few years.
ff6 sure was. Though at the time we only knew about 3. The first one was a nice different take on the ultima experience. the 2nd (or fourth) was pretty interesting story wise, and the third (or sixth) happened to click with me so well because it featured fresh new talent that has a way of doing things that just strike me the right way (I dont really care for any of the other ones, especially once square decided going pre rendered backgrounds means gutting the adventure side of gaming). They did it again with chrono trigger, a VERY fresh take on the genre. Then xenogears, then bk (didnt much care for xenosaga, didnt have the same focus, oh well) then xenoblade, and im very much looking forward to X.
I dont think thats too terribly saturated spread over twenty years.
As for popcorn gaminb, theres no big profit in it anymore. The bloated budgets have spiraled out of control, and now not only are we playing boring reskins of the same handful of games over and over again. They cant turn a profit despite selling millions of units. Just look at re6 and tomb raider. They are all desperately trying to make every game a hit franchise lie call of duty, or one of the other handful of cinematic mega hits. And when it fails because not every game can be a mega hit, they try and turn it into call of duty. And when that fails, do they see the error of their ways? No, they blame us.
They will change, or their will be another changing of the guard. Old for new.
And I will be there again to light the gigantic corpses on fire and dance around the smoldering remains.