There is indeed a very clear distinction between competing FF lineages and the studios of men that are behind them.
That's where tribalism ultimately comes from. Not even the games themselves. But the developers.
People that are old and bitter, and will never move on from sucking on Hironobu's gooch take their dying stand how "FF can only look the way I imagine Sakaguchi wants it to".
This is now the same idea that Yoshida represents, which is the reason why they >>532845784 worship him. Yoshida is really just a proxy for wish fulfillment.

One of the FF teams follows from the legacy of FFVII all the way through to the FNC and FFVII Remake. That team usually includes Yoshinori Kitase, Tetusya Nomura and Kazushige Nojima in a pivotal role.
Their games almost always create a brand new world with never before seen concepts and design elements, while keeping key ideas familiar.

The other team comes from a splintered and fragmented group that is often broken and re-assembled at will by the company whenever necessary.
Whether it's IX being just references, XI being "not-Everquest", XII being "not-an-MMO" but in Ivalice, XIV being "not-WoW in not-Ivalice", or XVI being a movie game in "not-Ivalice".
These games almost always reuse the "fantasy" elements in a much safer, by the numbers way.

Also I want to point out something very obvious that some people don't seem to comment on very often.
The 3D "high fantasy" games all have an overwhelmingly brown, muted color scheme, and barring XVI, are all blatant "furry" games.
I'll let that speak for itself.