I think some people can just pick up a diff game, and have fun with it just like any other, while others get connected. When they try something "similar", they get put off because of simple small things that just aren't what they like.
I know I'm that way.
That's pretty much what I brought up in the XV thread.
I'm the opposite. If things stay the same too long I get bored of it. The older Final Fantasies has JUST enough change to keep me from feeling it was too repetitive. Going from Materia, to Junctions to Abilities gained via gear and then the Sphere Grid...
And then I played XI and loved it. And I wanted a single player version and XII happened and it was SO different from the previous single player entries!
It was absolutely FANTASTIC learning all the new mechanics of the game! Sure the story got weak towards the end of the game, but it was and still is better than a large majority any game ever. Everyone hates Vaan and Penelo, but I feel they grounded the roster. Everyone else is exotic or extremely important to the world as a whole.
I wont lie, initially I thought XIII was boring because I just auto-battled everything. But then I started noticing little things I could do to improve my play and it suddenly because super fun. And I already loved the characters and the setting. And the music. I was a little annoyed, at first, that the story was mostly told through datalogs. But is that really SO different from the story being told through miss-able item descriptions?
Mostly just rambling. I'm no essay writer.