Glenn Entis, the EA VP and Chief visual/technical officer for EA says that Final Fantasy graphics are unrealistic.
"Better graphics isn't enough. If you just increase the polygons, you will end up with better-looking characters, but that doesn't mean they'll look more "realistic." You need to improve the motion physics. And you also need to improve gameplay".
This point was made by EA VP and Chief visual/technical officer Glenn Entis. He is also a former CEO at Dreamworks Interactive and a Academy Award winner. During a games summit in Montreal, he used Final Fantasy as an example.
"Final Fantasy, the modelling fidelity was really better than the motion fidelity. In other words, when you looked at the models, they signalled an expectation to the audience that the motion couldn't deliver upon".
And probably as a result of this, we can now all hate Mr. Entis and all EA games for this. I can already see the chaos that is happening right now on Final Fantasy and rpg forums everywhere as a result of this. But apparently at some point he is right. The heroine in FFXII for example, has a very sharp and focus face,almost unaffected by her actions and the visual surroundings. In the PS2, cut-scenes and characters have a much higher polygon rate on their faces to express motions in a better way, like in FFXII.
EA, on the other hand, has been hard at work to not only make characters photo-realistic, they're also making them move realistically.