I actully had a thread recently about this, and i this is what you mean. no more of this shite:

and more of this: so what i'm saying is that i dont want camp dialogue, hormonal characters (Lightning, Fang, Snow, etc), and i dont want abysmal storytelling, eg "its our focus Serah said so". and most of all i dont want FF to be inspired by Leonia Lewis, Modern Warfare 2 or that programe with a bad story that never went anywhere: Lost.

what i think we need is more mature writing, more realistic characters, and better gameplay, not 6 hours of childish cutscenes. and there is but one man, and one production team at Square i believe can acheive this. and no not the FF13 team led by a man who wants to turn FF into an interactive movie.

I would far prefer FF to be given to Level 5.  They've done a better job with DQ VIII and IX than S-E has done with FF in recent years.

Even handing over to the likes of Monolith would IMO do the series good.

Characters. This is a weird one for most of you probably... But I'd like the next FF game to adopt a Suikoden style of character recruitment. In other words, a fuck load of them. 108 to be precise... But yeah, maybe not that many, but enough to make your own "army" kind of thing. More on that later.

Out of the characters, there are ones who will be key to the story line, and who have there own storylines for you to delve into. Some are obviously just there just for the sake of being there, but others have quests for you.

Home base that you get part way through the game. hops that you need, and can be upgraded with stuff you find throughout the game and from different characters you recruit.

Back to the "army" thing. Have battles!! Add in some SRPG type gameplay where you can move units around and give orders to them and stuff. I'm bored of it being a small group of people up against a huge empire. I want full blown BATTLES!

Similar "Fantasy" setting to Final Fantasy IX, for example.

Towns.

HUGE World Map.

Airship/boats/other random transport.

A gold saucer-like place full of mini games, Chocobo races and all sorts of stuff. Possibly at your home base and can be upgraded.

The ability to do Chocobo breeding as we had in VII.

A magic system kind of like the Materia system in VII.

A memorable main villain(s).

HD is a must. I want the world to look as beautiful as possible.

Nomura, Ito and Kitase all Directing. (I believe Ito is actually Directing FFXV as we speak, he hasn't done anything since 2007 so...)

Give Uematsu full control over the soundtrack.

Don't let Wada anywhere near the damn game...

I'd like to see the next Final Fantasy in the hands of a western developer. And hiring some good writers so we can have nice characters and scenery all around like a FF should be.

Collaboration with Mistwalker plz.

I would love turn based combat with active battles, similar to final fantasy VIII. I want to be able to control all characters in my party and I want an overworld with towns.

Having vehicles/ships/airships would be great. I also just hope that the FF games retain their unique JRPG feel and don't become too westernised.

I still have faith in Square-Enix to make a good game even though I was slightly disappointed with FFXIII. Should be interesting to see what they come up with.

1) Turnbased battle system, ATB or CTB. No action-based crap.

2) LESS realism.

3) LESS Cutscenes. I don't want to watch a goddamn MOVIE, i want to play a GAME.

4) NO crybabies (Hope from FFXIII, Emil from ToS - DotNW) and morons (Tidus, Vaan, ...). Also, no characters like Serah or Vanille.

5) HD is NOT necessary. Before the Xbox360 should get (another) main FF, the Wii should get one. Seriously. I don't care if it's an exclusive (PS3 or Wii) or a multiplatform title (PS3 and Wii).

6) A great story with lots of plots and twists.

7) Many towns and a huge worldmap. Thats a must.

8) NO western elements.

9) Wada should stay the hell outta the game.

10) Give Mistwalker the game. =P

What I want:

• Having a large, fully explorable world map would be a good start
• Different vehicles and modes of transport
• I agree, around 10 characters; 2 hidden characters and each one with a fully fleshed out side story
• Each character to have it's own batch of unqiue skills but each character also has the ability to learn most skills (e.g. everyone can learn Black & White magic, combat skills etc. but each has specialist skills like in FFVI)
• Proper side quests that reward exploration and bravery and add variety to the gameplay
• Bring back puzzle solving to the dungeon areas
• Towns and cities for areas of respite and rest but also important settings for the story
• One of said towns/cities should be prosperous before getting attacked to show the brutal contrast in peace and wartime
• Overall, a more mature tone to the story. Less silly cliches.
• I like the betrayal idea. Personally I think they should make the secondary villain a tragic fall from grace. An honourable man/woman, loved by all including the main characters, manipulated and eventually turned into the ultimate traitor and villain in line with Shakespeare's Macbeth.
• One main (playable) character to be killed by the traitor.
• Deaths/murders of a small number of non-playable but important (to the story) characters
• Majority of main characters to be different shades of grey with their own reasons for being on the quest
• Primary villain should be known near the start but elevated to the main villain about a quarter way through the story
• Cyberpunk setting
• Minigames e.g. Blitzball, card games, chocobo breeding, arcade games
• Continued innovation in the battle system

Don't want:

• Purely linear paths
• Cheesy characters and dialog
• Datalog; tell the story throughout the game instead of a database

1) No Action based system like KH/Tales/SO, keep FFXIII battle system, slow it down a bit and add ability to use 4 characters and interchange. 

2) More characters like Fang, Lightning, Balthier, Auron......less characters like Vanille, Vaan, Squall, Penelo

3) An animal character like Red XIII

4) HD is a must, PS3 exclusive or PS360 if possible. Not on Wii or handhelds

5) Kitase to direct the game

6) Nojima to pen the story

7) Uematsu to do the music with Masashi Hamauzu

8) Rest of the team combine selection of people from FFX/XIII team and FF Agito XIII team......in the meanwhile let Nomura's team do FF16

9) Do not involve the FF12 team in this game or FF16......let them make a new console FF Tactics

10) Sci Fi setting like Cocoon and FF8 cities 

11)Two big towns that you can travel through in on hover cars......so cities will have to be massive.....then small towns done in a 2D way

12) FF Agito XIII, PS1 FF's style world map.....NOT DQ8 or Versus XIII style world map

13) There must be two worlds.....each world will have 1 big city

14) Optional flash backs for characters

15) Not more than 6 people in the main cast

16) Story should have 5 big plot twists and 3 minor plot twists

17) Have a very good female Villain, like Jihl, except don't kill her 1/4 of the way through this time

18) Add online co-op

19) One of the two worlds must be in a post apocalyptic state......and we should be able to build towns, garden, breed animals/chocobo's, teach the people in the world stuff, make deliveries to help people and try to make the place back to normal, instead of a theme park, this should be the source of minigames and side missions in the game.

This will be a world you are able to develop yourself.....and online functionality can be added here.

Restrict 99% of minigames to this world only, do not add them in the main story, its very annoying. Add one minigame to the story....lockpicking.

20) Make the battles character changing possible through use of L2, R2 and R1........L1 used for Role change. 

21) If a datalog is to be present.....make it so that you don't need to read but are explained everything through a comic style video (like cut scenes in MGS Peace Walker).

22) Have a jump button

23) Have 5 different unlockable characters....but only ONE can be unlocked in the game......each should have a whole new type of side story......this will mean you can play the game up to 5 times to see the new side characters side story, enhancing replay value.

This... But personally I prefer high fantasy, medieval or storybook-like a la FFIX over cyber or steampunk. Everything else I agree with. I want towns... Many of them. I loved discovering them in games and seeing how unique each one was, what issues there was and then resolving it.

I seriously disliked FFXIII for not having them, feeling like an half made rushed story and the characters were all over the place and not developped properly. I don't feel interested in playing a game like that.