So basically you want another FFXII. I'm right behind you brother!

Anyways, I agree with the guy with the Vanille avatar. I like change and innovation; it keeps the series from getting stale. And if it weren't for change, we wouldn't have seen the magnificent FFXII. Hopefully, they can strike gold once again. I also liked FFXIII, especially the battle system, and console-wise, it's one of my favorite JRPGs this gen. It's funny how I liked this one more than WKC & ROF (games that have towns, etc.). I wouldn't mind a homage to the old FFs later down the road.

Some things I would like to see in the next FF: mini-games like Triple Triad or the one from FFX-2 (as long as it isn't terrible like blitzball). Also, harder difficulty.

What I don't want is random encounters. They are annoying and happen when I don't want them.

Also, the Wada hate is disgusting and unjustified. He's just a businessman; he's not a developer and basically has no word on the combat & story. Seriously guys, just leave Wada alone.

FFX-2, sphere break you mean? That had gazillions of minigames :P

And I agree about the Wada Part. He's not perfect. But, gets flamed way to much imo.
 

• Lots of side quests and free roaming in the world. Give me my towns back!
• Dangerous monsters you can't beat until much later in the game. Obviously these ones should be mostly optional, but I'd like a boss or two in the main quest you can't beat right away but have to go do a bit of side questing first.
• More characters please. It's not very important but I like having a bigger party. Hidden characters are always welcome, although I'm not a big fan of missable characters. Still, an awesome missable character might be good, even if only for replayability.
• Everyone can do everything but not everyone can be effective at everything. Mage powerful spells available to a few select characters only, and make mages deal more damage but be able to take less damage unless protected by heavy spells. Generally, this is the idea I like in other RPGs but if you balance this out well, you can't go wrong with it in a FF game either.
• Also, I don't want everyone to be similar ability-wise in the end. A common grid is fine but everyone being able to pick everything with pretty little effort is not.
• No more emo characters. I don't want another Hope. Other characters should be more believable as well.
• I'd rather have a world-saving story than a person-saving story. That is, FFXIII was great but it had the wrong focus. Emotional side is important, too, but it went horribly wrong in FFXIII.
• Which brings me to this: Make the next game what FFXIII looked to be judging by the first videos and I'm happy. FFXIII went too emotional and that's where it went wrong. It looked cool but from the beginning, it was (sadly) too clear it was becoming an emotional quest.
• I don't really care about battle system as long as it's good. I don't really want a return to the old system but unless there's something better, it will do, too. An improved version of FFXIII's could be awesome. A mix of FFXII's and FFXIII's ought to be good, too.
• ...And I don't want random encounters back.
• I've been ranting about FFXIII a lot but anyway. I liked it how just about any battle could turn into a challenging one or even a loss if you weren't careful. I want more like that, more challenging battles. It's more challenging and rewarding, and if you do balancing right, it's not too hard either.
• Easy and Hard modes would be nice. The games are a bit easy at times. I can see the Japanese wanting it a bit easier but it's really not a big deal to include another difficulty mode.
• Music if fine, keep it that way. Oh, and I don't want another 'Echo' (or whatever it was called). Keep the original song next time.
• And finally: Whatever happens, focus on story. JRPGs can't compete on gameplay level, it should not be the primary focus. It's good to focus on gameplay as well but it should be #2 at highest. Story is #1. Make it Japanese in a good way, not in a melodramatic way. Make it a real fantasy.

Yeah, i agree Wada has nothing to do with the games, he just manages SE. sphere break was very cool, something like that would be good, but triple triad or tetra master would be equally great.

Mirson, i'm not saying i want another FF12 exactly, FF12 was a good game to be sure, but peices felt broken. partly because of the departure of Matusno i think.

but also a key problem with FF12 and FF13 is the battle system. i mean FF12 is not accessible to the average player, you need to micromanage your gamits and work very hard to get through the environments. i think that the developers shouldnt have made the move set too large, and instead of gamits, employ a similar system to chrono trigger.

- where we have real time battles, but each character has a speciific skill, so say we use Fran, and when in the dungeons we press L1 to access her magic menu, and there you can select whatever black magic you want, keeping your faviourites close to the top. i think short-cut keys like this would make the gameplay a lot more accessible in real time battles and make it a lot more fun for new players, it would feel a bit more action imo.

the problem is the gamits almost played the game for you, i think the tone and the writing for FF12 was far superior to FF13, its just like i mentioned peices felt broken. but FF13 imo has an abysmal battle system, writing, tone, etc. so yes i would like something a lot closer to FF12 in certain respects.

Yeah, I think it's the sphere break. It's the one in the stadium; I had a lot of fun with it. I was about to put the game down, until I came across it.

Sphere  break?  Where was this mini game?  Unless you mean Blitz?

It was at Luca.
Sphere Break looks like this, not sure if that's what he was talking about it was my favorite though
It's like krypto kinda... (not sure if you ever played that)

I've either never seen this before or completely forgotten about it :O.  But alas I havn't the time to put Final Fantasy X-2 into my PS2 to check.  Oh well I'll take your word for it and assume it's awesome.

Luca stadium; in the two hallways (locker rooms).