I really enjoyed FFXII gameplay big time, I clocked so many hours into it doing all the side missions, but FFXIII was a little boring, I felt as though I wasn't in control of the controls, it seemed very automated.

That being said we need really good side missions.

I completely disagree on the first point.

The combat system on FFXIII and XIII-2 is horrid and if they want to save the series they have to ditch it completely and either go the route of action RPG or back to the classic ATB battle system from 7/8/9 or turn based like 10 or the classic ones.

Seriously now:

When I played Final Fantasy XIII I found it a bad game in general. But the thing that irritated me the most was this:

"Keep the plot simple: Speaking of word’s I’m not sure I’m pronouncing right, what was going on with all the absurd terms Final Fantasy XIII threw around with reckless abandon. Too many ‘Cies, not enough things I care about. If you are listening to my advice Square, you will already have a good bad guy to focus on. Side-quests are great and all (and necessary!), but let’s keep the focus on the events at hand. One of Final Fantasy XIIIs biggest problems was that it hardly ever actually moved the plot along. There didn’t appear to be an end-game, just a whole lot of character development. That’s fine and dandy as long as it is used right, and provided I actually care about the characters. Lightning, Sazh and Fang were cool; Hope and Snow not so much."

I was all like, "L'cie, Fal'cie, Cie-th... what the fuck? Who cares about this shit! I know I don't!"
Just fixing the plot (teenagers saving the world from dark crystals is so much more fun) is half-way there.

Oh no, do people actually want Final Fantasy to go back to the traditional setting? In this day and age? The market is simply overflowing with games that have a medieval setting. The last thing we need is more of them.

Just give us Versus, it's the perfect game.

Agree with 2, 3 and 5. All good reasons why XIII wasn't up to the quality of of previous iterations of Final Fantasy. I don't think I've actually felt hate for an antagonist since X. Neither XII or XIII invested me in that regard.

The story in XIII needed work in that it was overly dependent of character development to the detriment of main story and world building. It meant the characters often felt like they should have been in a teen drama rather than a fantastical epic odyssey.

The world map would be fantastic, but even a 3D world where you could revisit areas would be nice (a bit like X but more open). I know they have restrictions in terms of staff and budget, but if they could get this in it'd be fantastic.

Don't agree with 1 or 4. The combat, whilst fast paced and fun should be evolved to include a bit more player participation. At present it's fun for a while but gets a bit repetitive. They also introduce new elements to it far too slowly in XIII which only highlighted the repetitiveness and the fact the whole games was based around the battle system with little more.

As for the setting, I don't think it matters too much where they set it. We all have personal preferences but if they can nail everything else, it won't matter if it's traditional fantasy, steampunk, sci-fi or cyberpunk.

Probably more to do with the fact that they just dont make JRPGS on the consoles as much as they did last gen. PS1 was silly with the things, and thats not even considering the games that DIDNT make it outside of Japan, PS2 saw less, but was still healthy and this gen has been terrible not only release wise but the quality isnt really there either IMHO. It all went to handhelds

The answer is simple
Give Nomura Lead of SquareEnix > Sony only and they can go all out.
Versus13 has everything that is impossible for Multiplats...Kinda weird isn't it?

This is the only true answer - Especially with the change of lead.
Its far too obvious Wada wants to conquer the west and get the attention of the CoD Community and wants to aim the FF Franchise at those people - All of them sucked this Gen.
On the other side Nomura wants to make  games for the REAL  fanbase and they all sound and look more than awesome.They all have strangely the features we missed in every Game that isn't aimed at the REAL Fanbase.
But people are to stubborn to accept that and search for "other" ways to save Final Fantasy and SquareEnix in general.
The Tales of Studios were saved cause they went back to what they were good at and didn't try any funny things anymore after they failed hardcore with their 1st game and nearly had to shut down the whole thing.SquareENix surely has far more credit and more tries to achieve their goal but they NEVER will cause the TRUE Fanbase is getting smaller and smaller and the audience they aim their new games at aren't interested at all.

Its sad SquareEnix is giving Nomura such a hard time cause he wants his perfect Game Sony only and doesn't want to obey.

I might be the only person who thinks this, but I just dont think FF Versus looks that good. I think the franchise will be saved when Hiroyuki Ito and Hiroshi Minagawa (if) complete FF15.

Do you feel proud of that post?

Sorry, but no. Muiltiplatform is not the reason why FF sucks and that reasoning is completely illogical since FFXIII was a PS3 exclusive until they decided to port it to the 360 and have a simultanious release. That in no way affected the design process. And, the tales series needs to go multiplatform to be sucessful in the west.

Maybe this is just a very Western gamery POV ... but I don't think the Japanese emo-teenager-zipper-vest look works for a broad global audience.

They have to bring the character designs back to the more fantasy inspired origins the first six or seven FF games had (and IX). No characters that look like they came out of a J-Pop boy band. 

Make the story great, it should feel like curling up next to the fire to read a good book. Create a very rich and vast world that the player can really explore. Take chances with character relationships. Give it a godly soundtrack.

I'm also going to make this suggestion -- move the freaking camera out again. Positioning the camera right behind the player makes the world feel "smaller". The older FF games had that unique charm I think in part because of that overhead-3/4 ish view where the world just encompasses the player and subliminally makes you feel very small inside of it (Final Fantasy VII does a fantastic job of this the world just completely envelops you).

If you park the camera right behind Cloud for the entire game IMO FF7 does not have the same impact. 

Bravely Default to me elicits that feeling again of being in a giant "world" ... save the close ups and camera sweeps for battles and cinematics, but when having the characters running around -- bring that camera out and let us see huge vistas and landscapes. When you have made a FF game that feels claustrophobic, you have done something wrong.