Yesterday (April 17) the US patent office awarded a patent to Square Enix for an action RPG battle system that chooses attacks based on a character's distance from allies/enemies rather than having the having the player select from menus.

The system was invented by Hajime Tabata (co-director Final Fantasy XV; director Final Fantasy Type-0; producer, Final Fantasy Agito) and Kenichiro Yuji (director, FF:CC: My Life as a King. SE applied for the patent in October 2012 and it was just approved.

Square Enix stated in the documents that complex menus are intimidating to novice players:

And that they created a one-button solution so that even novice players can enjoy an action RPG

More from Gaf:  http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=804363

I am so scared for FFXV right about now... Time to kill Square

Apple did with the iphone and its stupid "curved square" and "Swipt to Unlock" patents. This should be ez compared to those :/

Clearly you aren't supposed to but the laws are so behind at this point.

Sounds like something to implement in a mobile game.

I don't get it. Except for the MMOs all FFs had a one button battle system. It's called turn based and there is just one button to confirm actions. FF1-6 were especially brutal one button mashers.

Nice way to casualize FF even more.

I really hope this doesn't affect the Battlesystem THAT much.

Hey Marii is amazing don't kill her!

I've already given up on Square Enix, but there's still a small hope that XV will be decent at best

I think we are more scared of this:

Than anything else