Be careful, Don't bait the SE defense force. We don't need another one.

More and more I wish there was a system in the forums to give a thumbs up to a post cause this would get it  

Square losing Sakaguchi was one of the biggest hits to the quality of their games, but I honestly like seeing him make a game without the chains of Square on Sakaguchi, since they would want everything changed to androgynous characters if this were a Final Fantasy title under them, I honestly don't know how they got by with Sazh this last game since he was the only likable/relatable character.

Sazh is probably the only likable/relatable character in that series for over a decade (Maybe Fang and Balthier too). I hated FFX, FFXII, FFXIII characters for most part. FFIX was the last true Final Fantasy for me, it all fell apart with FFX (which I hear Sakaguchi has much less involvement on due to his focus on the movie and FF9 took up a lot of his time too, FF9 and FF10 were being developed simulteneously for a while). I hope The Last Story will put every post FF9 Fantasy to shame, its looking like it will since its focussing on gameplay and involving the story into the gameplay, we will find out when user reviews hit a week or two from now. A game like this is what the JRPG genre needs.