The future of the FF series

[Xanatos]

I would like to see a FF game directed by Hiroyuki Itou (FFVI FFIX FFXII)

This, so much this.

Could it be possible that its the sequel to ff7? According to some official square crap, sephiroth has yet to show his true power and it will be revealed in.. a possible sequal? All I know is that we've yet to see the last of sephiroth. So perhaps its a sequal to ff7.

Fourth time's a charm, I really hope this guy eventually lives up to his hype

As for what I would love to see in future installments...

I'm perfectly fine with classic ATB, granted there's more to it. Something that will make battles a lot more deeper and interesting, like junction system for instance. Make me love it's world as much as I love main characters because setting is equally important. Each Final Fantasy tends to have tons of beautiful locations, though the world itself and lore in general are usually shallow, save for Ivalice. WRPG's are pretty good at this, lots of trivia for us to read about it's world, characters and former major events through out the game should hopefully fix this.

Add more monster variety, color swap monsters in earlier games and those with little to no difference in later are silly to say the least, Final Fantasy VIII & IX are I believe only games in the series that don't suffer from this issue. Huge open areas to explore, tons of sidequests, and fun mini games to kill time, in fact Hunts & Triple Triad should be mandatory in all future games. Preferably tons of fan service or allusions if you will. Most importantly though, the way a story is told. Take Final Fantasy IV for instance, those fake deaths really chipped away a potentially great story. For once drop down that generic bullshit "love always prevails", what can I say, WRPG's have spoiled me.

[T.G. Oskar]

I would like to see a FF game directed by Hiroyuki Itou (FFVI FFIX FFXII)

This, so much this.

Heavenly clouds; I agree as well!

Perhaps it's a coincidence, but aside from FF III, Mr. Ito has directed all Final Fantasy games that are multiples of 3, and they've been wonderful. Not sure how FF Dimensions has worked, but I find it a great throw-back to old-school RPGs.

Though, if it were me...I'd go with Ito as director, Motoi Sakuraba as composer (or Yoko Shimomura; maybe they can do a combined job, with Sakuraba dealing with action scenes and Shimomura with incidental and dramatic music).

And Takenobu Terada as producer. Just for kicks. I mean, seeing the summon animations in full HD with the same intensity as SRW battle animations? Heck yeah!

Fourth time's a charm, I really hope this guy eventually lives up to his hype

Hah! I don't think he'll pull it off, if only because Genesis is gonna be waiting. I believe the last sequel for Final Fantasy will be Genesis vs. Sephy, just to see who was the best SOLDIER after all.

But to that...meh.

As for what I would love to see in future installments...

I'm perfectly fine with classic ATB, granted there's more to it. Something that will make battles a lot more deeper and interesting, like junction system for instance. Make me love it's world as much as I love main characters because setting is equally important. Each Final Fantasy tends to have tons of beautiful locations, though the world itself and lore in general are usually shallow, save for Ivalice. WRPG's are pretty good at this, lots of trivia for us to read about it's world, characters and former major events through out the game should hopefully fix this.

Add more monster variety, color swap monsters in earlier games and those with little to no difference in later are silly to say the least, Final Fantasy VIII & IX are I believe only games in the series that don't suffer from this issue. Huge open areas to explore, tons of sidequests, and fun mini games to kill time, in fact Hunts & Triple Triad should be mandatory in all future games. Preferably tons of fan service or allusions if you will. Most importantly though, the way a story is told. Take Final Fantasy IV for instance, those fake deaths really chipped away a potentially great story. For once drop down that generic bullshit "love always prevails", what can I say, WRPG's have spoiled me.

I always say: look at Zeboyd games. Their latest game (the third installment of the Penny Arcade RPG series) is a throwback to 16-bit games, and they're both fun, fast, and quite challenging (then again, the fact I could finish the game right from Insane difficulty perhaps doesn't work at their favor...) They used the Grandia battle system, sure, but the way jobs and skills were used was definitely FF-based.

Though...I'd definitely wouldn't ask Squeenix to look for my suggestions. Otherwise, I'd suggest an unholy blend of HD graphics, "Bullet Time" menu choices (time slows while you're making your menu selection), and a mixture of SRW OG Saga Endless Frontier and Valkyrie Profile battle systems, with spells straight from Final Fantasy, techniques drawn straight from the SaGa series, summon animations a la SRW series, character build-up based on Final Fantasy Tactics, and a story that wouldn't be a stranger to BioWare writers.