A proper world map
That’s the way, none of this corridor level design rubbish.
Tying into the whole side-quest issue, having a proper world map in FF15 would help make the game feel far less linear. Even FF10, a game which offered a lot of interesting detours from the main quest, felt more linear than its predecessors due to the lack of an explorable world map. I appreciate that SquareEnix are trying to push the series in new directions, but they shouldn’t be afraid to go back to what used to work so well.
The original soundtrack style
Just look at that ‘tache. How could he not be a great composer?
Final Fantasy 13 saw many changes made to the FF series, for better and for worse. One of the big ones was the change from legendary series composer Nobuo Uematsu to Masashi Hamauzu. Hamauzu is a fantastic composer for sure, but Nobuo Uematsu has been the sound of Final Fantasy for so many years that he’s kind of hard to beat when it comes to scoring Square’s seminal RPG series. Let’s hope good old Nobuo comes back to where he belongs for the next instalment.
Turn-based battles
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I know everyone likes to hate on turn-based combat, but the evidence is hard to argue with. All of the best Final Fantasy titles have had turn-based battles (or the Active Time Battle system, but that still counts). By contrast, only the hugely underrated Mystic Quest sub-series, the critically eclectic FF12 and the disappointing Final Fantasy 13 have strayed from their combat roots. When a game gets real time RPG combat right, it really nails it, but it can also go horribly wrong. Nobody would blame Square for playing safe, so let’s hope they don’t try to create yet another ambitious but flawed core Final Fantasy game.
