Square + Enix = ???

[Jiro]

Final Fantasy X-2 has one the best battle systems in the series. The fact that the game was packaged as fan service and an unnecessary expansion to a main series installment is the reason everyone bashes it, but underneath all the crap there is a sound game. Taking risks on the battle system style seems to be what they've been doing. If you look between IX and XIII, basically every game has had a completely unique or at least different twist on the battle systems within the series.

Obviously there is a huge focus on visuals. There is also a huge focus on trying to create characters that people can identify with. Better characters. It's not necessarily working for everyone, but I feel like the characters of XIII are far and away more developed than those of other installments, even though you really have to search for all of their backstory. And the actual plot of the game is wtf so I don't know what they were doing. BUT THE POINT is that they're trying to shake things up again. As much as fans might think they're failing, none of you would want to play the same game every time. Or maybe you would. I 'unno.

Is Sakaguchi (creator of FF) still in charge of his creation?

Sakaguchi is head of Mistwalker now, he left Square Enix some time ago. Mistwalker is taking risks with their games as well, but in a different manner to Square Enix. There was a greater focus on adapting the traditional. Lost Odyssey is a great example of Mistwalker taking the stock standard JRPG, throwing in a somewhat less common Ring based battle system and then trying their damndest to put a story in there, a deep story. (It worked for me.) Blue Dragon was basically a flashy Final Fantasy V. You have a set number of party members who can take on a couple of different "jobs" and you just go on a grand adventure.

The problem is that people want improvements, adaptations, innovations and such, while keeping things "traditional". You can't really have your cake and eat it too. You can eat half of the cake, but then you're going to bitch because you only have half a cake and it's gone stale now. As masterful as I feel Final Fantasy IX is, I don't think you could release it tomorrow with nicer graphics and have the same reception. The audience in general has changed and diversified and it's not "hit or miss" with an insanely good success rate now, it's "how hard did I hit". Take the reception of XIII on this forum. Generally there's a consensus about what works and what doesn't in the series on here. But there were a handful of people who really liked XIII while there were a lot of people who thought it was a glaring failure. And then there's folks like me who enjoyed it despite it's flaws because gosh guys not everything is going to be perfect.

I think this is the longest post I've ever made here.