I. Reimagine the series. Do an almost total overhaul of most FF tropes and ideas. Go a new direction with the series VII did this, to success. I thought XII would do this, which it did to success. You need to reinvent the series, as it has become harder to take seriously after the more anime-like direction has been here for almost 20 years and has led to slews of spin-off, badly-written homoerotic fanfic, but new ideas. Try to make your series be taken more seriously.

II. Westernize. Open up and be more nonlinear and have a more open-ended and explorable world a la Xenoblade Chronicles.

III. But don't Westernize too much. Have one ending and don't even think about incorporating action or FPS elements. Evolve, don't emulate.

IV. Ditch archetypes. FF has become reliant and character tropes that are overused and are, frankly, inexcusable in a modern industry. Try to have a vast in which none of the characters resemble ones from other games in the series.

V. Challenge the player. both in style and implementation. Do what Obsidian's doing. Tackle darker topics and don't be afraid to challenge your Japanophile fanbase. JRPG's, with a handful of exceptions, are too "bright, grand, adventure", which has resulted into its loss of popularity worldwide. Tackle sex, crime, violence. Go for, dare I say, more modernist and bleak story in tone and style.

VI. Make character advancement interesting. Give us options, let us develop our character more or less how we want to while still having each one possessing their own skills, strengths, and weaknesses.

VII. Subtlety, subtlety, subtlety. Show, don't tell. Imply, don't explain. Let us draw our own interpretations and conclusions about characters, events, and ideas, but give us the intellectual room to form them.

VIII. Do something big with the story. As in, very big. End the world halfway through. Kill Aerith again. Do something emotional big that changes the game dramatically.

IX. Try something new visually. FF has always been beautiful, but try to go for a style, or even setting, we haven't seen anything like.

X. But what makes FF what it is. Change, but still do what you do best and don't cave in to an ever-devolving consumer base.