I really just want them to return to the old formula. World Map with separate locations and then turn-based battles.
I think that formula really worked for them and I never quite understood why they felt that better hardware insisted that they change the formula. As for the battles, the problem is there are so few ways to do battles with multiple characters (which I feel does add to the story as it invests you more in them as a team). The only 2 ways to do team battles I can think of are either the traditional turn-based or the kind of real-time turn-based (i.e FF12, Dragon Age, Xenoblade Chronicles)