Fans have been whining about turn based combat since FFVII and probably before that when the genre was still niche. FFX's combat was also criticized for being slow, which is why X-2 brought back ATB and sped it up to make it faster. Even Hiroyuki Ito has said that ATB was a just a means to an end and believes that action elements will eventually overtake the genre as a natural evolution. This is not to say ATB/Turn Base is dead, just that it was probably going to become niche eventually.

For some fans, with the advent of more realistic graphics, the idea of people standing around waiting for their turn to look silly, especially as graphics and visuals get better. It just takes people out of the immersion which is something gamers have been saying since VII took the graphical leap to 3D. Another factor to remember is that the current generation of gamers didn't really grow up with such a system like many of us did. Such systems have been slowly fazed out of the genre for the last 15 odd years and its been ages since we saw a true Turn Base title that was universally popular. Lots of niche love but not something on VII's scale. The advent of the new generation of WRPG that focuses more on exploration and utilizes real time combat has also meant that while some of us have no real issues with ATB/Turn Based combat, that style of gaming is not what a percentage of the demographic grew up on. Another issue here is that in the last few years lack of strong RPG games that feature this style of combat on console, the genre and the old ways of doing things have flourished on handhelds which has created a new stigma that Turn Base combat is fine, but only works on lower tech titles and could never really work on a modern console system like it used to. Had a long argument with a friend about this when he said that while he enjoyed something like Bravery Default, he couldn't really see it working as a high end AAA title on console. He basically said Turn Base is for handhelds and Action-RPGs are for consoles. While I disagreed, it's difficult to get a word in when arguing with him.

I pretty much knew with most of Squenix's trends lately that the VII remake would have a more Action-RPG style to it. I'm sure it will be a cross between Crisis Core with some elements of ATB involved, but it will feel closer to KH than classic FF. I feel Bravery Default is what launched SE into making Tokyo RPG Factory and if you really want to see ATB make it back to console, it will come down to how those games work out on the PS4 compared to the Vita, as well as World of Final Fantasy. It's interesting how SE is trying to make their new generation of games for both console and handheld. I'm not sure if its just them covering their bases dealing with Japanese and Western tastes on gaming preference, but I'm sure they are looking at it closely.