i would like to see a large cast of playable characters including some that have to be found rather than be part of the main story,people like gogo from ffvi who you have to go looking for,everything seems to easy to obtain in more recent ff's.

chocobo/moogle/cactuar/tonberry must remain

total control of battle rather than ai like in ffxii

a world map and airship thats controllable

characters that really believably have a reason to fight

characters in the party that dont get on at all, that have real problems with eachother rather than always being a big happy family.

characters that dont care to save the day but choose to take advantage of the party to fulfill their own goals

a character that dies, or maybe even several, something like the villain kills half the party just for the hell of it, a real stop us in our tracks moment.

the return of characters whos jobs were unique to them, eg vivi was the black magic specialist in ffix, i hate how in ffx and ffxii they all seem to be capable of eachothers abilities equally.