Final Fantasy XIII-2 announced for the end of the year

On the one hand, I am excited to see another non-MMO Final Fantasy game is going to be released in a reasonable amount of time. On the other, after two radical departures from the tradition of the series in a row (in completely opposite directions), I think they really needed to make a serious return to tradition a la Final Fantasy IX.

Still, they could make this work wonderfully if they focus on a) not repeating Final Fantasy X-2's major failings and b) correcting Final Fantasy XIII's failings.

Regarding Final Fantasy X-2's failings, they should definitely avoid:

• Hiding essential plot resolutions in a secret unlockable ending that involves mashing the X button during a particular point mid-game that you need a guide to even know about. That still burns me up, especially since without said hidden ending the Yuna/Tidus relationship doesn't get its resolution which was the raison d'etre not only of the game's plot but of the game itself. And the way they did tie it up was so perfunctory and deus ex machina that it was just lame. But I'm getting a bit off-topic.
• Having the musical score be ill-matched to its in-game presentation. Final Fantasy X-2's musical failing wasn't that it was bad (listening to it as a separate soundtrack made me conclude that it was actually quite good), but that it didn't serve well as presented and left a bad taste in my mouth (to say the least). Using a track for the airship that gets really annoying really fast was the worst part, especially considering how much time you spent on the airship in that game. If they bring back the same guy that did Final Fantasy XIII, that shouldn't be a problem; he understands mood very well and I expect he would bring in some tracks from the first game to provide musical continuity (not too much, though). That's something Final Fantasy X-2 sorely lacked.
• Trying to hard to appeal to new players as if this were a totally independent entry. It should be accessible, but shouldn't pull crap like the afore-mentioned massive failure with the Tidus/Yuna ending and the failure to ever establish why the villain looked exactly like Tidus, came from the same city (sortof), had the same special attack, had the same voice (actor), etc.

As for the failings of Final Fantasy XIII that they need to avoid:

• Being excessively linear. Final Fantasy X took linearity as far as it could go and did it very well. Final Fantasy XIII took it much farther and failed, unfortunately.
• Eliminating central Final Fantasy, and even RPG, traditions. In other words, it needs to have an airship that's controllable by the player in some fashion and it needs to have towns, dammit! Sure, you can collapse the practical functions of a town into a save point, but it ruins the pacing of the game. Your characters never, ever get a break and psychologically neither do you. Besides, without talking to people in towns, all the information in the game is force-fed to you. I much prefer going around and discovering things.
• Having a combat system that involve too much mindless button pushing. They either need to move towards a more Final Fantasy XII-like system where you can set up precise gambits to determine automated action, and have it activate without having to press any buttons, or they need to move back towards the traditional combat system where there's no auto mode and you can control the other two characters. Heck, it'd be better if they made it an outright Action/RPG; at least then the button-mashing would be a little less mindless.
• Making the game so difficult, mainly through fake difficulty like the rule that it's game-over if your leader dies, and then having to take it back by making death meaningless (you just get to continue from where you were). This is especially ridiculous when you consider that the means of running away from battle initiates a game over state.

Things they should keep:

• The listening in on conversation. This may not be possible if they have full towns (too much voice acting would be probably be required), but it was still really, really cool. If they do keep it, they do need a lot more formal conversations where you talk to someone with the X button.
• Having everything said by important characters be voiced. That's something that was done in Final Fantasy X, but was abandoned in favor of voice-only-during-cutscenes thereafter. It was brought back in Final Fantasy XIII (in fact, everything said by anyone was voiced), but as mentioned XIII had no towns so you encountered far fewer NPCs than in any other game.

There's a better quality version of the trailer posted with the linked story here. It's in English, which makes it even better. I wonder if the guy at the end of it, and who is obviously half of the game's logo, is Cid Raines. It looks like him to me, and I certainly hope it is. He ended up being such a pathetic villain (if you don't consider him a very pathetic tragic semi-hero), especially the way he seemed to die, he really deserved better and should be revisited. He was a very tough boss, though.

Actually, it almost has to be him. If it isn't, they'll either have to introduce another Cid into the same universe (though they arguably did that with Al-Cid Margrace, the false Cid, in Final Fantasy XII) or else violate another immutable Final Fantasy tradition.