Last I remember Demon Souls ended up being listed as game of the year on a good many websites I was reading just after it's release.

Hmm...
but yeah that's what I meant about FF games, they were slowly starting to dip into 'the same old stuff again'. It's the reason I liked FFX-2 and FFXIII, they were something different, though I'd still prefer to have a properly explorable map, and I still prefer the old turn-based battle system of olde.