That's honestly what I'm most afraid of. Materia were extremely important to the gameplay, especially in that it allowed a great deal of character customization. I really hope that system is not cut or modified in a misguided attempt to 'modernize' the game.
It's a remake. Their 2D-3D remakes of the early games all incorporated a variety of story and gameplay modifications. "Putting the brakes on hype" over small comments that should be expected with remakes is a bit much.
I don't think it's much, Square Enix (especially on games directed by Tetsuya Nomura) have demonstrated time and time again that they have no goddamn idea what made their older games great. Or rather, they demonstrate that they are far more interested in pandering to their Japanese audience even though the English-speaking one is much much larger.
Like, Japanese people
liked FFXIII. More to the point, they
liked Lightning Returns.
In other news I've been watching a lot of Game Grumps recently, and after their disappointingly short foray into Secret of Mana (both times) I felt compelled to play it again, so I busted out my Wii...
God, so much dust. Where's a can of compressed air when you need one?