It's true that Final Fantasy has had a number of either main or central ladies, but we have to look at quality over quantity. X-2 and the entire XIII trilogy was filled with disgusting, misogynistic, pandering nonsense, mostly stemming from Toriyama's frankly disturbing obsession with playing dress up with his anime waifus. It's not enough to just have a female character when you're still objectifying her and designing entirely from a male gaze.
And yes, it's also true that we have many FF games where the woman is the true protagonist narratively (e.g. Yuna in X and Ashe in XII), but Square clings to this framing wherein you have to see her story develop through the eyes of the naive teen boy (Tidus and Vaan). Now don't get me wrong, X and XII are probably my favorite FF games, but why can't we as the player experience a story about a woman or women from the perspective of the actual woman? It's because Square still fundamentally sees their audience as young men, and the games are primarily written by men.
There's a very good chance that the next FF title could have a female lead, but I don't trust Square at all to write her authentically or to not continue to treat her like a sex doll.
This is a good post.
Hopefully the next woman protag will have an actually good game.
And...not stuff like that, too.
"I didn't give Lightning a love interest because I couldn't bear to see her end up with anyone else!" is…not confidence-inspiring.