FF Fever: coming soon, three in a week
This post isn't exactly finished, but it should be enough for now.

"You darn kids are so spoiled," says my inner old-school RPG fan, "back in my day we waited at least two years for the next FF game!" I could go on and on like that, but you've heard it all before. Besides, that side of me is hypocritical. It conveniently forgets the late 1991 blitz of FF4, Seiken Densetsu, and Saga 2 (though all were under Witness Protection aliases).

Somewhere between Oct 31 and Nov 5, there will be the following releases:

-FF12 (and a SPESHUL edition)
-FF5 on GBA
-FF3 on DS

It's easiest - for me, at least - to make fun of FF12. It will be the last one in the PS2 era... an era which I've found unappealing. It combines aspects of FF Tactics (didn't get into it at all) and FF11 (ditto). It's a high budget game, and even if looks less spiffy than today's latest and greatest games, it still looks like style over substance.

Things which could possibly go right in FF12:
-Good AI, so that the party makes decent use of its abilities
-Not every monster will attack the party

Things which could go wrong:
-If the AI is more like FF Legend 3 or DQ4 (which frequently wasted valuable items and MP)
-If the AI is more like Breath of Fire (never heals, just fights)