[Commonmind]

Coincidentally, Balthier and Fran were my two favorites as well.

Another commonality we share is our opinion of SE. I've the same exact mentality as you do. I grew up playing Sqaresoft titles and I'm extremely critical of the products they put out. Each time I pick up a new SE title I do so with conflicting feelings of anticipation and skepticism.

Back to FFXIII, we'll have to wait and see. There's always been a pattern with the franchise, at least beyond the 16-bit era, where the first game on a new platform is always the most ambitious and therefore the most satisfying. FF VII was, arguably, the most satisfying FF experience on the Playstation; X was, undoubtedly, a far more satisfying experience than FF X-2, FF XI and FFXII. Hopefully this whole thing will come full circle and XIII (and all of its iterations) will blow our socks off - of course there's the chance that it could be too ambitious and end up being a huge disappointment, but I'm trying to remain optimistic.