On a side note (but still Final Fantasy related)

Ok, so, now that I've got my more "professional" thoughts out of the way, there was this CRAZY idea that popped in my head for Cid in a future game that I thought was awesome.  In this crazy idea, Cid (not the main character, but one that is in the party) is actually not an engineer as his normal iterations, but is instead a Blue Magic user and monster tamer.  He is a single father, but his daughter left him a long time ago to become an engineer, unable to deal with the ridiculous menagerie her father had and instead turning to machines.

Of course, in the course of the game, you bring the two together, they reconcile and his daughter joins the group.  As a result, the two discover some interesting theories: by combining certain tamed large, flying monsters (possibly mounts earlier, possibly not) and some advanced technology, it's possible to create Airships.  The first one is a low-flying guy who can't cross the nearby mountains and/or won't go over the ocean, but eventually you get to tame bigger monsters and create airships that can fly over mountains and the ocean (but maybe can only land in cities or something).  Eventually you get one that can carry the smaller one so you can explore the "big map," then drop down to the "smaller map" view on that first guy you got.

In addition, you can "level" the ship (specifically the smaller one, and moreso that it levels with you) so that it can get cooler abilities; new places to land, canons, things like that.  Air battles occur much like airship battles in the other games, except that the ship itself is actually your "guest" character (see point 1 above) and can do some attacks on its own.  In addition, Cid and his daughter can have special attacks that use the ship's abilities; Cid channels his blue magic to "command" the ship to do a special attack with his abilities, while his daughter's Magitech canons and such are replaced by the ship's canons, similar in theme but launched through the ship for a "bigger effect."  The other characters would, of course, be doing more abilities a la Final Fantasy XIII where they leap over to the creature and attack it directly.

Ok, random aside done.  Oh, if only I got to make the big bucks and put forward ideas like these...