Personally I loved the Chrono Trigger BS better than anything! It Had better use of characters ie, the Techs and Double Techs. ALL of FF's BS (with the exception of FFT) were the same and Boring. You tend to get bored after a while watching the same style of attacks with the same people and the same boring leveling up and the same boring stuff. But CT...That was a game to die for! So Make a CT battle system (Even though it might take you a while), I asure you that you will be DA MAN...or DA GERF!

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"HEY! It's not the size of the boat that matters...It's the motion in the ocean!"-Wayans Brothers

Whatever you do, keep the player thinking! "Attack, attack, heal, repeat" is a pattern you should avoid at all costs. Whether you do this by heavy involvement of elements, (Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy) or some other method, set it up so that simply holding down the enter key is rarely done. ;) Indirect spells make a considerable difference. I think what did it for CT was the monster AI. Every enemy had a distinct behaviour. (changing elemental weakness, copycat, etc...)

Personally, I like the sheer speed at which FF7's combat system moves at. Jack the speed up to max and put it on active, and not only do you have to do some thinking, but you have to do it fast! My main complaint about SD3 was that everything stopped when spells were being cast. (which is a serious pain when fighting spellcasting enemies)

um... you could also try toying with the balance. Maybe giving the party loads and loads of healing items/powers, but making monsters inflict considerable damage (as in 1/3rd of their max) would make for an interesting experience.

Lastly, there's the originality factor, which is what most people tend to focus on. (especially around here) Personally, I don't think that it's the most important element, but it's by no means insignificant.

Hope this helps! Now.. code!

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'Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.' -F. Scott Fitzgerald

While battles where everyone moves around are stellar for big fights, something is lost when you use your kung fu on those petit experience building enemies that you can defeat in 1 hit. And although stationary menu battles are fast and sweet enough for those little blighters (you can even streamline 1 move to 1 key) boss battles can become hour long bouts of repeating the three best moves at an enemy that does the same. I think movement wins the day for more boss heavy games, but I can't stand using all that effort on a lone hobgoblin. If you plan to have smaller enemies attack in groups, it would be wise to make up some engine where your position matters (or just use chrono-trigger) to make them worth fighting. But if you want to streamline experience building, so you can pump up bosses, it would be keen to have a quick engine. Just make sure if you have a quick engine, you spice it up by having some sort of tag-team, MP sharing, taretting, or cool animation/backgound system going on, to make the big fights fun. Personally though, I think an engine on a grid, with movement, but not mode seven, analog, or diagonal movement is best. See my site (http://angelfire.com/rpg/stevenmarine/index.html), for kelpie's engine description. I love the crunchy feeling it gives, and it has that hard to master, yet simple to learn thing going on, and there's a lot of room for strategy. it's prolly best to make one up. But keep in mind originality isn't the real issue in engines. Not the creative part that is. It's really just hard to enjoy a game with an engine you already have, unless it offers something else. If you decide on porting a console engine, and want to take a chrono-trigger engine the extra mile, add something like targetting, or reflex, to add a real time challenge into the mix. If you want to add a big motive for boss battles in a FF engine, include some kind of collectable item you recieve afterward. It's prolly very hard to program a perfect port of either engine, so it might be best to make up your own, and strike a balance. I'm pretty sure you'll have a cool game, but even a faulty plot can hook you with a new engine. I think that's the main issue. Just try to suprise us. in a good way.

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"If you want to destroy my sweater, *Oe,oe,oh* pull this thread, as I walk away..."

Do it! DO IT NOW!!

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'Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.' -F. Scott Fitzgerald