Quote Originally Posted by Del Murder View Post
What I really like is when the character's job class has significance for the story. In FFIV, Rydia's home was burned by fire and so she couldn't use the Fire spell, and when she had to it made for a powerful scene in the game.
Actually Cloud's home town burned down as well, and he only starts off with Ice and Lightening materia. There's no powerful scene about it explicitly, but I always felt it was a slight nod to Rydia, and that Cloud is a black mage. He has blonde spikey hair instead of a yellow pointy hat. He wears all blue, and after Aeris leaves, he's the most powerful magic user in the game. I highly disagree that VII's characters were carbon copies - exploiting each characters attributes, like loading Cloud down with materia, will make his magic noticeably more powerful than anyone else, but at the same time his attack won't come close to anyone else's like Barrett. Most people probably don't notice because the battles are quite easy regardless, and for that reason I recommend running from all battles in Mako Reactor No. 1 in the intro.

Honestly, I'm shocked that so many people prefer pre-determined roles. To me, character development (/progression if you're deluded enough to think you're a literary critic) is the hallmark of RPG gameplay. I love having lots of control in my games and being able to shape and mold each character however I like throughout the course of the story. My FFVII example above is a big part of why it's my favorite game. Overall I prefer an RPG where the player has total freedom in how to shape their characters, but a keener player who pays attention and reads the statistics menu will be able to capitalize on each character's strengths.

I also like games like FFIX because although each one is a set job class, there's tons of possibilities for how to shape that character within that class. For example, you can focus on making Zidane and expert thief doing all kinds of sneaky stuff, or just making him a powerhouse attacker, which is further opened up to choosing whether to give him dual knives, or a two-bladed sword. Actually one of FFVI's redeeming qualities to me is how it combines stat-reading with the equipment system; having two relic slots makes it a highly customizable game from an equipment standpoint. I like figuring out which characters to give which magic and which ones to give killer equipment to reap the benefits from their attack and dexterity/equivalent stats.

It's for this reason that I can't really count FFIV as among the better Final Fantasy games.