FFVI Review Post

[Wolf Kanno]

Take your time, hopefully you can get through that by the weekend

Excuse me Wolf, but I'm not going on "all blargh" (good one) about the game for no reason. We're in a Final Fantasy forum. We're in the FFVI subforum. We're in a VI thread about how good the game is, if it's been surpassed. I said yeah. Then you went on this nonsensical string of diatribes about how Final Fantasy VI was an unprecedented thunderclap of inspiration because it had a couple more sprites than the last game and Yatsumi Matsuno made a SRPG for his second game...

Well no, I pretty much assert that VI was unprecedented for its time for using sprites to tell it's story, you couldn't come up with a good argument to show how a game before VI did it better in telling a cinematic scene through mood and action. Instead you basically said it was surpassed by a game that came after VI came out and I said well yeah, I felt VI was surpassed by Chrono Trigger personally but guess what, I feel games surpass each other all the time, I can make lists of better games that surpass VII from it's own generation. You did mention V was better but gave no real explanation.

As for Terra's animations, you're missing part of my point because 1) Her sprite is superior cause it represents a better representation of a anatomical human being meaning we can get a little more personality out of her simple animations, 2) My argument is how it's used, going back to the comparison of Galuf's Death with Celes' Suicide attempt, VI used far more frames of animation to create a more stirring scene than V could with it's less developed sprites. VI's emotional sprites were used to represent a wider range of emotion based on context of the dialogue. Locke's thumbs up can be represented as cocky, encouraging, and humor just based on the context of the scene. While Bartz can as well, the developers didn't do as much as they could, in fact V's story really never needed much from the characters. This goes back to my silent movie anaology of how you wouldn't really get a good grasp of V's cast cause even with dialogue they are pretty flat in comparison to VI or even FFIV. Whereas scenes like Cyan watching his family board the Phantom Train, Terra convulsing in pain as she struggles to comprehend her esper form in Zozo, Celes' suicide attempt, and even watching the end of the world don't need words (most didn't even have dialogue) to not only express the mood of the scene but give you an idea of the who the characters are and what their state of mind was at the time.

To give another example between FFV and VI, when ExDeath and Kefka cause mass genocide in both games, the scenes are very different in scale in terms of how spites are used. In FFV, you see a Black hole appear above a city, switch to the interior of city, you see the screen shake, everyone makes surprised looks and then they get pulled up and we switch to a new scene. When the Warring Triad go wild in VI, you watch flashes of light, the screen shake, people running around screaming, the earth opens up and people fall in the earth repeatable slams open and shuts, one NPC tries to hold onto a person falling into the chasm and eventually you watch the shaking knock them both into the earth. You cannot tell me, that those scenes are equal in terms of using the games technology to tell a cinematic story. If you did, then I would tell you to check yourself for fever cause you've let your fanboy rage against VI cloud your judgement.

You didn't have an argument, so I consider our discussion over.

At least you gave up on that whole "The Shadow-waiting is counter-intuitive because back then JRPG devs wanted to give you something to talk about with your friends." I started to fear for your life after that one...

You missed my point if you felt I said devs did it so you could make friends, on the contrary my point was that devs placed in elements into a game that was usually difficult if nearly impossible to figure out in a first playthrough and would usually only be discovered by experimenting with actions in subsequent playthroughs. I actually have a guide for the SNES version of FFVI and it doesn't tell you how to save Shadow it simply states that its possible to do so. This isn't new for the genre either, the Spoon dagger in FFIV, getting the different endings in BoF, and most JRPGs of the 16-bit era have several weapons and items that can only be obtained by doing things that no player would know how to do in a first playthrough. My example of talking to friends to learn things is largely an anecdote of my own experiences in regard to this. Guides were awful back then, usually made by fans of the games who also happened to work for one of the gaming magazines of the day and made the guide for the magazine. It wasn't until the late 90s that guides started to get more sponsoring from the actual developers and thus get better accuracy. It's because of these elements that I know my 16-bit games backwards and forwards whereas later games don't have many of these types of things anymore. Even VII just has what? Great Gospel, HP Shout, Missing Score, and the Zack Flashback, everything else is mostly made obvious to the player.

As for Shadow, he says he'll catch up to you, and if you don't leave the first time the game offers and you try again, you get the message that says you need to wait for Shadow, and you actually have to do that if you want him to show up. So its not as out of the blue as you people keep making it out to be. If it was more obvious then there would have been no reason to do it all you people are doing is basically whining around because the developer psyched you out.

[Flying Arrow]

I love the amount of love and care that's gone into VI. I think it's great that a character is permanently lose-able like Shadow. When it comes to obtuse secrets that allow for different playthroughs, I totally get it - I really do (my favourite game from the last half-decade is Dark Souls).

I just watched a clip of how the Floating Continent scene plays out, and it's not as bad as I remember it (I remember it being really obtuse, for some reason). On the one hand, if they drew too much attention to the choice, it would never be a conscious choice at all but a 'do it because it's there'. It also works as a secret because there aren't a bunch of other secrets like it prior to that moment to school the player on 'hey, here's how you're supposed to approach this moment'. The scene is cool, I am going to give it that.

However, say the player does save Shadow the first time through. Then that player will forever miss the content (small though it may be) that comes from not saving him (why would you? Conversely, why would one kill Magus?). To get that content, you have to willingly ignore a secret you know is there. There is no gameplay benefit to losing Shadow - you're giving up a playable character, plain and simple, for obscure game lore later in the game. I guess that might not be an issue for some, but that does kind of gall me in a way that I feel like I'm losing all the change out of my pocket just so I can bend over and pick up a nickel.

Okay so I'm giving some ground on that Shadow argument.

One argument I won't give up on is the customization issue. I get that choosing which spells to give to which character is technically customizing each one. My issue, however, is that none of the customization feels meaningful. Sure you can elect to not give character certain abilities, but with abundant EXP and ABP, you're really just neglecting to fill out the checklist. I said before, I feel like the customization system is entirely dependent on how much time the player has to dedicate to learning spells. My favourite way to play FF is Blue Magic, Blue Magic, Blue Magic - and, with Gau and Strago, grinding is the main vehicle for making them fun to play (or watch).

In VII, customization is a matter of taking, giving, and switching (as opposed to just neglecting to make things stick on certain characters). There are secrets and some grinding involved, but more or less a lot of what you need is made available to you over the critical path of the game. Customization in VII is a matter of giving some things to everyone but not all things. Sure, you can also give all your characters the same things by buying duplicates of the same materia, but, hey - that's the player's choice. If you want to change it up, you still can. On the other hand, once Sabin knows Fire, he knows it for good. There's no reason to not just teach it to Edgar, Setzer, Shadow, etc, because the only downside to it is time spent.

[Bolivar]

Wolf, you've made these points before. You don't need paragraphs to reiterate them. I have no idea why you're saying that I "couldn't come up with a good argument to show how a game before VI did it better in telling a cinematic scene through mood and action." No one ever made any such assertion in this thread. We're only challenging your statements on VI's importance because you have yet to explain or show how VI's improvements in animation and cinematic storytelling are bigger than the improvements FFV made over FFIV, or that Chrono Trigger made over FFVI.

You came in this thread talking about how FFVI was a "before and after" moment in gaming but all you've done is tell us over and over how it's better than older games, not how it's improvements were more important than past improvements. This database says FFIV's Dark Knight Cecil had only 9 sprites... So how is FFVI's addition of 12 more sprites per character more impressive than FFV's addition of 30 more sprites per character when this is something the series has been doing since its second game?

I still don't think you're discussion of older RPGs obfuscating content explains why Shadow's rescue was so poorly done. I like finding secret passages in walls. But this is worse than the Zodiac Spear!

[Flying Arrow]

I like finding secret passages in walls. But this is worse than the Zodiac Spear!

To be fair (and this is only from what I know of the issue), there's nothing worse than the Zodiac Spear.

[Bolivar]

Ok, I might have over-exaggerated that a bit...

[Wolf Kanno]

I love the amount of love and care that's gone into VI. I think it's great that a character is permanently lose-able like Shadow. When it comes to obtuse secrets that allow for different playthroughs, I totally get it - I really do (my favourite game from the last half-decade is Dark Souls).

I just watched a clip of how the Floating Continent scene plays out, and it's not as bad as I remember it (I remember it being really obtuse, for some reason). On the one hand, if they drew too much attention to the choice, it would never be a conscious choice at all but a 'do it because it's there'. It also works as a secret because there aren't a bunch of other secrets like it prior to that moment to school the player on 'hey, here's how you're supposed to approach this moment'. The scene is cool, I am going to give it that.

However, say the player does save Shadow the first time through. Then that player will forever miss the content (small though it may be) that comes from not saving him (why would you? Conversely, why would one kill Magus?). To get that content, you have to willingly ignore a secret you know is there. There is no gameplay benefit to losing Shadow - you're giving up a playable character, plain and simple, for obscure game lore later in the game. I guess that might not be an issue for some, but that does kind of gall me in a way that I feel like I'm losing all the change out of my pocket just so I can bend over and pick up a nickel.

Okay so I'm giving some ground on that Shadow argument.

Actually you do get a gameplay benefit. Relm gains Interceptor in battle and he works just like he does with Shadow (blocks melee attacks, high damage counter) considering Relm's equipment options make her weak in this regard it's actually sizable boost for her, so there is a benefit if you plan on using her a lot or if she just happens to be your favorite, then that's all the incentive you need to make that choice again.

I have a friend who loves Frog in Chrono Trigger, and while she like Magus, she loves Frog more and will usually kill Magus just so she can see the ending where Frog turns human. She even keeps Crono dead cause the ending this causes the longest ending where you can see Frog in his human form, so I would say that despite the choices leading only to what many may perceive as minor change, it still may mean the world to some people.

One argument I won't give up on is the customization issue. I get that choosing which spells to give to which character is technically customizing each one. My issue, however, is that none of the customization feels meaningful. Sure you can elect to not give character certain abilities, but with abundant EXP and ABP, you're really just neglecting to fill out the checklist. I said before, I feel like the customization system is entirely dependent on how much time the player has to dedicate to learning spells. My favorite way to play FF is Blue Magic, Blue Magic, Blue Magic - and, with Gau and Strago, grinding is the main vehicle for making them fun to play (or watch).

In VII, customization is a matter of taking, giving, and switching (as opposed to just neglecting to make things stick on certain characters). There are secrets and some grinding involved, but more or less a lot of what you need is made available to you over the critical path of the game. Customization in VII is a matter of giving some things to everyone but not all things. Sure, you can also give all your characters the same things by buying duplicates of the same materia, but, hey - that's the player's choice. If you want to change it up, you still can. On the other hand, once Sabin knows Fire, he knows it for good. There's no reason to not just teach it to Edgar, Setzer, Shadow, etc, because the only downside to it is time spent.

I will simply say we just disagree on this principle, to me, leveling stuff because it's there is for post games or perfect files. To put your opinion into VII terms, you're basically saying you would equip useless materia on your party for the sake of leveling rather than actually customizing and to me that's two different things. I can honestly say it makes a world of difference to play through sections of VI with one character who can actually use healing magic as opposed to having a full party that can do so. Even if you try to play roles and still teach magic to everyone to kill the time, I feel the lack of the temptation to cheat makes for a stronger game.

VI's system was Squenix's second attempt of having both a comprehensive leveling system but also one that wasn't a job class system, which was incredibly rare in the 16-bit era. I don't necessarily disagree that VII's system was more comprehensive than VI's system but I also feel what it traded to do so (character roles) was a bit of a deal breaker for me.

Wolf, you've made these points before. You don't need paragraphs to reiterate them. I have no idea why you're saying that I "couldn't come up with a good argument to show how a game before VI did it better in telling a cinematic scene through mood and action." No one ever made any such assertion in this thread. We're only challenging your statements on VI's importance because you have yet to explain or show how VI's improvements in animation and cinematic storytelling are bigger than the improvements FFV made over FFIV, or that Chrono Trigger made over FFVI.

You came in this thread talking about how FFVI was a "before and after" moment in gaming but all you've done is tell us over and over how it's better than older games, not how it's improvements were more important than past improvements. This database says FFIV's Dark Knight Cecil had only 9 sprites... So how is FFVI's addition of 12 more sprites per character more impressive than FFV's addition of 30 more sprites per character when this is something the series has been doing since its second game?

But I have, you're just ignoring my argument. It wasn't just that VI added more sprites, its also that the sprite are larger, in more human shape and can thus maximize more emotion from it due to this. Yet's its not just this technical leap that's important it's how it was utilized to create a more cinematic experience. I already gave you the example about sprite use in the villains large "let's end the world":

To give another example between FFV and VI, when ExDeath and Kefka cause mass genocide in both games, the scenes are very different in scale in terms of how spites are used. In FFV, you see a Black hole appear above a city, switch to the interior of city, you see the screen shake, everyone makes surprised looks and then they get pulled up and we switch to a new scene. When the Warring Triad go wild in VI, you watch flashes of light, the screen shake, people running around screaming, the earth opens up and people fall in the earth repeatable slams open and shuts, one NPC tries to hold onto a person falling into the chasm and eventually you watch the shaking knock them both into the earth. You cannot tell me, that those scenes are equal in terms of using the games technology to tell a cinematic story. If you did, then I would tell you to check yourself for fever cause you've let your fanboy rage against VI cloud your judgement.

If you need another example take the differences between Tellah fighting Golbez in FFIV, Galuf Fighting ExDeath, and Leo fighting Kefka.

In all three scenes the story takes place in the battle screen, thus all the sprites are equal of height but not in expression. Tella and Guluf's fights are largely told through dialogue boxes in battle, then switch out to the overhead view to witness Tellah falling over and Golbez being acting lamenting his surprise. The character move to each other to show concern but that's largely all.





In Galuf, he gets pumped up, absorbs the power hurting Krile, charges ExDeath, has a regular battle falls over. The extent of ExDeath's animation is him on his face, standing with his head kneeled, and fully erect (oh my ). The party doesn't even react when Krile shouts out that Galuf is dying, they just stay in a portrait view despite the game having a surprise animation. Hell, the best use of the sprites in the whole scene are the Wind Drakes (still impressive) and Krile being slammed around the room, but the rest of the scene is largely dead with the sprites largely using their basic four cardinal directions. V uses very few animation to tell it's story and while the scene is an improvement over IV, it still retains a lot of what IV did.




So you want to know what VI did better? They actually utilized the sprites to their full effect. Just watch this sequence and notice how more lively everything is. Leo beats Kefka, moves through the battle screen, Gestahl appears in a puff of smoke and immediately Leo utilizes his low health sprite to create the sense of bowing to the Emperor, he stands up in protest when the Gestahl's words trouble him and Kefka appears which shocks Leo, Kefka strikes Leo knocking him to the ground, laughs as he monologues, then leaps at Leo and kills him. The scene goes on to watch Kefka react to the Espers re-awakening, the POV shifts to the Espers using Mode 7 to watch them seek out and invade Thamasa. Kefka crushes them while laughing and sprinting about the screen. Scenbe fades, open up to Leo's grave, Terra bows her head in sadness while she places flowers on his grave, intercepter appears and the whole party reacts, Locke kneels down to Interceptor's level shoing he's concerned and then stand up with line of vision fixated on Interceptor before he decides to talk to the rest of the party. Relm now has also moved to kneel down and comfort Interceptor.

So what did VI do despite only adding 13 extra sprites, actually used them for full dramatic effect. This goes back to my Silent Movie argument, without dialogue, you would not really have any sense of who anyone in FFV is, hell even with the dialogue they are mostly caricatures, whereas in VI you would actually have a sense of who everyone is and what their story was. VI doesn't like to stand still and the characters are constantly moving about whereas in FFV you still see whole sequences where the party faces one direction and the whole story is told through the text like all the games before it. V may have used sprites for cinematic impact but the difference between V and VI is that V does it in baby steps whereas VI acts like a seasoned veteran of using the sprites. What VI did was basically used a series of the sprites to create the illusion of animation and movement, looking at the Locke sequence I mentioned it's incredibly clear what's he''s doing and his three simple animations showcase several feelings and intentions. V doesn't do this very much. FFV could have added 60 extra sprites, it wouldn't have changed that the team didn't really utilize them to enhance the story as much as they could. This is really a great example of Kitase's talents as a director.

To bring this back to VI being an an important event, I simply show you DQV, a game that came out before FFVI, hell even FFV.


*Forgive the annoying commentary*

Despite being one of the games more emotional moments, the sprites are flat, their only animation is an arm movement used to simulate walking. Even the kiss is just the sprite sliding forward with it's walking animation. The sprites are also squashed (though this may partly be because of the screen resolution) and look like toddler toys for all their features. Now look at DQVI, a game that came out over a year later from FFVI.




Notice the sprites look anatomically correct and have subtle animations. The MC starts out sprawled on the floor and then sits up. The game increased the amount of sprites so it can utilize a more cinematic feel which is pretty unnatural for a DQ game as they often try to limit the personality of the characters to keep the player feeling like they are the MC. DQ VII's sprites are not even as good as DQVI's sprites, so obviously this wasn't just Enix playing catch up, this was Enix trying to challenge Square in the 16-bit era.

Now here's Chrono Trigger which had probably the most detailed sprites in the 16-bit era for RPGs. and once again, like VI, the game utilizes several sprites to create a sense of movement and animation. Not counting the cape waving, Magus only uses a handful of his animations sprites but he showcases a whole range of movement because of the clever use of it which was pioneered in VI.



VI pretty much wrote the book on how to use sprites to convey action, emotions and create a cinematic experience. While it did not create the idea of it, it took it farther than any game before it and lo and behold several games that came out a year or two after VI are utilizing it like it was the standard. That's because VI raised the bar, and that's what FF does. I mean isn't this mostly your argument about VII's impact by moving to 3D despite the animation of the models being largely crude and by today's standards amateurish?

I still don't think you're discussion of older RPGs obfuscating content explains why Shadow's rescue was so poorly done. I like finding secret passages in walls. But this is worse than the Zodiac Spear!

Now who is being a drama queen?

[Flying Arrow]

I love the amount of love and care that's gone into VI. I think it's great that a character is permanently lose-able like Shadow. When it comes to obtuse secrets that allow for different playthroughs, I totally get it - I really do (my favourite game from the last half-decade is Dark Souls).

I just watched a clip of how the Floating Continent scene plays out, and it's not as bad as I remember it (I remember it being really obtuse, for some reason). On the one hand, if they drew too much attention to the choice, it would never be a conscious choice at all but a 'do it because it's there'. It also works as a secret because there aren't a bunch of other secrets like it prior to that moment to school the player on 'hey, here's how you're supposed to approach this moment'. The scene is cool, I am going to give it that.

However, say the player does save Shadow the first time through. Then that player will forever miss the content (small though it may be) that comes from not saving him (why would you? Conversely, why would one kill Magus?). To get that content, you have to willingly ignore a secret you know is there. There is no gameplay benefit to losing Shadow - you're giving up a playable character, plain and simple, for obscure game lore later in the game. I guess that might not be an issue for some, but that does kind of gall me in a way that I feel like I'm losing all the change out of my pocket just so I can bend over and pick up a nickel.

Okay so I'm giving some ground on that Shadow argument.

Actually you do get a gameplay benefit. Relm gains Interceptor in battle and he works just like he does with Shadow (blocks melee attacks, high damage counter) considering Relm's equipment options make her weak in this regard it's actually sizable boost for her, so there is a benefit if you plan on using her a lot or if she just happens to be your favorite, then that's all the incentive you need to make that choice again.

Fair enough. We'll have to agree to disagree on this. I just don't think this is at all worth giving up an entire character for. What I'm seeing is a trade of a whole character - someone who can really beef up the party for the harder parts of the game - for a buff for another.

The thing is, the Floating Continent/Shadow section is a secret, and the benefit for figuring out the scenario is being able to use this unique character with his unique abilities. The more efficient option is saving him, and I just don't see why it's a fair trade-off (yes, I understand the Relm thing, but again it's just a buff for the one of the remaining 13 characters).

I have a friend who loves Frog in Chrono Trigger, and while she like Magus, she loves Frog more and will usually kill Magus just so she can see the ending where Frog turns human. She even keeps Crono dead cause the ending this causes the longest ending where you can see Frog in his human form, so I would say that despite the choices leading only to what many may perceive as minor change, it still may mean the world to some people.

Fair enough. Wolf, have you ever played Alpha Protocol? Of every game I've ever played, AP is probably the best at rewarding choices with gameplay benefits. No matter what choice you make, your in-game character is built-up in some way for it. Give it a spin if you can.

I will simply say we just disagree on this principle, to me, leveling stuff because it's there is for post games or perfect files. To put your opinion into VII terms, you're basically saying you would equip useless materia on your party for the sake of leveling rather than actually customizing and to me that's two different things.

That's not what I'm saying, though. In VII, it's easier and beneficial to ignore Materia you don't want to use because your characters have a limited space for abilities. To get them everything you want, you need to either make trade-offs or get creative. Placing useless Materia on a party member is pointless because it comes at the cost of removing something potentially valuable. So if you want your guys to be the killing machines you want them to be, you have to make a conscious trade-off of not removing the magic orbs that allow them to do the things they do. If you want Tifa to cast Barrier, great. But you need to remove Fire for her to do that, or HP Plus, or Deathblow. Or don't remove anything at all, but find another combination within your three-person party to allow you to work that ability in creatively. Maybe Tifa won't get it, but if you tweak it just so then maybe Red XIII will be able to get exactly the Barrier value you were looking for.

The difference between this and VI is that in VI, the party is composed of 10-14 characters defined by their unique skills and the capacity to learn new abilities for good. Since they can learn everything, there's no reason to not have them learn everything aside from pouring hours of your life into the effort. Even if you play the game for about 35 hours (an average playtime at least as far as I'm concerned, not an insane post-game file) you'll find yourself filled up on abilities you want. Yes, you can neglect to give people certain abilities, but that's neglect and not meaningful customization. There is zero downside to teaching everybody everything, and worst of all, there's nothing to get in your way of from doing so.

I can honestly say it makes a world of difference to play through sections of VI with one character who can actually use healing magic as opposed to having a full party that can do so. Even if you try to play roles and still teach magic to everyone to kill the time, I feel the lack of the temptation to cheat makes for a stronger game.

I'm sure it does make a world of difference, but I don't think this makes a strong game at all, actually. It's still be a fun one, but I don't think it's strong design. What's your gameplay in not having everyone know Cure? Simply not equipping them with the stone that teaches them that ability? Not using your abilities to the fullest isn't avoiding "cheating" it's just a low-level run, or a gimp run, which you can do with any game. The problem with VI's customization system is that it's so damned open that actual customization for experienced players boils down to neglect rather than creative or meaningful tinkering. A regular, non-gimped playthrough will result in most characters being able to cast damn near everything.

VI's system was Squenix's second attempt of having both a comprehensive leveling system but also one that wasn't a job class system, which was incredibly rare in the 16-bit era. I don't necessarily disagree that VII's system was more comprehensive than VI's system but I also feel what it traded to do so (character roles) was a bit of a deal breaker for me.

I don't think VII's is more "comprehensive". What it is, though, is more strict with the amount of breathing room it lets the player have. It also offers a lot of options and possible builds within the battle system it's designed for - on the one hand, you can't just throw everything at a character and have it stick but with enough creativity those characters also aren't limited to only doing certain things.

[Wolf Kanno]

Fair enough. We'll have to agree to disagree on this. I just don't think this is at all worth giving up an entire character for. What I'm seeing is a trade of a whole character - someone who can really beef up the party for the harder parts of the game - for a buff for another.

The thing is, the Floating Continent/Shadow section is a secret, and the benefit for figuring out the scenario is being able to use this unique character with his unique abilities. The more efficient option is saving him, and I just don't see why it's a fair trade-off (yes, I understand the Relm thing, but again it's just a buff for the one of the remaining 13 characters).

I don't know, losing out on one heavy melee character in a game filled with heavy melee characters in exchange for buffing up a squishy mage doesn't sound like a bad trade to me, though I agree your second statement is most likely the original intent of the designers.

Fair enough. Wolf, have you ever played Alpha Protocol? Of every game I've ever played, AP is probably the best at rewarding choices with gameplay benefits. No matter what choice you make, your in-game character is built-up in some way for it. Give it a spin if you can.

I haven't played AP I'm afraid, of anything I have a huge backlog of games to get to (I just finished my first playthrough of Silent Hill 2 which I've owned for over four years now) but I may check it out since I hear a lot of good things about it.

That's not what I'm saying, though. In VII, it's easier and beneficial to ignore Materia you don't want to use because your characters have a limited space for abilities. To get them everything you want, you need to either make trade-offs or get creative. Placing useless Materia on a party member is pointless because it comes at the cost of removing something potentially valuable. So if you want your guys to be the killing machines you want them to be, you have to make a conscious trade-off of not removing the magic orbs that allow them to do the things they do. If you want Tifa to cast Barrier, great. But you need to remove Fire for her to do that, or HP Plus, or Deathblow. Or don't remove anything at all, but find another combination within your three-person party to allow you to work that ability in creatively. Maybe Tifa won't get it, but if you tweak it just so then maybe Red XIII will be able to get exactly the Barrier value you were looking for.

Well not quite, leveling useless materia can lead to getting the infinitely more useful and overpowered Master Materia so this really comes down to whether you are planning for the long game or just the short game. Obviously for a first timer it's short term which is where I'll concede your point but for a long term goal it's still useful to level everything, not to mention if your spending time leveling useful powerful materia, it wouldn't hurt to level up that garbage bin materia you haven't used for 60 hours, so effectively this is what I was getting at about leveling for the sake of leveling.

The other issue with VII's customization is that the game suffers from the same Achilles heel of VI and well most of the FFs have, which is that the game isn't difficult enough to warrant a complex strategy for the customization system it gives you. If you're debating about the merits of using Barrier over Deathblow materia, I would argue you don't really need either cause neither holds any real benefit for what the game throws at you. The most precise character customization will get you about the same results as a party that has the four elemental magics, a cure materia and maybe a summon or two. It's really more for the tinkering which many people (myself included) enjoy and in that regards, I understand where you are coming from.

The difference between this and VI is that in VI, the party is composed of 10-14 characters defined by their unique skills and the capacity to learn new abilities for good. Since they can learn everything, there's no reason to not have them learn everything aside from pouring hours of your life into the effort. Even if you play the game for about 35 hours (an average playtime at least as far as I'm concerned, not an insane post-game file) you'll find yourself filled up on abilities you want. Yes, you can neglect to give people certain abilities, but that's neglect and not meaningful customization. There is zero downside to teaching everybody everything, and worst of all, there's nothing to get in your way of from doing so.

To me, teaching characters skills you don't intend to use is not really beneficial, it's just busy work you give yourself, something to do while you're leveling other characters, and I do feel that teaching characters like Cyan and Sabin is actually harmful to them because it makes the player not use them to their full potential. The Magic system in VI is a crutch for newbie players, because the characters personal skills will only take you so far if you don't know what you are doing. Magic has just high enough damage potential to make the game a cakewalk but it's the abuse of the Esper's level up, gear twinking and relics that will bring out the most stupidly overpowered character builds. While I agree it's far less flexible than VII, I still don't feel it's detrimental, but that is probably just me.

I'm sure it does make a world of difference, but I don't think this makes a strong game at all, actually. It's still be a fun one, but I don't think it's strong design. What's your gameplay in not having everyone know Cure? Simply not equipping them with the stone that teaches them that ability? Not using your abilities to the fullest isn't avoiding "cheating" it's just a low-level run, or a gimp run, which you can do with any game. The problem with VI's customization system is that it's so damned open that actual customization for experienced players boils down to neglect rather than creative or meaningful tinkering. A regular, non-gimped playthrough will result in most characters being able to cast damn near everything.

Not really cause if you really understand the merits of the full system, you'll realize that magic is a bit of a red herring. Incredibly useful in the mid to later game but by end game it's not really as efficient as utilizing the party's inherent class skills or better utilizing the relics with equipment options. Terra is one of the most overpowered characters in the game and it's not because of Ultima. Even with the best spellcaster build you are still under-utilizing her and this is where the customization system of VI is beautiful because it's not about building the best team for any situation, it's about taking a characters talents and making the most out of it. You're literally trying to make the characters into better versions of themselves and when you start playing the game that way, you realize how much teaching magic to a character is a waste of your time, especially if you are going to be playing in the Coliseum (and you will be in this type of game cause gear/relics chump magic) teaching Cyan magic will make him more flexible but it won' make him better as a fighter. You need to build his stats with the espers, and you need to tinker with his relics and equipment to make him a stronger fighter and once you've done that, using a Cure spell is the last thing you will be caring about him doing in a battle. VI's system is about bringing out the full potential of your party, or it can be about making the most flexible party.

I don't think VII's is more "comprehensive". What it is, though, is more strict with the amount of breathing room it lets the player have. It also offers a lot of options and possible builds within the battle system it's designed for - on the one hand, you can't just throw everything at a character and have it stick but with enough creativity those characters also aren't limited to only doing certain things.

I say it's more comprehensive because it's VI's system taking apart a step further. Materia is basically the relic system where you equip skills it's just that VII broke magic down and made it work the same way though like VI the kept a lot of the spell families together. Also like the Esper system, the materia effects your stats though it's largely a transient handicap much like how the Esper's level up elements is a slow moving upgrade. It's not difficult to notice that Materia is ultimately a refined and evolved version of VI's various systems. Though I would argue BoFIII/IV are the true inheritor's of VI's customization system.

[WildRaubtier]

You're both losing sight of the original point - that is, Wolf Kanno is wrong about what customisation means. I'll just interject here with some proofs against his assertions.

Assume that once the option to learn a spell is available, all characters will be able to learn it instantly by grinding or so (this is unrealistic, yes, and incredibly so in 7's case). In 6, that means every character has every spell learnt and available at all times, no penalty, whenever you receive an esper that can teach that spell. In 7, however, this means you're actually FORCED to make ability decisions as early as you get Tifa (whose max ~2 materia slots at that point mean you're dropping half of Ice/Bolt/Fire/Cure).

Additionally, Master Materias simply grant access to all the stated abilities - they have limited/poor connectivity to support materias. The grind to get master materias is a lot more punishing, too.

There's definitely a point to be made about not teaching your dudes magic so that the RNG in the Colosseum has less actions to choose from, but really, that's just compensating for poor game design.

The other issue with VII's customization is that the game suffers from the same Achilles heel of VI and well most of the FFs have, which is that the game isn't difficult enough to warrant a complex strategy for the customization system it gives you.

This is mostly true, except for the fact that 7 gives you 2 enemies where your materia setup will actually matter, no matter how much grinding you've done.

For example:

[Wolf Kanno]

You're both losing sight of the original point - that is, Wolf Kanno is wrong about what customisation means. I'll just interject here with some proofs against his assertions.

Assume that once the option to learn a spell is available, all characters will be able to learn it instantly by grinding or so (this is unrealistic, yes, and incredibly so in 7's case). In 6, that means every character has every spell learnt and available at all times, no penalty, whenever you receive an esper that can teach that spell. In 7, however, this means you're actually FORCED to make ability decisions as early as you get Tifa (whose max ~2 materia slots at that point mean you're dropping half of Ice/Bolt/Fire/Cure).

Except you'll get plenty of gear to increase how much slots you have and since the main spells are all that matter(and are easy to obtain even in the beginning of the game), by the time you get to Junon your party is pretty set, only command materia will really set characters apart and between Steal, Enemy Skill, Sense, and Deathblow, you don't really have good options there either. Not to mention that Enemy Skill materia will largely diminish customization options if you pursue it because it easily replaces magic materia. In VI, the espers are given to you piece meal and several of your starting espers are not terribly useful so teaching everyone magic is kind of a mute point since Cait Sith is largely useless at this part of the game as well as your party largely being limited for the first half of the game due to story restrictions, so teaching every character every spell doesn't even become practical until you get the airship which is a good 15 hours into the game.

The issue with the argument is both of you are using the start of VII (limited options and gear) as the basis against the end game of VI (all espers available, all characters available, practical leveling points), when the truth is VI's esper system is pretty limited for awhile. Let's not forget the stat bonuses espers give and how the WoR espers give the better ones so you're kind of discouraged to seriously level until late in the game after you get everyone back and acquired all of the Espers if you're going for some serious applications of the system.

Additionally, Master Materias simply grant access to all the stated abilities - they have limited/poor connectivity to support materias. The grind to get master materias is a lot more punishing, too.

That's a load of bull, All Materia still works on magic materia, Quad still works on everything that was applicable to begin with, Elemental will literally make your character invincible. Sure Sneak attack and final attack don't work but they are pretty unnecessary for most things in the game anyway. The Master Command bug is pretty lethal. It's far from limited or poor, of anything it's improved since you don't have to deal with the "tough decisions". I'll give you leveling it is more time consuming but it's Acquisition is far more game breaking.

The other issue with VII's customization is that the game suffers from the same Achilles heel of VI and well most of the FFs have, which is that the game isn't difficult enough to warrant a complex strategy for the customization system it gives you.

This is mostly true, except for the fact that 7 gives you 2 enemies where your materia setup will actually matter, no matter how much grinding you've done.

For example:

Levels still matter for those fight if you want to make it easier, and technically neither WEAPON is actually all that hard; you don't need terribly complex materia configurations to beat them, hell I've beaten Ruby with four materia and it wasn't even a real challenge. If we're going to use superbosses as justification for overdeveloped and largely unnecessary customization systems then the GBA version of VI gives you the Dragon's Den with 18 bosses that actually require you to utilize the customization system fully. Any boss battle let alone a series of them that makes spamming Quick not feel like total cheese are some pretty nasty bosses in my book. It is the only part of the game that I feel fully warrants the need for every character to know every spell.

[WildRaubtier]

You're both losing sight of the original point - that is, Wolf Kanno is wrong about what customisation means. I'll just interject here with some proofs against his assertions.

Assume that once the option to learn a spell is available, all characters will be able to learn it instantly by grinding or so (this is unrealistic, yes, and incredibly so in 7's case). In 6, that means every character has every spell learnt and available at all times, no penalty, whenever you receive an esper that can teach that spell. In 7, however, this means you're actually FORCED to make ability decisions as early as you get Tifa (whose max ~2 materia slots at that point mean you're dropping half of Ice/Bolt/Fire/Cure).

Except you'll get plenty of gear to increase how much slots you have and since the main spells are all that matter(and are easy to obtain even in the beginning of the game), by the time you get to Junon your party is pretty set, only command materia will really set characters apart and between Steal, Enemy Skill, Sense, and Deathblow, you don't really have good options there either. Not to mention that Enemy Skill materia will largely diminish customization options if you pursue it because it easily replaces magic materia. In VI, the espers are given to you piece meal and several of your starting espers are not terribly useful so teaching everyone magic is kind of a mute point since Cait Sith is largely useless at this part of the game as well as your party largely being limited for the first half of the game due to story restrictions, so teaching every character every spell doesn't even become practical until you get the airship which is a good 15 hours into the game.

Completely irrelevant.

The issue with the argument is both of you are using the start of VII (limited options and gear) as the basis against the end game of VI (all espers available, all characters available, practical leveling points), when the truth is VI's esper system is pretty limited for awhile. Let's not forget the stat bonuses espers give and how the WoR espers give the better ones so you're kind of discouraged to seriously level until late in the game after you get everyone back and acquired all of the Espers if you're going for some serious applications of the system.

The issue you've described is non-existent after you follow the example through to its logical conclusion. By Junon, you're only going to have 6 or 7 materia slots per character for a lot more materia - something in the range of 15-20. Even at the end-game, you're limited to 16 slots for an entire collection of materia.

To be clear, the amount of abilities you have to choose from will grow much faster than your ability to use them.

Contrast with 6, where once you gain your first espers you already have 15 spells unconditionally.

Additionally, Master Materias simply grant access to all the stated abilities - they have limited/poor connectivity to support materias. The grind to get master materias is a lot more punishing, too.

That's a load of bull, All Materia still works on magic materia, Quad still works on everything that was applicable to begin with, Elemental will literally make your character invincible.

Yes, the bog standard support materia like added cut and steal as well will still work normally - however, the advanced support materias like Counter will perform randomly (ie poor connectivity), or Elemental materia which, contrary to your assertion, does the exact same thing as any other materia without an elemental affiliation listed as well as providing no benefit whatsoever to added effect (ie limited connectivity).

Finally, there's no "Master Support" materia which means it's impossible to have every support effect with every ability, unlike 6 (which is a bogus assertion anyway because there's no equivalent).

Sure Sneak attack and final attack don't work but they are pretty unnecessary for most things in the game anyway. The Master Command bug is pretty lethal. It's far from limited or poor, of anything it's improved since you don't have to deal with the "tough decisions". I'll give you leveling it is more time consuming but it's Acquisition is far more game breaking.

Again, completely irrelevant. You're just attacking 7's system here, instead of trying to make any supporting arguments for what makes 6's system "customisation" and not just the same weak opinion everyone else keeps refuting.

The other issue with VII's customization is that the game suffers from the same Achilles heel of VI and well most of the FFs have, which is that the game isn't difficult enough to warrant a complex strategy for the customization system it gives you.

This is mostly true, except for the fact that 7 gives you 2 enemies where your materia setup will actually matter, no matter how much grinding you've done.

For example:

Levels still matter for those fight if you want to make it easier, and technically neither WEAPON is actually all that hard; you don't need terribly complex materia configurations to beat them, hell I've beaten Ruby with four materia and it wasn't even a real challenge. If we're going to use superbosses as justification for overdeveloped and largely unnecessary customization systems then the GBA version of VI gives you the Dragon's Den with 18 bosses that actually require you to utilize the customization system fully. Any boss battle let alone a series of them that makes spamming Quick not feel like total cheese are some pretty nasty bosses in my book. It is the only part of the game that I feel fully warrants the need for every character to know every spell.

Compare to 6, where the hardest enemies can still be beat by simply holding down X on fight at level 99. You need more than that for Ruby/Emerald.

We'll have to wait for the inevitable remake of 7 to settle that second point, though, since it's not really fair to be comparing original content to re-release content

[Flying Arrow]

I don't know, losing out on one heavy melee character in a game filled with heavy melee characters in exchange for buffing up a squishy mage doesn't sound like a bad trade to me, though I agree your second statement is most likely the original intent of the designers.

This is a terrible trade, especially since the second half of the game throws multi-party dungeons at you. Kefka's Tower asks you to build a team of 12 to take it down - losing Shadow means losing one of the 14 possible characters for that section. This means you're forced to use one more of the four gimmick characters (Gau, Mog, Gogo, Umaro) rather than a fully-decked-out heavy.

And I just want to also say that this fully-decked-out heavy with a unique Throw ability is way less grind-intensive than a lot of the other characters in the game. Without this heavy in your party have fun jumping through all the hoops to make Gau, Strago, or Mog interesting or at all fun to use. Also, have fun teaching Esper spells to Relm that everyone else already knows because, well, you tossed Shadow in the garbage to give her a more central role in the party.

The other issue with VII's customization is that the game suffers from the same Achilles heel of VI and well most of the FFs have, which is that the game isn't difficult enough to warrant a complex strategy for the customization system it gives you. If you're debating about the merits of using Barrier over Deathblow materia, I would argue you don't really need either cause neither holds any real benefit for what the game throws at you. The most precise character customization will get you about the same results as a party that has the four elemental magics, a cure materia and maybe a summon or two. It's really more for the tinkering which many people (myself included) enjoy and in that regards, I understand where you are coming from.

This isn't a problem with the customization system, though. This is a problem with the game balance. As games, both VI and VII give you 10,000 guns when all you need are 5 or 6. This is true, mega-bosses or not (which make up < 1% of the playtime).

As individual customization systems it's the difference between giving the player a hand full of stuff to grind and permanently unlock and giving the player hand full of stuff that is already usable but can only be used selectively under certain stipulations. Both allow for "customization" in that the player can tailor his party just so, but only one isn't a grindy checklist open to every character and doesn't result in the player not beefing up his characters because the system itself holds the weight of a feather.

Think of FFVIII and the Draw mechanic. Why not just draw one spell and then have that character know it permanently, instead of making it a scaling inventory that incentivizes drawing 100 of every spell. This is just time-wasting, plain and simple, and most players have been saying this for years as the major flaw of VIII. Either get rid of the draw mechanic, create an alternative way to value spell totals re: Junctioning, or force some kind of limit on who can use what (rather than that limit being you don't want to waste your whole life drawing 3 sets of 100 Fire).

VI's system begs a similar question of, if there's no distinction or limit on usage, why not just GIVE everyone everything the second it becomes available and cut out the bulltrout grinding and swapping. But if they did this, there'd be no point to whole system. Their solution was to hide a checklist of skills behind miles of grinding, obscuring the issue.

Well not quite, leveling useless materia can lead to getting the infinitely more useful and overpowered Master Materia so this really comes down to whether you are planning for the long game or just the short game. Obviously for a first timer it's short term which is where I'll concede your point but for a long term goal it's still useful to level everything, not to mention if your spending time leveling useful powerful materia, it wouldn't hurt to level up that garbage bin materia you haven't used for 60 hours, so effectively this is what I was getting at about leveling for the sake of leveling.

Any garbage bin Materia you're leveling (and this is the argument) takes the place of something else in your team's Materia build. You can't level everything at once. So if you want to waste a slot beefing up Mystify, say goodbye to Steal, or Sense, or Deathblow, etc.

Not to mention, the ultimate payoff (Master Materia) is much more demanding than about anything in VI. To get the Master Magic, for instance, you need to level up every green orb, including the one you only find in the game's final stage. Not only that, but say you don't stop the train in North Corel...

Whether the Master Magic requirements are good design or not, getting Master Magic is akin to a late-game bonus. Yes, it kind of dumps some of the customization intrigue of the Materia system, but it's buried way at the end of a game in which you've already been forced to play it straight for 95% of it.

In VI, you're bogged down with worthless spells (as you'll yourself argue) and Espers before the halfway point. Since the game hands out ABP so liberally, you're expected to have started swapping and filling out the Esper checklist before you escape Zozo.

No other RPG makes me dread actually learning abilities for my dudes. Once you take down a 20ABP boss and your whole team clears 2 or 3 skills each, it's time to either play the swapping game or start making the cut on what you want people to learn because it adds nothing of value to their build. If the former, you're homogenizing and not customizing. If the latter, you're literally not playing part of the game.

To me, teaching characters skills you don't intend to use is not really beneficial, it's just busy work you give yourself, something to do while you're leveling other characters, and I do feel that teaching characters like Cyan and Sabin is actually harmful to them because it makes the player not use them to their full potential.

I don't see how this is the case. Most players can see that Blitzes (for instance) are generally much more effective than most spells that Sabin can cast. But even if this is the case, you're now saying that VI's magic system is such an ill-conceived monstrosity that it actually hampers gameplay (it sucks, yeah, but it doesn't hamper character builds).

The Magic system in VI is a crutch for newbie players, because the characters personal skills will only take you so far if you don't know what you are doing. Magic has just high enough damage potential to make the game a cakewalk but it's the abuse of the Esper's level up, gear twinking and relics that will bring out the most stupidly overpowered character builds. While I agree it's far less flexible than VII, I still don't feel it's detrimental, but that is probably just me.

Using Blitz or Tools is much more intuitive than all the tedious swapping and spreadsheet-checking the Esper system encourages. Maybe by the end everyone is belting out Ultima and Cure3 to beat Kefka because the game has allowed the player to at absolutely no cost and very little time spent - but, well, therein lies the problem with this crutch of a system.

It being less flexible to VII isn't even the issue, though. We've (at least I have) been bringing VII into the conversation to shine a clearer light on what VI brings to the table with its systems.

EDIT:

I wanted to respond to this before the next volley of posts:

Equipping different gear does not equal customisation. I feel like I've been trusting this argument too much to intuition, so I'm going to provide the following assertion for others to challenge: "Equipment boils down to, optional or otherwise, story driven (read: accessibility) attribute bonuses akin to leveling. This is limited by static character class and therefore not uniquely customisable."

In FFVI (and most FF games) gear generally does not equal customization. It's a linear progression from Iron to Steel to Bronze to Gold to whathaveyou. Bigger numbers as a result of getting to the next section of the game where enemies have strong numbers (so the player must, too).

Occasionally these pieces of equipment have a property that make them beneficial in some way for certain sections, but that's about it and is not unlike equipping the relevant ring. Not equipping, for instance, the Ice-absorbing Armor for the Ice Cave generally provides no benefit. The characters generally lose nothing for having a piece of equipment that either negates or absorbs damage. Not using the Ice Armor in this situation is a gimp-run and nothing more (much like not teaching your characters every Esper spell you can is a low-level run rather than customization).

So in the case of FF games, I think your statement is true. The only time it's not true is if a game is designed to focus not on bigger numbers, but unique properties, options and the dynamic between character and equipment.

[Greatermaximus]

It looks like you're trying to figure out the availability of the power. Here's an idea.

"The author's creativity, and the reader's ability to suspend disbelief."

FFVI did well with a diversified cast and their own special power. It's understandable any character can learn any spell because of the immense chemical composition of the universe.

Why should we forbid something like Edgar can't learn Ice 3 and Gau can't learn Cure 3?

It wouldn't make sense? I'm glad they made magic universal at the time. If a character can't use magic then they'd gain some other perk. Umaro for example can't learn magic and is out of control but he is suppose to do more physical damage.

Though anyone can think of other/better characters to create/play.

[Wolf Kanno]

The issue you've described is non-existent after you follow the example through to its logical conclusion. By Junon, you're only going to have 6 or 7 materia slots per character for a lot more materia - something in the range of 15-20. Even at the end-game, you're limited to 16 slots for an entire collection of materia.

To be clear, the amount of abilities you have to choose from will grow much faster than your ability to use them.

Contrast with 6, where once you gain your first espers you already have 15 spells unconditionally.

Except Espers are not the sum total of the customization system, you still have relics which are more useful in-game not to mention that of said 15 spells, only four of them are useful at this point of the game and I seriously doubt you'll be using any of them by end game either.

This is also the issue with materia in VII. The game isn't difficult, you won' be needing all the materia you get, which means that your options are largely cosmetic and not practical. You'll eventually stop using a lot of the materia cause not only can you get most of the benefits of the materia from just Enemy Skill but you can eventually get just better alternatives like replacing elemental materia with Summons. Ultimately you'll still most likely end up with a clone army by games end.

Yes, the bog standard support materia like added cut and steal as well will still work normally - however, the advanced support materias like Counter will perform randomly (ie poor connectivity), or Elemental materia which, contrary to your assertion, does the exact same thing as any other materia without an elemental affiliation listed as well as providing no benefit whatsoever to added effect (ie limited connectivity).

Finally, there's no "Master Support" materia which means it's impossible to have every support effect with every ability, unlike 6 (which is a bogus assertion anyway because there's no equivalent).

This is mostly true, except for the fact that 7 gives you 2 enemies where your materia setup will actually matter, no matter how much grinding you've done.

Except you don't need the advanced support materia to beat this game. It's not terribly hard and god knows the ultimate weapons and level 3 and 4 limit breaks will do most of the work of anything the story or arena will throw at you. You need the Counter Magic materia for exactly two fights and a game that has to build it's battle system around an optional boss fight is just silly if you ask me since it should be designed around the use of the whole game. Barring the special materia needed for the WEAPONs let's face it, VII is as hard as a wet piece of paper. You don't need most of the deep customization for 99% of the game since hitting X will do fine as well. The rest of the game isn't really a matter of tough choices either, like equipment you simply replace weak materia with stronger materia. Just how in VI while you can teach everyone every spell, you are most likely going to use five of them by the end cause the rest of your spells are either weak or impractical. Teaching everyone to use Muddle doesn't really weaken the overall game since you'll use it once on one playthrough and ignore it forever afterwards.

Compare to 6, where the hardest enemies can still be beat by simply holding down X on fight at level 99. You need more than that for Ruby/Emerald.

We'll have to wait for the inevitable remake of 7 to settle that second point, though, since it's not really fair to be comparing original content to re-release content

trout GBA VI wasn't even a remake just a port, nothing stopping SE from letting the Steam version of VII get some extra love outside of perhaps the studio not having the capability to make cruddy 3D graphics like that anymore. Yet seriously the GBA rematched with the Dragons are actually really clever and challenging, from Fire Dragon that has a move that makes him immune to damage, to Zombie Dragon only being able to be killed by having his MP depleted to the fact their stats are high enough to actually decimate my Lv. 75+ party with any of their skills.

This is a terrible trade, especially since the second half of the game throws multi-party dungeons at you. Kefka's Tower asks you to build a team of 12 to take it down - losing Shadow means losing one of the 14 possible characters for that section. This means you're forced to use one more of the four gimmick characters (Gau, Mog, Gogo, Umaro) rather than a fully-decked-out heavy.

And I just want to also say that this fully-decked-out heavy with a unique Throw ability is way less grind-intensive than a lot of the other characters in the game. Without this heavy in your party have fun jumping through all the hoops to make Gau, Strago, or Mog interesting or at all fun to use. Also, have fun teaching Esper spells to Relm that everyone else already knows because, well, you tossed Shadow in the garbage to give her a more central role in the party.

It's a choice dude and perhaps the player likes the more grind heavy gimmick party members though Umaro and Mog hardly count, Mog can actually be built into a better Heavy melee fighter than Shadow actually (Holy Lance, Dragoon Boots, Dragon Horn). Not to mention if you know what you're doing Gau and Strago are not too difficult either since you can simply just teach them their useful abilities. You're also forgetting that Relm is actually the game's best Mage barring Terra in her Trance form. Even with low level magic she can do as much damage as most of the character using Tier 2 spells. Making the best mage more powerful and freeing up Terra or Celes to go melee with their access to the best weapons in the game is not a bad deal.

This isn't a problem with the customization system, though. This is a problem with the game balance. As games, both VI and VII give you 10,000 guns when all you need are 5 or 6. This is true, mega-bosses or not (which make up < 1% of the playtime).

As individual customization systems it's the difference between giving the player a hand full of stuff to grind and permanently unlock and giving the player hand full of stuff that is already usable but can only be used selectively under certain stipulations. Both allow for "customization" in that the player can tailor his party just so, but only one isn't a grindy checklist open to every character and doesn't result in the player not beefing up his characters because the system itself holds the weight of a feather.

Except the lack of game balance largely makes VII's customization cosmetic, I don't even use Materia much anymore in playthroughs cause it's silly to reconfigure the party when I know I'm not really going to use them. Not to mention as I said before, Materia largely works like equipment in that you simply replace weak materia for stronger materia. If you are still using Fire and Ice materia for their tier 3 spells by Disc 3 for more than just laughs, then you really don't know what you're doing with the system. In VI you do permanently teach spells but most of them you'll probably never use and other will be useless. Yes I can teach everyone Fire Blizzard, and Thunder but I seriously doubt I'll still be using them by end game. Most of the end game spells have low learning rates, are restricted to usually one Esper, and there are better alternatives through relic and equipment combinations for several of the characters that teaching them is useless. Honestly the magic system's failing is kind of a moot criticism if you ask me.

Think of FFVIII and the Draw mechanic. Why not just draw one spell and then have that character know it permanently, instead of making it a scaling inventory that incentivizes drawing 100 of every spell. This is just time-wasting, plain and simple, and most players have been saying this for years as the major flaw of VIII. Either get rid of the draw mechanic, create an alternative way to value spell totals re: Junctioning, or force some kind of limit on who can use what (rather than that limit being you don't want to waste your whole life drawing 3 sets of 100 Fire).

Well no, you do have better alternatives for gaining magic in VIII, it's the refinement system and it's what really breaks the games balance. Draw is grindy but I actually happen to like the novelty of it, though I do use it sparingly and it still has the draw/cast ability as well which is useful if situational. Likewise the limited usefulness of several magics makes it pointless to always try for 100 of every spell. In fact while it's useful to have 100 of every spell, it's not actually useful or practical for you to have 100 of every spell for every character.

VI's system begs a similar question of, if there's no distinction or limit on usage, why not just GIVE everyone everything the second it becomes available and cut out the bulltrout grinding and swapping. But if they did this, there'd be no point to whole system. Their solution was to hide a checklist of skills behind miles of grinding, obscuring the issue.

Well you don't have to and you don't need to. I feel your issue here is one more about obsessive compulsiveness than one about practibility. As I said, there is no reason to teach several of the characters magic because they have better customization options that are more practical and powerful than magic. Your argument is simply that because VI doesn't physically limit the player that the system is weak because you feel compelled to teach every character every spell because the game gives you the option to do so. So to me, this logic is akin to me saying that I can make all my characters in VII into clones with the materia system and the system sucks because of it and my reason is because that since the game gives me the option to do it, that I have to. The reality is that to me this is really more of the player's problem than the games design, it's like the people who hate on the License Board because you can teach every character every skill and use of every equipment.

Of anything XII is probably worse than what you are saying cause it's actually possible to get multiples of most equipment meaning you can build a virtual clone party that's only differentiated by minor stats and graphics. Whereas in VI, some characters are not cut out to be using magic (Cyan, Gogo, Locke) have skills that are more useful than magic(Shadow, Sabin, Edgar), or equipment builds that are more powerful than magic(Terra, Celes, Locke, Mog, Edgar). If you think being able to teach every character Ultima permanently breaks the game, then you really don't know how to customize in this game and bring out the best in the party.

Any garbage bin Materia you're leveling (and this is the argument) takes the place of something else in your team's Materia build. You can't level everything at once. So if you want to waste a slot beefing up Mystify, say goodbye to Steal, or Sense, or Deathblow, etc.

I don't think Sense or Deathblow are really a serious loss for the player. I mean we are talking abut a game where straight melee is often the most practical option in battles. This just comes back to the issue that the customization is fluff cause very few of the materia is worth using and that you're most likely to have one or two materia equipped for the sake of it. The Sense materia is a great example because it's utterly useless but chances are you do have someone equipped with one or both that are available before you leave Midgard largely cause you got free open slots that need to be plugged up unless you spent money on getting more of the Cure and basic elemental magic at which point I would point out you're not making the tough choices you keep talking about.

I mean there is no reason to not have the basic elemental materia on your party until they get useless around Disc 2. By then you've upgraded to Comet, Ultima and the plethroa of summons. The customization only really kicks in when you are dealing with rare one of a kind materia and you have to choose who gets it but this is a transient hang-up since mastering materia means you get a new one so potentially every character can be a clone of each other. The "customization" only happens for short periods of time but overall I am more likely to be looking at a party of Red Mages with a few command skills that differentiate them.

Not to mention, the ultimate payoff (Master Materia) is much more demanding than about anything in VI. To get the Master Magic, for instance, you need to level up every green orb, including the one you only find in the game's final stage. Not only that, but say you don't stop the train in North Corel...

Yes it's true you can fail to get all the big Materia to get all the Master Materia but even then, it's not like you really need to be using every spell or ability master materia gives you. Also, despite what you may think, it's actually possible to permanently lose some of the espers in VI so it's not like they are a given either. Also since it's difficult to get consistently high ABP from Cauctaurs and Slagworms tend to use Sneeze before death to screw you out of their ABP, you are still looking at having to go through anywhere from 250-500 battles to teach everyone one end game spell like Re-Raise or Ultima, just like grinding to get copies of the unique endgame materia or Master Materia in VII is also impractical because of the huge grind. This grinding is suppose to detour you from teaching everyone every spell. Teaching every character magic in VI is like trying to get to level 99 in any RPG, just cause you can, doesn't mean the developers meant for you to do so.

Whether the Master Magic requirements are good design or not, getting Master Magic is akin to a late-game bonus. Yes, it kind of dumps some of the customization intrigue of the Materia system, but it's buried way at the end of a game in which you've already been forced to play it straight for 95% of it.

Yes and Crusader itself is most likely going to be gained at the final dungeon as well which makes it impractical to teach Meltdown to every character since it arrives so late. Meaning unless you take the time to grind, you are not going to be able to teach every spell to every character.

In VI, you're bogged down with worthless spells (as you'll yourself argue) and Espers before the halfway point. Since the game hands out ABP so liberally, you're expected to have started swapping and filling out the Esper checklist before you escape Zozo.

No other RPG makes me dread actually learning abilities for my dudes. Once you take down a 20ABP boss and your whole team clears 2 or 3 skills each, it's time to either play the swapping game or start making the cut on what you want people to learn because it adds nothing of value to their build. If the former, you're homogenizing and not customizing. If the latter, you're literally not playing part of the game.

Now you're just being dramatic, first off, you are pretty much at Zozo's entrance and past your time there by the time the game gives you access to your four espers. The average ABP you get in the WoB is 3 and that's when you reach the Sealed Cave about a good eight hours later, until then it's just 1 or 2 ABP per battle meaning that trying to teach all four of your party members every spell you have access to will take about 200 to 400 battles, considering stats only increase through espers and you're extremely limited at this point, you've just shot yourself in the foot cause you wasted about 20 levels to teach characters spells that will be easier to acquire later on. The average you get in the WoR is 4-5 so I wouldn't call that "liberally giving ABP" also bosses don't give that much ABP either until near the game's end. Yes there are APB grind points in both sections but depending on which version you are playing you are not likely to be bothering with this until WoR.

The last part of your quote pretty much goes back to the heart of the argument here which is that I don't believe teaching magic to every character has to be done. If you are not going to use it then why bother? It's like making Bartz in V master classes like Tamer or Black Mage despite the fact you have no intention of ever using them, but you do it cause your wasting all that valuable ABP by sticking to practical classes that fit your party and you've already mastered the classes you want. The Esper teaching magic is not the whole of the game's customization, it's a combination of teaching magic, raising stats, and the relics.

I don't see how this is the case. Most players can see that Blitzes (for instance) are generally much more effective than most spells that Sabin can cast. But even if this is the case, you're now saying that VI's magic system is such an ill-conceived monstrosity that it actually hampers gameplay (it sucks, yeah, but it doesn't hamper character builds).

Not really, because all I'm saying is that it only really benefits certain characters, Relm for instance can't learn magic but she has the highest MA stat so teaching her magic is of great benefit. On the other hand, she has a crappy physical stat so obviously I wouldn't equip her with the Genji Gloves/offering combo so choosing not to give her that set despite the fact it would undoubtedly improve her attack power is not saying I'm choosing to weaken her by not giving her something that would improve her versatility instead I am choosing not to give it to her cause it's more practical with characters with better builds. Likewise, I don't need to teach Sabin fire magic but I'll still use espers to raise his strength and Magic to improve the power of his Blitzes, and I'll equip him with an Atlas Armlet or Hero Ring to raise their power more. He's not weaken or strengthened by not knowing fire magic and I still customized him with the games other features.

Using Blitz or Tools is much more intuitive than all the tedious swapping and spreadsheet-checking the Esper system encourages. Maybe by the end everyone is belting out Ultima and Cure3 to beat Kefka because the game has allowed the player to at absolutely no cost and very little time spent - but, well, therein lies the problem with this crutch of a system.

It being less flexible to VII isn't even the issue, though. We've (at least I have) been bringing VII into the conversation to shine a clearer light on what VI brings to the table with its systems.

I don't agree that the game encourages the teaching of magic to every character, it encourages using the espers but they have another function besides teaching magic and that actually is beneficial to every character it applies to. The relic system is also more useful for certain character over others The customization of the game is not about teaching every character every possible skill, it's about maximizing their strengths and the system does this beautifully even if the game isn't difficult enough to warrant the level of brokenness you can build. You can't treat it like it's VII where you are handed some blank canvesses and the game has to force you to limit your options just so you could add some personality to their play-style. Instead VI gives you a cast of characters that are unique from each other both in skills, stats, and equipment options, while the game gives you the freedom to let everyone use almost everything. These three limitations are suppose to guide you in how to utilize them with the games three systems of customization. It's not about building a party it's about tweaking them cause the game already gives you a party and you could just as well complete the game without ever using relics or espers because the party is already diverse and has roles. The system just allow the player flexibility.

I'm sorry you feel compelled to grind and teach everyone every spell but I then would ask if you do this in the rest of the series as well, do you complete the Sphere Grid in every playthrough of X and make sure to maximize the board as well?, get 100 of every spell in VIII for every character? master every job in FFV for every character? max every spell, stat, and weapon in II? or get a set of master materia for every character in VII? No? Why? because it's impractical? well guess what so is teaching magic to every character in VI and I would say that VI compels you do to so as much as every one of those other games compels you to do what I stated. The games you mentioned doing so only shows they are low hanging fruit compared to the ones you don't, and my argument is that you shouldn't be eating the fruit in the first place cause completionist games are for people who have way too much free time on their hand.

In FFVI (and most FF games) gear generally does not equal customization. It's a linear progression from Iron to Steel to Bronze to Gold to whathaveyou. Bigger numbers as a result of getting to the next section of the game where enemies have strong numbers (so the player must, too).

Occasionally these pieces of equipment have a property that make them beneficial in some way for certain sections, but that's about it and is not unlike equipping the relevant ring. Not equipping, for instance, the Ice-absorbing Armor for the Ice Cave generally provides no benefit. The characters generally lose nothing for having a piece of equipment that either negates or absorbs damage. Not using the Ice Armor in this situation is a gimp-run and nothing more (much like not teaching your characters every Esper spell you can is a low-level run rather than customization).

So in the case of FF games, I think your statement is true. The only time it's not true is if a game is designed to focus not on bigger numbers, but unique properties, options and the dynamic between character and equipment.

I disagree about VI being purely a linear progression, weapons like the the Flametongue appear midway through the WoB and have properties that can keep them practical until the WoR. Locke himself can choose to use Dagger weapons that often give him stat boosts or a special elemental attribute or ability, but he can also use his Thief weapons that allow him to attack from the back row and have a chance of doing extremely high damage with it's special critical hits. Taking advantage of the special property of spear damage combined with dragoon boots means Edgar can bypass statistically better weapons as early as the Magitek Factory. VI is also one of the few games where the best weapon is debatable between the Ultima Weapon, Ragnarok, or Lightbringer and it really comes down to how you build your party which is more practical. I would argue that VI is one of the few FFs that bucks the trend of linear progression of equipment. The others being FFII, FFV, and then the PS2-PS3 entries.



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Ultimately guys, I feel it's time to just say we agree to disagree cause I feel we've reached a point where we're repeating ourselves cause we all just have a different angle on this subject and we're all pretty stubborn about our positions. It has been insightful and I enjoyed discussing this with everyone, but I'm bowing out cause I don't feel we're going to make any headway in this discussion.

[Flying Arrow]

Except the lack of game balance largely makes VII's customization cosmetic, I don't even use Materia much anymore in playthroughs cause it's silly to reconfigure the party when I know I'm not really going to use them. Not to mention as I said before, Materia largely works like equipment in that you simply replace weak materia for stronger materia. If you are still using Fire and Ice materia for their tier 3 spells by Disc 3 for more than just laughs, then you really don't know what you're doing with the system. In VI you do permanently teach spells but most of them you'll probably never use and other will be useless. Yes I can teach everyone Fire Blizzard, and Thunder but I seriously doubt I'll still be using them by end game. Most of the end game spells have low learning rates, are restricted to usually one Esper, and there are better alternatives through relic and equipment combinations for several of the characters that teaching them is useless. Honestly the magic system's failing is kind of a moot criticism if you ask me.

Any garbage bin Materia you're leveling (and this is the argument) takes the place of something else in your team's Materia build. You can't level everything at once. So if you want to waste a slot beefing up Mystify, say goodbye to Steal, or Sense, or Deathblow, etc.

I don't think Sense or Deathblow are really a serious loss for the player. I mean we are talking abut a game where straight melee is often the most practical option in battles. This just comes back to the issue that the customization is fluff cause very few of the materia is worth using and that you're most likely to have one or two materia equipped for the sake of it. The Sense materia is a great example because it's utterly useless but chances are you do have someone equipped with one or both that are available before you leave Midgard largely cause you got free open slots that need to be plugged up unless you spent money on getting more of the Cure and basic elemental magic at which point I would point out you're not making the tough choices you keep talking about.

I mean there is no reason to not have the basic elemental materia on your party until they get useless around Disc 2. By then you've upgraded to Comet, Ultima and the plethroa of summons. The customization only really kicks in when you are dealing with rare one of a kind materia and you have to choose who gets it but this is a transient hang-up since mastering materia means you get a new one so potentially every character can be a clone of each other. The "customization" only happens for short periods of time but overall I am more likely to be looking at a party of Red Mages with a few command skills that differentiate them.

I get you have high-level knowledge of literally everything in every game, but none of this is the point (except I like where you admit the abilities in VI are useless, because they're so liberally distributed and basically do nothing of value. Yes, I agree the Esper system is dumb and sucks.).

Your argument is simply that because VI doesn't physically limit the player that the system is weak because you feel compelled to teach every character every spell because the game gives you the option to do so. So to me, this logic is akin to me saying that I can make all my characters in VII into clones with the materia system and the system sucks because of it and my reason is because that since the game gives me the option to do it, that I have to. The reality is that to me this is really more of the player's problem than the games design, it's like the people who hate on the License Board because you can teach every character every skill and use of every equipment.

It's not weak because of my compulsion (I don't have a compulsion to grind abilities for everyone anyway) it's weak because it gives everything and demands nearly nothing (besides grinding, which only takes up player time and leaves no mark on the actual game itself besides making characters better in small increments as a side-effect).

Giving all your characters the same abilities in VII is the player's choice, but they can't give everyone everything, which is what you can do in VI and which begins to happen naturally over the course of the game.

Yes and Crusader itself is most likely going to be gained at the final dungeon as well which makes it impractical to teach Meltdown to every character since it arrives so late. Meaning unless you take the time to grind, you are not going to be able to teach every spell to every character.

No, only most of the spells, and you can still add this one to the checklists at no cost (but player time and character strengthening).

Now you're just being dramatic, first off, you are pretty much at Zozo's entrance and past your time there by the time the game gives you access to your four espers. The average ABP you get in the WoB is 3 and that's when you reach the Sealed Cave about a good eight hours later, until then it's just 1 or 2 ABP per battle meaning that trying to teach all four of your party members every spell you have access to will take about 200 to 400 battles, considering stats only increase through espers and you're extremely limited at this point, you've just shot yourself in the foot cause you wasted about 20 levels to teach characters spells that will be easier to acquire later on. The average you get in the WoR is 4-5 so I wouldn't call that "liberally giving ABP" also bosses don't give that much ABP either until near the game's end. Yes there are APB grind points in both sections but depending on which version you are playing you are not likely to be bothering with this until WoR.

Fine, as you leave Zozo and head to Jidoor.

Anyway - the first Esper you get is Ramuh. The easiest spell to learn from Ramuh is learned at a clip of 10x. Say you learn 2 ABP per fight walking on the World Map. In 5 fights Locke will learn Thunder. In 5 more, Celes can learn it. 5 more, Cyan, etc. Yes, different things are learned at different rates, but the natural progression of the game let the members of your team learn the lion's share of what the Espers have to offer. I'd call this liberal. Not having at least two characters learn Thunder by around the time you set foot back in Jidoor I'd call neglect. What I wouldn't call it is customization.

Not to mention, the ultimate payoff (Master Materia) is much more demanding than about anything in VI. To get the Master Magic, for instance, you need to level up every green orb, including the one you only find in the game's final stage. Not only that, but say you don't stop the train in North Corel...

Yes it's true you can fail to get all the big Materia to get all the Master Materia but even then, it's not like you really need to be using every spell or ability master materia gives you. Also, despite what you may think, it's actually possible to permanently lose some of the espers in VI so it's not like they are a given either. Also since it's difficult to get consistently high ABP from Cauctaurs and Slagworms tend to use Sneeze before death to screw you out of their ABP, you are still looking at having to go through anywhere from 250-500 battles to teach everyone one end game spell like Re-Raise or Ultima, just like grinding to get copies of the unique endgame materia or Master Materia in VII is also impractical because of the huge grind. This grinding is suppose to detour you from teaching everyone every spell. Teaching every character magic in VI is like trying to get to level 99 in any RPG, just cause you can, doesn't mean the developers meant for you to do so.

In VI (I'm going to make one last comparison to VII, and not a value judgment of VII), every character's gateway to knowing everything is barred by grinding. Do the grinding (which isn't even that demanding), and you know everything. In VII, the gateway to knowing everything is... the game itself. As in, you literally cannot give someone every ability at once (barring the endgame secret Materias). It doesn't matter that Deathblow sucks or whatever is garbage, this argument is about what the game does and does not allow the player to do with/to his party over the course of the game.