If you could change one thing about this game

[Pumpkin]

What would you change? I would give access to the Espers earlier on.

[VeloZer0]

I would have liked something a little more in depth about the character set up/customization. Not a full on 'everyone is a freelancer' type deal, I think the character's abilities fit in very well with their character design/personality. But tinkering with my party is an element I really enjoy in RPGs.

[Wolf Kanno]

I would re-balance the game, there are a few minor things I would change but overall I've always felt VI had a good customization system and battle system set-up that just had a difficult time achieving it's potential because several abilities and magic are overpowered and some of the enemies could have put up more of a fight. I mean Kefka is like one of the first bosses in the series for me who made me really dread the final battle yet he is such a curb stomp battle it isn't funny so yeah. Fix the game's difficulty and re-balance it so the player has more incentive to take notice of their options and build better parties.

[NeoCracker]

Yeah, re balancing would be nice. The game is kind of easy.

However, the big thing I would actually want to change is character diversity. By end game it really stops mattering who you use due to the customization system. It takes some time to get there, yes, but dammit give me some real reasons to use the other characters! That's always been what bugged me about VI is it's the game that started this trend, even if later titles got worse about it.

[Rez09]

If I'm understanding your comment properly, that being basically indistinguishable/carbon copy end game characters, then I find most entries in the series have that problem. In FF2, for instance, I slap identical spells on all of my members and just power-level fists and swords, so endgame Firion is basically identical to Maria and Guy; in FF3 I pick two characters to be heal slaves and two for functional DPS, but it doesn't particularly matter who I pick for which job -- they're all the same anyway. Ditto for FFV.

That said, I absolutely agree with the sentiment -- it's a shame I basically soft-dummy Shadow's throw command late game to make him a second Terra because it is far and away the most effective option for him. The same goes for genji glove + offering most of the cast for what becomes the same 8-attack character. Though there are some oddballs -- I'll forever make Mog a dragoon despite how useless it really is and Gau is eating himself Merit-Award + Tempest Wheaties no matter what he thinks -- your point, as I understood it, still stands, and I do feel it is one of the weakest aspects of the game.

With that in mind, lessening the power of certain relics and spells while also re-balancing specific monsters and character abilities to strengthen character definition strikes me as probably the best way to improve the game.

The throw command, for instance, is actually a surprisingly effective way to gain access to some of the rarer elemental damage types, such as wind, holy, poison, and water, not to mention early invisibility and blink access, but it never really matters -- bosses aren't resistant enough to other common elements, or weak enough to these ones, to warrant wasting the money on throwing these items most of the time, and it's also rare for enemies to be enough of a threat that one really benefits from invisibility or blink, even in boss fights.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Blitz command is over-useful and strong enough to trivialize most normal encounters in the game -- a trait shared with at least the Auto-Crossbow and Flash tools. This is especially unfortunate considering Edgar's access to the Noiseblaster and Debilitator tools are largely ignored due to this, and Sabin's Pummel and Suplex skills are nigh useless. Barring the first trip to Zozo, there really is no advantage to confusing groups of enemies instead of AoE nuking them with common spells and Auto-Crossbow/Flash, and there is never any real reason to waste a turn using the Debilitator when you can just mindlessly bash whatever boss is in front of you at least as effectively; similarly, there are no bosses or enemies with defenses high enough to really warrant using pummel to ignore their defense, especially considering Sabin's access to so many powerful magic-based blitzes, and since he is generally equipped with earrings instead of a hyper wrist due to this significantly better magic scaling, the 'high' bonus damage Suplex inflicts to single targets is, at best, negligible -- assuming it will even hit the enemy. Despite being a Monk, by the time Ultima and Quick roll around he's as likely to be rolling around in magic as anyone else who isn't a Yeti, assuming the player is aiming for efficiency, and if not he's using Bum Rush for (magic-based) single target damage, which ends up being his (weaker) version of the Offering-Genji Glove flavored 'attack' option other characters will be rocking. His ability to deal defense-ignoring physical damage is trivial, his access to holy and fire damage is ignored, and his AoE healing abilities are outclassed, and Edgar ends up much the same way -- both end the game being almost completely interchangeable with almost anyone else in the cast, despite all the variety they should have to offer the party.

So, that said, if I only got one change it would probably be an overall boost in game difficulty, as I feel that would probably benefit the game most. Included in this difficultly amp would be redesigning enemies to be specifically hindering to certain characters and strategies, while being particularly susceptible to others, encouraging variety in party construction and use. However, a great deal of care would have to be taken to prevent any character from being useless in a given area. For instance, making enemies in a certain area resistant to piercing attacks, such as spears and the auto-crossbow, but semi-vulnerable to confusion, would allow Edgar to remain useful in the area, but perhaps not so much in the damage dealing role, highlighting his other functions.

[NeoCracker]

In games like FF 1 and 3 it doesn't bother me as much because you're not really playing characters with personalities, you're playing blank slates.

Two is just terrible regardless. With V there is some justification for it there, narratively speaking, and you always have the same four characters, so it's not like you're choosing between any.

VI is where we first get all these characters with unique abilities and characters, and an option to form your party among them, so where in the previous entries (IV not included). So basically yes, you have the core of my problem down, but it's mostly in games like VI where your characters are all unique in terms of story and where you have an option to select your party where it becomes an issue with me.

[Loony BoB]

I would redo the music in full orchestra instead of midi or whatever it is, because playing the game with earbuds on the bus puts me to sleep every time. With that in mind, I'd probably also make some of the slower tunes a little more upbeat.

I have no issue with the music itself, just that it puts me to sleep when I want to play.

[Ayen]

I'd take out the part where you have to do Sabin's stupid move when he's introduced >.>

[blackmage_nuke]

Make it so that after a character besides Celes or Terra (possibly also Strago and Relm) learns a spell they still need an Esper that teaches that spell equiped to cast it.

Another thing to improve on espers is to give Espers "levels" so you get the stat boost every time an esper levels up instead of every time a character levels up meaning you have to determine to whom you prioritise the learning of certain stats and dont get punished for early game grinding. Also have it such that at esper level 100 they can still "level up" at a constant exp rate so that you can max out your stats if your crazy patient.

Though to be honest I dont think any one idea is going to make the game much different. It needs a lot of small rebalancing mechanics to improve it significantly

[Colonel Angus]

Maybe one way of solving the "everybody ends up alike" issue is that instead of everybody learning the same spells from the Espers, have them learn certain "special" abilities from each one. Using Sabin as an example, this could be anything from a Blitz like "Chakra" from Starlet, or a stat boost from Cait Sith. Others, like Edgar & Mog might learn a jump ability from Palidor. Only a few characters would learn magic, such as Terra & Celes.

Albeit, the only setback might be that relics like dragoon boots would become more useless than they are now.

[Psychotic]

Damnit, now I wish I hadn't used up my Gogo nude code joke.

Sidequest for Mog to find all of his Moogle pals in the World of Ruin. smurfing breaks my heart that they're all gone and seemingly dead.

[Jowy]

Nothing, the GBA version with sound fix is perfection.

[Dat Matt]

Personally, I didn't like the large number of characters. I focused on levelling up 4 main people being Celes, Terra, Sabin and Edgar. When I was in the last dungeon and I had to struggle through with the under levelled characters. Most FF games tend to let you level up a small pool of characters and stick with them with some small mid game sections (e.g bevelle in FFX, 4 crystals in FFIX).

End game dungeon with 8 under levelled characters though? No thanks.