This Game is Overrated

[Jibril]

this thread is 5 pages long and not a single one of you have actually compared anything aside from graphics, review scores, sales, and gamefaqs polls of all things

[Mirage]

What's wrong with Titanic?

I don't get the titanic hate either. Main reason I never watched it again is just that it is so smurfing long.

[WildRaubtier]

There is a single thing VI does well - it has superb production values, is probably the finest crafted jRPG on the SNES, and definitely set the bar for the rest of the series. If you insist on comparing it to VII, then there's three points you almost certainly need to consider:

1) They both have approximately the same production values;
2) VI was developed towards the end of the SNES' shelf life, with an extensive library of games by Square behind it;
3) VII was developed at the beginning of the PS' life, and was their second title (first RPG) for that system.

VI and VII essentially have pretty much the same flaws when it comes to quality. That only means that VII is less forgivable, for reasons of experience and technological potential. You can argue about which looked better or sounded better all you want, though everyone's tastes are different and no point is made by doing so.

---

Apart from that craftsmanship, though, there isn't much VI actually does well. To address the main points people like to say make this the best title in the series:

The story: strangely devoid of plotholes for a Final Fantasy title.

The (playable) characters: all but a couple are incredibly shallow and irrelevant to the story (due to interchangablility, part of the game design), having little development outside of their time in the spotlight during their initial recruitment as well as their re-recruitment during the World of Ruin. The three optional characters, Mog, Umaro and Gogo, have essentially nothing. Of the development the characters do see, none of it is irretrievably tied to the setting of VI, thus all but Terra can easily be transplanted into another game and lose nothing for it.

Example: Locke wants to protect Aeris from the Turks because he was unable to protect Rachel earlier. Later, he finds the Phoenix materia and unsuccessfully tries to revive her. Cyan is a slight stretch, Strago & Relm have some stake in the setting, but change them to Ancients/Summoners/Al Bhed etc. and you're good.

Comparing VI to V is fine, but you oughtn't fall into the trap of comparing V's story to anything. It's good, but only in the context of an excuse plot, being remarkable only for being very aware of that fact (later less successfully attempted in X-2). My favourite description of V's story:

FFV's story is literally this:

One time a tree hated people so much he became an evil wizard
But four warriors defeated him and sealed him away
But he got out and now you have to defeat him
Also your dad's best friend was a werewolf.

V is definitely a superior game to VI, even considering the craftmanship and story of the latter, and it's overwhelmingly based on the comparison of gameplay of the two. The gameplay of VI is completely, utterly vapid. Set character classes were a regression even when VI was new (fun fact I just realised typing this: NES era FFs were more progressive than SNES era FFs), and the sheer number of characters and immense freedom in party building are at best a poor-man's version of V's job system.

Even considering most FFs before and since could be broken by some basic means, there remains no actual reason in VI to break the system. Compare to 8, which no one is going to dispute has the most breakable system in the series, can be powergamed to the max and you'll still need to find a way to deal with Omega Weapon. VI's answer to this is simply asking you to surrender control of your characters, and those who disliked XII because of the Gambits system will be quick to tell you how horrible having a game play itself is.

TL;DR yes VI is overwhelmingly overrated.

[The Man]

VI and VII essentially have pretty much the same flaws when it comes to quality. That only means that VII is less forgivable, for reasons of experience and technological potential.

FFVI has one advantage that FFVII does not have, which is that it is, as you yourself acknowledged, surprisingly devoid of plot holes or sloppy storytelling for a Final Fantasy title. As I have already once pointed out, the fact that so many people fail to understand basic plot points of VII prove that VII's storytelling is subpar.

The (playable) characters: all but a couple are incredibly shallow and irrelevant to the story (due to interchangablility, part of the game design), having little development outside of their time in the spotlight during their initial recruitment as well as their re-recruitment during the World of Ruin. The three optional characters, Mog, Umaro and Gogo, have essentially nothing. Of the development the characters do see, none of it is irretrievably tied to the setting of VI, thus all but Terra can easily be transplanted into another game and lose nothing for it.

I don't see how this is exactly a weakness, or at least a weakness that is unique in the series to FFVI, because the same can be said of most characters in other FF games.

FFVI's gameplay is acknowledged even by fans of the game to be weaker than FFV's but it is not weaker than the gameplay of nearly every main series entry that came after it (FF Tactics and FFX-2 excluded). Plenty of other games that followed had the same problem with characters being interchangeable in battle. FFIX had the opposite weakness in regressing to FFIV's class system. Square didn't want to repeat themselves using the same battle system for every game so while it might have been nice for every game to have a battle system as sophisticated as FFV's that was never going to happen.

VI's answer to this is simply asking you to surrender control of your characters

This only ever happens in the Colosseum, which is a mini-game most people never even bother with. Apart from that, the only characters who "play themselves" are Gau, Mog, and Umaro, and in the former two cases that's only if you select specific commands (they can still use magic and items like any other character).

I also like how you acknowledge that FFVI "is probably the finest crafted JRPG on the SNES" and then go on to call it "overwhelmingly overrated". Given that even most people who like the game acknowledge its flaws, I fail to see how this applies.

this thread is 5 pages long and not a single one of you have actually compared anything aside from graphics, review scores, sales, and gamefaqs polls of all things

Actually I had already mentioned FFVII's sloppy storytelling.

[WildRaubtier]

Your first point is easy to address: "not bad" does not equal "good."

Re your second point: its a weakness because the characters are a major reason listed when people say why they like this game, often in relation to the story. When your characters aren't driven by, or even related to the overarching story, then perhaps that's an overestimation of the quality of the storytelling, don't you think? An "overrating," if you will.

Anyone who thinks that the gameplay of VI isn't the weakest of the series, possibly bar IV, is kidding themselves. It's better compared to jRPGs in general in that regard. That you can pick and choose what characters and therefore what classes you have access to, weakens it further in regards to the other more traditional jRPGs in the series which force your hand. You can say whether you like the Materia system or Junction system or Gambit system all you like, or how broken they are, but those systems have depth, whereas VI has none.

We had this talk about the Colosseum the other day, too. Regardless of how insignificant it is, it's all the endgame content offered by VI, and is a pathetic excuse for not offering an actual reason to use the full extent of VI's endgame.

You've misinterpreted what I mean by being well crafted - you could have a well crafted stick, for example, with all manner of intricate details carved into it, but what does that stick offer that others don't? VI has the prettiest parts, but none of the additions that make it worthwhile above any other stick, so to speak. Your ornate stick is overrated because people are suggesting it has dohickeys which it doesn't. Let's compare VI to XIII, yet another very ornate stick, but one that is (rightfully?) lambasted.

And for your final point - so you think VI is good and VII is trout. Good for you. Personally, I'd never compare something I held as highly as you hold VI by spending every breath on the subject exclaiming how beautiful it is compared to a pile of trout, as you so often do.

[The Man]

Re your second point: its a weakness because the characters are a major reason listed when people say why they like this game, often in relation to the story. When your characters aren't driven by, or even related to the overarching story, then perhaps that's an overestimation of the quality of the storytelling, don't you think? An "overrating," if you will.

As I stated, this is a weakness of the series as a whole. Every single character in FFVII apart from Cloud and possibly Aerith has the same problem, for example, and nearly every character in FFIX has the same problem. You are singling out FFVI for this because you don't like it.

Anyone who thinks that the gameplay of VI isn't the weakest of the series, possibly bar IV, is kidding themselves.

Not even close.

That you can pick and choose what characters and therefore what classes you have access to, weakens it further in regards to the other more traditional jRPGs in the series which force your hand.

Apart from entries like FFVII and FFIX and FFX, the latter of which allows you to swap out characters in the middle of battles.

You can say whether you like the Materia system or Junction system or Gambit system all you like, or how broken they are, but those systems have depth, whereas VI has none.

The Materia system is just the Esper system with the bells and whistles rearranged. The sphere grid is literally a linear progression until the end of the game (apart from in the international version). And I could go on. Not to mention that FFVI's characters are not interchangeable until such point as it is possible to gain enough AP to teach them all the spells, which, unless you do troutloads of grinding, won't be possible until the second half of the game.

We had this talk about the Colosseum the other day, too. Regardless of how insignificant it is, it's all the endgame content offered by VI, and is a pathetic excuse for not offering an actual reason to use the full extent of VI's endgame.

Lambasting FFVI for having a shallow side quest is like lambasting FFVII because some of the minigames are stupid. No one is playing the game because of the endgame. FFVI has tons of optional content that is easily among the best of the series, and it allows a sense of freedom in its latter half that, as I have pointed out in the past, is unrivalled amongst the series.

You've misinterpreted what I mean by being well crafted - you could have a well crafted stick, for example, with all manner of intricate details carved into it, but what does that stick offer that others don't? VI has the prettiest parts, but none of the additions that make it worthwhile above any other stick, so to speak. Your ornate stick is overrated because people are suggesting it has dohickeys which it doesn't.

...no one is suggesting that though? People acknowledge the battle system isn't the strong point of the game. There is a six page thread about how people would fix it. However, an RPG is much more than the battle system. Some people value the other parts of the game much more than you do.

And for your final point - so you think VI is good and VII is trout.

No, you're misinterpreting me. FFVII is my fourth or fifth favourite game in the series. That's far from being "trout". I'd give FFVII a rating of about 85% or 90% to FFVI's 98%. This is in comparison to something like FFII or FFXIII which would probably get around a 60% from me.

[WildRaubtier]

Re your second point: its a weakness because the characters are a major reason listed when people say why they like this game, often in relation to the story. When your characters aren't driven by, or even related to the overarching story, then perhaps that's an overestimation of the quality of the storytelling, don't you think? An "overrating," if you will.

As I stated, this is a weakness of the series as a whole. Every single character in FFVII apart from Cloud and possibly Aerith has the same problem, for example, and nearly every character in FFIX has the same problem. You are singling out FFVI for this because you don't like it.

The playable cast of VII are all incredibly driven by a history of abuse at the hands of the Shinra, and most of them have a direct connection to a top ranking employee. Barret lacks the relationship, but happens to be the leader of a major resistance group. Cait Sith is the Shinra. Yuffie and Cid have the weakest reasons, but Cid manages to lampshade the majority of the VI cast when he joins your party ("You guys are going against the Shinra? What the hell, sign me up!").

You're also very wrong about IX. Dagger and Vivi are incredibly invested in the events of the story, whist Zidane, Steiner and Eiko all drive the story with their parts in the setting. Only Amarant and Quina resemble the VI cast in that they join you to fill out the roster and then have some minor character building later that is irrelevant to the story as a whole.

Apart from Terra, Celes, and perhaps Edgar, the characters in VI have no actual ties to the Empire, and about as many suffer any direct injustice from the same, if at all. Shadow, Sabin, Gau, Setzer, Strago, Relm, Mog, Umaro and Gogo each have neither of these elements, which you may recognise as being over 60% of the playable cast. The stories of these characters (those that have them, anyway) relate only to themselves or other ancillary characters and therefore can be transplanted into other settings with literally no loss to context.

Anyone who thinks that the gameplay of VI isn't the weakest of the series, possibly bar IV, is kidding themselves.

Not even close.

Feel free to support this statement at some point, by all means.

That you can pick and choose what characters and therefore what classes you have access to, weakens it further in regards to the other more traditional jRPGs in the series which force your hand.

Apart from entries like FFVII and FFIX and FFX, the latter of which allows you to swap out characters in the middle of battles.

The only other traditional jRPGs are FF and IV - the former which makes you pick four classes to play the entire game with, and the latter which changes your cast as the story demands. VII, IX and X are all irrelevent to the statement you're quoting here.

You can say whether you like the Materia system or Junction system or Gambit system all you like, or how broken they are, but those systems have depth, whereas VI has none.

The Materia system is just the Esper system with the bells and whistles rearranged. The sphere grid is literally a linear progression until the end of the game (apart from in the international version). And I could go on. Not to mention that FFVI's characters are not interchangeable until such point as it is possible to gain enough AP to teach them all the spells, which, unless you do troutloads of grinding, won't be possible until the second half of the game.

The abilities your characters have in VII are entirely dependent on the Materia you have equipped, including the potency of those abilities or when they may activate. In VI, each character has a two sets of abilities, including one list that depends on what Magicite you equipped in the past. There is only a single, non-sharable ability that depends on what Magicite is equipped at that time. The difference is so fundamental that describing it as "a rearrangement" is deceitfully simplistic, if not entirely incorrect.

You're on the right track about the Sphere Grid, which is 100% a linear progression until it's only 90% a linear progression. X's customisability comes primarily from Weapon and Armour customisation, not the Sphere Grid.

By "interchangable" I mean that you can choose who goes with you at will. Chalk that up to a misunderstanding.

We had this talk about the Colosseum the other day, too. Regardless of how insignificant it is, it's all the endgame content offered by VI, and is a pathetic excuse for not offering an actual reason to use the full extent of VI's endgame.

Lambasting FFVI for having a shallow side quest is like lambasting FFVII because some of the minigames are stupid. No one is playing the game because of the endgame. FFVI has tons of optional content that is easily among the best of the series, and it allows a sense of freedom in its latter half that, as I have pointed out in the past, is unrivalled amongst the series.

No other game has as many characters, nor a story event that causes them to become isolated from each other without a compulsory reunion. Apart from those character building quests (the developments from which are mostly trumped during the normal story progression of other titles), you're left with an endgame content consisting of 8 Dragons, the Mage Tower, and the Colosseum. The first two of those can be powergamed into challengeless time wasters, leaving only the Colosseum. I'll further this point below.

You've misinterpreted what I mean by being well crafted - you could have a well crafted stick, for example, with all manner of intricate details carved into it, but what does that stick offer that others don't? VI has the prettiest parts, but none of the additions that make it worthwhile above any other stick, so to speak. Your ornate stick is overrated because people are suggesting it has dohickeys which it doesn't.

...no one is suggesting that though?

The dohickeys in this case is the story. I've listed some arguments as to why the story isn't as good as people assert, and you've failed to respond to those points other than to say "other games have this problem too."

People acknowledge the battle system isn't the strong point of the game. There is a six page thread about how people would fix it. However, an RPG is much more than the battle system. Some people value the other parts of the game much more than you do.

Arguing that the primary focus of a game shouldn't be gameplay is ridiculous. Visuals, music and story by themselves only to a movie or, at best, a visual novel. VI is not a visual novel, it is a jRPG, a genre which includes gameplay. If you have poor gameplay, then you almost certainly fail to have a good game, regardless of how well any other aspect performs. The Colosseum is the only endgame content worth a damn in VI and it more closely resembles the tower defense genre, not a jRPG.

And for your final point - so you think VI is good and VII is trout.

No, you're misinterpreting me. FFVII is my fourth or fifth favourite game in the series. That's far from being "trout". I'd give FFVII a rating of about 85% or 90% to FFVI's 98%. This is in comparison to something like FFII or FFXIII which would probably get around a 60% from me. [/theman]

[/quote]
Consider me fooled. Though I see you edited your rating of VI down from 100%, good move for your credibility there

[Pumpkin]

Am I the only one who doesn't think IV had weak gameplay?

[Wolf Kanno]

Am I the only one who doesn't think IV had weak gameplay?

No. It may not have heavily customizable gameplay like later entries but it also can't be broken like them either. The dungeons also challenged the player with false directions, handicaps, floor traps, and hidden enemies. Honestly I feel it is one of the most solid games in the franchise, it's just that modern gamers expect bells and whistles and don't want to be hampered by clever dungeon design.

[Spooniest]

IV's gameplay can be described as rather 'thin' compared to other entries. But the same could be said of the first game, the seventh game, and the tenth. Seeing a pattern?

They were all the first game on that system...there's always an adjustment period with new hardware, or so I am inclined to think.

V's Job system is superior to VI's esper system. I'd grant that. But what it has in terms of gameplay it seems to sacrifice in storytelling. I never cared for the story and no argument for it has ever seemed compelling to me. It comes off as a low-calorie version of a usual FF story.

[WildRaubtier]

Like I alluded to earlier, V has an excuse plot and it's perfectly aware of it.

But that's fine, it doesn't need one.

[NeoCracker]

Most of the FF VI cast though does have a relationship to the Empire.

Terra - Imperial Slave Doll/magic experiments.
Celes - Imperial General turned traiter
Edgar and Sabin - Their Kingdom is in a misleading treaty with the Empire, and they are consipiring with Rebel forces to oust the empires control.

Cyan - His entire kingdom, including wife and kids, were poisened and killed at the hands of Kefka during the war between the two countries.

Strago and Relm - Their introductary arc is there connection to the plot.

Locke - Member of the rebels, as well as the Imperials marching through his home caused his girlfriend to go all coma like.

Gau, Umaro, Mog, and Gogo are the only ones without any real connection to the empire of the cast.

So yeah, the majority of the FF VI cast is pretty invested in the fight against the empire.

Also, in terms of mechanics, FF VI is pretty solid. Not amazing, but solid. On paper, a game like FF X may have the best of the main series battle systems, but it's execution makes the game so laughably easy that there isn't really a need to make use of any of what it has to offer, so I can't bring myself to really enjoy it all that much, so I can't really rate it higher then FF VI in terms of gameplay.

There are the optional boss's, but those are such a small fragment of the game it hardly makes up for the rest of the game. Even VI, being an easy game as it is (Not so much when I first played it, mind you, I was still learning the RPG ropes around this time. ), takes a bit more thought to progress then X did. It may not have had the quality design of X's system, but the execution was much better handled.

Finally, this is a thread were we have basically started comparing one game to another. So it's perfectly valid to point out that all the games we are comparing have the same problem, as bringing up that problem in one specific game does nothing to advance the argument, as it does nothing to advance one side forward.

P.s. FF X and VIII are really the only games in the series I can think of that do a bad job at keeping all of the characters directly connected to the issues surrounding the main plot (And to a smaller extent V, and I and III didn't really have characters, at least not until III DS.)

[Pumpkin]

I didn't like X's battle system except for the character swapping.

[Spooniest]

Like I alluded to earlier, V has an excuse plot and it's perfectly aware of it.

But that's fine, it doesn't need one.

I think it needs one...but you're entitled to your opinion.

[The Man]

The playable cast of VII are all incredibly driven by a history of abuse at the hands of the Shinra, and most of them have a direct connection to a top ranking employee. Barret lacks the relationship, but happens to be the leader of a major resistance group. Cait Sith is the Shinra. Yuffie and Cid have the weakest reasons, but Cid manages to lampshade the majority of the VI cast when he joins your party ("You guys are going against the Shinra? What the hell, sign me up!").

You're also very wrong about IX. Dagger and Vivi are incredibly invested in the events of the story, whist Zidane, Steiner and Eiko all drive the story with their parts in the setting. Only Amarant and Quina resemble the VI cast in that they join you to fill out the roster and then have some minor character building later that is irrelevant to the story as a whole.

Apart from Terra, Celes, and perhaps Edgar, the characters in VI have no actual ties to the Empire, and about as many suffer any direct injustice from the same, if at all. Shadow, Sabin, Gau, Setzer, Strago, Relm, Mog, Umaro and Gogo each have neither of these elements, which you may recognise as being over 60% of the playable cast. The stories of these characters (those that have them, anyway) relate only to themselves or other ancillary characters and therefore can be transplanted into other settings with literally no loss to context.

Cracker already addressed much of this, but I'll add that Freya in FFIX is also completely ancillary to the story and effectively disappears from the plot once her arc is disappeared. Setzer has suffered under the Empire because his business interests have been suppressed (although this was not noted in Woolsey's original translation), Stragos and Relm have their hometown torched by the Empire, and Shadow is betrayed and left for dead on the Floating Continent. So your assertion that FFVI's cast is any more irrelevant to the plot than FFVII's or FFIX's is in fact completely inaccurate, particularly since three of the characters you cite as being irrelevant are optional characters. The only required character with no serious connection to the Empire or Kefka is Gau.

Feel free to support this statement at some point, by all means.

I did. And I didn't even get into mentioning FFII's gameplay which is by far the worst of that of the numbered entries.

The only other traditional jRPGs are FF and IV - the former which makes you pick four classes to play the entire game with, and the latter which changes your cast as the story demands. VII, IX and X are all irrelevent to the statement you're quoting here.

Perhaps you could be clearer on your definition of "traditional JRPG" then, because alongside Dragon Quest and Shin Megami Tensei, Final Fantasy is pretty much the JRPG series.

The abilities your characters have in VII are entirely dependent on the Materia you have equipped, including the potency of those abilities or when they may activate. In VI, each character has a two sets of abilities, including one list that depends on what Magicite you equipped in the past. There is only a single, non-sharable ability that depends on what Magicite is equipped at that time. The difference is so fundamental that describing it as "a rearrangement" is deceitfully simplistic, if not entirely incorrect.

This would be a much more important distinction if FFVII were not so easy that most players will only need to do this for about three battles of the game. This is admittedly a criticism that applies to nearly all of the post-FFV entries, but the fact is that most players will rarely, if ever, need to switch out their characters' abilities for each other's. Most times I've played FFVII I've only swapped materia out two or three times at most.

You're on the right track about the Sphere Grid, which is 100% a linear progression until it's only 90% a linear progression. X's customisability comes primarily from Weapon and Armour customisation, not the Sphere Grid.

Which I might note is a trait it shares with FFVI; characters' effectiveness is wildly altered by weapons, armour, and relics. Relics are, in fact, a prototype for the materia system.

By "interchangable" I mean that you can choose who goes with you at will. Chalk that up to a misunderstanding.

And... this isn't a trait shared by many other entries in the series? I'm not even sure what your point is with most of this now.

No other game has as many characters, nor a story event that causes them to become isolated from each other without a compulsory reunion. Apart from those character building quests (the developments from which are mostly trumped during the normal story progression of other titles), you're left with an endgame content consisting of 8 Dragons, the Mage Tower, and the Colosseum. The first two of those can be powergamed into challengeless time wasters, leaving only the Colosseum. I'll further this point below.

The entire series can be powergamed into challengeless time wasters if you want, including the "difficult" entries like FFIV. One time time I played FFV I powered through by grinding all my characters to level 99 in the second world and teaching them all the jobs. The game was trivially easy when I did that, but I don't complain that all the challenge is removed by doing that because I'm not a pedant. If you play the game the way it was intended to be played it's no less challenging than most of the later entries in the series.

The dohickeys in this case is the story. I've listed some arguments as to why the story isn't as good as people assert, and you've failed to respond to those points other than to say "other games have this problem too."

I haven't bothered presenting any other assertions because I don't agree that having characters with their own focus is a flaw. When you have an ensemble cast, it is almost inevitable that some of them will have more connection to the plot than others do, and FFVI's cast is much more focused than, say, Chrono Cross' or any of the Suikodens'.

Arguing that the primary focus of a game shouldn't be gameplay is ridiculous. Visuals, music and story by themselves only to a movie or, at best, a visual novel. VI is not a visual novel, it is a jRPG, a genre which includes gameplay. If you have poor gameplay, then you almost certainly fail to have a good game, regardless of how well any other aspect performs. The Colosseum is the only endgame content worth a damn in VI and it more closely resembles the tower defense genre, not a jRPG.

Well it's a good thing that the gameplay of a JRPG isn't exclusively limited to its battle system then, isn't it? It's not like the only thing you ever do in JRPGs is fight enemies. That would get boring quickly. FFVI has some of the best dungeon design and puzzles in the series and the side quests are pretty much up to the calibre of Chrono Trigger's. Furthermore, while the combat system itself is simplistic, it's fairly well balanced until you get Osmose (which admittedly, alongside the Offering and Gem Box, is completely broken), with a well designed difficulty curve, and the game does a mostly excellent job of teaching you to play it, to an extent that several other entries in the series could have learned from. It also has better replay value than many other entries in the series, due to the sheer number of party combinations (literally billions of them for the final dungeon) and the fact that taking different characters to various parts of the game reveals different aspects of the story.

Am I the only one who doesn't think IV had weak gameplay?

It's nice for its time but hasn't aged well. Luckily other aspects have aged much better.