Would Strago and Relm's plots change if it were the Shinra who burnt down their village? Would the plot of VI change if Strago and Relm weren't present for the burning of Thamasa?
Would Shadow's story change if he were left for dead by the Galbadian army? Would the story of VI change if no one was left for dead?
Would Setzer's motivations change if his business was being suppressed by the temple of Yevon? Would the actions of the Empire change if Setzer's business hadn't been suppressed?
Would Red XIII's story change if it was the Empire who experimented on him? Would Final Fantasy VII's plot change if he weren't experimented on?
Would Freya's story change if she were dropped into any other Final Fantasy game?
All of these are "No" and equate to somewhat poor storytelling.
You are almost certainly literally the only person in this thread that thinks this is poor storytelling. If the characters have realistic characterisation (which they do), do realistic things (which they do in the context of FFVI's world), and have realistic reasons for doing the things that they do, then faulting them because they could be inserted into other stories with the same motivations is completely arbitrary. I've never heard anyone fault a story for this before. It's something that, as far as I can tell, you made up.
And, well, why shouldn't optional characters be mentioned? VII's Yuffie and Vincent are motivated against the Shinra, though the former fails the transplant test I've been spruiking.
Because it's rare for optional characters to be held to the standards the other characters are. It's obvious they didn't even try to make Mog, Umaro, or Gogo serious characters, so holding their lack of seriousness against them is faulting the game for something it never intended to accomplish.
Nice opinion. II's system has some depth no matter how unpopular it is.
There are more important things than your opinion of "depth". Having a character attack themselves to make themselves stronger is literally the dumbest thing in the numbered series (well, before XIII anyway).
**in the numbered FF series. Sorry I Thought That Was Obvious.
Well duh.
But since you asked I'm defining a traditional jRPG system as one where the characters have a set class and abilities to match.
So... FFIX isn't a traditional JRPG by this definition? While they gain abilities as the game progresses, their class is set.
Relics are excessive equipment slots. There's barely a dozen that do anything that normal equipment won't, and half of those even are simply "act multiple times in one turn." Not even close to what Materia accomplishes.
I said it was a prototype for the system, not that it was as expansive as the system.
The context is story-wise. VI is designed to have any character say a line based on where the story is at with their own little twist somewhere between Cyan's Ye Olde English and Gau's Tarzan speak. These placeholder lines are mostly sparse in VII, almost entirely absent in IX and completely unneeded by X.
There are plenty of cases where having different party members changes the dialogue. While it's true that there are more placeholder lines than other games, this is most likely a necessity due to the limitations of the SNES.
You still would've had Shinryu and Omega. Even VII, with its I Win button (KnightsofRound) requires some thought regarding materia (commonly achieved via Mime) as the WEAPONs are more than capable of outright slaughtering you between uses otherwise, no matter how much grinding you've done. Even VIII, with the reputation has for being incredibly broken, gives you Omega Weapon. The simple fact is that VI has no extraordinary enemies like these.
Until, as I pointed out in chat, the Advance version. It's likely from the presence of CzarDragon in the ROM data of the SNES version that one was intended but unable to be inserted due to time limitations.
And I played Shinryu and Omega and had almost no difficulty with them either.
I agree entirely. However, not having a focus and not having relevence are two different things. It's besides the point, however. When I hear about how great VI is, it's typically attributed to the story and the characters. The latter is a dubious claim at best and outright false at worst. That would mean that VI is "overrated," which is the scope of this thread.
Except that you haven't actually established any reason for the characters being "weak" apart from an arbitrary standard that plenty of other people do not share.
I often hear lots of good things about Suikoden (I've only been able to play Tierkreis). The characters are never one of those things.
Suikoden is an excellent series, arguably more consistent than Final Fantasy, but the characters certainly aren't the strong point. There is a core cast of characters who are fairly strong but there are plenty of characters who are nothing more than placeholders.
It's still a major aspect of the genre - VI is not an exploration game.
But it's not the only one like you've been making out. Furthermore, several characters' customisation actually have a substantially larger amount of depth than you're giving them credit for; the quests to fill out the abilities of characters like Gau and Stragos are quite involved and can take hours. It's not a mere matter of "just equip espers and kill trout".
Entirely false. The best characters to use are uncontestably Edgar, Sabin and Cyan. Their damage output far exceeds that of anyone else. Not even VIII compares to this level of brokenness (mostly because any character can be broken in it).
Actually nearly any character in the game can be made into a powerhouse if you know how to use them correctly. Gau can be made to hit the damage limit ridiculously early if you learn the right Rages, Terra becomes a powerhouse in her own right once you get Morph, etc. Plus pure damage isn't the only reason to use a character; Runic can utterly defang some bosses and Setzer can destroy most enemies in a single hit if you know what you're doing (although admittedly this is due to a bug).
Murdered by PSICOM, does his story change?
My point is that if you're going to criticise a character for allegedly flat characterisation, you should demonstrate that you actually understand the character. Leaving out a crucial part of Sabin's motivations is pretty glaring.
I also haven't played FFXIII so I can't actually answer this.
That isn't key to Red XIII's plot at all. He also has a direct relationship with Hojo, however wafer thin.
...who ran the experiments?
Where?
From a storytelling point, yes. But absolutely no one will argue that V's story comes off as anything other than "fun," at best.
Well, no. It's also pretty clearly intended as a subtle deconstruction of some existing JRPG tropes. Regardless, it's a huge step down from FFIV's storytelling.