This Game is Overrated

[WildRaubtier]

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.

You've missed the point entirely. Terra and Celes both have a fundamental relationship to the empire, and their personal stories are used to drive the plot forward. Edgar does as well, but it's wafer thin. Sabin, however, is literally the brother of another cast member who lives in the mountains. You can move him to a different game, making minor tweaks for context, and neither his story nor that of VI would change.

Locke, for example:
He wants to protect Aeris because he was unable to protect Rachel. Later, he finds the Phoenix materia but is unable to revive her.
He wants to protect Dagger because he was unable to protect Rachel. Later, he finds the phoenix pinion but is unable to revive her.
He wants to protect Yuna because he was unable to protect Rachel. Later, he finds the phoenix fayth but is unable to revive her.

Or Cyan:
His family is killed during the attack on Trabia Garden. He is soon given the chance to say goodbye properly at [VIII doesn't have a weird spiritual place, lets say the phantom forest is in Winhill now].
His family is killed during Sin's attack on Kilika. He is soon given the chance to say goodbye at the Farplane.

In each of these examples, the character's story is not diminished by being moved to a different setting, nor is the story of VI diminished by their absence. This is true for almost all of the cast of VI. The reason is because they lack that key personal reason why they hate the Empire. Locke could be antagonised just as easily by the Shinra, Galbadia, Alexandria and his motivations don't change at all.

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.

It's a thread about the quality of VI versus how people perceive it. Saying that a problem isn't a problem because it's a common problem doesn't actually support any suggestion that its not a problem. Compare to support, don't compare to show how something else is wrong, too.

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.

Games having more than an excuse plot is an entirely recent trend. Does Mario need a reason to jump on all these platforms? Let's just say he has to rescue the princess.

[The Man]

Sabin, however, is literally the brother of another cast member who lives in the mountains.

Except that their father was murdered by the Empire. Pretty important motivating factor.

Locke, for example:
He wants to protect Aeris because he was unable to protect Rachel. Later, he finds the Phoenix materia but is unable to revive her.
He wants to protect Dagger because he was unable to protect Rachel. Later, he finds the phoenix pinion but is unable to revive her.
He wants to protect Yuna because he was unable to protect Rachel. Later, he finds the phoenix fayth but is unable to revive her.

Red XIII:
He bears a grudge against the Empire because it ran experiments on him.
He bears a grudge against Garland and Kuja because he was an experiment of the Terrans.

As I said, this complaint could be made against nearly any character in nearly any entry in the series.

It's a thread about the quality of VI versus how people perceive it. Saying that a problem isn't a problem because it's a common problem doesn't actually support any suggestion that its not a problem. Compare to support, don't compare to show how something else is wrong, too.

As I've said, your assertion that a story is weakened because the characters are not inextricably linked is not supported by anything other than "because I say it is". This is pretty much a necessary feature of all but the most tightly knit ensemble casts, and it's not the sort of thing you get in a video game.

Games having more than an excuse plot is an entirely recent trend. Does Mario need a reason to jump on all these platforms? Let's just say he has to rescue the princess.

No, but FFII and FFIV certainly had a lot more than excuse plots, so FFV having an excuse plot is a bit of a step backwards.

[WildRaubtier]

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.

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?

All of these are "No" and equate to somewhat poor storytelling.

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.

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

Nice opinion. II's system has some depth no matter how unpopular it is.

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.

**in the numbered FF series. Sorry I Thought That Was Obvious.

But since you asked I'm defining a traditional jRPG system as one where the characters have a set class and abilities to match.

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.

A lack of need to use the depth of the Materia doesn't detract from that depth. Though you're right that it's a somewhat common, large flaw with the gameplay.

Relics are, in fact, a prototype for the materia system.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

It's still a major aspect of the genre - VI is not an exploration game.

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.

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).

[WildRaubtier]

Sabin, however, is literally the brother of another cast member who lives in the mountains.

Except that their father was murdered by the Empire. Pretty important motivating factor.

Murdered by PSICOM, does his story change?

Red XIII:
He bears a grudge against the Empire because it ran experiments on him.
He bears a grudge against Garland and Kuja because he was an experiment of the Terrans.

As I said, this complaint could be made against nearly any character in nearly any entry in the series.

That isn't key to Red XIII's plot at all. He also has a direct relationship with Hojo, however wafer thin. Though, yes, he still pretty much fails the transplant test.

It's a thread about the quality of VI versus how people perceive it. Saying that a problem isn't a problem because it's a common problem doesn't actually support any suggestion that its not a problem. Compare to support, don't compare to show how something else is wrong, too.

As I've said, your assertion that a story is weakened because the characters are not inextricably linked is not supported by anything other than "because I say it is". This is pretty much a necessary feature of all but the most tightly knit ensemble casts, and it's not the sort of thing you get in a video game.

Addressed above.

Games having more than an excuse plot is an entirely recent trend. Does Mario need a reason to jump on all these platforms? Let's just say he has to rescue the princess.

No, but FFII and FFIV certainly had a lot more than excuse plots, so FFV having an excuse plot is a bit of a step backwards.[/QUOTE]
From a storytelling point, yes. But absolutely no one will argue that V's story comes off as anything other than "fun," at best.

[The Man]

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?

Addressed above.

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.

[Jinx]

This is why we can't have nice things.

[NeoCracker]

I'd also like to add you say only Ceres and Terra have a Fundemental relationship with the empire to drive the plot forward, but the same is true of FF VII and cloud and Aeirth. Red XIII and Cid could be dropped from the story entirely and the overall plot wouldn't change in the slightest.

I'd go into details on other FF's, but this is something that holds true for virtually every RPG ever made, not just the final Fantasy games. Very rarely are even half the casts necessary to drive the plot forward.

Hell, you have a game like Chrono Trigger who has what, one character with a direct relation to Lavos? And he's optional. As good as individual stories are among the cast, really none of their individual stories matter all that much in terms of the greater goal of the story. They are just a bunch of people who see the end of the world, and decide they should do what it takes to stop it. Not really anything more then that. And the story doesn't suffer in the slightest for it.

I guess in the end I fail to see how this is even a problem. So long as the plot can justify all the characters being there reasonably, I really don't take issue with it.

[The Man]

Beyond that, I'd say that kind of character development is just a necessary result of the plot simply not being very complicated. Most of the cast of FFVI have rather simplistic relations with the Empire and/or Kefka because the plot of the game is pretty straightforward. You're not going to get character relations like the ones in Game of Thrones in a SNES-era JRPG. Complaining about that is kind of missing the point.

Simple doesn't always mean bad.

[Carl the Llama]

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

I beg to differ, at the end of the world of balance Kefka has the power to call down this light of judgement (or w/e it was called) to make people disappear, yet some how the entire cast of over a dozen people are able to scale a smurf off huge mountain then proceed to have a fight with said "God" without him saying "You know what, smurf you eat death ray" coupled along side the fact that if they were able to scale the mountain at any time, why the hell didn't they kill Kefka right away??? It always baffles the smurf out of me when I play it.

I would also say that this is a pretty major plot hole.

[The Man]

The player characters are a smurfload more powerful than random NPCs, otherwise they wouldn't be able to take down Kefka either. The fact that they've (presumably) absorbed so much power through Magicite probably has a lot to do with it.

Not to mention they can't scale the mountain at any time; that's the whole reason they needed the airship. As soon as you get the airship you can beat the game at any time. It's pretty obvious the only reason they were able to ascend in the final battle was due to defeating the preceding tiers of monsters (since the game won't let you advance without doing so).

[Wolf Kanno]

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

I beg to differ, at the end of the world of balance Kefka has the power to call down this light of judgement (or w/e it was called) to make people disappear, yet some how the entire cast of over a dozen people are able to scale a smurf off huge mountain then proceed to have a fight with said "God" without him saying "You know what, smurf you eat death ray" coupled along side the fact that if they were able to scale the mountain at any time, why the hell didn't they kill Kefka right away??? It always baffles the smurf out of me when I play it.

I would also say that this is a pretty major plot hole.

You can make that argument against almost every final boss battle in the series though. Emperor Mateus comes back from the dead and unleashes the Makai realm on earth yet four orphans can beat him. Xande has enough magical power to darken the crystals and stop all time but gets his ass kicked by four orphans who then proceed to fight back a force of nature who curbstomped them all to death a few hours before the actual final battle. X-Death can destroy entire continents and sink islands even before he gained the power of the Void, Sephiroth's will is so great he can survive being torn apart by the Lifestream and reassembles himself absorbing enough power to no longer need materia to use magic and can summon a planet killer and mentally hold back the only counterspell at the same time. Ultimecia is powerful enough to meld time together into a single instance, Kuja destroyed a moon, Yu-Yevon is technically an immortal zombie who somehow gets perma-finished off after the Aeons are gone despite Seymour showing us that they can come back as much as they want... This might as well be the Final Fantasy Plot Hole considering how often if gets played in the series.

Besides, if you were a bored demigod, would you go all out from the beginning? Chances are Kefka overplayed his hand and underestimated the party, letting them get the upper hand cause he toyed with them more than he should have.

[Carl the Llama]

The player characters are a smurfload more powerful than random NPCs, otherwise they wouldn't be able to take down Kefka either. The fact that they've (presumably) absorbed so much power through Magicite probably has a lot to do with it.

Not to mention they can't scale the mountain at any time; that's the whole reason they needed the airship. As soon as you get the airship you can beat the game at any time. It's pretty obvious the only reason they were able to ascend in the final battle was due to defeating the preceding tiers of monsters (since the game won't let you advance without doing so).

They HAD an airship at the end of the world of Balance. As for you presumption, where is the evidence that suggests such a thing? I mean, it's entirely possible to go through the entire game with just relics and weapons so that theory just falls apart right there.

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

I beg to differ, at the end of the world of balance Kefka has the power to call down this light of judgement (or w/e it was called) to make people disappear, yet some how the entire cast of over a dozen people are able to scale a smurf off huge mountain then proceed to have a fight with said "God" without him saying "You know what, smurf you eat death ray" coupled along side the fact that if they were able to scale the mountain at any time, why the hell didn't they kill Kefka right away??? It always baffles the smurf out of me when I play it.

I would also say that this is a pretty major plot hole.

You can make that argument against almost every final boss battle in the series though.

I disagree. In VII you don't get to fight Sephiroth until key plot devices have been fulfilled (removal of the Barrier, finding Cloud, saving the huge materia and escaping from Junon (as you would need the Highwind to get to the North Cave, at which point you are able to face him), you don't have an opportunity to fight Sephiroth (the real Sephiroth) until the very end. In VIII Ultimercia uses Time Compression, the party make their way through that with another series of plot devices that have to be fulfilled (actually transcending time to be able to fight her) which isn't possible until you find Ellone ect. In IX you don't get to face Kuja till he reveals himself and his purpose and Garland throws a monkey wrench in his plan and that the party isn't strong enough till a certain point (the numerous times you were humbled by Beatrix each time it took less and less time to recover). In X you don't get to fight Yu-Yevon until other certain milestones are fulfilled (They believe the only way to kill Sin is to use the Final Summoning and it isn't revealed until the virtual end that they formulate a plan to kill him by other means.

In VI there was no major plot device that would have stopped them jumping onboard an airship (which could have easily been shot down by Kefka btw, yet another plot hole) and running up the mountain killing his chums along the way and then defeating the bastard himself.

[The Man]

They HAD an airship at the end of the world of Balance.

Yes, but they very clearly couldn't kill Kefka at that point because he was in the field of the Statues, which protected him from harm. This is the same reason the Emperor absolutely failed to cause even the slightest bit of harm to him, and why Kefka was so easily able to dispose of him. If the party had attacked him at that point they would have been toast.

At other times of the game the party is unlikely to have been strong enough to have defeated him, and there are various plot devices in play that prevent a direct confrontation anyway (the party has to follow the espers or various other contrivances). Not to mention that most likely if they had engaged with him at that time he would simply have run away, as he did multiple times earlier in the game.

As for you presumption, where is the evidence that suggests such a thing? I mean, it's entirely possible to go through the entire game with just relics and weapons so that theory just falls apart right there.

It's entirely possible, but the developers almost certainly assumed that nobody would bother doing that. In any case, even if the player has been running an esper-free game, Celes and Terra have natural magic (and Terra herself is half-Esper) and the player has almost certainly done a ridiculous amount of level grinding.

Not to mention some relics, weapons, and armour teach magic as well.

In VII you don't get to fight Sephiroth until key plot devices have been fulfilled (removal of the Barrier, finding Cloud, saving the huge materia and escaping from Junon (as you would need the Highwind to get to the North Cave, at which point you are able to face him), you don't have an opportunity to fight Sephiroth (the real Sephiroth) until the very end.

None of this counteracts Wolf's argument about Sephiroth's strength, though. Similarly the other villians are equally overpowered and the game doesn't really give any real reason for the characters being able to defeat them other than "because they can".

In VI there was no major plot device that would have stopped them jumping onboard an airship

Yes there was. I just addressed this.

(which could have easily been shot down by Kefka btw, yet another plot hole)

Kefka was likely too arrogant to assume they could have done any harm to him. After all, he had absorbed the source of magic himself. He was, as far as he knew, a god. It's perfectly in line with his characterisation that he would prefer to cause the party as much misery as possible than to kill them instantly.

[Wolf Kanno]

I disagree. In VII you don't get to fight Sephiroth until key plot devices have been fulfilled (removal of the Barrier, finding Cloud, saving the huge materia and escaping from Junon (as you would need the Highwind to get to the North Cave, at which point you are able to face him), you don't have an opportunity to fight Sephiroth (the real Sephiroth) until the very end. In VIII Ultimercia uses Time Compression, the party make their way through that with another series of plot devices that have to be fulfilled (actually transcending time to be able to fight her) which isn't possible until you find Ellone ect. In IX you don't get to face Kuja till he reveals himself and his purpose and Garland throws a monkey wrench in his plan and that the party isn't strong enough till a certain point (the numerous times you were humbled by Beatrix each time it took less and less time to recover). In X you don't get to fight Yu-Yevon until other certain milestones are fulfilled (They believe the only way to kill Sin is to use the Final Summoning and it isn't revealed until the virtual end that they formulate a plan to kill him by other means.

In VI there was no major plot device that would have stopped them jumping onboard an airship (which could have easily been shot down by Kefka btw, yet another plot hole) and running up the mountain killing his chums along the way and then defeating the bastard himself.

You miss the point of the entire World of Ruin, the party tried to stop Kefka and they utterly failed most of the cast is too per-occupied with feeling sorry for themselves of dealing with personal business over stopping someone who has become a physical god of magic. The whole point of the second half is to overcome their own personal issues to finally regain the resolve needed to stop Kefka once and for all. In this case VI separates itself from the contrived plot elements of other FF games because instead having to do a series of quests to get rid of the magical obstacles in the parties way, they are instead dealing with a more personal issue and the games theme of trying to find hope in the deepest despair. The party tried and failed to stop Kefka, who knows what a second attempt would cause? The WoR is all about dealing with the mistakes they made and trying to find a reason to continue on. Most of the party members are utterly surprised when they discover each other so it's not like they all knew they were alive. After being nearly killed, watching the world end, and most likely helping to rebuild what is left of society, the party is too dispersed and downtrodden to just "storm the castle", It is a completely human response to the situation and didn't need some silly plot excuse to delay the final battle so the developers could make the game longer. FFVI's main themes are played the strongest in the game's second half where the player must see first hand all their effort has amounted up to and why the party has lost the will to fight.

You also are missing the point about Kefka's role in the WoR with your idea that "oh he could just shoot down the airship. It's a plot hole!". No because Kefka wants them to show up, his entire speech when the party meet him is one a host greeting his guest, not a viallin annoyed by interlopers cause unlike other villains, Kefka has already won. He became a god, ruled the world for a year, blew up the surface of the planet; his entire speech to the party is all about how despite his success, he is utterly bored. He decides to destroy everything and simply waits for them to finally show up to tell them cause it will give him one last thrill. He won't shoot down the airship cause he wants them to come, he doesn't try to stop the party cause he is banking on a final showdown, he's already achieved everything he wants and decided it wasn't worth it so what gain does he get for snuffing out the party too quickly?

[Bolivar]

Some of my favorite members in here doing their thing, but I just can't bring myself to read these long posts anymore. Least not for an overrated game like FFVI.

That's all I wanted to say, don't have anything to add to the discussion. Also, Wolf is wrong, the gameplay breaks itself and is horribly unbalanced with terrible challenge scaling.