Quote Originally Posted by The Man View Post
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).