Quote Originally Posted by Lord Golbez View Post
I don't really get why people hold up FFVI as an example of distinct roles for characters rather than the beginning of the end for them. Sure, the characters have distinct roles early on, but that mostly falls by the wayside once you get espers. The magic users lose almost all distinctness because there isn't a spell they can learn that can't be learned by virtually everyone else and the others retain their special abilities but they usually don't do any better job than magic, so why bother? Heck, even early on, to be honest, there's not that much difference among the characters if you're straight up attacking. Compare it to FFIV where attacking with Rydia, Tellah, Palom, Porom, etc. is practically a waste of a turn.
Honestly, character like Sabin, Edgar, and Cyan don't really need magic, so teaching them spells is a waste of time, especially since their innate skills are often just as powerful and don't need MP. Most of the non-magic users are actually pretty awful at magic compared to the natural users who will on average do anwhere from 1.5 to 2x more damae with a spell than muscle-heads like Shadow, Locke, Sabin, and Cyan until you start pumping them up with magic. Even then, the four core magic users retain unique abilities since Terra's Trance causes her to basically double most of her stats and take 1/2 damage from everything which honestly makes her the best all-round character in terms of just raw statistical power which is amplified by her having some of the best customization options. Strago still has his lores which are unique enough and hit several non-traditional spell types like Wind and Water to make him pretty useful, especially when you consider learning Grand Delta is much easier than Ultima, making him a real powerhouse in the early parts of the Ruined World if you plan it out that way. Relm has the Control ability when granted the Fake Mustache which makes her indispensable for learning lores and trying to get rare steals. Celes is probably the odd one out of the bunch since Runic is incredibly situational, but considering she's one of the power quartet who can use the best weapons in the game like Ultima Weapon, Illumina, and Ragnarok she has better better customization options than most of the cast.

Yet my real point is the fact that all the characters secondary abilities are uniquely inputted and stay viable throughout the game as long as you know what you're doing. Teaching everyone magic is ultimately a lazy "grind my way to victory" strategy, and frankly VI is not challenging enough to warrant that strategy and you're better off just learning to embrace all of the casts unique skill sets because they offer more variety and keep battles fresh unless you just stick to the same four characters the whole game. I often feel the real problem with VI's design is really on the players being a bit too complacent at times, which is frankly an issue for the whole series.