Quote Originally Posted by Karifean View Post
I agree it's a limitation of the times, maybe it was even a necessary step in evolving, and sure enough, the series got so much better about this in the PSX era, especially by FF IX. Which is why I tend to prefer those games' casts as well as other SNES games like FFV and Chrono Trigger that at least played more to the strengths of that era rather than playing hard into its weaknesses.
That's fair. For me, I see VI's narrative as more like Evangelion's. The story was never about stopping the empire, it was really more about the broken cast trying to overcome their personal struggles which was not very common for most games at that time. I mean it's hard to not feel something for Cyan when you finish the Phantom Train sequence and Cyan watches his family get on the train to head for the afterlife and after that moment, you are stuck on the train station with him just looking devastated. You can't illicit a response, from him, you can't leave, if Shadow is there, he simply tells you to give Cyan a moment to grieve an you wait for a few moment in this awkward silence of human suffering. I can get how you feel the party isn't a team, but I disagree when you say they don't feel human.

I can easily ignore the lack of camaraderie among the party cause I'm a natural loner myself, and I also feel the genre is over-saturated with "friendship is the best thing ever" messages so I still find it refreshing not having to deal with group think that usually falls into childish notions of human interaction. What's amusing to me is that I find X's cast to be less human cause most of their concerns only focused around Yuna and the pilgrimage and I often felt that even when the game tried to explore their more personal stories, it always fell flat for me cause the Pilgrimage and whatever Seymour was trying to accomplish took precedence, so I can already tell we're going to agree to disagree on this format.