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I do agree there was a lack of charater development. But if they would have really put a whole lot of effort into developing ALL the charaters then it would have drawn focus away from the story itself. I mean, you did get minor little things ie skelly talking with his mom or grandma or whaterever or the ending where it says something about starkys real mission being to take over the planet. But I really wouldn't have wanted to see huge character development for charaters like funguy, turnip, etc. I wouldn't have minded learning more about Harle though, or Glenn. But as long as it took me to beat the game enough times to get all the character and see all the endings, I'm not sure I'd want to see too much character development. It's kind of like FF4 where you don't really find out too much about Cain but he's a great supporting character. Or Edward (the Bard) only gets a few little cameos outside of the hour or two that he's in your party

PS I'm playing FF6 right now and loving it! I just got the Ramah Magicite. Only problem is that I like the japanese originals better because the script isnt so edited, but my translation patch was incmplete so i'm playinf FF3(us)
I've been told theres no major differences though