Celes and 'Maria & Draco'

[ThroneofDravaris]

And this simple (in more ways than one) statement reflects why you don't see the complexity of FFVI.

Why? Because I thought FFVII had a more dramatic story line? Let me just say that I played FFVI before FFVII, so my opinion wouldn’t be biased in that respect. Not sure what you were getting at with your “in more ways than one” statement, I don’t see the complexity of FFVI because IT WASN’T COMPLEX! Neither was FFVII, or FFVIII, in fact all FF games are rather easy to understand. If I didn’t see something, it was because o my lack of understanding of the Japanese culture, but I doubt many people hear have that…
If you want a REAL complex story line, watch Evangelion, it’s on a level much higher than any FF game.

First of all, the graphics do effect the interpretation of the plot. The newer games show it possible for characters to reflect emotion, whereas with the older 8- and 16-bit games, facial expressions--and even body gestures--are nearly impossible. I mean hell, they even use question marks and exclamation points above their head, for cryin' out loud.

Hmm, I didn’t think of that. I guess you have a point.

Secondly, WAY too many people have been caught up in the newer games--because the newer games were marketed better, with better graphics, on "better" systems--and concentrate too much on simple things like graphics and not nearly enough on the complexities of sorted characters, deeper plot lines, twists, etc. etc.

Now that is a very biased statement. I really don’t understand what makes people think that just because the graphics have considerable increased in quality over the years, it has been at the expense of story line. I think you’ll have a hard time debating that characters in FFVI were any better developed than those in any of the other FF games (well, with the exclusion of X-2), especially since most of the characters were abandoned towards then end in favour of Celes, Terra and Locke ( and you didn’t even need to reclaim Terra to complete the game, she was the closest thing the game had to a main character!). There is no basis to your statement other than personal opinion, which is fine, but you cannot state it as fact.

General Leo's death was just as "dramatic" as Aeris' death, but nobody swoons over Leo.

General Leo played an insignificant role in FFVI compared to Aeris in FFVII; Aeris at least was playable for more than one battle. If their death were just as dramatic (with, IMO, they weren’t), people cry over Aeris’ death to a greater degree because she had played a greater role in FFVII than Leo in FFVI. Remember, in the beginning Leo had been an antagonist of the sorts.

There were rare segments of FFVI made to be "pure comedy"--such as the revelation that Cyan knows nothing about machines or that Gau is afraid of water--but those are few and far between, and the general line is much darker than many of the other Final Fantasy games.

Really, I don’t see how FFVI was dark. I know, the world is destroyed, but that happens all the time in Video Games. I can’t really think of any scene in the game that I considered “Dark”, at least not at the level of the later FF games (namely FFVII, but also in FFX). The entire game had a very “light heated” or, dare I say, “immature” feel to it; It could have been due to the influence of Nintendo’s translation, but even so it was there.

Sure, Kefka was meant to be entertaining--his outfits, some of his dialog, etc. However, it was certainly not the primary objective of Square to make him funny--as Nec said, he's a lunatic, bent on world domination/destruction, with total disregard to human life. Not some schmuck who wants to save the world by destroying it, but somebody who wants to control the world by destroying it.

Bah, there was NOTHING serious about Kefka, everything he did was a riot! All of his dialogue was entertaining to some extent, as was the way he destroys the world simply because he gets pissed off at Celes. No, it was DEFINATELY Square’s aim to make him entertaining.