N64 is one of the best controllers every designed. >:(
And yet, just like CT, it’s one of the great epic games we think about when we talk about oldskool. Maybe it’s the “charm”, as Cid put it.
On a totally unrelated note, Edgar and Sabin made a very obscure and unrecognizable cameo in another game. Cookies to whomever gets it.
Why? I really only used the directional pad once while playing Mortal Kombat. The left prong was hardly ever touched.
After Frog and maybe Magus, I thought that Robo was the character with most depth. Mainly from the whole Friendship VS Servitude thing, but there was also the stuff about his real identity and purpose, as well as his rebellion against his own race.
EDIT: Sorry for the double post. Wrong button 
Note that all of these were after FF6, except possibly Monster Collection.
Lucca’s Personality: Doctor Who assistants, Romana especially.
Marle’s Character: Please tell me you’ve seen the independant princess thing done before.
Robo: Many Phillip K Dick stories have had characters very like Robo, although they are more developed.
Ayla: She’s any neanderthal character with a tail and breasts. Also, because this game is more serious, she has less of a comic nature to her than most recent ‘caveman’ characters. I’ll give the gender-change enough for her not to be completely cliched, but I don’t really think it matters.
What you’re doing is being very general, and twisting facts to make your point. Also, you’re ignoring the characters personalities.
First, I hated Terra’s character. She was cliche.
How about: a king who is tired of ruling his kingdom, leads a double life as a revolutionary, never felt as if he was as good as his brother, tinkers in science, and has serious womanazing habits.
Sabin may be the stereotypical run-away prince character, except for one thing. He honestly would have sucked as king. He isn’t very smart, not that charming, and his diplomacy usually involved a fist. He ran away equal parts because he didn’t want to and because he couldn’t. The typical run-away prince is dashing and handsome and clever, etc. Sabin was a regular man born into the royal family, and he knew it. There is a clear cut difference there to me.
As for your line about the 14 little-develpoed characters, I would argue that every character in FF6 was better or equally developed with the CT characters, of whome there were only seven. That is half the number. Hell, all the characters in FF6 HAVE a personality, unlike Chrono.
As for being ‘one track’ characters, I disagree with this very strongly. They all went in several directions as characters, few of them even the same direction. Celes fell deeply in love with Locke, to the point of trying to kill herself when she thought he was dead, yet also kept her stoic and collected military nature. As for not being new, fresh, amazing, bullshit, etceteras, when did you play FF6? When it came out, or years later after you’d played ever damn game that ripped off of it. I’m not saying it’s definitely the latter, I’m merely saying that that could well explain why you feel the way you do about the characters.
What the FF6 characters, and for that matter, storyline, did was take cliches and twist them into new and interesting characters. Read Doctor Faust. See the character Mephistofeles? This character was a cliche with a twist: he was a devil who bettered the world with his evil trickery. He wasn’t good, by a long shot, but he wasn’t altogether evil, either.
Note that all of these were after FF6, except possibly Monster Collection.
Which means Locke was the first character out of a line of thieves? Yeah right. Original thinking on Squaresoft’s part back then.
What you’re doing is being very general, and twisting facts to make your point. Also, you’re ignoring the characters personalities.
WHAT personalities? FF6 wasn’t big on dialogue and character exploration you know.
How about: a king who is tired of ruling his kingdom, leads a double life as a revolutionary, never felt as if he was as good as his brother, tinkers in science, and has serious womanazing habits.
Leads a double life because we happen to see him again under a different name? We are given NO details as to the Gerad background, so stop trying to glorify that non existant plotline. Never felt as good as his brother? Serious womanizing habits? Aside from the two or three sentences we read? Yeah, score.
Sabin may be the stereotypical run-away prince character, except for one thing. He honestly would have sucked as king. He isn’t very smart, not that charming, and his diplomacy usually involved a fist. He ran away equal parts because he didn’t want to and because he couldn’t. The typical run-away prince is dashing and handsome and clever, etc. Sabin was a regular man born into the royal family, and he knew it. There is a clear cut difference there to me
What? Again, you are glorify everything. I think you’ve been reading way too many fanfics in which FANS develope all of these traits you speak of, because we sure as hell don’t pick them up while playing, unless you have a wild imagination and think ebyond what is shown to us.
As for your line about the 14 little-develpoed characters, I would argue that every character in FF6 was better or equally developed with the CT characters, of whome there were only seven. That is half the number. Hell, all the characters in FF6 HAVE a personality, unlike Chrono.
Wow, really? Aise from Terra and Celes, all of the other FF6 characters don’t go anywhere. Cyan remains the eloquent lonely gentleman, Locke remains the treasure hunter torn by love, and Shadow angsts his ass off, and his plotline is never explained. Neither is Gau’s even though there’s a perfectly good opening (the scene with his father). Instead, we’re left to assume, and we’re left hanging. All you have to do is read their monologues when they face Kefka. That’s ALL that they accomplish during the game. We could care less about Umaro, Gogo and Mog gamewise, because they contribute nothing, as well. What exactly do the others do? Terra learns to love? Celes learns to love? Uh, so what else was explored during FF6 regarding their personality? What makes these characters memorable is the depth explored by FANS, not what is presented to us. They have POTENTIAL to be great rpg icons, but that potential is DEVELOPED by US. As you have so proven.
So what if Crono was mute? We were without bias, weren’t we? I’d rather Crono be silent than to listen to Tidus piss and moan. What did Marle do that we KNOW and SAW? She lied about her identity, was kidnapped, was almost killed for it, put her heritage on the line, and travelled to a future in which her decendents are about to die. She goes from there. Marle is one of the least developed characters, but as least she has a background, and has a distinct personality. Same with Lucca. They’re all cliche, but to a point where they react within their boundaries in an interesting point of view. Marle cries, Marle plays the damsel in distress, Lucca is the machine girl, the logical one, Robo questions himself and what it means to be human and not human and lest I not forget…Magus. Who kicked everyone’s ass in character development. What did someone like Locke do? Oh? Lose his girlfriend and then spend the entire game not venturing out of his “wise guy” role and then try to resurrect her again? Over a timespan of what, three scenes and a few paragraphs? Ohhh, exciting.
As for being ‘one track’ characters, I disagree with this very strongly. They all went in several directions as characters, few of them even the same direction. Celes fell deeply in love with Locke, to the point of trying to kill herself when she thought he was dead, yet also kept her stoic and collected military nature.
Her stoic and collected military nature? How about she just didn’t change. That scene was so poorly executed. We are only given the ASSUMPTION that she loved Locke, and all we saw of her “tragic suicide attempts” was her standing by a cliff. What a heart wrencher. A minute later she’s miles away and the game progresses like it never happened and nothing is mentioned of it again. plus like I mentioned, Terra and Celes were the two that the game focused on more than the rest, so even then they didn’t get a lot.
As for not being new, fresh, amazing, bullshit, etceteras, when did you play FF6? When it came out, or years later after you’d played ever damn game that ripped off of it. I’m not saying it’s definitely the latter, I’m merely saying that that could well explain why you feel the way you do about the characters.
Ripped off one track characters? I could write better scenarios when i was 10 years old. You don’t need to be a genius to come up with storylines about a thief, or a nobleman, or a betrayal. You act as if all games are spawned from FF6 or something.
What the FF6 characters, and for that matter, storyline, did was take cliches and twist them into new and interesting characters.
I think you need to go back and replay. At the end of the game, all we are shown is a hint of Celes and Locke once again coming together, and everyone acting in their flat personality. The only one who may not, is Shadow, who dies. Ooops. New and interesting? Hardly. Where is all of this evidence? I’d hate to see you try and grasp easy FF games like 7 and 9 and 10 where the dialogue and history to understand is increased 10 fold, since you’re attempting to dig up so much non existant information from 6.
No offense, Arac, but I feel you’re coming into this argument with preconceived notions. Yes, CT had half the characters, but it’s also a 20-hour game as opposed to a 40-hour game. If we’re talking character depth, I think that the CT characters, on average, had equal depth as that of FF6. If we’re talking originality, I also think that CT characters were about as original as FF6. Perhaps you feel they lack depth because you didn’t like the game enough to pay attention to the depth being given them.
The problem here is that both sides of this argument are attempting to say that the characters in the other game are unoriginal by reducing them to a single sentence, whereas in the game they’re touting they give them big paragraphs of description. This is patently unfair.
Also, please note that just because you hadn’t seen a particular stereotype in an RPG doesn’t mean they haven’t been done in anime, manga, literature, movies, etc. Trust me, they have, every one of them, from both games, at some point or another. Before FF6.
Btw, S.E., I’m guessing you mean the Edgar/Sabin reference to be in Xenogears, where Rene and Roni are featured. However, just because the names are similar (and they’re regal brothers) doesn’t mean it’s an FF6 nod. In fact, both are most probably references to Remus and Romulus, the brothers who founded Rome.
None taken, you’re probably at least partially right.
Actually, I posted a paragraph about each character, and the overlying sentence of each was a detailed description of their cliche, not a borad, all-encompassing sentence.
As for the CT thing, I would agree that the characters had as much outright depth, however, FF6’s characters had much more depth that wasn’t put on the surface. FF6 used many literary techniques to give subtle depths to characters, while in CT, almost everything about the characters was out on the surface. The depth of FF6 characters increases as you note the literary references and other techniques used. Celes’ cliff scene, for example. Celes’ contemplation of suicide was shown through the symbolism as well as refernce. Notice how Celes sounds like Celestial? Know and Chinese proverbs about rain? If you did, the scene gains depth. This is one example I happen to know was intentional, and there are many others that seem unlikely to be coincidences. It was left vague because nothing more needed to be said, and because ‘show don’t tell’ used to hold some meaning in storytelling. I could have missed things like this in CT, but I’ve played through it twice, so I don’t think it’s too likely.
I would still argue FF6’s characters were more original, but I have made my points on this and if you continue to disagree, I guess I’ll never convert you =D
Also, nobody has been able to tout a big paragraph for Crono Trigger, yet.
I don’t see anything that resembles Remus and Romulus in Sabin/Edgar or Roni/Rene, except the fact that Roni and Rene founded a country. If you think about it, both groups of brothers looks very alike, rule desert countries confronted with a technologically developed enemy and have the same names (Edgar Rene Figaro and Sabin Roni Figaro).
Now back to what actually matters.
FFVI was a good game, a very good game but it wasn’t groundbreaking at all plot-wise or character-wise. By all means I’m not saying that CT was, I have already admitted it, but I have more or less the same opinion as Eva when it comes to the characters.
I don’t consider them to be completely flat, as a matter of fact they are quite interesting, it’s just that they aren’t all that great. Setzer, Gau, Relm & Shadow, Locke, Sabin and Edgar have nice clear (A little less with Shadow but…) stories, but none of them are really deep or worthy of recognition. I can’t see any of the brilliant twists anywhere.
Strago got some background, but it was even less important.
Terra and Celes, who I consider to be the pseudo-protagonists, got a lot of airtime, but wasted airtime. When you crack it down, all Terra did was snap out of her angst and Celes… well, Celes GOT angsty and then also snapped out of it.
And then you have Umaro, Gogo, Mog and Cyan who might all as well drop dead since the game addresses them once or twice (And you aren’t going to tell me that Cyan’s mail scam counts as character development).
Literary techniques? The game doesn’t even have good grammar, what literary techniques? And I really don’t see anything subtle about the characters.
Then there’s a very important point with RPGs: The Villain. The villain is always a very important character and FFVI suffers from that severely. Kefka is a dead-witted raving lunatic whose only character development is getting stronger and crazier. You can say he’s notorious, but I think as highly of him as CT’s giant parasitic mute beast.
And yes Cid, I’m really just doing what you just said, but I wanted to leave my opinion. I’m not saying FFVI is worse than anything else, I’m just saying that it isn’t better than everything else.