Aisha: So then I was right? Well aside from missing Tactics. You could have just said that, as opposed to telling me that I'm ignorant. Those are kind of opposites...
::spoilers::
Now I'm not saying FFVII was a bad game. Not at all. I'd choose it as my second under FFVI. However, I chose FFVI because of it's A.) story, B.) attention to detail, and C.) Character development. Now every FF has a decent story, but VII and VI really excell here. There are the kind of stories that you would play a less dynamic game to get through, because it's touching and ever interesting. Following Sepherith was great in FFVII just like trying to save the world from the empire was a real trip in FFVI. The farther you went, the more interesting things got. The character development was present in FFVII, but it didn't feel the same as VI. A couple of characters were thoroughly explained and had interesting twists in their personalities (or very interesting), but that was everywhere in FFVI. From the husband to a murdered wife, father to a murdered daughter "Gladia--" er Cyan, who is on a mission to avenge his family and his king, to the ego-tripping ladies man and master of technology Edgar. You had Lock's lost fiance (who left him with one hell of a complex for protecting women) and his ever intimate relationship with the ex Imperial general Celes... Shadow, the mysterious rogue, and secret father to Relm, the artist (a fairly crapplily developed character). Her grandfather was a great mage from the war of the magi, and her town, for fear of their own lives, had decided against using magic in every day life, and keeping a low profile in these dark times. There's Mog, everyone's favorite moogle, and Sabin, the lovable wanna be Dragonball character, whose brother (the aforementioned Edgar) allowed him to venture free out into the world and train himself to fight back against the Empire (by flipping a double headed coin, as you may or may not discover depending on which characters you have in your group aboard Setzer's flying machine). Then there are those filler characters like Umaro, Gau (even though you learn a few things about him) and that Mimic... but they're just there for fun.
And then there's Terra... but she is a bit too much to go into right now. I just love the fact that she can go SSJ heh ^_^
The absolute greatest thing about each of these characters is that none of them (aside from Terra) are Super-men or heroes. Everyone is going after the empire for their own reasons, but they need each other to do it.
Another one of those factors of the game that I really love is the fact that ::spoilers:: the villain actually succeeds in his diabolical plans before the game is over. Kefka destroys the world, killing off most of its population, and becomes a God in the process (albiet a weak God when you finally get to him). The world is shattered, and your team mates are strewn about the world. That's when the game really splits off from the scripted paths and lets you do whatever you want to do. You can even try to tackle the boss with 3 people (though you'll never survive). The split group idea was awesome too, allowing you to create seperate parties with seperate characters to combat different situations. The sheer number of secrets and hidden items are ridiculous, and just one of the many reasons to replay the game upon completion.
Still, the heart of the game is in the characters and all that they experience. The love stories, the murders, and the betrayals (plenty of the latter two... it really is a depressing game. Depressing in a very good way). You really get into it, which is rare in most of the games out there today. You could feel the *******ly ness of Kefka when he ended General Leo's life, and you felt the earth crumble when the statues were shifted out of position and the earth was damned. If you let Cid die on the island after coming out of the coma a year after the world ended (which is easy to do if you don't know what you're doing), you will see Celes attempt to kill herself by jumping off of a cliff. I mean you don't get that high quality of adult content in most RPGs! Damn, was that psycho-depressing or what? This game was an excelent tear jerker and heart string plucker.
Now FFVII was good, but I can't bring myself to say it was better than VI. There is just too much to recall while looking back at VI to say that VII was superior. Still, it's just me, and other people will likely not have looked so deeply into FFVI while they were playing, which is expected. Y'all can like what you want, but FFVI will always be my baby. Always.
*Edit* Oh yeah... the combat system too. Every single character had a unique ability that really mixed things up in fun ways. From stealing (which turned into mugging with a charm) to runic to swordtech there was always something a character could add to the fight. The materian in FFVI was a great system too, and added strategy to level gain by fixing certain materia to give certain bonuses upon leveling up, and allowing you to actually teach different members of your team different magical spells. The only downside to this would be the Ragnarok shard... Ultima was the kind of game breaker that Knights of the Round was... it's a shame they didn't tone it down or just leave it out. Meteo was fine.
