The materia system was a terrible idea - however, many other systems are almost as bad:
FF III/VI(US) - While each character had a special ability, all characters could learn all spells and wear almost all equipment. So you had your designated spellcasters that had the same spells and the same equipment, and you had your attackers, all of whom attacked 4 or 8 times per round, did max damage, etc.
FF VIII - I'm surprised Gamespy didn't have anything to say about how the Junction system ignores the character altogether!. All that matters is the magic you draw and the abilities your GFs have learned. In addition, you can use items to customize your GFs with abilities - so you could have characters with the same stats, the same abilities, the same spells - all except limit breaks, which is exactly what materia did. Only now, the 'materia' is a summon monster. Oh, not to mention that FF VIII had invincibility items and the absolute most overpowered limit break system ever - the endgame was just Squall performing Lionheart as many times as possible on a boss that had 'Meltdown' used on it. *yawn*
FFX - It takes time, but you can give every character the exact same stats, abilities, and spells. The sphere grid is even worse than the materia system in this sense - for those that haven't played FFX, imagine being able to equip every materia you had on all characters simultaneously. That's exactly what FFX's sphere grid is.
FFIX is markedly different. Each character's active abilities are different, and for the most part the abilities are unique to them. You have a thief. You have a black mage. You have a white mage. You have a dragon knight. It's almost impossible to use your black mage as a fighter. He just doesn't have the stats and abilities for it - and you can't do anything about it.
FF VII was epic. It certainly followed the 'collect friends from around the world to stop the supervillain from pwning the world' storyboard rule. That's how it always is, and FF VII was no exception. You went all around the world, explored locales varying from the steel-and-smoke Midgar to the carved-rock Cosmo Canyon to the coral reef forgotten city of the Ancients.
And FF VII has Sephiroth. pwned gg thx. run and cry.
That said, it isn't my favorite FF - I liked both VI and X more. Or rather, I would have liked X more if the dubbing wasn't so terrible and the dialogue wasn't so cheesalicious.
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Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.
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