Final Fantasy Hacktics

(Now I did put a warning for spoilers however I doubt that is needed for games made in the 90s however I have gotten in trouble on gamefaqs for not putting spoiler warnings for games on the sega genesis so I figure I should put it just to be safe.)

Even pre-jenova cell cloud was a total beast, he took down the great Sephiroth while Sephiroth had his sword through Cloud's torso. Yet in fft he is one of the weakest special characters. Why not have him as the uber character instead of Orlandu? It would make more sense to have a well known and loved character who has proven to be so insanely powerful it is not even funny in his own game also be strong in another game where he is a recruitable character.

No way could it be a balance issue since if balance was what they are after then Cid would not even be in this game and neither would Beowulf. (Seriously against anything but a boss Beowulf is basically the easy button because of his seal ability) Maybe they thought his limit breaks would be more useful than they are. However shouldn't the beta testing revealed that it is a total pain just to make Cloud any good?

I think it was some kind of attempt to simulate FF7's limit system. Braver/Cross Slash have the smallest Limit bars in FF7, so they get the smallest CT, and since Omnislash had the largest Limit Bar, it gets the largest CT obviously. It had to have been added by someone outside by the development team, because it shows an almost criminal lack of understanding of how FFT's system works, given it's such a lackadaisical skill port. It's like, 'Well, since they won't let us add a limit bar, we'll just have to simulate it.'

However, it actually might have been tested (maybe). It's just the developers did not test it, or any CT based skills in fact, at end game speeds. At the speeds I imagine they bothered testing at (6 Speed), Limit seemed fine, but move beyond those speeds and it, and any spell with high CT was worthless. It shows they didn't understand how their system was going to turn out, either they beefed the speed growths, or just didn't do the math for the CT between turns that would clearly demonstrate how fucked CT spells would be end game at their current values. Or they might have just not cared, given how it's SE's policy to pretty much give you the keys to the kingdom endgame, which amounts to make everything overly scale, hoping the power they give you will make players overlook their imbalances (Orlandu being pretty blatant in this respect).

Despite what I'm saying, I'm willing to cut them some slack because not everything is obvious while developing a game; you aren't going to catch every single little bug or oversight, even with lots of testing. The whole CT issue isn't minor in the slightest, but given the sheer complexity of the mechanics they were working on and for such a small and underfunded game, so what if CT times weren't quite right, as long as you can beat the game okay, it's perfectly fine.

In conclusion, SE gonna SE. Cloud was shoved in FFT like a square peg into a round hole, with just as much subtlety. He pretty much fell out of the fucking sky.

EDIT: I will say they at least put some effort into making Cloud, by giving him custom formulas, it's just they could have done it so much better.

I half expected some "Cloud sucks" rant. Instead I get a well thought out and intelligent reply. I am pleasantly surprised.

To be honest, Cloud's biggest weakness is in his starting exp level. The lower level limits are fairly useful if you can be bothered to grind him to chapter 4 party levels, mitigating the atrocious CT of them all. The Materia Blade requirement is a bit of a nerf, but removing it almost makes him overpowered. He's certainly not in Orlandu territory, and characters like Rafa and Reis make better generics than he does, but he's really not that bad.

Cherry Blossom is never worthwhile, though.