@Entroper - You seem to take to the Aristotelian order of importance for the parts of a story (that is, plot before character.) But how can you be uninterested in what happens to Terra next, and how that relates to her past? The game is trying to give the characters more depth so that the final confrontation with Kefka is more meaningful. The last half of the game paints an intricate picture of a dying world by using characters who are beaten down and defeated by their joint failure against Kefka, and their individual failures in their pasts. By conquering their individual failures, they find the strength to come together again and take on Kefka one last time. That's the plot for the second half of the game, and if you ask me, all the main-story plot twists it doesn't offer are a small sacrifice for what is achieved.
"Whenever you find a man who says he doesn't believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later." -C.S. Lewis
"We all make choices... but in the end, our choices... make us." -Andrew Ryan, Bioshock
Prediction: Wii passes 360 in US between July - September 2008. (Wii supply will be the issue to watch, and barring any freak incidents between now and then as well.) - 6/5/08; Wow, came true even earlier. Wii is a monster.
