i wonder if i would try one, possibly but when it comes to danceing.. i dunno i might try it

Well let me start off by saying my thoughts on the conversation in this thread so far.

When it comes to "originality" Having a very original game is great but you can easily go overboard on it like my older brother always dose. He hasn't stuck to an RPG for over a few minuets with the exception of lufia 2 and final fantasy 9. So he hasn't been pre exposed to all the other great epic RPG's out there. Yet even so he manages to pull out ideas from countless games i have played in my time. Such as "a spirit boy, who is a mage, very young, and lost, doesn't know of any family, or purpose, and has no reason or motive for life. He is nothing but a shadow with eyes that only wants to fill that void in his life. - I could think of a few personalaties that might relate too, Vivi from FF9 to point out a more closer match. (this was before he played FF9)

All sorts of character personalaties can be pulled from his ideas that Ive encountered in my RPGing over the years. It is like writing music. Today there is so many songs, and lyrics out there. It's hard to come up with original melodies, because it will allways sound like somebody else. The fact is. So many ideas have been layed out in all the epic RPG's over the years. Regardless of weather you have played them or not. Your going to find similar characters and story plots everywhere. Could square-enix propose an idea like this and be accepted? Or would people try and point out every thing in the game that is similar to another?

maybe he hasn't had as much experience as some of the big names in gaming. But everybody has to start somewhere. Dose anyone truly believe the final fantasy series popped out of the makers heads. Before that they were struggling to create a name for square with a great game. Like all great companies they all have to start somewhere and i bet you their first  ideas were nothing but a replica of all the other early games "save the princess" "restore order to the kingdom" "live happy ever after"

I like how your using your knowledge of RPG's to try and give constructave criticism to his plot, That's always helpfull, And i think maybe Q.K should take some of your thoughts to heart, as they are not all ment to be insults to the plot or the writer.
One thing is to always keep an open mind, Always leave room for change. Cause while you may have a big idea now of how the entire story will unfold, as you create it new ideas will always emerge, and with little blurps and opinions from your team you can make a great game.

Alot of movie directors make changes while filming based on actor suggestions. Which in the end benefits the movie 100%. You could look at almost all of the big companies games like square and enix, and capcom, Nintendo, etc. and I'm sure you could find just as many relations to other games in them as you did here. These things happen when writing a story. It's just alot easier to say to a new game developer who has no huge experience that he is ripping ideas off of other games, and writers.

I like a lot of your plans for the game, some aren't "spectacular" necessarily  but they can still work. I like the idea of him finding his bother only to realize he is evil and possessed. I think it should elaborate alot with that. So that you don't know it is your brother at the beginning. Let him be a happy good easy going great personality, fun main character, with friends, and a great life in his town. And  he has long gotten over his brothers death, but it still comes back to him now and then. Make him enjoy life. And then some tragedy happen, or an attack on something close to him, and he forces himself not to loose whats dear to him again. And he seeks out the trouble Which is a powerfull enemy throughout the game. He threatens your entire happiness and all you have left with his evil, and you grow to despise him in every way, he has destroyed everything you love, and you want to kill him, you and your party or whatever, go through the game, trying to stop him and his army or what not, and only in the climax, and important parts of the story, closer to the finish, do you get really involved, where you realize the creature you hate so much is the brother you loved with everything you thought you lost. He has no knowledge of you, and thinks your a stupid rat getting in the way of his master, and fights you many times, and you fight his monsters. You learn the true evil behind him, the main enemy, and you hate him with everything in you, for the loss of your brother not once, but twice. you learn about a plot greater than the one which you have been fighting to prevent the whole game. and you learn why your brother was taken, what is special about him, and what is special about you that makes you every bit if not more precious to the enemy, when you defeat your brother and he comes back to you, and tells you what you are suppose to know before he dies happy. you go after the main enemy, and then some melo drama and crap can set in, that way its not from the beginning, but it goes from being cheerful and witty, that attracts players to being a large plot. and deep into the story you reach the players on a different level with your "drama" and serious things happen there, with all sorts of emotions.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that or anything, I'm just speaking off of the top of my head. I personally like that melo-dramatic feel in games near the climax, or 3/4 through the game, where you really get involved as a gamer, and you feel the emotions as well. But its only good when your well into the story, and know the characters. Once you see them begin to change. but the beginning has to start off happy and not full of drama or emotions, but has to have lots of fun things that attract the players.

Having dynamic cast is also good. Characters who change as the story unfolds. for example, cloud strife from FF7, starts off, not really giving a damn about what happens to anyone else or the planet, he just wants his money, and he wants out of there. By the end of the game, hes not this stuck up guy anymore with no feelings. Hes expressing himself more, and taking on the role of a leader, and stepping up, treating his companions as family and not acquaintances. Or you got Steiner of FF9, hes a workaholic, who's only concern is his duty as the commander of the knights of Pluto, he has no feelings of his own. He lives and breaths souly to protect the princess and be the queens servant. Hes stuck on the idea that zidane and his friends are scoundrels who should be hung. But by the end, he is proud to even know him. And states he would go to the end of the world for him. His mannerisms change, and his speach changes. He learns to love his friends, and develops emotions and feelings of his own. The list could go on an on but i would get carried away.

But in the end, you don't need to be 100% totally off the chart original to attract people to a game. Sometimes i find it kind of weird playing one of those type of games, where they try so hard just to be different from the rest its just to obvious they are trying to hard. I like a game with some of the RPG roots, where its got some originality, in the battles, and menus, and characters, but still has many of the aspects that make the rpg, the things that make me love the type of game that they are.

My brother always tried to be so different from anything created when he makes game plots, that its almost stupid. He comes up with character names which consist of many unused letters, and silent ones, that have no purpose except to make the name difficult to read, and you wont pronounce it with out voice acting. for example "johanahsain" which supposedly means "yo-hansen" and he writes like 50 page layouts for battle or menu ideas that you need a degree to understand.

You don't have to stray away from what RPG's are to much to make a good game. Use the ideas that you think will make a good game, never make a game thinking "is this already in a game? damn! i gotta think of something new" Make a game with whatever it takes to make it the best it can be. Don't even stop to think if its already used somewhere. If it makes your game better, do it. You don't have to be different, you just have to be better. With final fantasy, they created the "active time battle system" where monsters and players attack based on a time bar, rather then in an exact specific order. Which revolutionized RPG battling. For all their games to come after that, did they completely remove that idea because it had already been used? no, they elaborated on it to make it better, adding aspects like "slow" and "haste" and with FF10 they made a meter which shows the order of turns.

Anyways my wrists are getting sore, and I'm blahbing on to much. Do i think your story can improve 100% during the making? most definitely. Do i think some parts need improvement? of course. Do i think it has even a remote possibility of becoming great? of course.
But you should never have to sit and think of the main characters age, and change it repeatadly because it might be the same as somebodys age in another game.
At the same time though, dont get me wrong, i dont think you shold go and copy a game completely and just change a few things 
When i write a story, i never write it all the way out first, write it as you go, it gives you more time to think about whats going to happen and what your building up to, rather than just writeing it all out from start to finish without any idea of how it feels. Your idea of how the plot should feel could change dramaticaly and you may need to go back to the baseics to adjust it to fit your new senario even. But always  keep an open mind.

Anyways i just thought id say that.
and yes this is tj

I like all of them Good job. Tales of destiny is awesome