I thought that was Red 13's tank anyway! (I'm probably mistaken, but...) I certainly associated it with him because it is a "beast" materia.
But I agree wholeheartedly with Super, such weak plot claims are ridiculous and overturn gameplay balance for no reason.
I do extend the storebought attack magic to CC, but limited. I guess my problem with a cast like FF 7 is who gets what element?
Everyone gets every element, of course.
My problem with CC attack magic has always been that there is nothing that makes a red innate better with red elements, so giving them red elements is arbitrary, non-unique, and has no in-game backing. (Riddel makes much better use of red elements than Zappa does!)
However, the Magic stat, at its core, IS a unique thing about characters. What makes Relm, Aeris, Tia, and Gallows good (or at least non-horrid) in-game? That magic stat. Storebought attack magic to everyone makes that unique point about a character DL-relevant. In this case, there is no need to look for arbitrary reasons to divide the cast. Just like we let everyone in the cast use the utterly non-unique "Attack" command, which allows differences in Strength/Attack stat to shine, we could also let everyone in the cast use commonly available attack magic, which allows the Magic stat to shine.
This does not extend to non-attacking effects. Not only are said effects frequently degenerate and give whole casts advantages just due to something in their system, said effects frequently (though to be fair, not always) do not represent statistical advantages. Anyone with Cure 3 can heal fully, anyone with the Frog spell has an instant win status, anyone with Ruse can become super-evasive.
So yeah, the guidelines I am thinking of would be:
-Any attack spell which can -easily- (no grinding!) be given to every single member of a cast who can get it is legal to that cast (or portion thereof that can use it, see Lufia 2).
-Non-damage spells gained through this clause are not allowed, and damage spells with added effects have those effects thrown out. No MagmaPillar confuse hype, no draining hype, no timed card hype, etc.
Offhand, I think this most notably effects:
-FF7. Aeris and Vincent. Barret and Tifa to a lesser extent. Fire, Ice, Bolt, Quake, Bio (no poison). Contain/Ultima are far too hard to get 2 copies of, let alone 8.
-Chrono Cross. I forget exactly what is storebought, but the mages now don't (totally) fail.
-Valkrie Profile. Mmph. Not too happy with this one, because it makes mages less unique (only differences in their support spells matter). I am tempted to make VP exempt here. This view would have the amusing effect of making Shiho one of the best mages instead of one of the worst!
-Lufia 2. Tia gets more damage if I'm not crazy (L2s were before she left, right?). So does Lexis. Don't think anyone else changes too drastically, Selan and Maxim get some alternate damage.
-FF1, Ninja gets ICE2! YESZ.
-WA3 is screwed by this still because you can't give any spell to everyone. Oh well.
-FF8 is likely still screwed by this due to GFs being illegal! If you wanted to stretch things you could give everyone a Magic command anyway. On the one hand this increases uniqueness because damage rises and limit damage becomes less "I win regardless" so things like Zell's better limits matter. On the other hand, you lose the uniqueness of Squall's good physical. Eh.
-FF6 has Relm jumping up and down cheering because she just got above average damage. Mog gets more damage so he can win more easily without status, and a few other characters at least get decent options (Edgar and Cyan's spells should be similar to their best damage otherwise). Granted... FF6 pretty much is only getting one good spell here, Fire 3 (3x from Phoenix and 1x from Tritoch). It's too difficult to give Flare or Pearl (2x from only one Esper) to everyone, let alone Ultima, Ice 3, or Bolt 3 (1x).
-Mana Khemia, maybe, but I don't think common skills really held up well to unique skills even for people like Muppy and Pamela. Could be wrong. Also no idea at all what is legal here! I think this may be more relevant in MK2?
-Grandia 1 and 3 (2's magic being tied to very limited eggs probably means it's out). For G1 this mostly eases resource issues a bit since everyone has better damage from their uniques. For G3 this is at least a bit of a boost to Dahna, though probably changes things not too much overall unless you allow the Level 10 spells, and I'd be incilned to say you should not, they're annoying to get four of.
-Probably some I'm forgetting!
Anyway except for VP and FF8 this change feels mostly positive to me. The downsides are that it represents extra status topic work and generally upsets the prevailing visions for some characters.