Well well well, this Pixel Remaster was definitely a better job than the previous ones, not only the reorchestrate music but also some cutscenes in 2D-HD, the sprites despite wanting to be faithful to the originals, they also tried to have more details
Unfortunately... being this my favorite FF, I would have preferred a 2D-HD remake than this "pixel remaster" the cutscenes in 2D-HD have given just a hint of how FFVI could be with that graphics, that is magnificent leaving only to the cutscenes suggests that it is a work left in half, also the lack of exclusive Advance content suffers to increase the longevity of the product
In summary, it is a job done really well but unfortunately it is left in half in my opinion

If you are interested in this remaster or you are already playing it, I highly recommend these mods:

SNES Sprites
Old Backgrounds
Pixel Font (Video Tutorial)
Total Madness
FFVI UI Overhaul
Old Menu Portraits
Overworld Mobile Tiles
Pixel Art Button Prompts
SNES Battle Numbers

Will give you the real Final Fantasy VI experience, all mods are from Nexus Mods.

I originally played Final Fantasy VI on an emulator when I was like 12 years old. I got up to the opera house segment and hard bounced off, probably thinking something along the lines of "this is stupid when do I get to fight more monsters." Now, over a decade later and having played hundreds of games since then I've returned to FFVI only to find out the parts where you're not fighting monsters are the best bits!

The first half of FFVI is filled with so many unique events and setpieces that sometimes I was actually bummed out when they wanted me to fight some enemies. Not because the combat is bad, far from it, but because all the other stuff is so unique for a JRPG from this time. There's just so many interesting bits with hardly any combat - the aforementioned opera house segment, the part where your party splits up and you have to sneak around as Locke, the dinner party, and I could go on. This is without even mentioning the amount of variability each scene has depending on who's in your party. I think these sections are the reason that people remember this game so fondly, and why it still feels fresh even almost 30 years later.

The second half of FFVI is not the generation defining experience that the first half is, but it's still pretty good. Stripping back the story to its barest essentials allows the gameplay to breathe in a way it hadn't had the chance to in the bombastic first half of the game. It was here that I grew to appreciate the Magicite system to its fullest. The combination of Magicite and relics along with the wide array of party members to choose from really allows you to tweak your party to a level almost as satisfying as the job system from FFV, and that's a huge compliment because the job system owns my soul. I also really appreciate how many dungeons in this half of the game have a little gimmick to make them more interesting, even if some of those gimmicks suck.

Pretty enjoyable. I enjoy the ensemble cast concept and that no one is the "main" character even if I only really enjoyed 3 of them mechanically. Played this as my first Final Fantasy because Kefka is a clown, and I was hearing a lot about an opera scene, both were pretty cool (except them gamifying the opera house and having to redo parts, thats just stupid.) It was cool letting everyone learn basically any spell. I did have to cheat at the end because I was under leveled for the final boss and I was not gonna level people.

This was, at least for me, the definitive version of the game.

This is coming from someone who never got to REALLY enjoy, let alone finish the game before. And I played EVERY version before, losing counts of how many times I played through the first few hours of the game in the past five or six years.
So, what's special about this version that made the game work for me?

Basically everything. an immersive 16:9 aspect ratio, revamped battle backgrounds, new character sprites (I genuinely love the original artwork, but I think these new ones work a lot better in HD screens), revised mechanics, a BEAUTIFUL and organic rearranged soundtrack and, by far, among some other little things, the best addition: Auto-battle.

In my opinion, this Pixel Remaster is worth it for the new soundtrack alone, but I simply can't express enough how much auto-battle does WONDERS for this game. Being able to repeat your last actions and let the battle roll 1.5 times faster mitigates tedious grinding and constant manual repetition, and I think this is the key factor to this remaster.

I finally got to experience this beautiful world with its cast of charismatic characters, filled to the brim with memorable moments and tied together by an astounding soundtrack and tight gameplay. FFVI still is not my favourite in the franchise, and still not among my favourite JRPGs, but now I can finally fathom what truly makes this title special.

P.S. change the fonts to the JP file and apply a mod to change the world map tileset for the original Super Nintendo ones. Find the game's page in Nexus Mods and thank me later.

The best way to play one of, if not THE best Final Fantasy game. The remastered pixel visuals are fantastic, and much easier to look at than the god-awful mobile ports. The remastered music is also fantastic. When I first heard the battle theme, and the boss theme, I couldn't help but jam out.

Everything else is exactly how you'd want it here. The battle system is the same, the characters are still as great, and the writing is on point. This is really just the best way to play FFVI imo, and same goes for all of these pixel remasters really. If you love FFVI or have yet to give it a try, this is the best way to do so.

The evolution of video games is wild. What was once one of the grandest adventures you could have on a console feels like nothing special compared to modern titles. Sure, FF6 remains the finest 2D Final Fantasy game. The sense of exploration for a SNES jRPG is nearly unmatched here, but what does a SNES jRPG have to offer someone born after the SNES' heyday? I can't imagine a 20 year old kid would get much out of FF6... besides the music. The soundtrack here remains timeless with a wonderful orchestral reimagining. Sprite work is also great, both the original and this remaster.

The story is hampered by the dialog limitations of the time, this goes for characters as well. FF6 opts for an ensemble cast, which is great for mixing up party composition over the runtime, but severely impacts the amount of character development each character can receive. Most characters do have a small arc to their backstory, but it feels like one never spends enough time around the main cast as a whole. The plot and backstory are certainly serviceable, but there's really only so much the game can convey. The break into a pseudo-open-world in the second half remains a great design choice. World lore and character backstories are developed more in the second half during a series of vignettes discovered by exploring the world.

The Esper system is a decent jRPG system. It's an interesting way to balance learning magic with levelling up stats. However, I found that Esper stat boosts from level up are fairly low impact. A lot of damage and damage mitigation is based on character level, not stats. Sure, you could really min-max the boosts to make them impactful. An additional 30 STR is going to be noticed. The question remains though, "why?" I was able to beat the game around level 45 with a fairly un-optimized party and still managed to dish out 9999 damage on most of my attack turns.

All in all, I can't help but think about a kid forced to play this asking his dad, "This is what you went apeshit over in the mid 90s?"

Game gets 3 stars from me, plus a half star for the soundtrack, plus a half star adjusted for nostalgia and the game's age. 4/5.

as my first proper delve into the pixel era of ff this was basically everything i wanted from a narrative standpoint

gameplay-wise ff6 also hits on all the rights spots for me; boss fights are all engaging enough to be fun but not too unfair

absolute classic

A masterpiece. All around I think this game is perfect. Perfect characters, perfect gameplay, perfect pacing, perfect plot, perfect MUSIC. This game has aged magnificently especially with the remaster. Everything about the game just makes you feel something. Every character is carefully worked to have a perfect arc with their relevance to the story being proven through the shared theme of loss and heartbreak. Locke, Celas, Edgar, and Shadow are some of the best characters in the series that prove why this story works so well. Every character is carefully worked to have a perfect arc with their relevance to the story being proven through the shared theme of loss and heartbreak. Locke, Celas, Edgar, and Shadow are some of the best characters in the series that prove why this story works so well. Overall the game is a masterpiece and a peak game from it's series and the JRPG genre. Overall a perfect game and definitely worth playing if anyone wants to get into this series. Especially with the Pixel Remaster 10/10

i first played final fantasy 6 back on the PS1 when i was like, 6 or 7, something like that. could barely get past Mt Koltz when i was that young, if i got that far. like its younger brother FF7, this game has been with me for my whole life. and with the pixel remaster i have FINALLY finished it. what's really remarkable about FF6 by itself however, is just how ahead of its time it was. you compare this to a lot JRPGs today and it still blows them out of the fucking water. the expressive sprites, the fantastic music, the beautiful enemy and esper sprites, and the great characters. admittedly its characters are a little more simplistic than later games in the series, but when you have a cast of 16 characters i think what is produced is astounding. especially seeing as newer games with half the cast (octopath traveller lol) have even more barebones characters with worse writing. (side note, octopath traveller is the worst jrpg i have ever played.) i still kind of cant believe just how good FF6 really is. the entire world of balance is fantastic, it sprouts a huge and interesting world that feels interconnected and personal. i always loved the way Nikeah and South Figaro have a trading route between their ports, and I love that the towns on the outskirts of Vector have been colonised by the empire. there's a real understanding of the towns are neighbours to each other which only arguably FF4 had before it (and even then not to this degree). the flow of the story is great and its set pieces are brilliant. Sabin's route after the returner hideout is genuinely one of my favourite ever video game experiences, and i think the only thing wrong with it is that its not longer or got more to it lmao. it is a whole mini story by itself which is so impressive, and the phantom train is soooo gooood dude. phantom forest is a beautiful piece of music, and the very experience there is weird and fun and interesting, and totally unlike anything else i've ever seen in a game. the games comedic moments between sabin, cyan, and gau are whimsical and delightful. just think about when you recruit gau and have that whole shindig with him, a game like pokemon could NEVER even BEGIN to dream of that kind of stuff. and this game came out in freaking 1994 dude!!!!
i wont go on about the entire world of balance but, needless to say, it is unabashadely fantastic. (the opera scene in the pixel remaster is also amazing, people have noted they wished the whole game was done in hd2d but to be honest i'm glad it wasnt. we've only got two games right now in that style and i'm already sick of it! plus FF6's art direction is part of its charm; i dont think it necessarily needs changing)
on FF6's game design, i only realised for the first time THIS playthrough that the only way to get stat gains on a level up is to use specific espers on each characters. having come off the ass of FF8 with its weird stat gains i was a bit worried about this, but its simplicity does it favours here, and allows you to grind specific stats in a satisfying and noticable way. have the right espers on and levelling up twice makes you notably stronger. bueno nice or whatever!!!!
FF6 is of course, not a perfect game however! there are pacing issues around the world of ruin time. in particular i think it does start with the world of balance, the way strago and relm join your team and then immediately leave it is a tad disappointing. like most JRPGs the later party member additions never feel like they have the weight the starting lot do, and FF6 suffers from this. the lack of story content in the world of ruin definitely is noticable as well, the difficulty spike and the lack of story hits this game hard but thankfully if you like it enough to get to the world of ruin, you'll probably see it through anyway. unlocking the ultima spell makes the game totally trivial too; it is ludicrously powerful, cant be dodged/reflected, and hits all enemies lmao. busted. next time i play i will be smashing up that esper into a sword instead.
anyway, i love this game. i would probably write more but i have to go to work now. bye!

I've been meaning to play Final Fantasy VI for a long time, so when I saw the pixel remaster's announcement I knew that it would be how I'd play the game, and I'm glad it was. The music is fantastic (despite not knowing all of the songs from the original) and the pixel art is some of the best I've seen in the game, with some effects looking insanely detailed and realistic.

As for the game itself, I absolutely love it. I previously heard that the story wasn't as crazy as the later final fantasy game, but I still found myself becoming engrossed in the world and characters. I liked Terra and Locke, but Celes in particular stood out to me, which went against my expectations.

As for the gameplay, I found that very enjoyable as well. There's lots of variety in gameplay mechanics spread throughout the many areas, making each area feel unique. Most characters also have their own gimmick, further adding to the gameplay variety. However, some aspects of combat got frustrating, particularly status effects like frozen. It was annoying when everyone became frozen and there was nothing I could do about it besides wait a few minutes.

All in all, I really enjoyed Final Fantasy 6. It's a fantastic experience that RPG fans will be sure to enjoy. I was surprised by how much Square was able to put into an SNES game, and I'd love to see a full-on remake or HD-2D-style game in the future.

It still feels weird to pay for a mobile game, but I went ahead and splurged. Final Fantasy VI is one of my favorite games, and this is a fine port. The quality of life improvements like autobattle and the ability to quick save any time were very welcome, but best of all was the gorgeous remaster of the soundtrack, including real vocals in the opera scene. So cool.

I do have a few minor critiques. The first I think is just an iOS thing, but if you minimize the game and open another app the game will stop and you'll have to reload. This is a bummer for RPGs, where you often want or need to consult a walkthrough. Second, the font is ugly (which is forgivable) and tiny (which is a bigger issue due to accessibility and just the fact that phone screens are already small). Third, Gau's Rage ability didn't work with autobattle. Finally, the game didn't include any of the GBA add-ons. I've never played this version so I didn't miss it too much, but it still would've been nice to have.

But, as I said, minor issues. Overall, this game holds up really well and hits different post-Covid and post-Trump. I hope FF6 gets a FF7-style remake down the road.

There are few games that I've played recently that have such a legacy as Final Fantasy VI. I've been playing most of the classic Final Fantasy titles for the first time with these Pixel Remasters (barring IV, the first one I played, and V, which I'd played most of via the old SNES fan translation a number of years ago), and this was easily the one I was the most curious about.
...Well, maybe aside from II due to its unique leveling system, but nonetheless. VI is very much one of the most well-known games in the series, so going into it I tried to temper my expectations; going in with the idea that this was a classic RPG and one of the best on the SNES could set my expectations too high, after all.
I'll begin with the story, though due to the nature of this game's particular structure I won't go too in depth. Many, many years ago, there was a massive war known as the War of the Magi, after which magic almost completely vanished from the world. In the present day, an Empire led by a man named Gestahl has created "Magitek," an artificial way to imbue people with magic, and is planning to conquer the planet with his massive army, led by the insane clown Kefka. Terra, a girl under the control of the Empire and forced into a suit of Magitek armor, is taken on a mission to the rebelling town of Narshe, where she and two other soldiers find a frozen creature called an Esper, which quickly dispatches the two soldiers and frees Terra from her mind control. Terra then escapes from Narshe, meeting the treasure hunter Locke, a member of the Returners - the main group opposing the Empire. From there, the story unfolds with many different focus characters, with twists, turns, and the occasional opera in-between.
VI goes for a different approach to its plot structure than the rest of the series (at least, as far as I'm aware - I haven't played XII or XV) by having more of an ensemble cast instead of a strict main character. You begin the game as Terra, the Magitek pilot who has lost her memory and emotion thanks to manipulation from the Empire, but not too long after you finally accrue a four-man party the game gives you the choice of three scenarios, each with a different focus character. No part of the game really focuses enough on one character to make them feel like the central protagonist, which I think is very interesting.
That isn't to say that there aren't characters the game focuses on more than others. Terra, as stated before, begins as the "protagonist," and is given a majority of the focus in the game's first half. Locke, master treasure hunter, Edgar and Sabin, kings of Figaro Castle, and Celes, former general of the Empire, are also given a lot of time in the sun in that first half. This leads to them being the more memorable party members in terms of actual character, but due to the game's large roster of party members, many fall by the wayside. Cyan, last warrior of Doma, Relm and Strago, two of the last remaining Magi, Shadow the ninja/assassin, Gau, the boy living in the wild of the Veldt, Mog the...Moogle who dances, and Setzer the airship pilot all get small moments in the spotlight, but don't do much after said moments in terms of plot significance. While the game's overall story is still rather solid in this first half, the use of its large roster seems a bit lacking.
The game's second half is where things get more interesting. Without going into plot details, the world map essentially opens up in the second half, with the game allowing you to either do character-specific sidequests to give some resolution to their arcs or go straight to the final dungeon. While this change does stall the rather well paced story from the first half, this openness is something no other FF game had done before it, and it makes FFVI stand out for that reason.
While I enjoy the structural switch up, there is still an issue I have with the game's second half. The individual character sidequests are great, but there's a problem with all of them but one - the nature of the second half of the game means that you can theoretically have ANY party when you do these sidequests, which means that the dialogue during these scenes is rather...generic aside from the focus character. Celes has no particular reaction to finding Locke alive, Edgar and Sabin don't have any particular words to say to one another when they reunite, etc. There is one - ONE - point where characters will actually all contribute to a sidequest: Gau's sidequest. Depending on how much of your party that you have during this point in the game, you'll get scenes involving the whole party that are genuinely funny and heartwarming for one of the game's least important characters. It's something that would've been nice to see for some other characters as well.
When it comes to the gameplay of FFVI, there's only a few major differences from the previous two games. Gone is V's robust job system, as the characters in this game are relegated to one job much like IV. Locke can steal things, Edgar can use tools, Relm can sketch enemies to copy their attacks, Gogo can mimic, etc. However, every character has access to magicite, crystals containing the souls of Espers that will allow them to learn magic and gain stat buffs depending on the magicite equipped. This mechanic is a precursor to VII's much more well known Materia system, and...I'm not the biggest fan of it here. I find that thanks to the magicite system, many characters become...mostly useless? At least, when it comes to their specific skills. Take Gau, for example. He's a variant of a Blue Mage, able to leap onto enemies in his homeland, the Veldt, and learn their entire movesets (known as Rages). When you use rages in battle, Gau becomes uncontrollable, but will use those enemy skills. A very interesting idea, but one that I believe is undercut by being able to just teach him powerful spells and then keep him on, say, the Zona Seeker magicite which gives +2 to the Magic stat when leveling up. Many characters in the game suffer from this issue, especially once the game reaches (again) the second half. Magic very much overpowers the rest of the game, and while it is fun to use, it causes most fights to get repetitive. In my final party, I deliberately made one character very light on magic just for the variety.
The gameplay otherwise is mostly the same as the other SNES games. The ATB system is the same, the overworld movement is the same (but this time with MODE 7 GRAPHICS!), and the only major difference is that running away is one character at a time instead of all four at once. The dungeons in VI aren't incredibly long, though I do find some of them (particularly the Phoenix Cave and ESPECIALLY the Fanatic's Tower) a bit long without using a piece of equipment to reduce the encounter rate. Overall, the gameplay of VI is just as fun as its predecessors, with its own few wrinkles to make it unique.
For the Pixel Remaster features specifically, I do like the few moments of HD-2D - the opening and famous opera scene were rendered this way, and I do love the style (still excited for that Live A Live remake, for example). I just wish the entire game had been done in this style instead of just these few scenes, but alas. The game still looks very nice in my opinion, especially the battle backgrounds. The autobattle feature is welcome, of course, and it's nice to have a music player so that I can listen to the wonderful, fully orchestrated soundtrack at any time. VI isn't my favorite OST in the series (Dancing Mad notwithstanding), but it's still phenomenal, and putting it to a full orchestra only makes it better.
To conclude, while Final Fantasy VI isn't my favorite game in the series (that honor still goes to IX), it's blatantly clear why this game is considered a classic - a well told story with an entire cast of characters, an expansive second half full of a sense of exploration, and interesting gameplay mechanics that, while they can make a character's natural abilities feel obsolete, still allows for a level of customization and encourages repeat playthroughs with different setups or party combinations (though not, I think, to the extent of V). I can see myself doing another run of this game sometime in the future, and would give it a high recommendation to anyone interested in the series.

[Pixel Remaster Version]
I've been on a quest to go back and play the Final Fantasy games. I didn't grow up with JRPG's but the FF series is such a monolith in gaming I have always wanted to try. While I loved Chrono Trigger and FF7, I struggled with 8, 9, and 10 (and did not complete any of the three).

Final Fantasy VI, being one of the most recommended and acclaimed did grip me quite quick. I knew an hour in "Oh, I am going to beat this game and play it for like 50 hours."

And I did! Mostly because the battle mechanics and RPG mechanics were very rewarding - probably my favorite in the series so far.

Kefka is a stellar antagonist. I quite find his true moral nihilism fun when mixed with all the ambition. The rest of the characters I actually didn't care too much for. If anything FF6 loses a few points from me as I was not invested in the full (giant) cast of characters.

Final Fantasy VI, done. What a beautiful game. This was like the perfect game for me; beautiful and sometimes tragic story, a compelling cast with each getting about as equal amount of development as they can get and an enthralling turn-based combat system that never got tedious.

Everything, from the various kinds of bosses, the astounding versatility of the combat system, to the stunning world, was crafted so meticulously that I cannot help but be impressed every passing minute of the game. And to end it off was the most majestic final battle I've ever fought

The best snes era final fantasy
Best snes era rpg
Best snes era game in general
One of the best games of all time
Pixel remaster made everything better, even the opera scene.

I totally understand why this is the favourite Final Fantasy game of so many people.
It has a really solid story and even better characters (for the most part). I imagine this game was to a lot of people what Bastion was to me, i.e. the revelation that video games can be about more than just having fun.

The best thing about this game is its characters. You have some really great characters like Terra and Cyan, some solid characters like Sabin and some characters that don’t matter all that much but they’re amusing like Gogo.
Unfortunately, there’s also Locke, who is really weird and creepy and please stay away from Celes.
Another thing holding back the characters of this game is that most of the dialogue is happening while your party is entirely flexible and the game doesn’t even try to make the dialogue match the party, it just puts nameless text boxes on screen. Aside from it meaning a lot of opportunities for characterization are lost, I streamed this game for my partners, and we voiced it and it was just really frustrating to not know who should voice a given line.
Speaking of frustrations while trying to voice this game, some of the dialogue boxes scroll on their own (some of them because they’re somewhat timed to animations on-screen, some of them because ¯\(ツ)/¯) and they go way too fast. Even if you’re not trying to read them out loud they might be too fast for you if you’re not super familiar with the language you’re playing this in but fortunately the game is localized in a lot of languages so unless you’re Turkish you’re probably going to be fine.

If you know nothing about this game, you might be thinking “Well it’s cool that the game has a great cast I guess but I’ll probably just end up using the same party for everything”. Wrong!
Even ignoring segments that force you to use specific characters you’ll end up using most of the cast because there are multiple instances of using multiple parties to clear a dungeon. This is such a cool concept; I wish more games did that.
I wish the game would let you switch party members a bit more freely instead of just at the airship but it’s not a big deal.

I should probably talk about the combat a bit. After the fantastic FFV combat, VI was pretty much guaranteed to be a disappointment. And it was, but I was still expecting a bit better than this.
One big issue is that equipping a magicite does nothing at first. You need to actually win a few fights with it equipped to gain the spells it teaches you, so if you notice that your party is lacking something you have to make it through a bunch of combats first. This especially stings if you need someone with a healing spell. In the mid- to lategame, healing spells are pretty much the only viable options for healing because Potions and Hi-Potions heal basically nothing and there’s no readily available potion above them.
Another issue with the way learning spells works is that obviously you’re gonna teach everyone the strongest spells so everyone ends up knowing mostly the same spells so people with mostly useless command abilities end up feeling the same.
The fights themselves are also a pain to get through. Enemies have way too much health and random encounters take way too long. At the same time, way too many enemies have a lot of frustrating status effects and instant death effects.
You will eventually get some kind of broken thing. There are a lot of different broken things which I honestly really appreciate, but they’re often broken to a degree that combat gets completely trivialized and unlike in V where it feels like a reward for figuring out some broken build it just feels like a thing that happened because you played the game enough so it doesn’t really feel satisfying either.
Dishonorable mention to Ultima which is so strong it outclasses even the once per combat Esper summons so you end up with all these cool summons that you never use because Ultima is just strictly better.
Speaking of summons, it’s a bit sad to see that Titan and Leviathan didn’t get to be in this game, especially Leviathan who up to this point was as much of a part of this series’ history as Bahamut to me.

The music in this one is obviously good as always, but I was honestly a bit disappointed. A lot of it was just good and very little of it was great. The Decisive Battle is pretty much the only track that really stuck with me.

In conclusion, if you’re a fan of JRPGs, don’t play this game because it will make you question why other games of the genre don’t let you use most of your characters. Jokes aside, this is an amazing game and you should play it for the Opera scene alone, even if some features of it could have used some more refinement.