Final Fantasy VI is one of the most pivotal video games ever. Most attribute the rise in cinematic storytelling in videogames to this game's successor, Final Fantasy VII, but the level of balance THIS game achieved between story and video game design is nothing short, of contemporary genius.

Developed as the last hurrah of Final Fantasy's retro era, VI saw its development occur after FIVE previous entries. This meant that, at this point, Squaresoft was pretty much at a level of expertise that few other game studios had at the time. Enix was close with their Dragon Quest series, but in the overall scope of storytelling in video games, Square was peerless.

V may have taken a backseat towards gripping narrative, a downgrade from its predecessor, but that was done purposefully -- a lighthearted, well-designed adventure at its core, V was everything you could possibly expect about Final Fantasy at the time.

But. What of Final Fantasy VI?

Well, for the sake of not mincing words, I must say that Final Fantasy VI is one of the most important video games ever, and one of the greatest video games ever at the same time. My most favorite games, Mass Effect 2, The Witcher 3, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Assassin's Creed IV, Bioshock, Disco Elysium, God of War, KotOR, and yes, EVEN THE LAST OF US owe so much to this game.

Now that's a tall order, right? Well, lemme explain. Prior to FFVI, the gaming industry was typically made up of action-packed 2D platforming romps save for the occasional exploration-heavy Legend of Zelda game. Before VI, the closest thing people had to an AMAZING video game story was FFIV, and Dragon Quest V. And its needless to say that, comparatively, FFVI blows those two games, and literally every other video game before it out of the water. This is THE video game of the 2D graphics era in my opinion.

We owe that accolade to its story. FFVI sports the most gripping narrative in the series' entire catalogue, save for a few personal favorites of mine like FFXIV's various expansions, XVI, and maybe even VII on a good day. But I try to say this in the eyes of a critic, because ultimately, FFVI's story progression, character development, and worldbuilding is the best the entire industry would ever see, up until either TW3 or TLOU. Every single dramatic video game owes its story to this one -- because FFVI offers so, SO many innovations in storytelling at its time that following it, implementing an actually FANTASTIC story into a video game became SO much more common.

This game has been spoiled to hell and back. I will not be divulging details here, because its true -- you have to have a blind eye to truly be mindblown by certain moments of story this video game has. But just know -- these moments that do exist are the best story moments in video game history. And when these moments happen, they occur linearily and in a nice, tight package alongside LEGENDARY characters like Locke (who is now my all-time favorite FF character) that its so obvious that games like TW3 look up to its story design for inspiration.

As for the game itself, FFVI returns to FFIV's static job system, but this time with a little more innovation. It is by no means simplistic, but VI offers a lite-job system mainly through new magical pseudo-skill trees with the Esper system, alongside a relic system that gives hints towards the jobs of old. But mainly, each character has a clearly defined focus, whether it be tools, martial arts, bushido, or just plain magic -- you still get a lot to play with. Sure, thanks to the Esper system, you could make your whole party ultima-casting maniacs, but for what its worth FFVI's game system is about as solid as it could get. I think I honestly still prefer the MEGA-simplicity of FFIV's static job system, but overall the system here is NOT a failure. It complements the story immensely well and does nothing short of offer another satisfying retro FF experience.

But, all things truly must come to an end. If you played this game, you know that by now haha. By the time FFVI released, Squaresoft was through with creating the same game over, and over, and over again. They needed to take FF into a direction that transcended its silly, chibi-esque qualities of the 16 and 8-bit eras. While I appreciated FFVI's art design in-game, it became so increasingly obvious that the limitations of a 2-Dimensional space weighed on its story. No facial animations aside from a few rudimentary ones, impactful character acting and in-game design was a zone of improvement Square was desperately trying to improve with each new entry of this series, whether in some ways or others.

Ultimately, this drive to create an even more massive and sprawling video game adventure would culminate in the form of one of the most legendary video games of all time... Final Fantasy VII.

But, this game's imprint must not be forgotten. While its legacy seems to have been forgotten by Square nowadays, I can so clearly see the impact this game's storytelling had on literally the entire video game industry. Its absolutely legendary. And while it did not feel like I was gaining as FLOORING an experience as The Witcher 3's entire story while playing this game, I have so, so much respect for it nonetheless.

Final Fantasy VI is, arguably, the most important game when it comes to what I personally find in video games. Sprawling worlds, amazing and lovable characters, a gripping plot, and a tearjerking end that all ties together offering one of the best narrative experiences you could ask for in video gaming.

For what this game did for me, and by proxy millions of others, the score must be clear by now. Final Fantasy VI is one of the greatest video games ever made.

100/100

This is what final fantasy is all about baby
- music was superb
- gameplay is fun and varied due to encouraging you to use all your party members
- basically enjoyed every party members presence
- sprite animations are A++ and make me a little sad that no more 2D FF games were made after this point

Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI might be the perfect video game trilogy. Final Fantasy IV introduces a large cast of characters with a powerful, emotional story while still being pretty strict in terms of character customization. Final Fantasy V returns to a much smaller cast, but refines the job system from III into what might be the best gameplay in the franchise in terms of how free you are to do as you like. Final Fantasy VI combines the best of both worlds: A large, rich cast and a powerful plot, and just enough customization that characters do not lose their identity but still allowing for the player to break the game wide open. Final Fantasy VI is the quintessential JRPG experience.

I think the key standout point in FFVI is that there is always something going on. Each set piece in the story has some unique gimmick that makes it memorable in the plot, and very rarely (though it does still happen) are you in generic cave or generic mountain as part of the plot. It really feels like they doubled-down on the feeling of "adventure".

As I mentioned previously, FFVI also features a pretty robust "esper" system. Every character has their innate abilities (Locke can steal, Sabin can do fighting game inputs for special attacks, Strago is a blue mage, etc.) but on top of that, each character can equip an esper (a summon). Each esper comes with a list of spells that can be earned through winning battles, and so each party member can learn whichever spells they see fit. This is a good compromise from the job system in 3/5, because I didn't really feel like any of them stood out in those games because anyone could do the same things.

There's really a lot to love about FFVI. For everything I already knew about going in (because FFXIV can't go five minutes without referencing VI), there was still tons more yet to be discovered. It was the first of the classic FF games where I really set out to do as much of the optional stuff as I reasonably could. The story, cast, music, and exploration are all wonderful and it's easy to see why this is one of the most beloved in the franchise.

My first completed retro Final Fantasy outside of XIV. Very enjoyable overall, and the plot is a classic (though I'd been heavily spoiled on it, it was still very enjoyable to see it all in-context). Sometimes it felt like the game had a hard time striking a balanced difficulty; usually the game is quite easy, but then you run into enemies that debilitate you before you can finish menuing and everything just falls apart. Music and spritework were phenomenal, and the voxel effects added in some parts of the Pixel Remaster looked fantastic.

Even never having played the original, this game has now become my favorite of the 2d Final Fantasy's. The battle system is as solid as ever, with plenty of fun characters to mix and match with, although it is GLARINGLY obvious that they are not all created equally, in regards to the story, as well as strength in battle.

The magicite system is fun, although towards the end the characters all start to kind of feel the same as a result of it.

My only real issues with the game are that it's very short. I clocked in at around 20 hours even having recruited back all of the characters and doing pretty much every bit of side content at the end of the game. I feel like there's more that could have been done with the whole, multiple switching between parties system.
And I also feel the game is probably one of the easiest games in the entire series, which kind of makes a lot of the boss fights seem kind of.... arbitrary. Which isn't nearly the end of the world, as there were still a few such as the dragons that took a few tries, but a lot of the big fights were kind of boring as a result of it.

[INFLAMMATORY COMMENT ABOUT THIS GAME NOT BEING A MASTERPIECE]

Seriously though, FFVI is an incredibly ambitious game to a fault. It has a solid story, cool villain, fantastic music and some really great characters, but it's also insanely flawed. There are way too many characters, and the second half of the game, World of Ruin, is a cool concept on paper, but the execution is kinda wild and the game kind of completely falls apart when you get to it. But, again, it's hard not to admire the ambition of it all even if all of it doesn't land.

It's a great SNES RPG, probably one of the best, but it's no Chrono Trigger.

Now I can see why this FF is so beloved. The theme is one of my faves, as well as how opposite is Kefka to the whole group.

Also, I had so much fun with the different traits between characters and my fav stories were Celes’ and Locke’s!

Boi I just love Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy 6 is one of the first FF games I ever played and honestly after replaying it again for the pixel remaster it’s still as good as I remember and it’s such a nice change of pace for me because this game has been impactful to me with the vast cast of character (besides Cyan because god you are boring and the worse party member) and honestly I love this game to my heart but it does have issues especially regarding with the vast amount of characters and each having their own story that requires a guide to even make sense of the character’s story with Sabin and Edgar, Gau and Celes Locke and Terra being the most memorable but that doesn’t mean that the other characters are interesting they all are (except you Cyan you suck ass) and I love it a lot and honestly I recommend this to people who wants to start the series because I think this game is a good place to start imo than 7 but it comes with some caveats because the magic system is so broken that you can just have people use magic and nothing more and you’re playing the game on easy mode that and it’s not worth doing Gau rage since that’s based on luck but overall an enjoyable experience

And it's finally done.

My month of the Final Fantasy PR has come to an end with an absolute masterpiece. This is by FAR the best game in the series I've played, and [almost] everything about has earned itself a special place for me.

This has easily the best characters thus far, the more open nature of the story allows it to focus on individual backstories unlike the previous games. This made for a cast I became IMMENSELY emotionally invested in, I adored everyone in the main cast (aside from possibly Gogo and the yeti, that's more because they felt like optional side characters than anything else), especially Cyan and Shadow's backstories were particularly emotional, and Terra might be my favorite character in the series.

Kefka might be a little dated by today's standards of villain writing, but what makes him a great villain to me (maybe my favorite FF villain although Exdeath comes close) is that he does actually succeed in his goals (is that a spoiler at this point?), and he has an almost gleeful demeanor that amplifies how intimidating he came across.

The gameplay is the best possible version of the classic FF system, jobs have been replaced again with specialized characters, but you still have enough freedom to build your team any way you want thanks to the magicite system. Everyone has their special uses even if I don't personally use it (for example Gau is a great character, but I really dislike his Rage mechanic), and the wide range of them make me want to replay the game with a different team.

A few things I did not care for included the RNG-based nature of the coliseum (once I filled out trophy requirements I didn't bother with it anymore), the final dungeon had a noticeable difficulty spike (apparently level 40ish is recommended, I was over 50 and still struggled at a few points), and Setzer's infamous joker trophy was a nightmare in RNG (although I got it after changing my farming strategy really quick, maybe it's a coincidence IDK).

These are just nitpicks in the grand scheme of things, they do not detract from the monumental heights the game achieves. This is definitely a game I'll be coming back to and likely find more things to appreciate about it. It's become one of my favorite games ever, and my only regret is not playing it far sooner.

10/10

Let me start this with saying that I have not completed Final Fantasy VI as some major mishaps to my nintendo switch occurred losing my save file for the game, so I am writing these thoughts based on where I was up to which was gathering the party members post-timeskip. This easily the best game narrative-wise in Pixel Remastered collection as the scale of an invading empire is reminiscent back to FF2’s ambitious storytelling, but at the same time every facet of the story is explored from Kefka’ mad conquest of domination to the effects of this war through characters like Cyan and Leo. The presentation really sells you this massive epic with its god-like OST and complete overhaul of its sprite art. Every character is fleshed out amazingly with Locke’s reason to protect women and Terra’s tragic origin story and all culminates to this perfect structure of a narrative where every event connects to one another creating the highest stakes possible for this game.

Speaking of the game itself, although it doesn’t have the robust flexible class system of FF5, it makes up for it through its sheer variety of gameplay scenarios and how they each match the current story. The best way to put it is that you essentially have to choose decisions as if you were the character in the narrative instead of just spamming the best attacks at any given time. This can be through actions in the combat or even picking specific paths in the overworld, this game is the epitome of engagement. Final Fantasy VI does indeed feel like the ultimate JRPG culmination of combining narrative and gameplay. My biggest gripes towards it is simply that its scale and non-linearity brings back the problem of NES-era Final Fantasy games where I will indeed have to look at a guide to know where to go next, but in this case more often than not it's simply due to my impatience as a zoomer gamer of not following all the context clues to understand the next destination.

Unfortunately, this level of craftsmanship of a video game is the reason why I’m all the more disappointed I will have to put this in the backburner as losing my save file has severely dented my motivation to keep playing this game. I will eventually return to it by finding a save file on the internet, but alas this will be it for now.