Finally, Final Fantasy buckles down and fully realizes its potential. I had enough fun with FFV, but it still lacked something to make it great. FFVI has that something and then some. Through a modern lense, the game is rather underwhelming in some areas, specifically the story, but when you put it in the context of the Super Famicom then holy shit does this game blow most everything else out of the water.
Let's start with the story. FFI-III were painfully basic and boring fantasy romps with little to no real characters. IV tried to fix that, and V even more so. Now with VI, they finally managed to create not only an enduring main cast, but a plethora of interesting side characters as well. Many of these characters actually develop over the course of the story, even if it's only a little bit. The actual story is far superior to anything that came before it. It's still a pretty basic structure, but it's presented so well that you get invested in it regardless of how predictable it can be.
Speaking of presentation, it's phenomenal. My brother, who played the SNES original, kept commenting on how the visual style of the original was preserved in this remake. With that knowledge I feel somewhat confident in saying that this is one of the best looking SNES games ever. The music, though, is so good that I barely believe that it could ever come out of a SNES. I switched to the arranged score for a few hours and it was so impossibly good that I was genuinely blown away.
The gameplay is as good as a traditional RPG can be, at least from the little of the genre that I have played. The magicite system is somehow better than the job system from V. The remake gives enough improvements to easily overpower any foe aside from bosses, which is the way I like it. Build up your characters by demolishing fodder in order to be able to barely scrape by the bosses. It's exhilarating.
The final boss was incredible. The scale, the music, and perfectly balanced difficulty led to a battle I won't soon forget.
If you haven't already, play this game. I can't speak for the SNES version but the Pixel Remaster is a fantastic experience that I would recommend to newbies and veterans alike.
Let's start with the story. FFI-III were painfully basic and boring fantasy romps with little to no real characters. IV tried to fix that, and V even more so. Now with VI, they finally managed to create not only an enduring main cast, but a plethora of interesting side characters as well. Many of these characters actually develop over the course of the story, even if it's only a little bit. The actual story is far superior to anything that came before it. It's still a pretty basic structure, but it's presented so well that you get invested in it regardless of how predictable it can be.
Speaking of presentation, it's phenomenal. My brother, who played the SNES original, kept commenting on how the visual style of the original was preserved in this remake. With that knowledge I feel somewhat confident in saying that this is one of the best looking SNES games ever. The music, though, is so good that I barely believe that it could ever come out of a SNES. I switched to the arranged score for a few hours and it was so impossibly good that I was genuinely blown away.
The gameplay is as good as a traditional RPG can be, at least from the little of the genre that I have played. The magicite system is somehow better than the job system from V. The remake gives enough improvements to easily overpower any foe aside from bosses, which is the way I like it. Build up your characters by demolishing fodder in order to be able to barely scrape by the bosses. It's exhilarating.
The final boss was incredible. The scale, the music, and perfectly balanced difficulty led to a battle I won't soon forget.
If you haven't already, play this game. I can't speak for the SNES version but the Pixel Remaster is a fantastic experience that I would recommend to newbies and veterans alike.