(Finished on 3/1/2024)
Decided to finish this up as I was about to hit '600' played games on here and as it turns out, Final Fantasy 6 is pretty goddamn good.
What do I have to say that people haven't been saying for 30 years? Since I was a kid I've heard nothing but the gold standard for this game, being described as near fine-art levels of excellence with regards to its writing, themes and characters. While I do agree, and I'll go over my own thoughts later, the one thought that stood out finally going through it all these years later was: "man this is just a really fun RPG!".
Leading up to Final Fantasy 6 we had several games that, by all means pushed the rpg genre forward- but to what extent? FF1's D&D like party structure helped mirror the experience of a campaign across a set narrative, while 2 forgoes this, invents a new amorphous stat growth skill system to distinguish party members and rotates across several party members with new 'baggage' in the game's ongoing plot. FF3 forgoes this further by returning to more blank slate characters tackling a 'job' system in which you gradually unlock distinguished jobs, a system that is only expanded on further in FF5- only for the fourth game to stick solely on party members with set classes, a stronger emphasis on the story and more distinguished character arcs. It's a lot of bobbing and weaving between what elements make a Final Fantasy- a topic we see as recently as last year with the release of 16. Early on, however, it was an odd balancing act between thematics, actors and class mechanics- the only thing that stayed relatively static was the iconoclastic future-medieval world and, as Sakaguchi joked: 'blue textboxes'.
I guess by comparison, in the west we at least had a straightforward upgrade from 1 to 2 (4) to what we got as Final Fantasy III (6).
FF6's cast is great- genuinely glad there's a strong mix of characters I already understood were good through osmosis, on top of some surprise stars based on just good they are in battle. Whenever I start an RPG, there's always the thought I have of 'what is my final party gonna look like' and while I had that thought initially this game dashes that thought process pretty quickly. Throughout the first half your party gets split up several times, bringing about their own journeys across the world and meeting new faces throughout. Much of the game is spent divvying up your party either by way of the plot or in the pursuit of several of the games’ character sidequests. I was wondering less and less just how my party would look and moreso what ‘level’ I’d be ending the game at considering how many other characters you’d be palling around with (Around ~35!).
FF7 accomplishes this somewhat similarly, and while I slightly prefer that game’s cast its hampered by a smaller total party, a party size that's one man smaller and the lack of switching out your protag. I love Cloud, we all do -even if you can't admit it- but I do wish I could enter sections just as three of my other members. Here, there’s practically no protagonist. You have 14 total characters by the end of the game and the worst of the bunch are either outclassed or dont have as much use time by the end of the game. Even the primary face on the box art (not Mog, sorry bud) isn’t all that present for most of the game’s adventure. As the game’s second half has our party separate- the character we hone in on isnt Terra but Celes, you don’t have to meet Terra for quite some time in the ruined world.
Honestly I think my biggest complaint is I kinda think there's a lot of fluff spells/skills throughout. It's a weird disconnect coming from 5, which has the capacity to be broken in two, has a lot of moments where you absolutely need a certain party comp on top of quite a weird onboarding process as to what classes are better than others. 6 on the other hand, while not the easiest FF isnt all that complicated throughout most its battles. All things considered I think most of the hardest fights in the game come ‘before’ the game’s actual final boss.
-Strago is a blue mage, now a staple of the franchise...in a game where Gau exists- who is already kind of a pain to understand with all his 'Rage' skills to scroll through and obtain while grinding on the Veldt.
-Cyan is a strong character with a stronger arc...but pales easily compared to Sabin and Edgar on top of coming somewhat after both of these guys. Bushido easily pales in comparison to most of the other character mechanics.
-I don't even really know what Umaro does
-Mog gets points for being a great option as Dragoon but man the Dance mechanic is unreliable
Also while I do like the Esper system a lot I think getting the stat bonus out of levels can be kinda weird when getting back characters you haven’t seen for some time. Once I got to the world of ruin Shadow and Gau were so much squishier/less versatile than other members of the party which kinda put a damper on me wanting to use them regularly. At the very least there’s some pretty good grinding spots for both EXP/AP so its not too hard to get people back on par, I just didn’t feel it super necessary.
Lastly I'll touch somewhat about the story/presentation, but it's somewhat hard to talk about. Namely, its hard to think about something that hasn't already been brought up! I usually don't care about this kind of factor in reviews but genuinely I knew most of this game's plot beats since I was 12. That said, sheesh this game came out in 1994.
The secondary issue in expressing how powerful Final Fantasy 6 feels in this entry's narrative also lies in how much it strides in its world, lore and characters compared to its previous games. 4 pushed the boundaries for how a narrative can be told in this genre, but 6 respects and sits you down on this notion. It's not overtly grimdark, nor too melodramatic- it provides a great deal of whimsy but never edges on cheesy. Its a wonderful blend of fantasy flavors throughout, while offering several highlights that bucked the usual structure of the series up to this point. I strongly envy those that never saw this coming on its initial release.
I'll also admit- I technically played this on the 'Pixel Remaster' version of the game (I just kinda liked this box art more). It's a pretty alright version, although to be honest I figure its not imperative you play the newest remaster. Part of me kinda wanted to check out how certain fights/animations played on the SNES version, and while you can mod the steam version, without these mods you have to deal with some pretty bloated menus and terrible font choices (even with the new update).
Final Fantasy 6, akin to a lot of other titles on the SNES have already had a swath of acclaim since its release and into the years spanning our communication era. It was hard to penetrate what made FF6 so special when first picking it up about 10 years ago, however I'm glad I've not only come around to beating it after so long, but also that I better understand the appeal of FF6 all this time. I expected to come out enjoying the usual things I had heard about the game- the cast, the characters, the music- but finally going through the other 2/3rds of the game I hadn’t previously seen more of it clicked. Every dungeon just has the right amount of new equipment or a new character or a new summon to spice things up, and when the party has so many options to mess around with, FF6 almost never gets stale.
Decided to finish this up as I was about to hit '600' played games on here and as it turns out, Final Fantasy 6 is pretty goddamn good.
What do I have to say that people haven't been saying for 30 years? Since I was a kid I've heard nothing but the gold standard for this game, being described as near fine-art levels of excellence with regards to its writing, themes and characters. While I do agree, and I'll go over my own thoughts later, the one thought that stood out finally going through it all these years later was: "man this is just a really fun RPG!".
Leading up to Final Fantasy 6 we had several games that, by all means pushed the rpg genre forward- but to what extent? FF1's D&D like party structure helped mirror the experience of a campaign across a set narrative, while 2 forgoes this, invents a new amorphous stat growth skill system to distinguish party members and rotates across several party members with new 'baggage' in the game's ongoing plot. FF3 forgoes this further by returning to more blank slate characters tackling a 'job' system in which you gradually unlock distinguished jobs, a system that is only expanded on further in FF5- only for the fourth game to stick solely on party members with set classes, a stronger emphasis on the story and more distinguished character arcs. It's a lot of bobbing and weaving between what elements make a Final Fantasy- a topic we see as recently as last year with the release of 16. Early on, however, it was an odd balancing act between thematics, actors and class mechanics- the only thing that stayed relatively static was the iconoclastic future-medieval world and, as Sakaguchi joked: 'blue textboxes'.
I guess by comparison, in the west we at least had a straightforward upgrade from 1 to 2 (4) to what we got as Final Fantasy III (6).
FF6's cast is great- genuinely glad there's a strong mix of characters I already understood were good through osmosis, on top of some surprise stars based on just good they are in battle. Whenever I start an RPG, there's always the thought I have of 'what is my final party gonna look like' and while I had that thought initially this game dashes that thought process pretty quickly. Throughout the first half your party gets split up several times, bringing about their own journeys across the world and meeting new faces throughout. Much of the game is spent divvying up your party either by way of the plot or in the pursuit of several of the games’ character sidequests. I was wondering less and less just how my party would look and moreso what ‘level’ I’d be ending the game at considering how many other characters you’d be palling around with (Around ~35!).
FF7 accomplishes this somewhat similarly, and while I slightly prefer that game’s cast its hampered by a smaller total party, a party size that's one man smaller and the lack of switching out your protag. I love Cloud, we all do -even if you can't admit it- but I do wish I could enter sections just as three of my other members. Here, there’s practically no protagonist. You have 14 total characters by the end of the game and the worst of the bunch are either outclassed or dont have as much use time by the end of the game. Even the primary face on the box art (not Mog, sorry bud) isn’t all that present for most of the game’s adventure. As the game’s second half has our party separate- the character we hone in on isnt Terra but Celes, you don’t have to meet Terra for quite some time in the ruined world.
Honestly I think my biggest complaint is I kinda think there's a lot of fluff spells/skills throughout. It's a weird disconnect coming from 5, which has the capacity to be broken in two, has a lot of moments where you absolutely need a certain party comp on top of quite a weird onboarding process as to what classes are better than others. 6 on the other hand, while not the easiest FF isnt all that complicated throughout most its battles. All things considered I think most of the hardest fights in the game come ‘before’ the game’s actual final boss.
-Strago is a blue mage, now a staple of the franchise...in a game where Gau exists- who is already kind of a pain to understand with all his 'Rage' skills to scroll through and obtain while grinding on the Veldt.
-Cyan is a strong character with a stronger arc...but pales easily compared to Sabin and Edgar on top of coming somewhat after both of these guys. Bushido easily pales in comparison to most of the other character mechanics.
-I don't even really know what Umaro does
-Mog gets points for being a great option as Dragoon but man the Dance mechanic is unreliable
Also while I do like the Esper system a lot I think getting the stat bonus out of levels can be kinda weird when getting back characters you haven’t seen for some time. Once I got to the world of ruin Shadow and Gau were so much squishier/less versatile than other members of the party which kinda put a damper on me wanting to use them regularly. At the very least there’s some pretty good grinding spots for both EXP/AP so its not too hard to get people back on par, I just didn’t feel it super necessary.
Lastly I'll touch somewhat about the story/presentation, but it's somewhat hard to talk about. Namely, its hard to think about something that hasn't already been brought up! I usually don't care about this kind of factor in reviews but genuinely I knew most of this game's plot beats since I was 12. That said, sheesh this game came out in 1994.
The secondary issue in expressing how powerful Final Fantasy 6 feels in this entry's narrative also lies in how much it strides in its world, lore and characters compared to its previous games. 4 pushed the boundaries for how a narrative can be told in this genre, but 6 respects and sits you down on this notion. It's not overtly grimdark, nor too melodramatic- it provides a great deal of whimsy but never edges on cheesy. Its a wonderful blend of fantasy flavors throughout, while offering several highlights that bucked the usual structure of the series up to this point. I strongly envy those that never saw this coming on its initial release.
I'll also admit- I technically played this on the 'Pixel Remaster' version of the game (I just kinda liked this box art more). It's a pretty alright version, although to be honest I figure its not imperative you play the newest remaster. Part of me kinda wanted to check out how certain fights/animations played on the SNES version, and while you can mod the steam version, without these mods you have to deal with some pretty bloated menus and terrible font choices (even with the new update).
Final Fantasy 6, akin to a lot of other titles on the SNES have already had a swath of acclaim since its release and into the years spanning our communication era. It was hard to penetrate what made FF6 so special when first picking it up about 10 years ago, however I'm glad I've not only come around to beating it after so long, but also that I better understand the appeal of FF6 all this time. I expected to come out enjoying the usual things I had heard about the game- the cast, the characters, the music- but finally going through the other 2/3rds of the game I hadn’t previously seen more of it clicked. Every dungeon just has the right amount of new equipment or a new character or a new summon to spice things up, and when the party has so many options to mess around with, FF6 almost never gets stale.