Title: Final Fantasy VI
Original Release: April 2, 1994 (Super Famicom)
Finished Release: Final Fantasy III (SNES, 1994)
Here we are again, today with yet another piece of gaming history. We've got a lot to get through today, so let's hop to it.
I love Final Fantasy, and have for a good twenty years now. Final Fantasy VII on PC(!) was the first RPG I ever played. It's pretty accurate to say that that game changed the world. But we're not here to talk about that (maybe next year). See, oddly enough, I had played every numbered Final Fantasy game, but only ever finished one (Final Fantasy IV on DS, for anyone curious). All that changed last year.
In mid-2016, my wife and I moved out of her parents' house, into our own apartment. Our roommate is a very old friend of my wife and her family. Her name is Rachel, and she loves Final Fantasy, especially the games she played when she was a kid. And she loves watching other people play the games she loves, and promising her that I'll play is enough pressure to actually make me do it. All of this is to say that, since moving in here, the number of Final Fantasy games I've finished has increased from 1 to 5, and I might squeeze in one more before the year's out (no promises).
Two of the FF games I've finished recently, X and X-2, won't be discussed this year, since I finished them late last year. I'm sure I'll talk about them at some point, though, since X is actually my favorite in the series. No, instead, we're gonna be focusing today on Final Fantasy VI. Or, as my SNES cartridge says, Final Fantasy III.
Okay, so you probably know the story, but just in case I'll tell it anyway. To make a long and complicated story as short as possible, it goes thusly: the first Final Fantasy came to North America relatively late in the life cycle of the NES, and the SNES was on its way. Square made the decision to skip Final Fantasy II and III, both of which were on the Famicom (NES), and jump straight to the first game to be released on the Super Famicom (SNES), that being Final Fantasy IV.
However, to keep the numbering would cause a little confusion, so they changed the title of Final Fantasy IV to Final Fantasy II, thereby causing generations of confusion. Then they also skipped the next game, Final Fantasy V, and jumped straight to VI. And they changed its name to Final Fantasy III, and that's the version I played.
Holy frijoles. Y'know, it's funny, I've known that story for years, yet trying to actually type it out gives me a headache.
ANYWAY, that's the game we're talking about. Final Fantasy VI/III, for the Super Nintendo. Let's get to it already.
I don't want to give too much of the story away for those who haven't experienced it before. The basic gist is that you begin the game as Terra, a powerful mage who has been brainwashed into serving the tyrannical Gestahlian Empire. In short order, however, she's freed from their clutches by a thief (treasure hunter!) by the name of Locke. She joins a band of rebels, they fight against the Empire (yes, I know, just get past it), and there's tons of twists and turns along the way.
The story is actually pretty epic for its time, and it's a pretty engaging one to boot. I knew some of the most major twists (but not all of them) going in, but a lot of the more minor turns in the story genuinely took me by surprise. It's also fairly dark, and deals with some very mature themes such as genocide, suicide, and several different forms of love. It plays out like a tragedy, although an ultimately hopeful one.
The ambition present in the game's storyline manages to bleed into other aspects of the game as well. The character roster contains a whopping 14 possible permanent party members (still the largest in the series), with a couple short-term guest characters along the way. The crazy thing is that pretty much all of them are likable, at least the ones that speak. The number of named villain characters is relatively small, but the world is packed with tons of tertiary and minor characters.
The world is large and filled with secrets, and (spoilers) about halfway through the game the map changes completely, and the story becomes totally nonlinear. Unfortunately I actually found the second half of the game to be a bit of a disappointment compared to the first half. This is actually indicative of my one and only real problem with the game, but I'll come back to that in a bit.
First, more praise. The game is drop dead gorgeous. I mean it. This was near the end of the life of the SNES, and Square managed to squeeze every drop of power the tiny system could muster. The character sprites are unique, vibrant, and expressive. It may be kind of dumb to say "every character has a distinct look," but I'm not really sure how else to say it. The sprites capture the characters perfectly.
The backgrounds are no slouch either. Things are bright and vibrant when they need to be, dark and moody elsewise. I mean, honestly, the game tends towards the dark. It's a mood thing, but there's still room for light, and I often found the lighting in the game to be very appealing to me. There's also incidental art here and there, a castle or a mountain or what have you, and it feels like you're looking at a painting. It's all just really nice to look at.
And then we have the music. Holy mother, the music. Bear with me as I digress.
I would never say that older automatically equals better. I feel this way about pretty much everything, but video game music is a sticking point for me. Have you noticed how much music in video games has changed? It's all moody and atmospheric and "sweeping," whatever that means. And it's generally fine and enjoyable, but it just isn't the same.
Seriously, I hate to be the guy saying "back then we had," but back then we had soundtracks full of tunes, songs for every character, themes for every level or dungeon or whatever. I'm not saying it was better, necessarily, but it was definitely more memorable. And FF6 is a perfect point for me to use to prove that it isn't just nostalgia talking. See, I was unfamiliar with most of FF6's soundtrack. I knew Terra's theme and Dancing Mad, and that was it. It's now one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time.
I'm really not trying to drag down "modern gaming" vs "classic gaming" or anything like that. I love modern games, they're great. And honestly, the type of music I'm complaining against is enjoyable in its own right. All I'm saying is that I'd rather have music I can hum along with than music that's trying to pretend it's not even there.
Anyway, that's the music. It's amazing.
And now, the hard part: the criticism. See, the game isn't perfect. As I mentioned earlier, I have one major complaint about the game as a whole. It's ambitious for the sake of ambition.
It's a really difficult thing to say, but I think it's true. As much as I like the characters, they aren't handled well. I was going to say that there's too many, but I think it's more accurate to say that too many of them are almost useless. There is a quantifiable "best party," which isn't all that unusual, but the disparity between the "best party" and nearly everyone else is ridiculous. Say you somehow manage to acquire every party member (which I did, more on that later). You end up with two characters you're stupid not to use (Sabin and Gogo), a few second-stringers, and everyone else. Again, there are fourteen characters.
If you know your Dragon Ball Super, imagine this: in the latest tournament arc, instead of a team of ten, they use a team of 14 (bear with me), they start with Goku and Vegeta, then add Gohan, Gotenks, Piccolo, and the androids. AND THEN EVERYONE ELSE IS YAJIROBE. And those seven Yajirobes are on the team, expected to fight alongside everyone else. What???
Okay, it's admittedly a bit of an exaggeration to say that everyone else is completely useless. Hell, I used Locke and Setzer a lot just because I like them and I'm obstinate. And yes, if you want to put the time into them, the other characters can become somewhat powerful in their own right, but there's absolutely no reason to do so. I don't really want to go any further with this tangent, especially since this review is already getting away from me. I will say that one character's special ability crashed my game.
I will also take a moment to complain about how convoluted it is just to get most of the characters. Once the world opens up and becomes nonlinear, most of the characters are relegated to sidequests, in which you have to do something, sometimes simple sometimes complicated, in order to recruit them. And by this point some of them have already been recruited once (or twice), and that's assuming you do everything correctly in the first half of the game.
Let me tell you a little story about an experience I had. So, I'm working on the dungeon that serves as the halfway point of the game. The dungeon is a massive pain in the neck, and it contains within it a pretty difficult boss fight, one which I was warned I would most likely be doing more than once. Well, I beat the boss first try (through a lot of effort), continued on with the dungeon, zippity bop. At the end of the dungeon, it gives you a choice to make. I made the wrong choice, thus making it impossible to recruit one of the characters in the second half of the game. One choice. For a character whose recruitment requirements are already convoluted.
So, back to before the boss fight. I beat it again, less trouble this time, get through the dungeon, make the correct choice, bam! Oh, but I'm not standing in the right spot, so I get a game over. Okay!
SO, back to before the boss fight. I beat it again, handily, get through the dungeon, make the right choice, stand in the right spot. Now I can proceed with the game.
And it's stuff like that that I dislike about Final Fantasy VI. It's oftentimes complicated for the sake of being complicated. And the complications themselves are often pointless, ridiculous, or both. I don't know how I ever would've figured out even half of it without Rachel's help. She really knows her stuff.
In the latter half of the game, nearly all of the character sidequests are separate and optional, meaning that almost none of them relate to each other. There's an odd exception here and there, but it's generally a small, admittedly sometimes great, side story about a particular character, unrelated to anything else. And then you get that character as a sort of trophy for your party. It's really unfortunate, especially when the first half of the game is so great, with stories that are intertwined and meaningful.
Again, sometimes these side stories are really great, but they're still optional, and they feel that way. In order to beat the game, there are three characters you're required to have. Three of fourteen. Don't get me wrong, more characters makes the game easier, but that's not even a full party. And, spoilers, Terra is not one of those characters. Remember her? The character we started the game with?
Still, these are my only complaints, and I only complain at all because of how strong the first half of the game is. And the second half, while it may not live up to what came before, is still great more often than not. My favorite part of the second half was actually hunting down and beating all the secret bosses (okay, not Doom Gaze). And there is a certain satisfaction that comes along with having every character, even if the game doesn't really acknowledge it.
So yes, if you have any interest whatsoever, check out Final Fantasy VI (or III, if you prefer). It's definitely worth your time. Many people call it the greatest RPG on the SNES. I don't personally agree with that.
Number 2, though? Definitely.
Until next time!
Current interests:
Playing - Yakuza 0 (2015)
Reading - Kamen Rider W: Futo Detective (2017)
Watching - Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return (2017)
2 Confirmed Kills in 2017
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