Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy III / VI

The Short


Pros
- Fourteen characters, the majority of which have interesting backstories to explore
- Beautiful 16-bit graphics
- Best video game soundtrack ever
- Story is interesting and has a rather dramatic twist half way through
- Some genuinely touching and heartwrenching moments
- Kefka proves to be the best Final Fantasy villain to date
- Fast battles that don't require substantial amounts of level grinding
- Each character has a specific unique ability
- Manages to be both a linear (first half) and non-linear (second half) experience without breaking the game
- Overall, an excellently crafted, tight knit package

Cons
- Certain character abilities make the game incredibly easy
- Because of this, balance is all over the place, but overall the game is relatively easy
- Translation can be a bit off on the SNES version. GBA re-translation tends to be a bit better
- Some bonus characters don't get the same backstory treatment as the others

The Long

Final Fantasy III/VI is my favorite game ever. I honestly consider it to be the best game ever made. Now that you know how this review will play out, let's give a brief history as to how I found these games.

I was introduced to the JRPG when I was about eight. My parents were gone all day to some event, so we had a babysitter. He brought his SNES and all he did all day was play Final Fantasy IV (great babysitter) while we watched. I remember my younger brother actually cried when Palom and Porom turned to stone. The game made such an impression on me that about four-five years later, when searching an internet forum, I pressed people to giving me the name of this game that I had only sparse memories of (Tellah, a boss involving three sisters, and two children who turned to stone), finally discovering the Final Fantasy series (and emulator) for a first time. 

Nobody would give me a straight answer on the number, so I started up Final Fantasy III instead. I played it for a while before realizing it was the wrong one and switched to Final Fantasy II. It wasn't for months later that I finally went through and played the game. And oh man...it was an experience.

Pictured: An experience.

It's worth pointing out the only JRPG I'd actually played and beaten before this point was Wandering Hamster, an indie game built on the OHRRPGE game engine. So all this stuff was new to me. After beating Final Fantasy VI (which I will call it by it's real number the rest of this review) I immediately started it over again and played through a second time, changing my party members. Since then I've probably beaten this game 12-15 times on various platforms, including original SNES, GBA, PS1, and emulators. I actually imported the soundtrack from Japan back when that was a big deal; learned how to play The Phantom Forest as a trio with my brother on guitar, me on piano, and my mother on recorder;  my username for years was "Shadowiii" (based on the character and my belief it was III for the longest while); and made games with sprites based off the characters. So it's safe to say I have a decent emotional investment in the game.

So...how about we get on with the actual review, then? Also, there will be minor (and major) story spoilers, but come on. The game is almost twenty years old. You'll survive. 

Thanks Shadow, old buddy. 

Final Fantasy VI's story isn't entirely unique to itself. Apparently thousands of years ago there was magic in some form, but due to man's inhumanity towards man (or something like that) everybody nuked each other in the War of the Magi, an event referenced throughout the game but only partially explained. Magic was erased, and everybody lived happily ever after.

That is until an evil empire (known only as "The Empire") decided it would be a good idea to revive magic in some attempt to dominate the world...more than they already are? From the offset of the game the Empire seems to be in charge of everything, with only a few minor kingdoms still resisting rule (or simply allying). I guess they needed magic to take over the world, but considering they already owned 3/4 of it, reviving magic seemed a bit like overkill.

It's not over until I say it's over!

Anyway, the game starts following Terra (or "Tina" if you are into the Japanese version), a young girl oddly gifted with powers of magic who has been enslaved by the Empire. When an Esper (essentially a summon from all other Final Fantasy games) has an odd reaction to her that frees her from her enslavement and begins to reawaken old memories, you and your somewhat massive band of followers (fourteen!) have to figure out what the crap is going on, how the Empire is involved, and how to overthrow it while not repeating the War of the Magi.

By blowing up a factory! Wait...

The story in and of itself is interesting, starting off simple with a resistance group called the Returners (who do nothing over the course of the game. Go team.) and eventually escalating into a full-blown magic war that literally destroys the world. Yes, the villains actually win (which makes sense, considering their resources and prowess) half way through the game, and destroy the entire world, leaving you to pick up the pieces. Such a great twist. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As mentioned before, Final Fantasy VI has an insane number of characters. Mains such as Terra, Locke, Celes, Edgar, Sabin, and Cyan are mixed with lesser developed ones such as Relm, Strago, Gau, and then completely random guys like Mog and Gogo. While it is essentially character overkill (though the last dungeon, which requires you to split into three parties of four to tackle the massive area from three different fronts, is awesome), what is surprising is how well they pulled this off. Yes, you could say there was a lack of budget that required them to "back the camera up" and not focus in on just one main character and instead just give them all minor (or no) amounts of backstory, but bear with me a moment and I'll explain what I think about this.

This isn't even all of them; we are missing Gau and Shadow. 

One of the Final Fantasy series' greatest draw (and in my opinion, greatest weakness) is they are essentially in-depth character stories. Final Fantasy IV heavily focuses on the Dark Knight Cecil's transformation to become a champion of light. Final Fantasy VII follows Cloud as he unravels his past and has an emo-off with Sephiroth. These games get very close knit with their characters, but this is where I think things sometimes go bad. Because the relationships are so close, Square feels the need to make them excruciatingly melodramatic. Long stares, people saying "..." or "tsking" (if voice acting was around) constantly, close ups on people's vacant expressions and overblown reactions, the whole business. It's because they are so dedicated to making this an in-depth character story that the plots are essentially weaker, because once they get too close they take the whole thing too far. I'm not saying the rest of the Final Fantasy games have bad stories; far from it. I'm saying they have very, very melodramatic ones. There's a lot of good under there, but it's veiled by their attempt to make the game so personable that it goes a step too far.

This is where Final Fantasy VI works. Because there's such a large roster and they wanted everybody to have at least some backstory, many of the characters were skimped on a little, and the rest were presented through shorter, less drawn-out scenes. Heck, most of the best character stories (Shadow's dreams, Cyan's return to Doma Castle) are completely optional and missable. Yes, there are scripted sequences (during the first half mostly), but the meat of most of these stores happens by coincidence. You'll never see the coin scene in Figaro Castle (arguably one of the best scenes in the game) if you don't take the brothers Edgar and Sabin there together. You'll never know that Shadow is Relm's father (I warned you about spoilers) if you don't stay an an inn multiple times while he's in the party. There's just enough depth for nearly all the characters (again, exception of the weirdos you pick up at the end which have no backstory) that you feel like you know them, but they don't beat you over the head with it. It's more like how you know your friends: enough to understand when things are important to them, but not like you are constantly in their heads. It works, which is why I think nearly any fan of Final Fantasy VI has a certain fondness for the majority of the cast, even though there are tons of them. 

Even though there's no "star" of the story, I've always felt this conflict was between Terra and Kefka. 

It's subtly, as I mentioned in my Nier review, which video games in general (but particularly JRPGs) don't tend to do well. By taking a step back, the story as a whole is stronger, because it forces you to use your imagination. Again, the only way you'll know Shadow is Relm's father is 1. If you liked Shadow enough to use him and stay at inns with him, because you are limited to how often he's in your party the first half of the game 2. Infer from the rather sketchy hints before you actually go to where he is in his dreams 3. Use your brain. The same goes for a lot of the rest of the game, to the overall story to the villains. Final Fantasy VI does well with it's "taking a step back" approach, because it makes you feel smart when you find things out yourself (a fundamental trick authors use to keep readers engaged). This doesn't happen...well, ever in games (except Nier I guess) so seeing it done so well here is a breath of fresh air. 

However, if the game didn't have a central character, it wouldn't have much of a drive to push forward. But if can't be any of the fourteen we control (though I've always thought this was Terra's story, even if the game stops pushing that after about the 1/3 mark), than who is it? Easy. It's the villain, Kefka.

Who might just have the most brilliant musical theme ever. 

Kefka is the Emperor's right hand man, and he's totally insane. He starts out just a little loony, but it's clear throughout the progression of the game that he's consistently losing it. He's an actual psychopath, unlike most villains who spend most of the game puttering around and waiting for the heroes to arrive to mess them up. He is OCD, obsessed about simple things like sand in his boots. He's inhuman and can't relate to people, poisoning a castle full of innocents simply because it would be easy and it entertains him. He flat out says he can't understand human emotion. When your party pours their hearts out to him in an attempt to sway him before the final battle, he has this to say about it.

Oh, Kefka. 

Kefka is as mentally unstable as an Arkham Asylum, and just as batty (get it? Batman joke.). Because of the lack of camera focused on one of your characters, the game seems to spend quite a bit of it focusing on Kefka, which is brilliant. Kefka, as stated above, is certified as mentally unstable. He causes destruction because he enjoys it, though he does seem to have a problem committing. He runs from nearly all the battles you are in when he starts losing, abandons his friends at a moment's notice, and even when he gets the powers of the gods themselves and destroys nearly all the world, he leaves some of it alive. Sure, he randomly burns towns, but he can't seem to finish the job, sort of waiting for you to all show up and force his hand. Kind of how a person with this kind of mental illness would act. 

Point being, Kefka is extremely clever and manages to be entertaining, formidable, and detestable all at the same time. He's my favorite video game villain, and for good reason. He has legitimate depth to who he is, and he works (even as just a tiny sprite). 

Plus you've got that laugh. 

There's probably more I could say about the story that would be eloquent and come off as sort of smart, but instead I'm just going to sort of gush for a few moments. Because something Final Fantasy VI does brilliantly is crafting excellent scenes around the characters. You could argue that your little squad as a whole doesn't mesh quite as good as it could (though the same can be said of any Final Fantasy game, where outside the original 2-3 people the other characters seems tacked on), but there is no denying this game is potent when it comes to its individual, powerful scenes. For the sake of memories, I'm going to "quickly" run through three of my favorites. This will be SPOILER HEAVEN so if you don't want to read it, I'll let you know where to skip to with the next BOLD ITALIC text. 

Waiting for Shadow

During the end of the first half (which is also the end of the second act), you are on a flying continent with essentially the three gods of magic that created the Espers and magic and all that stuff. Kefka kills the Emperor in what is actually kind of hilarious in a horrible, black humor sort of way, and starts messing with the statues to try and draw their powers to himself. Shadow, aka the best character ever, valiantly tries to stop him while your weakened party stumbles to the safety of the airship. As you run through the continent, a countdown begins for you to escape. When you get to the very end (usually with a minute or so to burn), the game prompts you to jump. If you do, Shadow dies fighting Kefka, and you get away sort of safe.

If you don't, you can hit "no" and say "Gotta wait for Shadow..." If you do, during the final five seconds of the countdown Shadow will appear and he'll be alive the second half of the game. If you don't, he's gone. Permanently. 

Oh man, that scene is so good. I could gush about it, but I think it speaks for itself. The fact it's completely optional, without any specific prompts, and you as the player have to want to risk the game's judgement (aka reload a save, which is a distance back at this point) in an attempt to save Shadow is freaking brilliant.

Cyan and the Phantom Train

I said in my Nier review that few scenes get me emotional, but this is one of them, every freaking time. After Doma Castle is poisoned and the warrior Cyan has to watch his family die due to Kefka being a horrible bastard, he joins your party to seek vengeance on the Empire. A soft spoken warrior, Cyan rarely shows his emotions (even after actually seeing his dead family he bottles it up to return to the battle), which is why this scene is so damned heartwrenching.

You make your way into a forest and board a mysterious train. It's a moment later you realize it's the train the escorts the dead to the beyond, so you have to get the crap off. After suplexing the engine with Sabin you finally get off at a station, just in time to see Cyan's wife and child getting on the the train. He chases after them, but it's too late. They call their final goodbyes and he has to watch them leave him forever. 

After that is when the game gets brilliant. The music completely cuts out. Cyan is standing at the edge of the station, looking at his feet. If you have Shadow, he's silently standing aside, not able to look at Cyan. If you talk to Cyan he said nothing, and if you talk to Shadow he tells you to leave Cyan alone. You can't sprint if you have the Sprint Shoes, you can just walk in the silence, waiting. 

Several moments pass as Cyan remembers his family, and the game continues. Absolutely incredible. 

The freaking opera scene. 

So everybody knows about this scene, and it might be what the game is most famous for. After you join the Returners dedicated to kick some empire butt, you learn that a man name Setzer has the only airship this side of the Empire. Locke (your thief) and Celes (your magic general who switched sides from the Empire but is still torn on her decision) head to an opera house as they've heard Setzer has a thing for the lead singer Maria there (who you never see, surprisingly enough). Once you get there the house is in shambles: Maria is gone! But due to some strange fluke, Celes looks exactly like Maria. So they enlist her to sing the part to bait Setzer.

Implausible story bits aside (how the heck could Celes, a general, sing like a freaking "opera floozie?"), this scene is unmistakably powerful. You have to learn Celes' lines and pick the right ones least you sing wrong and get kicked out (though I suggest you do that at least once; it's hilarious), control her as she dances, and thwart an attempt to mess everything up by Ultros the purple octopus. Keep in mind this is, for the most part, interactive. You are just as much picking lines and moving as you are watching the opera, which is great. 

But there are two really magical parts about this scene. The music, which despite using a tinny midi "voice" to sing the lines still works, and the analogy at play here. The music is a given: this is Uematsu's best work, filled with clever nods and subtleties, and the opera swells and fades beautifully. But what else is clever is the fact they picked Celes to be the star, not Terra. This wasn't an accident. The opera is a story about a woman torn between two men from the east and the west, one being the kind-hearted but downtrodden one, the other wealthy and powerful. Just like what Celes is going through right now, torn between the Empire and the Returners. It's a pretty blatant analogy once you see it, but disguising it as the memorable opera might have thrown some people off guard. Regardless, this is a beautiful scene, and certainly one of the finest in all of gaming. 

And now back to our regularly scheduled program. 

END SPOILERS

Now that we are finally off the story, what about the game? Well, Final Fantasy VI is a traditional JRPG affair, with random battles and level grinding and loads of equipment to buy and find and equip and all that stuff. The trick is that every one of the 14 characters plays a little differently, having the same basic stuff (attack, magic, items) and is then given one final ability that is unique to them (Morph, Steal, Blitz, etc.). While this is a fantastic idea in concept (an attempt to make the characters more interchangeable while still keeping them unique, something Final Fantasy VII didn't do as well), in execution it needed some more thought. Both Sabin and Edgar have moves that cost no mana, hit all enemies, and do insane amounts of damage. Shadow is the only character with an insane dodge stat, a built in powerful counter (and you can equip a weapon to make him counter more) and can seriously bring the pain. Terra's ability, Morph, doubles all her damage. She can do it once a fight for an extended period of time, but with the exception of the final boss you can usually murder any boss in the game before Morph turns off if you are even remotely skilled at JRPGs. There is literally no reason to not have that above be your party, as they are the best optimized.

Other characters have abilities that range from "ok" to "awful." Locke's "Steal" is helpful early on, but it's a conditional thing. It's good when stealing from bosses, but I wouldn't trade it for a powerful Blitz. Celes' Runic lets her absorb magic and get mana from it, but it's first dependent on equips and she can suck her own team's magic, which in the end of the game is useless. Relm can copy and then possess weaker enemies, which is neat but I'd hope you are more powerful than the random encounters by that point so that cloning them is a waste. Gau can steal enemy styles in what is actually a really cool idea, but getting the Rages is tedious and again...why would I use this instead of a Blitz or Autocrossbow?

But hey, the boss music rules. Just try to not kill them too fast that you can't hear it. 

It's horribly imbalanced, to say the least. Due to the fact Terra, Edger, Sabin, and Shadow can all equip powerful weapons (even though Terra should probably have just used staffs like Strago, since she is a mage), using weapons is just as viable as magic for 90% of the game. This also makes the game stupid easy, with only a few challenging parts if you are stingy with your potions or MP. 

Still, I think the game is fun, even if it isn't that much of a challenge. Battles are really quick, which helps because they pop up all the time. Leveling happens at a pretty consistent clip, as does learning spells. You gain spells by equipping "Espers," and after battles earn horribly named "Magic Points" (vs "MP," which I only discovered was a different thing on my third playthrough) to learn a variety of spells. As with most Final Fantasy games, all status effects are useless, so stick to straight damage and heals. Again, as it stands this is pretty much par for the course for an SNES RPG, and despite all my bashing there is a draw to the systems at play here. Because it's so fast it never gets frustrating, you get upgrades (both levels and weapons) quickly, and so you are constantly being rewarded either by leveling up or story segments. It's balanced bad but the pacing is excellent, and since it's so easy you really don't need to level-grind much. Which is great: more time for the awesome story. 

Yes, more Kefka. I think he's funny, come on. 

The game also does an interesting switch up half way through. For the first two acts of the story you are pretty much set in a linear path, with the exception of the very end. Since you don't have a controllable airship for a while, you are shuttled to where you should go via plot, though it does mix it up by splitting your party and other things. It isn't really until you go on the flying continent, Kefka blows up the world, and your party is scattered that everything changes. What was once a linear game is now completely non-linear. You start stranded on an island as Celes, in what is one of the most isolated feelings in any game. After being given the taste of freedom on an airship, now you are on a destroyed world, not knowing if anything else exists. Trapping you was a brilliant idea in and of itself, but that isn't the point. The point is you go out to find the rest of your party members, and the game forces you to find two of them. After that, however, you can do whatever. Want to try and fight Kefka with just three people? Knock yourself out. Want to find everybody? You can. Want to do side missions for said characters? Also an option. It becomes the definition of non-linear, which is a dramatic shift. And it works. Which is cool. 

Yeah, I kind of didn't know how to wrap that thought up. Sorry. 

This game is graphically gorgeous. This and Seiken Densetsu 3 (essentially a sequel to Secret of Mana, which never came out in the US) are often considered the gold standard for the SNES pixel art games, and it shows. Despite being clearly a grid-based tilemapping system, you'll be hard pressed in many instances to find the seams, a sign of an excellent pixel artist. Sprites have a wide variety of emotions that work despite them all being tiny caricatures. The enemies look incredible, bosses especially, with a level of pixel art detail unheard of. The landscapes are well animated, every place you visit is interesting, and despite copious use of "pallet swapping," the game still has enough original content to keep encounters interesting and fun.

Ok, time for the big guns. The music. THE MUSIC. 

Nobuo Uematsu, you are a genius. 

Final Fantasy VI has the best soundtrack of any game ever. Period. Hands down. No questions. Every single track in this game sounds beautiful. You can complain because it's basically just the SNES's midi chipset, meaning everything was probably done by Uematsu on a synth keyboard, but whatever; I do not care. It all sounds beautiful and breaks the lines between background music and actual, memorable songs. I cannot think of a single song in this game I do not like. And there's like a hundred of em'. 

So I could go on and on about how specific tracks are brilliant, like how Kefka's track perfectly describes him as it starts out a whimsical and almost goofy and then gets darker and darker until the end. I could talk about how Terra's theme also doubles as the incredibly haunting world theme during the first act, but it shifts during the second because the story is no longer just about her. I could talk about how the Figaro castle song double as both Edgar and Sabin's theme using musical style to brilliantly express this, and how it so perfectly compliments the softer "Coin Song" when you go over the two brothers' pasts. I could show you how the basic town music from before the world is destroyed compliments the new town music after the world is destroyed, and if you put them side by side how incredibly similar they are. I could talk about how the ending boss song is twenty minutes long and is a mixture between a Bach Fugue, Kefka's theme, the opening theme (brilliant), and just general awesomeness.  I could talk about the opera, which is just...urrrrrr it's so good! But since I've already talked enough and secretly slipped these hints in (or not so secretly), I'm going to focus on my favorite or at least my first noticed musical trick Uematsu slipped in: Locke and Celes' themes. 

So Locke is a treasure hunter with a secret: despite coming off as carefree, he let the one woman he really cared for down, to the point where she is essentially in a coma the entire game. Upon meeting Celes he is determined to not let this happen again, promising the standoffish former General that he'll protect her, even though she is more than capable of protecting herself. 

Here's Locke's musical theme, which is a great song in and of itself for our free-spirited thief...er, "treasure hunter."

And here is Celes', which is actually a variation off the Opera theme, albeit without vocals. 

Pretty good stuff, eh? It gets better.

So like I said before, video games mess up romances. That's why I liked The Prince of Persia, Enslaved, and Nier so much: the romance wasn't shoved in your face. It's pretty clear to everybody that Locke and Celes have a thing, though nobody particularly gets all teary-eyed about it or even really acknowledges it, even in the very end.

But Uematsu knew. And because he's a genius, he showed everybody that we were supposed to know, even if nobody would say it on screen. He said it in his music.

During the ending of the game (I am avoiding spoilers as best I can here, I promise), everybody is escaping Kefka's tower (because you killed him. Spoiler.) and the game sort of goes to each character individually, playing a recap of their song before showing a resolution (sometimes comical) regarding that character. Each character gets their own turn and variation on their songs.

Except Locke and Celes. Their part is together. And this is what plays. 

YouTube is being stupid, so please skip to 6:12.

He wrote their themes as a duet. The whole game you were hearing these songs, and after 30 hours you now realize they were meant to fit together. It's crazy brilliant, the transition between Celes' and Locke's themes. 

Added bonus being that Shadow's theme is directly following Relm's (seeing as Shadow is Relm's father), though the game never explicitly explains why. 

I could go on and on about the music, but I've already talked enough about this game, so I'll just say what I said before: It's the best game soundtrack ever. No exceptions. 

Plus it has this kickin' dungeon theme. 

I can't believe it...I might actually be out of things to say about Final Fantasy VI. I'm certain I could conjure up some more if I really wanted, but instead I'll just leave this where it is.

Is Final Fantasy VI a perfect game? No. No game is perfect. This game has its share of flaws, the most glaring being the lack of balanced characters and general easiness of the battles. But despite that I think the battles in this game are still fun, bosses especially, and if you really are bothered try playing a game with all the mediocre characters in your party. It's a challenge!

So no, Final Fantasy VI isn't perfect, but I still think it's the finest game ever. Why? Well, plenty of nostalgia and rose-tinted goggles to be sure, but also because it was a first love. I enjoyed games before Final Fantasy VI, I really liked games. But I don't think I really bought into them until Final Fantasy VI. It was this game that inspired me to start making my own games in High School, and from that stemmed me realizing I wanted to be a writer. It's had a massive amount of influence on my life, however indirect, and that's pretty awesome. 

It also is just a solid game. Yeah, you can tear it apart and find faults, but I can't match its experience. While the argument for "best game ever!" for everybody is such a subjective thing that my argument for it is moot anyway, I can totally say it is my favorite game ever, by a very long shot. 

If you haven't played it, you are a bad person, and need to get on it. It's on almost every system known to man, including emulators, so go get it. Right now. 

Saying "five out of five stars" seems a bit redundant, but we aren't breaking tradition now. For a 100th review, my favorite game ever. Now I'm going to go flying off into the sunset. 

See you next time...