Some observations on FF6...

[Dragon Sage007]

So, I've been running a lot. And while i run, my mind goes over a gamut of topics. One of them has been FF6, and what exactly made it so unique during its time. I'm also bored-I figured I'd put this down on the forum for your distractions.

1)The System. Okay, yes, it's still semi-turn-based stuff, letting you make your choices. But before now, most RPGs just had Fight, Magic, Item, and Run. Even FF5 only had semi-special abilities that only did one thing. Monks kicked, Knights guarded, Geomancers were unpredictable...but they all only had one thing, if it weren't magic. In this game? Tools, Blitzes, Dances, Rages, Gambling, Sketching, dear lord, sketching and raging alone gives you a completely unpredictable asset, and if the former didn't suck so much, it'd give you what every game needs. A way to be continually evolving, even into the end game, keeping everything fresh and new. On top of that, people don't just learn spells based on level or their wallet anymore-no, now it comes in a trickling dose of Magicite. Don't want Terra to learn Imp, and just go for the big, damaging, flashy spells? Give her Valigarm. But wait! You need Sabin to get that precious +2 to his magic stat that Valigarm gives! Balancing out magic growth and stat growth gave the game another twist that strategists should love. FF6's battle system did its damndest to be unique and interesting every step of the way. (Now if only half of those skills didn't suck so much. I'm looking at you, Celes...)

2)The plot. Sure, now, it's a little lackluster. Especially the second half, which focuses on each individual character...for about thirty seconds, and then forgets about them for the rest of the game. Ah well. Still, Kefka was a truly unique villain that few of us will ever forget, rotten and crazy to the core. Emperor Ghestal was a manipulative, scheming old man who put Machiavelli to shame. Leo was probably the only good man left in the higher-ups, but was blindly loyal. Cid was...well, he was the game's Cid. And he gave Celes some plot development. And let's face it-how many games have the heroes failing in such spectacular manner? The world fucking splits in two, and life as people know it is changed forever. There is no happily ever after-there's just no more madman in a tower throwing nukes down at random. And yet these people keep fighting! Brings a tear to my eye, it does. And if you only play the game through the first half, you could even say it was well developed.

3)The little miscelenneous stuff. Opera that has the notes matching the words coming on the screen. Secret dungeons. A secret Esper that you can only get by defeating 8 difficult bosses. Shadow's Dreams. Mog's treatment of Umaro. An auction house. The ability to change peoples' special abilities. Just...so many little details that they spent so much time on, bringing them all together into a conceivable plot.

4)The artwork. In the day, let's face it. I don't think anyone wasn't blown away by the entrance. The lightning storm, the dark clouds, the ominous music...very different from the previous games that just gave you a title and a pretty picture. And then the Magitek Armor walking towards the town? Damned impressive. It's just a leap ahead of most other games that were around, and more than a bit pretty to look at.

5)The music. Nobuo Uematsu at his best. Need I really say more?

So, yeah. My boredom has been alleviated in this past twenty minutes. Resume your normal spammy silliness.

[PriamNevhausten]

Recently (read: in the past few years) I've been mentally going over the old games that I remember being so awesome but I can't remember why, to try to figure out what it is about them that really makes them so memorable and considered top-notch.

Chrono Trigger, for one. There wasn't a lot of variety in the spells, at least not compared to most CRPGs of its time. There weren't any particularly interesting things you could do with characters--all you did was walk around, you had no special on-the-field techniques or any stuff like that. Double techs, while they were neat in principle, often were lossy (barring a scant few) and weren't enough to hold the game up on their own. Characters were fairly two-dimensional, and the way they treat time travel is kind of silly when you really think about it.

And then I started playing it again. It's the story of that game that is its driving factor--the writing is great, the events are compelling; and Magus's theme is one of the most recognized musical pieces in gaming, being perfectly set up with the atmosphere into a climactic and fierce conflict. Who can forget the story of the Masamune? The writing was absolutely brilliant for this game, and I am convinced it is the reason why it is held on a pedestal such as it is.

Now, FF6...I'm not sure about. The characters are so two-dimensional that you can practically see the cardboard they're colored on (doubt me? Think of Cyan. Gau. Umaro. Mog. How many characters actually have more than 30 seconds' worth of backstory?), the battle system is standard fare for the genre, and the writing isn't all that polished--not to mention the periodic wanderings around the world map, flailing around trying to figure out where your next event trigger could be. And still, it is considered one of the best CRPGs around.

I can't quite discern why, and so once I finish Chrono Trigger again, I'll probably replay it next.

[Molokidan]

DS, I agree with you on most parts.

I think the reason the story was so attractive wasn't because it was particularly deep or complicated (which many games these days think is a necessity to being considered "good") but because it was just off-the-wall, and unique. World cracking in two, insane-AS-HELL villain, just otherwise new places that weren't "Generic Town #6" and so forth. The atmosphere, like DS pretty much talks about in areas 4 and 5, I think, also plays a huge part in the game's appeal. It had AMAZING atmosphere, the locales were expertly designed, the music was phenomenal, and to me, that's what really makes a good game.

I also think one of the great points about the system was that it didn't take forever to master a certain esper. In other FFs, such as 7, it would take you HOURS to master a single materia. In FF6, you could master a dozen in about 3 hours on one character. And that was fun. Sure, it didn't make the game super hard or anything, but it was a lot of fun to play, and that's what's important! The battles were also quick, quick intro, no long waiting for the screen to break off in some useless animation, no loads times of course, just wam, bam, thank you ma'am -- those are the intensity to which battles should be, IMO. I can finish a high-level battle in about 10 seconds on FF6, even with taking damage from the enemy. And that makes adventuring way more fun.

Another thing I think was cool was of course, the World of Ruin. DS, you talked about the unique things, but personally, things like "Secret Esper after defeating 8 bosses" doesn't really do it for me, it seems like an extra gimmick attached on. The World of Ruin, however, was COMPLETELY NON-LINEAR, and I found that amazing. It also let you go and re-explore locales and people you had become familiar with, and I thought that was a lot of fun.

So that's why I love this game so much.

[Shinigori V2]

Sage, if you mean "Secret esper" as "Mentioned by several NPCs in several villiages" and difficult bosses as "Elementally obvious bosses", yes.

Crusader was indeed a secret esper guarded by eight difficult bosses.

[Besyanteo]

On the one hand, I liked FF6. I liked it a lot. On the other hand, I have now also played other games that put it into perspective. Lufia 2, Tales of Phantasia, Oblivion, Fallout 2, Chrono Trigger...

It was good, but I no longer feel a need to be all fanboyish over it. It doesn't even appeal enough that I'd play it through again anymore. ... Also, I'm sorry but that is not Nobuo at his best. Nobuo seems to do much better work when it doesn't have to be ported to a 16 bit system. =P

[Idran1701]

To be fair, that's Nobuo composing on the Super Nintendo, not him composing a song that is then converted to the Super Nintendo. You can almost hear him getting used to the more expansive environs by the somewhat beep-boopness of parts of the FF7 soundtrack.

But yeah, I've got to rank Yasunori Mitsuda above him at least. Which is pretty impressive given that I think he got the job by begging to do something on Chrono Trigger, and he ended up getting nearly the whole soundtrack instead of Nobuo.

[KingOfDoma]

Relevant Material

[Animala]

I've probably played FF6 more times all-the-way-through than any other game. Dunno about FF4, now that there's been remakes and remakes to come.

Great game? I haven't made up any definite criteria for that, I really don't care too much. Obviously it had its technical limitations. I liked it, though, and that's what gets me to play games. ::thumbs up!::

[edit] Oh hay, this comment is by die Dia.

[Molokidan]

I'm missing my Final Fantasy Retrospective fix, it's been like two weeks now and no new episode...

[FF Fanatic 80]

I suppose I should comment here. =P

Some of the games, compared to others games, have not aged well, no. Basic RPG's in general don't age well, since the only real memorable thing in them tends to be the plot, music and the graphics. Selecting 'fight' 'magic' 'item' over and over can get stale after awhile. which is the basic 'game' in most RPG's unfortunately.

But I'm not about to sit here and go 'well, in retrospect the game really sucks'. At the times they were released, they were pretty damn good and raised the bar for other games on the system. You can't fairly compare Final Fantasy 4, one of Square's first entries into the Snes, to Chrono Trigger, a collaboration of two gaming companies after they both had a lot of experience making games for the Snes.

So pretty much, I agree that today they're probably not going to engross you like modern RPG's with newer graphics/music/stories and systems to keep you entertained. But to suggest the game sucks compared to them isn't fair.

...And to descent a little from others, I actually disliked Final Fantasy 5's soundtrack more from the Snes games. The fact that a horn seemed to be the loud and prominent instrument sample in 99% of the music drove me crazy. However, I liked pretty much all the music in 6, and the whole rock-ish thing they had going on.

...and I just remembered this is the spam forum, not discussion. THE LACK OF FUNNEH MUST BE REMEDIED:

<---- LAWLS MONOCLE

[pd Rydia]

But but but! I could use this opportunity to come to hate something I used to love! It's like, sophisticated and stuff! All the cool grownups are doin' it.
:3

[PriamNevhausten]

Oh fuck me. The monocle emote is misspelled.

[FF Fanatic 80]

...what's sad is, I didn't realize it until you pointed it out.

v_v *fails*

[Ark]

My thoughts on FF6:
I didn't like it all that much and have never bothered finishing it. I never got to play it when it first came out, however, so have no nostalgia glasses to look through. Its sort of... good. As far as old games I never got to play and want to try though it just didn't grab me.

Still the *Wink* moment right near the beginning was all sorts of fun and vastly superior to the overrated opera scene.

[pd Rydia]

Overrated? It never really struck me as a salient part of the game. Though Ultros's part in it makes it eight-hundred times more awesome, and I appreciate the dialogue when you fuck up your lines.

Ultros >>> Kefka

[Ark]

It never really struck me as a salient part of the game.

Eh... *Quickly jumps into google and copy pastes word with the word dictionary* Ah!!

sa·li·ent (sl-nt, slynt)
adj.
1. Projecting or jutting beyond a line or surface; protruding.
2. Strikingly conspicuous; prominent. See Synonyms at noticeable.
3. Springing; jumping: salient tree toads.
n.
1. A military position that projects into the position of the enemy.
2. A projecting angle or part.

Ah, but when I was going to play it, and in reviews I read, the opera scene was the one that always got mentioned, with them saying it was awesome and one of the best parts of any FF, ever. Honest. So obviously with that kinda hype the actual opera scene was a bit of a let down.

[FF Fanatic 80]

The high point for me in FF6 was:

"...wait, Kefka actually blew the world up? Shit, I must've screwed up something.

*replays*

...oh wait, I didn't... damn..."

Usually you're trying to prevent global destruction in all these RPG plots. But in this case, you're trying to salvage what's left in the aftermath, and prevent something far worse from happening. I was totally blown away by that and not expecting it. Made the second half of the game very interesting, seeing how the world coped with the destruction and 'rule' under the threat of Kefka.

And for that, it's always going to be one of the more memorable games. And I supppose Ultros too. =P

Edit: spoiler tag removed since the whole damn thread is one heh.

[pd Rydia]

::hugs Cho::
Sorry, I didn't mean to make you use the dictionary. I'mma jerk. :(

[Ark]

Tis okay *nods and noogies*
I only have a just passing understanding of the English language anyway.

And hey, all power to those who did enjoy the game. It like what I said when I couldn't stand playing FF12, those who enjoy the game, in the end, win over those who don't, because they got enjoyment and fun outta something others didn't.

[Idran1701]

Oh fuck me. The monocle emote is misspelled.

That's what you think!

(I have no idea how I did that when it's right in the filename. >: )

[PriamNevhausten]

Three cheers for Idran!