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master-duncan · 2 days ago

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Completed - Final Fantasy VI (Pixel Remaster Edition (This Time))

Hey. Wanna start fights on the Internet?

Seriously–is there a faster way to get video game nerds to argue than to talk about what the best "Final Fantasy" game is? How many forum threads over the years have had to be locked due to the acid-spitting nature of the topic? Now, anyone worth their salt in creating an argument can make a case for any game they pick. Some titles are easier to argue for than others. And yes, it 100% comes down to a gamer's own preferences, at the beginning and ending of everything.

Is "Final Fantasy VI" the "Final Fantasy" title I want to play the most? No.

Is "Final Fantasy VI" my pick for best "Final Fantasy" game? 😉

Let's fuckin' fight about it, nerds.

"Final Fantasy VI" is the sixth and final mainline release of "Final Fantasy" titles for the Super Nintendo. It is a story about a young woman coming to terms with her unique gifts and mystical heritage, using her powers to save what little of the world is left after it is shattered by both war and a magical clown. It is also the story about a thief adventurer struggling with his own loss and insecurities, putting them aside to save the world. Or is it the story of two princes of diverging paths uniting to fight against an evil empire and their brain-scrambled general clown than ends up fucking up the world? Maybe it's something about a grief-stricken father finding the urge to continue fighting, even after he's lost everything of value in his life? It's definitely got something to do with a former general of that empire's army telling the apocalypse to go cram itself up its own ass and to take its stupid clown with it. Perhaps it's even got something to do with teddy bears, octopi, a yeti, and your own mysterious mimic clown, if you get funky with it.

The narrative of "Final Fantasy VI" is unique in that it does not solely focus on a single leading protagonist. Rather, it uses multiple threads to weave together the story of a world facing its destruction as a result of technological advancement going horribly wrong and fascination with a fallen past dooming the future. Just because you start with Terra doesn't mean that you will have her for the entirety of the game. Hell! You can even screw up and miss or kill off entire characters! And damn it, you do not want to do that! Not when a three-team party set up in the final dungeon is waiting for you!

Additionally, the game goes for a significant gut punch at its half-way point, screwing up the world so significantly that the surface of the world itself splits. There's no magical slamming continents back together, here. It's just you, Celes (the aforementioned former general), and whoever she can scrape off the planet to go to war and maybe save whatever is left of this dying planet. And hey–you wanna do it with just three people? You sure fucking can, you nut! But, goddamn. You might be missing the point, here.

Along with narrative experimentation comes a myriad of gameplay mechanics that you can screw around with. Each character has their own class. Some are familiar. Some, not so much. Arguably, two are blue mage variants and two are mimic variants, but there's still a lot of variety here. On top of that, equipping your characters with Espers will allow them to learn magic outside of their own pool–or, indeed, at all. Learning how to properly use each character's mechanics will greatly improve your damage and healing output. So, uh, do that.

Of particular note for the Pixel Remaster revision for "Final Fantasy VI": Sabin's Blitzes have become stupidly easy to use. Like, the game prompts you for what one you want to do, shows you the button combination as you are putting it in, and will let you back out if you fuck it up. Cyan's Bushido moves have been changed from idling on a timer to instead selecting them from a menu and executing them on his own sweet time, meaning you no longer have to juggle other characters to go first and wait for him to move his own. Goddamn, what a redemption arc!

Would I like this cast as much if they were voiced? I don't know. But, I do like how historied these characters are. Everybody's got baggage. Even the kids. This is very much a world that weighs on them, and yet, they still find outlets to be kind, silly, and clever. I'm not saying it's a perfect cast. A couple of the characters are…enigmatic at best. Shadow's an asshole and needs both a dog and a kid to morally prop him up. Locke needs to see a therapist and/or serve jail time because…well, there's nothing healthy about keeping a dead woman alongside one's pickles in a basement for several years. But, big ups to the Figaro brothers, Setzer, Cyan, and Celes. At least, when she's not pining for a dude that keeps a preserved corpse in a random weirdo's basement…

Seriously, woman. You're clever. I bet you could negotiate a threesome with those princes real easy. Wouldn't be that hard to bang that weird airship guy, either. At least that dude makes mausoleums and airport hangers for his dead girlfriend.

Yeah, there's a lot of dead women in this game. At least it was written by someone who may have actually talked to a woman at one point in their life. They were at least ballsy enough to give their leading ladies swords and knives. Even the women who died often put up a struggle to try and protect others at the risk of getting hurt themselves. If nothing else, I can give this game an A for effort when it comes to writing women. It's at least trying! Which, uh, may be more than modern "Final Fantasy" releases are doing…

Hey. We've already started one fight over what the best "Final Fantasy" game is. Why not have another regarding which of these games has the best writing for women? There's at least three that aren't even getting participation trophies, in that regard…

You know what's one thing people fight over? Aesthetics.

You know what this game has? Some goddamn aesthetics!

The level of character expressiveness, animation, cohesive and consistent spritework, background design, enemy renders, and color depth blows its older SNES siblings out of the water. Yeah, we can sit around here and argue about "Bahamut Lagoon" or "Chrono Trigger" or "Seiken Densetsu 3" looking prettier than this game, but goddamnit! "Final Fantasy VI" has always been a looker! If you did not have a wide range of experiences with international releases for the Super Nintendo, this game would be a slam dunk to pick in terms of being the most beautiful SNES game. This fancy little bitch sure knows how to play with Mode 7, too! Fucking Queen of the Mode 7 right here.

And oh my God, the SOUNDTRACK. Jesus Christ. What was Nobuo Uematsu eating in the early 90s? Fuckin' Olympic Wheaties composition and sequencing here. Say what you will about the dog-barking vocal samples, but that man was cranking out bangers for this title. (And hey, good news for the Pixel Remaster version! The opera actually has multi-language tracks for its songs!)

I mean, goddamn! Who the fuck puts an opera in their video game? Other than...uh…well, Square again with "Parasite Eve."

Fuck off with that One Winged Angel shit. Give me 16 minutes of Uematsu Dancing Mad. There was no reason for that level of execution, but fuck it. When a player has four screens of bosses to kill, might as well fill the void.

And yet, when the game chooses to be quiet, it's haunting. Fuck. I still get chills hearing train whistles fade into the distance in real life.

Look, man. I'm not the biggest Final Fantasy fanatic on the planet. (I'm the one that inspires people into playing full runs of "Tales of Symphonia", remember!) But, if there were some grand collegiate-level course on video games that need to be played for excellence in gameplay, story composition, and visual/audio presentation, "Final Fantasy VI" would be in the curriculum. This is a pivotal game to experience, and not just to get a joke in "Undertale." Shit's classic.

So, why has it been, like, 18 years since I last played this game? Why did I save this as the last game to complete for the Pixel Remaster set?

When it comes to hidden or missible content, "Final Fantasy VI" is…extremely a "Final Fantasy" game. Like, before I even looked at the achievements for the Pixel Remaster version, I already had performance anxiety. "Fuck me! I'm going to fuck up this opera so badly!" "Oh, this old man's gonna die!" "Where were all of these Espers again?" "How do I not fuck up this dinner sequence?" On and on. If you know the game well enough, you know precisely how you can be raked over the coals for your failures.

But, honestly? If you've got a halfway decent guide parked beside you and you're good about rotating your saves, the achievement spread for this game isn't entirely unreasonable. About the worst it gets is hitting a triple 7 for Setzer, and even then, I was able to randomly get it while using the auto-battle function. I mean, it took me, like, 7 hours to do it that way, but it happened. I also missed an enemy in a one-time dungeon, so that took me another 6 hours to recover from. But, honestly. My bad for not paying closer attention. Also, how in the fuck did I miss the Antares enemy, anyway? That's in at least two different enemy sets in the Cave to the Sealed Gate! How did I not get either of them? Argh!

I mean, hell! They don't even make you get all of Mog's dances, and that's an easy one to mess up! You definitely don't need to completely fill out Strago or Gau's abilities, either. Just make a good show of it.

It would have been funny to include a Cid-icide trophy, though. Track precisely who killed that old man.

Having actually gone through the full catalog of "Final Fantasy VI"'s challenges, I can't say that I would recommend doing everything if you don't have to. Like, is it really worth it to fight all of those dragons? Just for one piece of magicite found in the very last dungeon? And let's be real–the Cultists' Tower is kinda nuts. I mean, being able to dualcast can be helpful, but good luck getting up there without Reflect Rings and a healthy stack of ethers. By the time you're strong enough to get up there, you probably don't need what it's got, anyway. And what about that Intangir guy, anyway? Can't you find better ways to grind AP? And fuck everything to do with the Coliseum bit! Well, minus picking up Shadow, I guess...

The Ancient Castle was cool, though. I definitely should not have skipped out on that in previous playthroughs. Master's Scroll + Genji Glove is sick. Especially with the Ultima Weapon and Zantetsuken…

Having played multiple iterations of "Final Fantasy VI" (including the SNES, GBA, the Vaseline-smeared PC release that got pulled, and the Pixel Remaster version), the Pixel Remaster version is definitely the way to go. And no, I'm not saying that for the translation. (Honestly! Did people play the original English releases of "Final Fantasy IV" and "Breath of Fire II"? The original "Final Fantasy VI" translation was fine! Just a little screwball with terminology.) The aforementioned character adjustments and the ability to speed up how fast your characters learn spells are great boons to an already stellar game. Finding it for under $20.00 USD? Uh…let's say that's also appreciated. Especially when dealing with retro markets.

Look, man. What else can I say that won't set my inbox or comment section on fire? I know it's stereotypical for a former 90s Nintendo brat to pick the last Nintendo-exclusive "Final Fantasy" mainline game as the best in the series. But, damn it. I didn't play this game in 1994. I played it post-2003 "Tales of Symphonia" exposure. Hell, that was still in the heyday of "Final Fantasy X"'s popularity! I sincerely believe based on my exposure to the "Final Fantasy" series over the last 20-some years that "Final Fantasy VI" does the best in understanding its hardware as an artistic medium, executing on a variety of gameplay styles, and writing a compelling narrative that is both tragic and comedic without being grating on either front. It offers more substance than previous games, and it doesn't irritate me like many subsequent "Final Fantasy" entries do. I might get intimidated to play it, but I also respect the hell out of it. So, bam. There you go. One opinion served.

But, hey. You don't have to agree with me. All that matters is that you are able to make your own arguments. Fight your own fights. Do so with your own logic and passion, meatbag.

If you are going to fight me, though, I should warn you. I've gotten really good at executing Blitzes.

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