338: According to a recent Famitsu interview, VI was originally going to have a fourth wall breaking sequence that would have referenced Dragon Quest. Normally in FF, characters on the world map simply merge into the main character for technical reasons, but Sakaguchi wanted to have a fun sequence where the team tried to do it and failed, only to then need to move around the map lined up much like how DQ does it. Kitase, the director shot it down as being a bit too ridiculous.
This reminds me of what I read about Final Fantasy VII in a sense, there was apparently an idea that didn't get used where Biggs, Wedge and Jessie see (I think/assume) Cloud, Barrett and Tifa "merge into" each other, and try to do it themselves, but fail.
Hope you don't mind me dropping an FFVII trivia in there.
339: VI is the only game where the tent item changes color when used by a main character. In fact, the top of the tent has a different ornamental decoration on top of it depending on the character. Celes, Edgar, Sabin, Banon and Ghost share a Green one with a crown on the top. Cyan, Setzer, and Shadow share a dark gray one with a spike on its top. Relm, Strago, and Gogo share one which is a brown with a red and orange sun symbol. Finally Mog and Umaro share one that is white with a reddish pink star on top.
340: Interestingly enough, Terra has the only unique one. Terra's is purple with her famous Ribbon attached to the top.
341: Locke appears to have a unique one, but its also attached to the Merchant and soldier Sprite sheets since he can don their disguise in the South Figaro scenario. His is sandy brown with a Crescent Moon ornament.
342. Despite one never being playable and the other only being playable for a few minutes with no save points nearby, both Kefka and Leo have a Tent design assigned to them. Kefka shares one with Relm's group, while Leo shares one with Edgar's group.
343. According to the 30th Anniversary Ultimania design documents in VI's section, Biggs and Wedge were meant to have a larger recurring role past the opening, serving as a pair of bumbling villains trying to thwart the party much like their incarnations from VIII. In fact the opera sequence mishap was to be there doing before Ultros was created to fill in that role. The party would have faced Biggs in the rafters and fought Wedge on the stage after falling out of the rafters with him.
344. Speaking of the opera sequence, the boss battle was to have a more interesting interactive feel to it. The audience was meant to react to the battle, so if you used a flashy spell they would ooh and awe, if a character successfully blocked an attack they would cheer, and if a character was killed they would gasp.
345. Interestingly enough, the design notes also detailed a different ending to the whole opera sequence. The biggest change is that Setzer was not involved at all and may have been encountered differently in the early drafts. In the original draft, the party would have defeated Wedge and Locke would have given a speech about how the empire was the true enemy and the Returners were the real heroes. He and Celes would have embraced and the curtain would have fallen. Then it would rise and the whole cast, including the party, would have taken a bow before a stage hand dragged Wedge's unconscious body from the stage.
346. Before FFVI, Square never had a dedicated sound design or sound programming team or member for their previous games. It was always done by staff members who had free time.
347. Terra was originally designed to have short hair but eventually changed as Kasuko Shibuya worked on the sprite.
348. If you're wondering why her hair, and some other cast members hair didn't match up to Amano's drawing, it's stated by Shibuya that she did it to make the cast more distinguishable from each other since Amano is overly fond of blondes in his character art. Interestingly enough, she made the sprites before Amano drew their official artwork.
349. Oddly enough, no one really knows anymore who came up with the magic vs. technology angle of VI's scenario. Sakaguchi said part of the reason they emphasized machines more in VI was really due to the skill level of the staff improving well enough to do so. As well as just having better hardware to work on since the FF series has always had a few sci-fi elements within it. Though in that same interview, he does allude to the idea that Tetsuya Takahashi may have been the one to steer the staff more towards it since he was more up his alley if all his future games weren't a clear sign.
350. Here's a big shocker for all of you. The World of Ruin wasn't in the original script. In fact the final battle against Kefka was to take place on the Floating Continent which is probably why it has a final dungeon feel to it. The reason it happened was due to the game's development going so smoothly that they found they had extra time and simply added it in.
351. The Celes Suicide scenario was originally meant to always be canon and Cid was meant to die. Kitase had them implement an alternate scenario to save him when he thought it would be a nice touch for players, but since he didn't want players to miss out on Celes' touching scene, he purposely left how to do so ambiguous so most players would fail on their first attempt.
352. There may be a personal reason why the Katarina pregnancy subplot was in the game. As it turns out, Sakaguchi was expecting his first child during this game's development. Apparently during the livestream Let's Play he did, he makes mention that he really card about the birth scene due to expecting his own child.
353. According to Tomoe Inazawa (Field Graphics), while the development team was during the crunch time towards the end of development and trying to debug the game, Sakaguchi ad-libbed a song about bugs to Terra's theme. Something like... “Another buuuggg… has been founnndddd…” while he worked.
God, this is good stuff! :bigsmile:
354. The Ghost sprite is based on an older asset from Romancing SaGa. A character named Red Mage originally used a version of the sprite with a red color scheme.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20181212043538
355. Most people know that Gogo can fill his three empty skill slots with any skill from the playable cast. A few of you may have even noticed that the skills available are only the ones on available party members. Meaning if you didn't save Shadow, his Throw skill is lost forever. What a very rare group of modders would know is that Gogo can use almost any skill from any playable character as long as they are available to be put on your team. Meaning if you hack Banon, Ghost, or Leo into your team, he can have access to Health, Posses, and Shock as well.
356. FFVI is the only FF where dying doesn't make you lose all your progress. You lose any items of Gil acquired and dungeon progress but you actually retain any XP and levels you earned. Surprisingly, this appears to be something unique to FFVI as I can't seem to find another numbered FF that does this as well. Though I would point out that the Pixel Remaster has finally removed this feature.
357. Do you remember Aisha? Probably not, but that's the name of the woman in Maranda being chased by the imperial soldiers. For some reason, the English localization gave her a name, she's a nameless NPC in the Japanese version. Made weirder by the fact that certain more important NPCs never get proper names like the Narshe and Esper Elders.
358. The Dream Stooges or Dream Brothers in the Japanese version, were originally named Sueño, Sogno, and Rêve, which are all the word dream in different languages (Spanish, Italian and French, respectively) but what you may not know is that earlier development materials have them named after famous impressionist painters Juan Gris, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Paul Cézanne. Tying the games more into the visual themes of the game.
359. The scene of Katarin giving birth at the end of the game was put there by Sakaguchi because his daughter had been born during production.
360. Cyan being gifted the Masemune after defeating Wrexsoul has more meaning than just a simple plot induced upgrade. The Masemune in Japanese folklore is said to be a benevolent sword that only a warrior with inner peace could truly use. So gaining this weapon is another sign that Cyan has achieved inner peace.
361. Wrexsoul is actually called Alexsoul (アレクソウル, Arekusouru) in the Japanese version. Considering you earn the Alexander Esper after his defeat, it is possible that there was meant to be a connection between the two. The Japanese/Slattery script mention that Wresoul is a malevolent spirit composed of those who died in the War of the Magi.
Awesome, this thread is still going! I really love reading all this trivia, it's so inspiring.
I knew about how they all meant "dream", but the idea of them all being named after artists is a cool idea too. Though, I will say, I love how the Woolsey version literally named them after The Three Stooges, if only because when I first got into Final Fantasy VI I looked at a text-based walkthrough, and saw "Larry, Curly and Moe" as bosses, I was so confused, and likely thought that the walkthrough was making things up (though in hindsight, I like that Ted did that - it was a nice shout out, and this is coming from somebody who has never seen The Three Stooges.)Quote:
358. The Dream Stooges or Dream Brothers in the Japanese version, were originally named Sueño, Sogno, and Rêve, which are all the word dream in different languages (Spanish, Italian and French, respectively) but what you may not know is that earlier development materials have them named after famous impressionist painters Juan Gris, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Paul Cézanne. Tying the games more into the visual themes of the game.
I love this, it is such a nice touch to the storyline, I genuinely felt it when I read about it. I had no idea about this before reading this, but I love that they (presumably) thought about this, it it is such a nice touch. :)Quote:
360. Cyan being gifted the Masemune after defeating Wrexsoul has more meaning than just a simple plot induced upgrade. The Masemune in Japanese folklore is said to be a benevolent sword that only a warrior with inner peace could truly use. So gaining this weapon is another sign that Cyan has achieved inner peace.