FFVI Review Post

[opn184]

Jake Alley says "Of all the many, wonderful RPGs to grace the SNES, the best of all was Square's Final Fantasy VI... It delivered on all levels, and set the bar so high in some regards that it still has not been surpassed to this day." in his rpgamer.com review of FFVI. Do you agree/disagree, and why?

[Jiro]

When was that review written? I love FFVI. I still count it as my favourite game of all time. But I don't think saying it has been unsurpassed to this day is necessarily accurate. There have been some absolutely glowing reviews of games like The Last Story.

[opn184]

Here it is: http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff6/...ff6strev2.html

[sabin101]

I love final fantasy VI it is one of my favorite ff games that ever came out but I would not say that it has not been surpassed. Even though I have not played any of the latest rpg games I read about a few of them and I could say there a lot of games that have stomped on this game and ran for the goal. Like the last story and a few other games that have raised the bar quite high. I always thought final fantasy 7 was a major improvement when it was released after 6 and I could say in terms of graphics 10 looked beautiful. Just my opinion on this topic.

[WildRaubtier]

You can tell a fanboy wrote that review. No scores lower than 5, and an overall of 10? It makes me wonder what the scoring criteria rpgamer has set itself is like.

6's main problem is that it fails as an actual game. I'm not sure how Jake came to the conclusion that the game's difficulty was "Medium," because it fails to provide any challenge at all. Every single character is overpowered for the segments where you're forced to use them, and there are a handful of characters that, given a choice of who to use, outpower by far everyone else. The battle system itself is barely more than a refined version of 4's- There's a couple more slots for equipment (an extra accessory and a magicite) and the characters can use any magic spell at any time. The flow of battles is also smoother. You're not stuck with any set characters. Those are pretty much the only differences. An already-cliched-for-its-time battle system with no difficulty does not warrant a 6, Mr. Alley!

The review also states a replay value of "5" which may be the single most inaccurate part of the entire review. There are 2 reasons to play 6 again: for the story, and to get anything you missed out on your first play (which, needless to say, is moot if you did it the first time). Is the story worth it? I'll say whatever rocks your boat. But story alone doesn't offer anything other than the lowest possible score for replay value.

The soundtrack was fine. Not a 10, it's too hit and miss, just like any other entry in the series. The story isn't a 10, either, even if it is the best in the series. There's no more than 2 or 3 characters who are ever relevant past their introduction or the completely optional quest to get them back at the end of the game. Jake's assertion that the story is "character driven" only applies in the sense that the story will throw another character at you in order to progress.

[Edge7]

I feel like the review is a bit too in favor. I love FF6, I think it has an amazing story, and the World of Ruin is one of my favorite stretches of gameplay in any Final Fantasy ever. Just flying on an airship, and watching the sun setting on the horizon is more visually appealing (to me) than a good chunk of things modern day consoles can do (I think it's because of the colors. Realism's nice, but when I think of the most beautiful image in gaming, I think of the Falcon soaring with the World of Ruin theme playing in the background. Maybe I'm just sentimental.)

Another thing I liked about the WoR that I feel has never really been replicated is the recruitment of characters. I know other RPGs have done it since then, Suikoden, SaGa (which I admittedly haven't played any of), and Chrono Cross being a few examples, but the feeling of having to regain allies you had already grown attached to was what sealed the deal.

I guess what I'm saying is that from an objective, gameplay-oriented standpoint, Final Fantasy VI has been surpassed (although I would argue that it hasn't aged poorly by any means), and it isn't the end-all defining game of the genre, but there are some things that keep this game very special for me.

[Bolivar]

RPGamer is an older site and I wouldn't be surprised if this review was written in the late 90's. The thing about American gamers who contextualize RPGs as in which is the best for its time, the best ever, etc. is that a lot of these games weren't available in America back then. Final Fantasy fans in the US could only have played half of the series up until 1999.

It doesn't matter if any games have surpassed it since: Final Fantasy VI wasn't even the best RPG on the SNES. Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest V, and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling together were far superior in terms of the scope of their stories and their mastery of gameplay.

Don't get me wrong, Final Fantasy VI is a very, very good game. It has some of the most epic moments ever in an RPG, awesome menu-based combat, a deep customization system, and some incredible dungeon design. Its original Japanese script was considerably mature for its time and paved the way for the more "adult" RPGs we would see in the Platinum Age of RPGs on the Sony PlayStation. But there's enough problems with the game to bring it down a few levels, even below some of its contemporaries.

[WildRaubtier]

awesome menu-based combat, a deep customization system,

what

[The Man]

Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest V, and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling together were far superior in terms of the scope of their stories and their mastery of gameplay.

I've played two out of three of these (I haven't played Tactics Ogre since I suck at strategy games), and nope, not even close.

Don't get me wrong, CT and DQV both have some incredible strengths to their storytelling, and I would go so far as to say that Final Fantasy VI might not even exist in its current form without DQV, because quite a lot of what FFVI did was done by DQV first. But the scope of their stories is completely different. DQV focuses on the travels of one family throughout the course of their lives. FFVI focuses on a gigantic ensemble cast throughout the year. The length of the story told by DQV is massive, and to be honest it takes risks that I'm not aware of any other RPG to this day taking that paid off handsomely. But the world is nowhere near as developed as the world of FFVI. By the time the World of Ruin rolls around, it is entirely possible to imagine quite what the characters feel like, despite the 16-bit graphics. That is a gigantic accomplishment.

FFVI also earns points for its nonlinearity (which, to be sure, does not occur until the second half of the game - but then again, neither does Chrono Trigger's). To my knowledge, no other JRPGs apart from Chrono Trigger afford the player as much freedom as FFVI does in the second half of the game (although to be fair, I haven't been keeping up with recent releases, due to my interest in gaming having fallen off quite substantially and not owning two out of three of the modern consoles).

I will acknowledge that the battle system is where FFVI does come a bit short compared to some of its contemporaries. While FFVI's battle system is certainly serviceable enough, it is generally acknowledged even by fans of the game as the one place where the game falls short of sheer perfection. It certainly has been surpassed both by other entries in the series (FFV, FFT, etc.), and some of its contemporaries (I would even go so far as to name DQV and CT as two games that surpass the depyh of its battle systems). But with so many other places where the game achieves technical mastery, most people are willing to overlook a somewhat less deep, but still perfectly serviceable, battle system.

Anyway I would say that there are plenty of games from the era that come close to rivalling FFVI (DQV would be one, actually, as would Seiken Densetsu 3), and one that even manages to equal it in accomplishment (CT). But I don't think any surpass it.

awesome menu-based combat, a deep customization system,

what

There is a hell of a lot you can do with FFVI's customisation system. Admittedly, a lot of it doesn't open up until you get espers, and some of it doesn't even really become possible until the World of Ruin, but the idea of giving characters stat bonuses on level up if they had certain espers equipped, for example, was a stroke of genius. Granted, as an obsessive-compulsive gamer it drives me absolutely crazy, since I want my characters' stats to be as perfect as possible (even though by the time you've levelled them up enough it doesn't matter worth a tit).

ETA: One of the points I probably should have elaborated on above is the fact that one of FFVI's strengths that lifts it above most of its competition is in an area very few people talk about when it comes to video games, which is in its world-building. Very few other games manage to feel like a real setting, and this is what it does radically better than any of the other games that have been mentioned in this thread. In part this is because there are so many believable characters in the game - not just the party members and the main NPCs, but minor characters like Duane and Katarin (or Dean and Katarina or possibly other names depending upon which translation you played). Almost every town has plenty of NPCs that play tangible roles throughout the story that add an extra layer of depth to the story you can get if you talk to them all at multiple points throughout the game. Most other RPGs do something similar to a certain extent, but most of them don't really go very far in doing anything other than making most of the characters little more than cardboard cut-outs. In FFVI, you feel you really get to know of them.

World-building is often overlooked, but it is important. It is the main reason Game of Thrones has succeeded where so many other attempts at bringing high fantasy to the small screen failed: It feels like a real setting. FFVI accomplishes this to an extent that almost no other game I have played manages. FFIX comes close, but to be honest, the only other game I can think of that I have played that actually accomplishes it to the same extent is FFVII (and I'm saying this despite considering it to have severe flaws in other aspects of its storytelling).

[WildRaubtier]

So, limited stat bonus equal a deep customisation system?

[The Man]

There's more to it than that, such as specific abilities that only certain characters can perform because of equipment limitations, and certain character abilities (Rage, Lore, Dance, etc.) that give you more back the more work you put into them. I used "for example" for a reason. It's not as deep as those of some other games (FFV for example) but for its day it's far from shallow.

[WildRaubtier]

So, learning pre-defined abilities according to class role equals deep customisation?

[Wolf Kanno]

Its customization was deep because you had the ability to choose a party from a cast of characters with set roles, who could be customized with espers to gain stat bonuses,learn magic spells, and use summons, and you could use relics to alter the characters abilities or give them new abilities (think of FFV's sub-job system) not to mention when you get to equipment that alters stats, causes special effects, and gives you defensive abilities. There is really nothing on the SNES that can really give the player this much customization options, hell VI gives more customization options than a lot of the FF games.

As for replay, the second half of the game is fairly non-linear from a JRPG standard meaning the player can tackle the scenarios in different order and not even bother getting back some of the characters, some of these omissions even alter the games ending, so yeah, there is quite a bit of replay value for it, especially for an FF.

I'll give you that the game's difficulty curve is bad, but the point of doing that was to make the game more accessible to new players, and you'll notice most games Square released after VI follow suit with rare exceptions mostly coming from Matsuno's crew (FFTactics,Vagrant Story) and this did help a new generation get into RPGs when VII followed the formula as well.

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I would agree its one of the best SNES RPGs, if anything cause the game is a bit of a watershed moment for the SNES. This is because most games on the system didn't bother with the type of cinematic and deeper story telling that VI attempted. I feel you can see a distinct difference to how games did certain things before and after VI, so I felt it was definitely a title that became a bit of a "eureka" moment for not only Square but other publisher's as well in that era.

I mean when you compare how Enix used cinematics and storytelling in DQV(pre-VI)
salabona15.jpg
and then DQVI (post VI)
41764-dragon-quest-vi-maboroshi-no-daichi-snes-screenshot-intros.gif
you see a huge difference,

same with the transition of storytelling from Battle Ogre
gfs_49891_2_10.jpg
to Tactics Ogre


VI introduced a means of using the character sprites as models to express more emotions and get more out of the story. It's visual style finally broke Final Fantasy out of the largely High Fantasy setting, introducing sprites dressed in Victorian era garb and showing off obvious 2nd Industrial Revolution architecture and machines (along with the sprinkle of sci-fi stuff the series usually has) which no one really did before then. It also integrated gameplay with story sequences which had never really been done before with stuff like the opera scene and the fishing mini-game letting the player have more immersion in the plot and characters that is largely absent from JRPGs.

Chrono Trigger and the PS1 generation FFs owe a lot to FFVI for raising the bar in how a JRPG can tell a story and build a likable cast of characters. So damn straight its one of the best SNES games if not one of the most important.

[The Man]

So, learning pre-defined abilities according to class role equals deep customisation?

There's more to it than that, such as

I used "for example" for a reason.

I'm not really sure how much further I could have gone to make it plain that I wasn't offering a comprehensive run-down of what made FFVI's system customisable, unless you're incapable of recognising "such as" and "for example" as synonyms. Wolf did his expectedly superb job providing more examples though.

[WildRaubtier]

Its customization was deep because you had the ability to choose a party from a cast of characters with set roles, who could be customized with espers to gain stat bonuses,learn magic spells, and use summons, and you could use relics to alter the characters abilities or give them new abilities (think of FFV's sub-job system) not to mention when you get to equipment that alters stats, causes special effects, and gives you defensive abilities. There is really nothing on the SNES that can really give the player this much customization options, hell VI gives more customization options than a lot of the FF games.

So, being able to equip 7 slots of equipment instead of just 5 is deep customisation? I'd like to know of another [strike]JRPG[/strike] game where equipment doesn't alter a character's stats and/or abilities.

"Learning magic" is not customisation. Each character will learn the same spells, and every character can learn every spell. Learning magic in a different order is not "customisation." Deliberately not learning some spells in order to differentiate your characters is neglect, not customisation.

I think the only legitimate point here is the sheer amount of characters you can form a party with, which is weak because its still barely customising anything, as well as there being several characters so much more overpowered than the rest that you'd have to be playing some sort of specific challenge in order to not use them.

As for replay, the second half of the game is fairly non-linear from a JRPG standard meaning the player can tackle the scenarios in different order and not even bother getting back some of the characters, some of these omissions even alter the games ending, so yeah, there is quite a bit of replay value for it, especially for an FF.

Some scenes are altered depending on which characters you've reunited with. The final outcome, more or less, remains exactly the same. That isn't replay value. Additionally, reuniting with characters is optional - I doubt there's any game other game anyone would claim that optional content equals non-linearity.
(work time bbl)