Warning: The following review contains spoilers, reader's discretion is advised.
Nín hǎo, huānyíng ToriJ de shìpín yóuxì pínglùn. Well, this is it. My 100th review. Went through a lot of games to get to this day. Some great, some good, and some extremely troutty! In fact, this ENTIRE MONTH has been one trout stain after another, so please for the love of God let this game be good! We're looking at what many people consider to be the greatest RPG of all time, Final Fantasy III–! Uh... I mean VI. It was called III because Americans can't count. Let's move on.
Final Fantasy VI opens up with the classic Dancing Mad orchestra I'm sure many of you are already familiar with, and then we have the title screen. Be sure to press A when you get to this part or you'll be taken to a preview of the game thinking you're playing the game. Not that I would have any experience with that. Once we get a summary of the plot we're taken to our first playable character, Terra. Terra is described as being a young mysterious girl with the gift of magic who is being controlled by the Empire. Why is it always an Empire? She's being accompanied by two soldiers named Wedge and...
Vicks. Wedge and Vicks instead of Wedge and Biggs. Are you smurfing kidding me? Wedge and Biggs are from Star Wars! Star Wars was made in America you smurfing idiots! Who's responsible for this?
You better watch yourself Ted Woolsey because I will find you!
Anyways, while I have a picture of the opening credits here, we may as well talk about Terra's Theme. I don't usually talk about musical scores in games, but this is something I feel would be a crime punishable by over sixty different countries if I didn't mention it. Terra's Theme is beautiful as is this entire scene with Terra and the Imperial Soldiers running towards the city in the background and the snow falling to the ground. I can't think of a better way to jump start a game.
Once we get to Narshe the game officially begins. They'll be a lot of fights, but with the Magitek Armor they're all extremely easy. You don't get to name your character right away. That doesn't come until after the whole opening segment with the first boss seen below.
This seems familiar.
After the whole ordeal in Narshe we're introduced to the rest of our characters that are spanned out over certain periods of time. We have Locke, Treasure Hunter extraordinaire, King Edgar, notorious ladies man, his brother Sabin who is the muscle, Shadow the ninja, Cyan who possesses a rather interesting vocabulary, Celes former General of the Empire and fellow magic user, Gau child of the animals who is O.P. as smurf, Setzer the only man in the world to own an airship, *breathes* Strago an elderly man from Thamasa, his granddaughter Relm, Mog the Moogle, and two hidden characters named Gogo and Umaro. Jesus Christ it's starting to look like Game of Thrones up in here. How many characters do you need?!
Despite having so many different characters to juggle, the game does an amazing job of managing each one and giving them plenty of development, something that I myself know is pretty difficult to do as I tend to write stories with more and more characters falling out of my ass, so bravo, guys. Bravo! While they do a good job of developing them all, there are certain characters who stick out a bit more. Terra and Celes has the most interesting back-stories, Terra being the hybrid of a human and an Esper, and Celes literally being bred for war by the Empire.
Terra discovers what love is through taking care of children, and the fact the game can show different kinds of love than the usual “boy meet girl” scenario we get in our Final Fantasy is a well welcomed change. Of course we still get that when Celes discovers that she has someone in Locke who accepts her for who she is, and their chemistry together is great. I love the way Locke blushes when he sees Celes in that opera dress. After seeing Celes lose who she thought was the only person left in her life and ready to commit suicide, it was nice to see her happy in the end.
But the development that really stuck out to me goes to Cyan. Cyan suffers a terrible lost at the hands of Kefka when he loses both his wife and daughter. Cyan eventually moves on from the death and even encourages another who suffers from a similar loss to do the same and find love again. This is a great message to send to players who may have lost a loved one, or just to children in general. That no matter how much it hurts it's not good to dwell on the past and to not give up on life because of it.
Did you just throw a wrench at me?
Because what would an RPG be without Random Battles that completely disrupt the flow of the game? Each character has their own strain of unique abilities which sets them apart. Terra and Celes are the only ones who can use magic until you get the Espers, Locke can steal, Edgar has tools, etc. While I've come to enjoy Sabin's blitz commands over time, I find Edgar's tools to be the most useful. I can't tell you how many times I killed things with the auto-crossbow.
Then we have relics, items that increase your characters' abilities like letting them run a whole lot faster or strike an enemy twice in one turn. You can equip two relics to each member of your party at any one time, so they provide another means of strategy when dealing with enemies.
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
Last but not least we have the “Espers” names for the summons of Final Fantasy VI. They come in somewhere around the middle of the first half of the game. In addition to being used for battles, summons are also used to teach spells to your party and are critical to the main plot. Instead of just being monsters, they're depicted as an entirely different species to humans and have their own personalities and are capable of speech. At one part the game even makes you feel sorry for them, and out of all the Final Fantasy games I played I can't think of a single one that managed to do that.
FFVI carries on with using Random Battles as a means to provide further narrative that was introduced in FFIV. Just check out what happens the first time Edgar sees Terra uses magic.
He has a smurfing meltdown!
Locke isn't much better in this situation.
GUYS! We're in a middle of a fight. Do you think we can discuss this later?
The narrative isn't the only place where the game experiments. We also have several different types of gameplay modes that are introduced as you progress. The first one involving splitting your party up into three groups and preventing enemy soldiers from reaching their goal. Another example involves going through running water or riding a mine cart while being attacked by enemies. The latter looks like it was ripped from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I think the developers were having a marathon or something. While I appreciate what the game was trying to do, I didn't enjoy any of these features. I dreaded them, and just wanted them to be over when they happened. Except for one part. This part.
Ohh! Oh yeah! That's so good! I am having an orgasm in my head right now.
You get to star in an Opera! I don't even like Opera and I was loving this whole experience. Everything from using Celes as a decoy to a goddamn octopus trying to drop an anvil on your head. An anvil! Remember when I said FFVII looked like a Saturday morning cartoon show? FFVI is exactly what a Saturday morning cartoon show would be. FFVI embraces its total insanity and doesn't make any apologies for it. If there's one downside to it is that some times going to a serious moment seems out of place. Like when you see Cyan family moving on to the other side. Kind of disruptive, game. I'm still thinking about the train I suplexed.
BY GAWD! I can't believe it! Sabin just lifted 10,000 tons of pure steel!
Story wise we have the big bad Empire using Espers to bring back the destructive force of magic which left the world in ruin 1,000 years ago, and a rebel force called the “Returners” who are trying to stop them. But where the story shines is with the characters, their background stories, their interactions, and their reactions to what's going on around them. I guess you can say FFVI is more character driven than story driven, and chances are there will be at least one character in the main cast you'll like. Sadly, that makes it annoying when your favorite characters leave the party for a while, but that's to be expected with a cast so large.
And it's not just heroes either there are even some villains that stand out in the mass exodus of characters, and I want to talk about one in particular right now. Someone so evil, so vicious, that he makes Sephiroth look like Charlie Brown. I think we all know who I'm talking about, so I won't beat around the bush anymore. I am talking about the ONE, the ONLY, ULTROS!
If Satan had sex with an octopus this would be their unholy demon spawn! There are no depths Ultros will not sink to in order to get what he wants; from forging letters, to trying to sabotage operas, and even making a little girl cry! Make no mistake, Ultros would have used the power of the statues to achieve world conquest, and he almost succeeded!
You don't fight him once, you don't fight him twice, you don't even fight him three times, but four, four times! He's a persistent little guy, isn't he? No one can question his dedication to bringing you down, and look at that face.
That is the face of a troll.
Okay, I had my fun. Now let's talk about the villain you really want to see.
When you're a clown nobody takes ya seriously!
Kefka is a member of the Empire and ultimately becomes the primary antagonist of the game. As a villain, Kefka stands out from those who came before. In past games we had villains who were dark and brooding, Kefka isn't anything like those guys. He's flamboyant, short-tempered, shallow, and completely insane! They basically put The Joker into a fantasy setting and made a going of it. Kefka relishes in the chaos he creates and eventually betrays the Empire going into business for himself. A lot of the first times you meet him Kefka seems like a wimp, but once the game shows what he can do in an actual battle, he's terrifying.
While he may not seem as impressive today because the “insane villain” has been done to death, for 1994 he was something fresh, something unique. His entire personality and character flaws made him stand out. I love watching him freak out at getting a little bit of blood on him and then having a childish tantrum, only to follow up by charging his power and becoming the most threatening person in the room. What more could you ask for from a villain? Kefka changed what a villain could be in Final Fantasy and paved the way for characters like Hojo and Queen Brahne.
Some time after you have the airship and most of the characters available to you, you'll reach the Flying Continent where you have a confrontation with Kefka and Emperor Gestahl. This is where Kefka double crosses Gestahl and threatens to end the world. You know what? I'm tired of the tease. We all know that at the last minute someone is going to sweep in and save the day and Kefka is going to be defeated.
See, what did I say?
Shadow swoops in at the last minute to foil Kefka's plot and everyone lives happily...
Ever...
After...
Did I forget to do a loyalty mission or something?
Holy trout, the bad guys actually won!?
Yeah, don't adjust your TV screen, or try resetting your console. That was supposed to happen. Allow me to introduce the World of Ruin, the map that makes up the second half of the game. The first half takes place in the World of Balance which is the kind of map you'd come to expect in your Final Fantasy games. The World of Ruin is what it names implies, the ruins of what remains after Kefka destroyed the world. A kind of post-apocalypse if you will.
We have death, destruction, and despair, but at the same time we also have long lost friends reuniting, finding a meaning to be again, and helpful enemies who cast Cure 2 on you before dying. I really enjoyed exploring this world and seeing survivors reminisce about the time where the world was still beautiful knowing that it will never be like that again. The crux of a lot of character development happens here, and the main objective is to find all your lost teammates and attack Kefka's tower for the final battle.
Where do they come from? And where do they go...? Such meaningless things... I'll destroy them all!
Do I even have to say it? The entire finale with the group facing Kefka, listing off each thing they found amidst the ruin of the world, climbing up the tower one by one until you meet god Kefka at the top swooping down from above as if you crawled out of the depths of hell and into paradise. And the rush of satisfaction you get when you watch Kefka crumble into ash is exhilarating! DIE! DIE YOU PIECE OF trout! IT'S OVER! IT'S DONE! YOU ARE NOTHING TO ME! NOTHING! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Wait a second, did I just kill a gay clown? A gay god clown.
The ending however is a little bit abrupt. You see them leaving the tower and it cuts to the credits, but then the credits show them all escaping the tower as it falls to pieces and you get a bit more narrative at the end. I especially like the part of the credits that mentions you at the end. That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and as usual the music is extremely well done.
And that's Final Fantasy VI! After playing it for myself it's easy to see why many consider it one of the all times great, and I would certainly recommend it if you enjoy RPGs, character driven stories, insane villains, a mix of humor with seriousness, and old 16 bit games. This is ToriJ, and this has been my 100th review. Nothing more to say but... the review must go on!
ToriJ is not affiliated with Channel Awesome, I just thought that was a cool song to go out on.
Final Fantasy VI Review (Spoilers)
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