The Show Must Go On! Six Things You Didn't Know about FFVI Thread 2.0

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[MJN SEIFER]

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Christmas]

God, this is good stuff!

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[MJN SEIFER]

Awesome, this thread is still going! I really love reading all this trivia, it's so inspiring.

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 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.)

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.

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

362. For the astrology nerds, wondering what everyone's sign is or just want to know for some FFTactics fun:

• Terra Branford ~ Libra
• Locke Cole ~ Sagittarius
• Edgar Roni Fatima and Sabin Rene Fatima ~ Leo
• Cyan Garamonde ~ Capricorn
• Gau ~ Aries
• Celes Chere ~ Pisces
• Setzer Gabbiani ~ Aquarius
• Shadow ~ Unknown
• Relm Arrowny ~ Virgo
• Strago Magus ~ Cancer
• Mog ~ Taurus
• Umaro ~ Virgo
• Gogo ~ Unknown
• Banon ~ Scorpio
• General Leo ~ Cancer
• Kefka ~ Scorpio
• Emperor Gestahl ~ Scorpio
• Cid Del Norte Marguez ~ Gemini

I find it amusing most of the people hailing from the Empire are Water signs.

363. If you are training Gau in the Veldt and encounter a Behemoth King, then you will always encounter Holy Dragon next assuming you've beaten him of course.

364. Due to Holy Dragon appearing on the Veldt, they are the only member of the Eight Dragons that does not auto-drop their signature treasure the Holy Lance. Instead they guard the treasure for it. But interestingly enough, the Holy Dragon does carry the item as a rare steal, so it is possible to farm the item with enough patience.

365. Deathgaze was meant to be a more involved enemy. In behind the scenes documents, actions you take in the battle would have crippled him for the next encounter. Whether this was actual actions the player could take or just nerfs that kicked in as its health dropped past certain points is unknown. Potential nerfs is Silencing it so it can't cast Blizzaga, Blinding it so it can't use Death, and breaking it's claws to reduce it's physical damage.

[Wolf Kanno]

366. Kitase revealed back in 2019 during an interview celebrating FFVI's 25th anniversary, that despite Sakaguchi insisting on no game sequels/spin-offs of numbered FFs, Kitase had tried to make a spin-off of FFVI. The game would have starred Strago and been a town building simulator, described as SimCity but simpler. The game never made it out of the pre-planning phase, but it was noted by some fans that Square did make a Chocobo themed town building game for the WonderSwan in the early 2000s.

367. Odin being turned to stone by a mage, may be clever allusion to FFV (of which VI is rife with) as petrify is one of the very few status ailments Odin is not immune to in his boss battle in FFV.

368. Valigarmanda may look like the Aztec Thunder god, but his name doesn't actually stem from any real mythology. It is speculated that his name is meant to be a combination of three different mythological entities. Namely the Ice Serpent Vritra of Hindu origins, the lightning bird and steed of Vishnu, Garuda. And finally the mythical version of Salamnader. This also plays into his attack Tri-Disaster as it is a spell that does Fire, Ice, and Thunder damage.

369. Working off the above point, Tri-Disaster is actually a pretty awful attack. Despite having a Spell Power of 110 at 68 MP cost, but unfortunately the mutil-elemental nature of the spell works against it because any immunity or absorption defense for any of the three elements, regardless of having a weakness to one or two of the other elements, will tally the damage in the defense stats favor, making the summon pretty useless to a lot of things.

370. Odin and Raiden's design are interesting as they reference previous Final Fantasy games. Odin's design is based off a mix of his design from both FFIII and IV. From IV, he takes his color scheme, from FFIII he takes being left-handed in his summon form (his boss form is right handed). Likewise, this is the last mainline FF where Odin sports a shield. Raiden on the other hand, though a unique design, seems to be partially based on Odin's FFV redesign as Raiden uses the same pose as Odin did in FFV and even uses the sword right handed like he does. Interestingly enough Raiden doesn't use Zantesuken, he uses an unnamaed katana which goes along with his more Japanese naming scheme.

371. FFVI is the final FF that has Odin hiding out in the basement of some castle, or more correctly in a castle that happens to be underground. This was a unique tradition of the summon since his introduction in FFIII.

372. Zone Seaker is the only Esper that has never been referenced again within the FF series. Many of the other summons were either old legacy summons, some became new legacy summons, some became monsters, and even obscure ones like Seraphim, Valigarmanda, and Lakshmi have reappeared in XIV or in some mobile title. Zone Seeker is the only one who has never reappeared again in any form outside of FFVI.

373. Some might scoff at Diabolos being the prize for beating Kaiser Dragon in the Advance/Steam versions of FFVI, but mechanically speaking, he's a pretty cool summon who teaches a very underrated spell, Gravija. The main reason being that both Gravija (Single Target) and Dark Messenger (All opponents) actually ignore Death Immunity unlike Gravity and Graviga. Which is a complicated way of saying that nothing is immune to their damage. In fact, Gravija will likely do max damage to an opponent with over 10k health since it reduces an opponent down to 1/8th of their health. The real issue here is that in order to get Diabolos, you have to beat Kaiser Dragon, but then again, it's useful for Soul Shrine.

374. Runic has some weird properties that only eagle eyed fans will probably notice. For one thing, the MP Celes gains back from a spell is not always the MP cost of the spell, it can be altered based on what Celes' elemental defenses look like. If she's weak to the element of the spell, she will actually gain 2x the MP. If she has resistance to the element, then 1/2 mp, if she is immune to the element, she will get no MP back, and if she absorbs the element, she will actually lose MP.

375. For some unknown reason, Runic only absorbs the Imp and Banish spells in the original 16-bit entries. This was removed from all later ports starting with the PS1.

376. The Imp status of VI is fairly unique to VI, up until FFXIV brought it back for a fun FFVI themed battle with Ultros and Typhon. But there are some weird elements to this status effect, one of the biggest being the fact it has never been translated correctly. The spell is actually called Kappa in the Japanese version, and that's what the design of the form is meant to represent, but for some reason, across all version of the game, it has not been translated back despite the fact Western players would likely be more familiar with the Japanese folk demon. What makes this even weirder is the fact the Imp rquipment, barring the Imp Partisan, all directly reference the Kappa demon.

377. The Imp status is pretty bad. It reduces a characters Attack to 0, Reduces all weapon's attack stats to 1, and makes a characters defense stat only work off their base defense, meanign all equipment is moot. The Imp equipment pulls a Onion Knight and will give the character nearly maxed out attack and defense power, but only when equipped while under the Imp Status.

378. The Imp status also disables most character abilities except for a weird few. Jump and Dualcast are the only ability changing skills that are unaffected by the status. Terra's Revert ability is also unaffected as well as Gogo's Mimic skill. The two weirdest ones are Banon's Pray ability and Leo's Shock ability. Of course, Pray will fail due to the fact the ability is essentially a 0mp cost Cura spell on the party. Since Imps are only allowed to cast the Imp spell, this ability doesn't work.

379. When a character is tuened into an Imp, they will retain their normal form outside of battle. This only seems weird because they Imp sprite actually has a full sprite sheet like all of the party members, including ones for riding Magitech Armor and Chocobos within the game code. It's unknown why it goes unused.

380. I mentioned before that the Imp equipment all reference the Kappa demon with the helmet being a saucer referencing their saucer like head that hold the water in themthat keeps them alive, the turtle shield that references their turtle back and the reed cloak being a reference to their hair. The Imp Partisan on the other hand references a character from Journey to the West, Sha Gojō. The actual translation of the weapon is Spear of Sagojo and references the character. In the chinese novel, he is a vague demosn associated with a river of sand, but in the Japanese versions of the story, he is often represented by the Kappa demon, despite being a demon associated with water and not sand.

[Wolf Kanno]

381. The design for the Esper Phoenix in FFVI is actually based off an unused Amano design for an enemy of the same name that was supposed to be used in the original Final Fantasy.

382. Jumping off the previous point. What's interesting is that in VI, Phoenix gets two depictions. One it's traditional "self-immolation" form when the Magicite is used to revive Rachael, but it's actual summon form takes most of it's visual cues from the Chinese Fenghuang, which is sort of an Asian version of the Phoenix but has a lot more cultural connotations to it than the Greek version. The Greek version of the bird is described looking like an eagle whereas the Fenghuang is a bit more like a bird style manticore/sphinx with various attributes taken from several different type of birds but generally looks a bit like a cross between a crane and a peacock. It is the Fenghuang version that is used in most FF media to depict the Phoenix.

383. I've mentioned before that the Gambler class was originally pitched for FFV as a Job class, but had to wait until FFVI to be implemented with Setzer. I think I may understand why now because Slots is a weird ability that is very buggy in the original version of the games. Due to how powerful it could be and the devs realizing the code for it had a lot of exploits, the devs purposely rigged the Slots ability against the player, which is why only a the nerds who played this game excessively know how broken it can really be. For those wondering, Slots is initially designed to only have the reels for Mysidian Rabbit, Prismatic Flash, and the Bad Joker's Death available when the player first uses it in battle. So how do you get the others you ask? It depends on what actions you use before using slots. You see, the reels are based on a table of RNG algorithms, but which one you use is directly based on actions the player takes before using the ability. The base RNG algorithm only lets you access the three abilities I mentioned before, but if you were to say, use Curaga before slots, suddenly you would have access to Dive Bomb and Summon Bahamut because the value of Curaga makes slots pull from a different part of the list. What's weird is that it's not the specific ability that actually changes the list, it's the animation, so the best animation to use in order to access all of Slots abilities is one shared by the an Echo Screen item or a Smoke Bomb. Once this is done, all the player has to do (granted, you have to be playing pre-2014 versions of the game) is to pause between selecting reels to line it up.

384. The Good Joker's Death is kind of bulltrout, because unlike other insta-death abilities, this one ignores Death immunity, so it will work on most things in the game. But what is interesting is that "most" part of the statement. Several boss fights in the game are rigged so the Good Joker's Death ability can never be accessed even with the cheat used above. The bosses in question are:

Ultros (any of them)
Ymir
Vargas
Opinicus Fish, Rhizopas

Humababa
Typhon
Behemoth King (Living)
Ifrit and Shiva
Typhon fight when entering the Floating Continent
Dullahan
Wrexsoul
Chaddernook
and the first three phases of the final boss fight, but strangely not Kefka himself.