Final Fantasy VI Turned 25.

[Wolf Kanno]

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy VI's release in Japan. Any thoughts or feelings for the sixth entry in the popular Final Fantasy series?

[Rez09]

I feel . . . this game has the best ninja in the series.

[maybee]

I feel . . . this game has the best ninja in the series.

He has a cute doggo that can help you attack monsters in battles, so got to agree there.

[Lord Golbez]

I feel . . . this game has the best ninja in the series.

He's like the quintessential ninja of the series, so this seems pretty fair. I'd say it's pretty much between him and Edge anyway, because who else is really pure ninja? Yuffie? Kind of, but not really, considering materia is customizable and she's only kind of ninja-ish storywise. Amarant is like a monk/ninja hybrid. Rikku is more thief with some Chemist/Engineer/Ninja thrown in. Edge is pretty much pure ninja, because he's straight up called a ninja in the plot and it's a set class, but who is going to pick "first to die" Edge over Shadow?

[Rez09]

Ninja-AttackL.gif

?

[Wolf Kanno]

Shadow is still probably the most BS Ninja in the series. Why we love him.

VI will always be my favorite entry and I really adore the more experimental nature of it's gameplay./ The dungeon design, the branching story paths, the pseudo-RTS style battles, the open-world stle third act, and the fact the whole cast had distinct roles and playstyles will always make this game stand apart for me among the series and the genre as a whole.

Also, controversial opinion, but I believe this game has the best overall soundtrack in the series and is Nobuo Uematsu's magnum opus.

[Lord Golbez]

I don't really get why people hold up FFVI as an example of distinct roles for characters rather than the beginning of the end for them. Sure, the characters have distinct roles early on, but that mostly falls by the wayside once you get espers. The magic users lose almost all distinctness because there isn't a spell they can learn that can't be learned by virtually everyone else and the others retain their special abilities but they usually don't do any better job than magic, so why bother? Heck, even early on, to be honest, there's not that much difference among the characters if you're straight up attacking. Compare it to FFIV where attacking with Rydia, Tellah, Palom, Porom, etc. is practically a waste of a turn.

[Wolf Kanno]

I don't really get why people hold up FFVI as an example of distinct roles for characters rather than the beginning of the end for them. Sure, the characters have distinct roles early on, but that mostly falls by the wayside once you get espers. The magic users lose almost all distinctness because there isn't a spell they can learn that can't be learned by virtually everyone else and the others retain their special abilities but they usually don't do any better job than magic, so why bother? Heck, even early on, to be honest, there's not that much difference among the characters if you're straight up attacking. Compare it to FFIV where attacking with Rydia, Tellah, Palom, Porom, etc. is practically a waste of a turn.

Honestly, character like Sabin, Edgar, and Cyan don't really need magic, so teaching them spells is a waste of time, especially since their innate skills are often just as powerful and don't need MP. Most of the non-magic users are actually pretty awful at magic compared to the natural users who will on average do anwhere from 1.5 to 2x more damae with a spell than muscle-heads like Shadow, Locke, Sabin, and Cyan until you start pumping them up with magic. Even then, the four core magic users retain unique abilities since Terra's Trance causes her to basically double most of her stats and take 1/2 damage from everything which honestly makes her the best all-round character in terms of just raw statistical power which is amplified by her having some of the best customization options. Strago still has his lores which are unique enough and hit several non-traditional spell types like Wind and Water to make him pretty useful, especially when you consider learning Grand Delta is much easier than Ultima, making him a real powerhouse in the early parts of the Ruined World if you plan it out that way. Relm has the Control ability when granted the Fake Mustache which makes her indispensable for learning lores and trying to get rare steals. Celes is probably the odd one out of the bunch since Runic is incredibly situational, but considering she's one of the power quartet who can use the best weapons in the game like Ultima Weapon, Illumina, and Ragnarok she has better better customization options than most of the cast.

Yet my real point is the fact that all the characters secondary abilities are uniquely inputted and stay viable throughout the game as long as you know what you're doing. Teaching everyone magic is ultimately a lazy "grind my way to victory" strategy, and frankly VI is not challenging enough to warrant that strategy and you're better off just learning to embrace all of the casts unique skill sets because they offer more variety and keep battles fresh unless you just stick to the same four characters the whole game. I often feel the real problem with VI's design is really on the players being a bit too complacent at times, which is frankly an issue for the whole series.

[Lord Golbez]

I disagree that it's a waste to teach anyone magic. In the first place, you might as well teach everyone some magic because they won't gain stats at level up without an esper equipped. Secondly, it's definitely good to have healing spells with everyone even if you're going to use their special skills for attacking. Also, I would argue that the delay on Cyan's ability makes it significantly worse than magic. Sabin's abilities are probably comparable to magic but only if you're good enough to have basically 100% success rate on the inputs which I never was except the easiest ones that had no continual motion. The deficiencies of the weaker magic users are quickly offset by equipping the right espers. Sure you can lean into their strengths to differentiate, but that's true of most of the games that came after FFVI as well. I can just as well give unique materia setups to each character (and usually do at some level) focus on magic junctions for some characters and strength junctions for others, etc. Heck FFVI even includes a character that can equip other characters' abilities so even those aren't truly unique.

No argument that Terra's trance makes her the strongest, but that applies across board, not just to magic, and I think makes her the best candidate for Genji Glove +Offering combo. You've got me on Strago because some Blue Magic can be pretty good but I never used him much and generally found learning Blue Magic to be a pain because he always seemed to die on me when I was trying to learn something.

[Rez09]

I don't think his point is so much that teaching people magic is a waste, but more that it is a powerful mechanic that overshadows unique character traits and so characters in the game appear far less defined and diverse than they actually are when you invest in it. It's never that different characters don't have unique options to offer, but more that the generic catch all they share is almost unarguably stronger than what they do bring, barring unique cases like Gau. Or so goes my interpretation.

That said, I find characters in this game really shine if you are willing to play at a relatively low level or without espers, as most of the cast have unique traits that make them ideal for certain tasks, with only Shadow and Gau being oddballs that are good at basically everything. It's a shame you have to kneecap yourself for the experience, but I'd argue it is worth trying out at least once.

[Lord Golbez]

Considering FFVI is full of weird trout that can demolish even highly powered parties in instants with the wrong set of initial conditions and/or random selection of attacks, it tends to discourage me from doing that.

[coeurl]

Also, controversial opinion, but I believe this game has the best overall soundtrack in the series and is Nobuo Uematsu's magnum opus.

I thought this was a pretty widely held opinion (just from reading youtube comments). I'm playing VI now for the first time on GBA and so far think the music is the best of any FF I've played so far. I can't believe this game is almost as old as I am already! Shows how good it is for people to still be enjoying it today

[Fynn]

Yeah, VI's OST is definitely peak Uematsu. And I'll also agree with the statement that the game is way more fun when you play to the characters' other strengths rather than giving everyone all magic. The fact that the Espers not only teach spells but also grant specific stat bonuses for keeps is the most indicative of this, I feel. Last playthrough I assigned them purely based on what stat they enhanced and that was pretty much my favorite playthrough of the game.

[Rez09]

I feel alone in my crusade to get people to play this at low levels without espers.
But I shall persevere!

Down with xp and espers! Up with stalling for hours while end game bosses whittle themselves out of mp!

Also, yeah, I also think this has the best OST in the series by a pretty fair margin, though the original has my personal favorite.

[Wolf Kanno]

I disagree that it's a waste to teach anyone magic. In the first place, you might as well teach everyone some magic because they won't gain stats at level up without an esper equipped. Secondly, it's definitely good to have healing spells with everyone even if you're going to use their special skills for attacking.

Honestly, unless you're doing a low level run, healing magic isn't actually that important, especially considering how plentiful gil is in this installment for potions and such. Secondly, just teaching the spells to the party will diminish their returning investment since you'll likely gain a few extra levels trying to grind the skills anyway which will make the characters strong enough not to really even need them, and let's be honest here, VI is the first real easy entry in the franchise.

Also, I would argue that the delay on Cyan's ability makes it significantly worse than magic.

I find Cyan's Bushido works fine as long as you make sure he goes last in your team, because unless you're rocking Haste on everyone, by the time Cyan reaches the skill you'll need, you'll likely have the first character you inputted commands for getting their turn available by that point, so it's not actually as big of a deal as people make it out to be, it just feels more tedious than it really is, and considering his Lv. 1 move is actually one of his better moves, a player can still make pretty good use of him, even if you largely ignore most of his moveset.

Sabin's abilities are probably comparable to magic but only if you're good enough to have basically 100% success rate on the inputs which I never was except the easiest ones that had no continual motion.

Being a veteran of SFII on the SNES, I can assure you that Sabin's Blitzs are actually easier to pull off than it seems, largely because the range for error is far more generous and there is actually an easy input for most of his blitzes that simply require a bit more speed. He's one of the OP characters for a reason.

The deficiencies of the weaker magic users are quickly offset by equipping the right espers. Sure you can lean into their strengths to differentiate, but that's true of most of the games that came after FFVI as well. I can just as well give unique materia setups to each character (and usually do at some level) focus on magic junctions for some characters and strength junctions for others, etc.

Yes and no.

Yes, because the later games continue the trend of making builds more of a novelty so that players have the ability to make any party configuration work. In VI, it can come down to simply which characters the player can use the best, whereas VII and VIII are about an interchangeable customization system.

I say no as well because there is a real difference in using a team of Terra, Locke, Cyan, and Setzer compared to a team composed of Celes, Mog, Umaro, and Sabin. In additon to the obvious specialty skills, there is also equipment and the fact that magic is non-transferable so unless you've been OCD about grinding magic, the loadout of the team will always be different. It's why the multi-party segments throw off new players because later games had a bad habit of getting players used to just using their favorites and never really considering using other party members.

VI adheres more to the class systems of FFV whereas VII and VIII's teams are really more generic in their builds beyond the situational Limit Breaks so switching out Barret and Red XIII for Yuffie and Tifa isn't going to really change much outside of Limit Break options because the materia system is really the more important part here, same with switching out Zell and Rinoa for Quistis and Irvine. I mean those games have a literal option to just switch their equipment sets between party members showing that the core character is really more or less a shell for the real build. Even in VII, only Cloud and Aerith have noticeable stat differences that largely get marginalized the further you get into the game. Granted you can always stick to a strict class style to give differences to the actual teams in these games, but the real difference is that VI kind of does it for you to begin with, whereas you really have to work at it for the other two installments.

Heck FFVI even includes a character that can equip other characters' abilities so even those aren't truly unique.

Gogo is basically the proto-Kimarhi in that yes, he can do what other party members do, but due to being limited with his equipment, not able to access espers, and lower stat potential, he's always going to be a second rate version of the character and considering how OP some skill sets are for party members, there isn't really as much point in giving him say... both Figaro Bros. abilities since a player will likely just stick to their preferred ability. Even giving magic really only comes down to what you taught the other party members. About the only real strength he has is helping a struggling team in a multi-party dungeon since he can bring in some great skills without forcing said party member into the team. That and having a second thief is always helpful.

No argument that Terra's trance makes her the strongest, but that applies across board, not just to magic, and I think makes her the best candidate for Genji Glove +Offering combo. You've got me on Strago because some Blue Magic can be pretty good but I never used him much and generally found learning Blue Magic to be a pain because he always seemed to die on me when I was trying to learn something.

Stargo's Blue Magic is pretty neat but poorly spaced out in VI which is one of his biggest problems with him. He gets awesome spells like Aero and Mighty Guard but considering most of them are only available in the Ruined World and you can do the Hidon quest for Grand Train makes acquiring the other spells more of a novelty. Still, Stargo is one of the better blue mages because he doesn't actually need to be hit with the spell, he simply needs to see it while not blind, Zombified, or dead to learn it, so characters like Relm and Gau are super useful for teaching him the skills.

Overall though, my main point is that I love the support abilities in this game because it does make playing around with the team builds more fun for me, especially since the different game options they bring are more immediate than waiting for situational limit breaks. I blame this game, FFIV, and games like BoFII and Lufia II for my preference of unique party members with customization options over blanks slates where the customization does all the heavy lifting. I will concede that VI's easy nature makes it feel less impressive than more traditional class based games like the ones I mentioned, but I still appreciate that each party member brings something unique to the party to differentiate themselves beyond just their aesthetics and situational abilities.