Final Fantasy VI was the last entry of the era, and April 2 marks the year anniversary of its original Japanese launch date. Gameplay surprises — like piloting airships in Mode 7 or entering fighting-game-style commands to execute special attacks — set a high bar for fun and variety.
One of the most distinguishing features is the way the game is split into two halves. The first is a traditional, linear adventure about an evil empire and the rebels who fight against it.
This arc culminates in an apocalypse; players fail to stop the plans of the villain Kefka, and the world falls into ruin. The second half is more freeform, allowing players to wander across the shattered landscape, rejoining old friends and gaining the strength to strike back. This pioneering approach meant that the narrative was largely player-driven in the second half, focusing on smaller character-centric episodes instead of a following a prescribed path with clear objectives.
Though it differs in some ways, this formula is a part of the basic structure that open-world games would employ years later. Final Fantasy VI also laid some important groundwork for the future of the series. More importantly, it also moved toward a more cinematic presentation with moments like the iconic opera house scene — a sequence that, all these years later, the industry still remembers with clarity and fondness.
The groups were smaller, and the content was more personal in some ways. In , we spoke to Kitase about the development of this classic title for a feature in Game Informer issue The game was celebrating its 20th anniversary then, but Kitase's behind-the-scenes insights from that interview are still relevant today.
So in celebration of today's big milestone, we're revisiting that glimpse at what shaped Final Fantasy VI into one of the most revered RPGs ever made. Game Informer: When you began making the game, did you know that it would be the last 2D Final Fantasy? If so, did that add any extra pressure to exit the bit era in style? As a result, Final Fantasy VI became the last bit game in the series.
Thoroughly crafted stories dedicated to each and every character may have been the biggest factor that has appealed to fans and may be the reason this game has received their lasting support.
The two halves of the game are very different. Nobuo Uematsu is a musical genius on his worst day, which is why his works as a composer have been so universally praised. Although Final Fantasy 7 has some unbeatable themes, Uematsu really hit his stride with Final Fantasy 6. The constraints of a cartridge format and the Super NES's rather lame sound chip didn't stop him from composing a work of utter beauty and brilliance.
Right from the opening credits song to the final curtain, Final Fantasy 6's music is a soul-enriching experience. All Final Fantasy 7 players remember that pivotal moment when they made it out of Midgar and discovered a sprawling, huge world to explore. In contrast to Final Fantasy 6, the game's map was larger, far more detailed and chock full of intriguing areas to explore. Final Fantasy 6 managed to do a lot with its comparatively small map size, and it deserves credit, but Final Fantasy 7 truly opened up the gates.
There was more to see, more to do, and more to experience. Eternals has a post-credit scene, but it's one that left many scratching their heads. Derek started out writing about video games way back in the mids. Since then, he's gone on to write for Cinemablend and GamePro Magazine, to name a few. Butter chicken is his fuel! Share Share Tweet Email. Related Topics Lists Final Fantasy final fantasy 7. Derek Draven Articles Published.
Does Final Fantasy 6 hold up? Is Final Fantasy 6 open world? Why is Final Fantasy 3 and 6 the same? How big is Ffvi? How many GB is the original FF7? How many GB is Ffxiii? Why is Final Fantasy 13 so big?
But compared to say, 7, 8, and 9 yes, 6 doesnt really differ that much. That being a good or bad thing I'm leaving in the middle here, but you are right to comment on that. Hell, my most favorite rpg of all times, Lufia 2: Rise of the sinistrals, has an amazing story and such, but even that game has a challenge factor I can only mock, so again, I was wrong to bring in difficulty as a factor.
In regards to your comment regarding the narrative, I -certainly- agree. I don't want a game where every few battles you get a big cutscene.
Hell, anyone who believes this should be the case should play Metal Gear Solid 2. There's half-hour long cutscenes that arent even relevant that much. However, you say all the characters have distinctive personalities.
I personally wouldn't call any of them distinctive characters. The only ones who have a real personality of any sorts are Edgar womaniser , Terra searching for her feelings and Celes -could- have been such a fantastic character, esspecially with the optional suicide scene. But no, thats basically the only big thing she ever did, and the rest of the story pretty much ignores all of that. A shame. Gau basically has no real story at all, let alone personality. Relm has personality, but no real story.
Shadow has And so on. Edgar and Sabin for example have a pretty good backstory. The main line is explained.
But is there any other interaction other than a flashback? And after the WoB becomes WoR things get even worse. Then it's just a big optional quest to get back characters and items you dont want or need. Terra is the only one who again has some good story going on, along with Celes. But it just strikes me as odd, if not plain ridiculous how your entire cast has been spread out for a year possibly, believing eachother to be dead, and then, when you run into eachother, they just go "hey!
The FF series are too good to have the story unfold just like that. I think that, thinking back about the game, that is really what I really missed in the game; the interaction between characters.
What characters really interact in this game? Sabin and edgar once. Terra a handful of times. Locke at some point. They interact at times where they meet, and after that it's just one big "ok Im here, Ill shut up from now on" play.
While the FF games that were made after this one significantly improved on this, there is no real excuse for FF6 to not have done this. Was it because of the large cast of characters? I don't know. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.
I do believe the cast being this big is both a blessing and a curse for this game. On the one hand it allows for a great choice of characters allowing you to play the game exactly as you like it. You like magic users? You prefer mostly tanks? Love taking a gamble on skills? Setzer, Sabin, Gogo, Gau, there ya go. I guess they sacrificed a bit of story and a lot of interaction for the sake of an improved battle system. And I admit; the FF6 battle system was good.
Very good even. You mention another point, which I also felt was really contributing to the feeling of "average" that I got from this game; the dull towns. I blame the overal style of the game, not to mention the graphics. Another game Square produced a year earlier did it perfect: Secret of Mana.
Every tiny town screamed "welcome! Walk around! Maybe it's the gloomy, darker colourwise style of FF6 that failed there. But on that aspect I believe Square should have learned a little bit from SoM. One thing here is, I think, that subtlety is hard to convey through A character who looks down, represents "sadness", I mean there is only ever so much you can do. Celes is, I think, a very subtle character, so it's hard to represent her in the medium. Edgar is flamboyant. Terra is exaggeratedly insecure and vulnerable.
Celes is actually rather vulnerable and lost herself, but puts up a cold front. It's not in-your-face, but there are a few things that let us get to know her a bit. But basically she is a very closed character. I love Relm myself. I think she brings much-needed warmth to the whole thing.
Her scene with Ultros is hilarity! She isn't a major player in the story, but yeah, I don't think matters I guess. Shadow I don't like. He is the "tragic" character of the game, but they concentrated too much on the outside of him than the inside of him if that makes any sense.
He's easily ignored though, a side character really. Setzer is another character I really don't like. Dude's plan is to kidnap an opera singer he thinks is hot and force her to marry him. The guy should be on some sex offenders' list or something, and he's a hero here! I understand it's a joke! But guess I just find it stupid and lame.
I agree about the World of Ruin. I think the developers had an idea going on in here, but had trouble executing it. It tries to give you an "open world" but it isn't really, because it is just a bunch of dungeons you can go through in an optional order, however, as some places are harder than others, then there is, in fact, a bit of logical order to do them in.
The storyline gets completely scattered. This would have been, I think, a good place to use the world a bit more, discover what had gone on since the apocalypse. There is a bit of that anyway, maybe I am being too picky. The red line is lost once the World of Ruin starts. This kind of thing could be used for actual effect, to make the player feel lost and confused as well, to get into WoR is just a bit of a mess really.
I agree on character interaction actually. Something they are still struggling with I feel. It's hard to create an environment where it feels like these people are in this together, they are best friends, brothers, lovers, parents, to each other. I think their interaction is genuinely warm.
They're not the big drama characters, but I think they are very real and their relationship and interaction is good. Keltainentoukokuu , December 9, UTC.
Michelrpg Mango, you don't want to waste your time making a valid post, so instead you make a useless post stating you don't want to waste your time posting. Makes perfect sense ;. Now, Keltain, again that was an interesting post. Sprites are limited of course in showing off emotions, but I don't believe this is an excuse. Other rpg's from this timeline had sprites as well, and some of them managed to pull it off. I know we live in a much more advanced day and age, but it shouldnt have been that difficult to create more sprites for characters Edgar has a bonus sprite with his "no" gesture, which worked.
Yet he was the only one? One of the rare few moments in the game when I actually felt the warmth of a character. Again, Relm has personality, but not real story. But I also admit she doesnt need backstory; she's a child! I think we are on agreement on the world of Ruin. People always say that the end of the World of Balance is the midway point. Up to that specific point, I enjoyed the game. There was story going on, every character actually did something, or was busy with something, and the evil villain of that point, the Emperor, actually made sense.
Just the moment Kefka becomes the main villain, things go screwy. I can deal with Kefka being a raging lunatic who wants only wanton destruction I'll still take that excuse over Necron's retarded excuse in FF9. But it's just The feeling of being lost is appropriate of course; Celes has been in a coma for a year, so naturally she shouldn't know whats going on.
And you can run into either Terra or Edgar depending on you going left or right, that I don't mind either. But once you get to Setzer, you only need to find other characters to finish the final dungeon.
And considering that's the ONLY reason you need characters, it's just dumb. Thats the very moment where characters become nothing more than meaningless sprites, needed only to step on a button and nothing else; they lose all credibility. Even worse; you can completely miss the non-bonus characters just because you forgot about them. Relm and Strago werent on your team long enough to remember them.
Mog never had a story, so unless you used her in your team all the time, you might forget her. Gogo and Umaro we also agreed on, are bonus characters and they are excused there.
Edgar and Setzer you run into anyway, and it's unlikely you will forget about Terra and Sabin. But I only ran into Cyan and Gau because I happened to speak to the right npc's by coincidence.
Now don't get me wrong, I hate a linear-only-rpg, and the freedom given in the world of Ruin is refreshing. But it's somewhat of "to much of a good thing" if you catch my drift. FF8 had it too, but to a lesser extent than FF7.
Of course, it's not fair to compare FF6 to the later games. Even so, I do believe Square themselves noticed how this was a flaw in the game, as they notably tried to improve this later on. One thing I forgot to comment on, and this was very unfair on my part; the graphics. While the npc's and the playable characters have very poor sprites, I must comment on how welldesigned the monster sprites look.
Very welldesigned, detailed, and a lot of monsters Behemoths, Marlboro's, Tekbots look like miniature works of art. Ok then Trolls aren't like that. Trolls post purely within order to annoy people. This guy didn't. Hell, he even said so himself.
He didn't, at any time, try to insult or purposefully offend people within his first post, nor within his replies. Seriously, why does the internet seem to destroy people who give words of insult, but when something TWICE this long Believe me here. He didn't try to offend anyone, at least not intentionally.
All he did was point out several viable criticisms. That is all. Oh, and by the way, I'm not biased. You seem to have missed the point though: like a lot of people, he plays the 'it's my opinion' card. You know, the one card that suppose to make you immune to criticism just for pointing out you have one, but blurting it out in the opening unprovoked thinking no one was going to come up to him and say otherwise and the fact that he came off across as a little condescending towards those who wouldn't come to respect his opinion either.
Kaihedgie , December 10, UTC. But he never wanted to make himself immune to criticism. In fact, he was asking for criticism from people. I agree his tone could be viewed as condescending, but really, this is what we're gonna pick on? I think we could all be big enough to ignore a condescending tone when a guy is actually trying to put forth some points for discussion, especially when it wasn't offensive and the "tone" wasn't directed at anyone specifically, perhaps more just reflected his state of mind when he wrote his rant.
Now, talk down with a condescending tone specifically to me for example, then we might have trouble. Michelrpg Ashes, I am glad that you as a fan were not insulted by my original post. You say you are a big fan of FF6, could you share what you really liked in this game, and if possible, why you like it?
Kai, I am fully aware I can sound Believe me when I say that I don't intend to sound like that in the slightest. I'm not native english, and the way I write is just the way I learned it from old books I read in english.
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