What Makes Final Fantasy 6 Different?

Many people regard Final Fantasy 6 as the greatest Final Fantasy ever made. Some people even consider it to be the greatest RPG ever made. Considering the wealth of wonderful RPG's available on the market and even those available at the time, this is quite the statement to be making. Why do people think so highly of Final Fantasy 6? What makes it stand out from the rest of the pack. Here are just a few of the key traits that makes this game such a deeply-felt classic.

1. Every Character is the Protagonist

Sorry, Sabin. We brake for no man!

When the Final Fantasy team started out with Final Fantasy 6, they wanted to evolve what they had started with 4. In 4, they made dramatic and interesting characters but many felt like side characters while Cecil was undoubtedly the central focus. It worked well for that story but what if they could make a story where the central protagonist simply didn't exist. Instead, every character had an equal level of importance to the story.

Final Fantasy IV lacked a strong level of connection to any of the side characters because, frankly, they died too often. Final Fantasy V lacked any sort of meaningful development after the beginning of World 2 and the job system, while a lot of fun, made all the characters interchangeable. Final Fantasy VI eliminates the job system but gives a large cast of central characters representing the different jobs as a way of making up for this. They also don't kill them every other scene which helps. Combine that with frequent character development, fleshed out backstories and some great dialogue and you've got a great foundation for the game.

2. Strong Set Piece Moments

Gundam's got nothin' on me.

All Final Fantasy games have had their memorable moments. Final Fantasy's Mt. Gulag (or whatever translation you'd prefer) sticks out in my mind along with Final Fantasy IV's trip to the moon but Final Fantasy VI was the first to really nail these moments. These are moments where the gameplay shifts just enough to give you this run-and-gun feel that sticks with you. Moments like the Ghost Train, crashing through the imperial base on Magitek Armor, saving Cyan from the dream world, etc. These moments are frequent and greatly loved. They break up the games pacing just enough to keep you coming back for more.

Set pieces are hard in games, especially ones with open worlds but Final Fantasy VI really got these right and it's all the better for it.

3. Good Translations

I paid $50 bucks for this game so they'd better!

While this isn't a huge draw for me as the fan translations have been very high quality, we have to bring ourselves back to the US in 1994. This is only our third Final Fantasy game and the past two have pretty much sucked. Lines ranging from "You have legs!" to "Wow! You noble looking!" were all over both of these games and they were a huge barrier for English-speaking fans to get really invested in the stories. Final Fantasy III finally had an English-speaking translator who was able to not only convert the lines to English but make them make sense in our context.

It may seem like a small thing but that emotional connection to the story is a fragile thing and when lost, it seriously hampers the enjoyment of a game. With a storyline as hard-hitting as this (for the time), the translations were a requirement and they got it right (for the most part).

4. Differing Battle Styles

Blitz: Easily the greatest special move EVER!

This is a huge one that plays along with the first point. Each character fights very differently. Not only do they each represent a different job, as I mentioned above, but they each have a different fighting option available for each move. These moves rarely cost MP and are unique to each character. Sabin, my personal favorite, uses Blitz. Blitz involves activating the move, entering a series of commands usually referencing Street Fighter II, and then activating again to use an attack. These attacks range from blasting a single enemy with a kamehameha to healing your entire party. Celes has the move Runic which makes her use a turn to act as a sort of magical lightning rod, absorbing any magic attacks thrown at the party until her next move. Shadow uses the Ninja's throw, Cyan has a series of progressively stronger moves you can use by waiting for a bar to fill... These are often intentionally more powerful attacks that cost nothing so that the player spends less time hitting Fight over and over again and more time considering his/her moves carefully.

This is my personal favorite change that Final Fantasy VI makes. While it later will evolve, along with desperation attacks, into the Limit Break system, none of the games I played have quite hit the pure note that VI has with this system.

Just to give an update on my progress, I am in the World of Ruin, plodding through the overwhelming number of side quests available. My guys are all around level 35 and most have completed their side-quests. I have yet to defeat the 8 dragons (have only taken down the ice dragon in Narsche), need to get Gogo, have several Espers I haven't gotten yet and still need to find Shadow, Strago and Locke.

Game on!

A Brief Return to the Present

I just finished reading this editorial from Gamespot entitled, How to Fix Final Fantasy: (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-to-fix-final-fantasy/1100-6417822/). I want to thank Kevin VanOrd for his writing but I have some things to say in response to this.

The main thing I noticed is that this article states very few, if any, concrete methods for "fixing" Final Fantasy, however, it did raise some interesting points that are worthy of elaboration. The focus, for one, and I'm not talking about Final Fantasy XIII's focus. Toriyama, the XIII trilogy's director, showed that he had a lack of understanding regarding not only Final Fantasy design but game design as a whole when interviewed regarding the XIII trilogy. He would frequently bring up other games and talk about what needed to be fixed with Final Fantasy by referencing things like the graphics and action gameplay.

I'm not saying there isn't any room for cross-genre research, certainly not. Gearbox Software showed that this can be used to tremendous effect with their hit Borderlands series. Cliff Bleszinski, of Gears of War fame, stated, with a certain degree of truth, that the future of shooters is RPGs. Even hits like Call of Duty have shown a willingness to incorporate character progression, inventory management and class customization into their games, all clear ideas brought over from the RPG genre.

Toriyama did learn some successful lessons from this approach in reverse, as well. The fast paced fighting structure of Final Fantasy XIII was highly lauded and with good reason. It was a lot of fun to play and battles could become quite frenetic, especially in the major boss fights. This type of gameplay shake-up is exactly the type of thing that makes a Final Fantasy game what it is

It was the other comments made that are concerning. Very rarely did Toriyama ever talk about the storyline or the characters, other than Lightning. Yes, gameplay is very important and many games show that gameplay can supercede a strong storyline as long as it is fun enough. RPG's cannot follow this path. RPG's, by their very nature, require a strong storyline and, more importantly, interesting characters. Why role play a boring character going through events that you don't care about? What's the point? This is the lesson that Toriyama required and that Nomura will hopefully learn.

Cyan is probably the most one dimensional character in FFVI and still is better than Lightning.

VanOrd mentions that making relatable characters is important to the series but he talks more about how boring Lightning is than talking about what should be done with Final Fantasy. As any writer will be able to tell you, the most important thing to a storyline is strong characters. Honestly, strong characters can make a boring plot into an enjoyable adventure. Let's look at the classic Final Fantasy games. Was there really anything all that interesting about the overall plots, minus the characters? Every Final Fantasy game is either save the world or overthrow a corrupt government. There is very little deviation. The important aspect about these games are the characters that make you care about what's going on.

In order to care about a world, you must care about it's inhabitants. Why should you care about a corrupt empire taking over cities unless you care about the inhabitants that it affects? There's no reason to get upset about Cecil being betrayed unless you care about Cecil himself. Final Fantasy IV is really the best example of this. The main storyline is mostly ridiculous tripe, if we get right down to it. What's important throughout the game is the evolution of Cecil, the redemption of Kain, the coming of age of Edge. These are what make the game memorable.

In Final Fantasy VI, they went in with the goal of making every character the protagonist. There's a reason this became one of the highest rated games in the franchise. The characters were great. Terra was a bit whiny, sure, but her backstory showed a lot of promise and her evolution over the course of the story from weak, scared victim into powerful force for good was interesting. Locke was well liked because of his charm but also his devotion to his love, Rachel. Edgar and Sabin were both great characters in and of themselves but their duality made them classic.

The other imporant thing to have an interesting foil for the main character(s). It's no coincidence that two of the most important Final Fantasy characters of all time are Sephiroth and Kefka. Up until VI, the bad guys were pretty standard fare. Someone trying to take over the world, bwahahaha. Kefka was almost a parody of this, making fun of previous game's failures to have strong antagonists. He was evil beyond a doubt, poisoning innocents, enslaving Terra, killing anyone who didn't fit into his plans. However, they contrast this evil with a clown-like exterior and giving him probably the best sound effect in all of gaming, his distinctive laugh. Even the empire he worked for seemed afraid of this seemingly unstable villain. He was unpredictable, never making his goals obvious. They also learned that the corrupt government needs to be made up of people with varying goals and values. General Leo, despite working with the Empire, was a strong moral guide for the game, representing the good aspects of government and all that people can accomplish.

A defining moment in Final Fantasy IV

This is one reason why I have a lot of hope for Final Fantasy XV. Nomura has shown himself to be a master of characterization. Kingdom Hearts has one of the most overblown, ridiculously convoluted plots in all of gaming history, even taking Metal Gear Solid into account. There are more spin-offs than main series titles. The gameplay is repetitive and often quite derivative. What makes people so enthralled with this magical series is the progression of Sora, Riku and Kairi. Sora's innocence against an otherwise dark world is inspiring and his almost child-like love for Kairi makes even the coldest of hearts melt. Riku's struggle against his fall into darkness shows a strength of will and determination that is admirable and plays a nice balance between brooding and sympathetic. He represents the difficulty of finding what is the "right" path in a world that rarely remains black and white. Even many of the side characters like Axel, Namine, Aqua, Terra and many others show complexity of character beyond what the game may have you believe at first glance.

Many people have been talking about what defines Final Fantasy in recent years. Many comments online talk about the XIII trilogy not being "true" Final Fantasy games but what makes a "true" Final Fantasy game? Is it the chocobos and moogles as Kevin seems skeptical to accept? Maybe it's the airships or Cid who make an appearance in almost every title? Of course not. These things are superficial items that tie an otherwise disparate series together. The true heart of Final Fantasy lies in it's constant desire to innovate gameplay and its ability to create fascinating characters. Final Fantasy XIII succeeded in the first but failed miserably in the second. Every character in XIII is a stereotype and nothing more. Lightning was even announced to be a female version of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. Snow was the closest they got to having a deep character but he was unable to penetrate beyond his dangerous obsession with Serah. Hope was mad about his Mom's death, Sazh was worried about his kid, Vanille wanted to hide her secret (seriously, who didn't see this coming?), and Fang was Vanille with a mommy complex. Characters cannot be so simple as to be summarized in a couple of words. There needs to be more to them than that. The storyline should be important to the characters but they need to have motivations and goals beyond simply what's happening in the here and now.

While I have a lot of hope for XV, it's far from a sure thing. As VanOrd mentioned, Square Enix seems far too concerned about reaching a large audience and not as concerned about making something that people will love. They are what network television in the US is to the cable networks. Appealing to everyone ends up appealing to nobody. They need to return to their roots and make the game they want to play, not the game they think everyone else wants to play. They need to capture the storyline that touches their hearts, not what they think will resonate with the greatest number of people. Passion for your art will inspire passion in others. Sterility will come across as corporate and bland. So far, though, they are innovating the gameplay by melding Final Fantasy XIII with Nomura's Kingdom Hearts series, a blending I am personally very excited for. This will bring in fast-paced action although I'm hoping for character development along the lines of Final Fantasy X, the best development system in the series, in my opinion. The storyline, bringing Final Fantasy into a modern setting, is a fascinating twist on the series, seemingly inspired by The World Ends With You, one of the best RPG's to come out in the last decade. If it's anything like that game, Final Fantasy XV will be exactly the revival we need it to be.

Game on!

Greatest Moments So Far Part 1

Playing through a series of games that's been going as long as Final Fantasy, there are definitely going to be some memorable moments. I'm partway through Final Fantasy VI, my seventh game so far in this list, and have definitely had more than a few. Here are some of my top ones.

How is this not a meme?

1. You have legs! (Final Fantasy)

We're... what? Three months in now? I ran into this easily excited NPC on probably my second or third day into this journey and this still hasn't gotten old. Whenever I'm feeling down, thinking of this line instantly brightens my day. There was a lot of terribly translated dialogue in both Final Fantasy 1 and 4 (the fan translated games have been quite high quality) but this still takes the cake as my favorite piece of dialogue thus far.

All it needs is a sun with a happy face

2. Beating Final Fantasy (Final Fantasy)

You'll have to forgive the screenshot, I didn't realize how many of these I would need to take that early in my journey so I only have a few from the first game. This isn't just about beating Final Fantasy I, although that remains one of my proudest accomplishments in my 20+ years of gaming. The actual moment I'm referring to is when you reach Garland at the end of the game and you realize that this game actually has a storyline to it. Prior to this moment, you kind of just wander wherever you're told to go, killing baddies and grabbing crystals. Suddenly, you reach Garland, and in three pieces of dialogue, you learn that not only does everything you did have meaning behind it, but this is actually a pseudo-science fiction story! Seriously, mind = blown.

It's an EVIL... WALL!

3. Fighting the Evil Wall (Final Fantasy IV)

There are a lot of great boss fights in Final Fantasy IV: Dark Cecil, Dr. Lugae, Asura. While there were several meaningful and emotional fights like Dark Cecil or the battle against Edge's parents, none were quite as surprising and hilarious as fighting against this evil wall. Just look at the thing? Sure, it's bad looking but you can't help but laugh a bit. You know that when you die against a boss twice and still find it funny that it's a good boss.

At least he died like a true Jedi...

4. Galuf's Death (Final Fantasy V)

Okay, so this is really just a self-ripoff of Tellah's death from Final Fantasy IV. Basically, Galuf gets super pissed about Exdeath doing... something... to his daughter so he goes crazy and lays down the hurt on the final boss, costing him his own life. While in the grand scheme of things, this was just a cheap ploy to add some emotional attachment and shock value to the otherwise dull storyline (a rather unsuccessful one too, since it makes literally no difference to the game. Cara just replaces Galuf with all his abilities and stats right after this), it was still a pretty awesome moment since you get to control Galuf in the fight. Unlike Tellah's rage moment, you actually get to command Galuf and despite his health reaching zero, you can keep owning Exdeath while the dialogue goes in the background. It's a fun moment of redemption after your characters have literally failed at everything they've attempted thus far.

Way to undermine a guy sacrificing his life to save his comrades...

5. Josef's Death (Final Fantasy II)

Final Fantasy II did a lot to differentiate itself from its predecessor right from the get go. However, this is the moment when you really know things will be different this time around. A playable character actually died, sacrificing himself to save you from a marauding boulder. I wouldn't recommend trying this in real life since a huge stone boulder big enough to crush four people likely wouldn't be impeded in the least by one person standing in front of it but hey, Josef wasn't just any person. He was the first casualty in all of Final Fantasy. And it hurt, too, since he was probably the best fourth you got throughout the whole game.

Join us... Join us...

6. The Ghost Train (Final Fantasy VI)

If there is one thing that sticks with me after playing through all of the Final Fantasy games, it will be this. There is literally no part of this sequence that isn't mind-blowingly awesome. It's so mind-blowing that I have to make up adverbs to describe how candasciously awesome it is (yeah, that's right. 'Candasciously'. Look for it in the next edition of Oxford Dictionary, coming to a store near you, never). Basically, Sabin and Cyan stumble through the woods looking to join up with their friends at Narsche. If you look at a map, they are going in the opposite direction but hey, they can do what they want. After going onto an obviously haunted train, it starts moving and they see ghosts throughout the train as they try to find out how to stop the thing. 

Stopping there would have simply been cliche. Instead, they decide to go all the way with this and have ghosts in the main view as well as the battle screen. Some of these ghosts will fight you but some will sell you items and some will even join your party!

Nothing wrong with a couple of bros hanging out with a couple of dead bros. Nope.

Then, when the ghosts start going all Children of the Corn on you (or Evil Dead, take your pick), Sabin decides to look into the future, channel some Nathan Drake and just book it across the tops of the train cars. Seriously, the encounter rate in this area is ridiculously high and I loved it. Every second I got to use two ghosts fighting more ghosts on a haunted train was another golden moment in my life.

There are plenty more awesome moments that have come up. Going to the Moon in Final Fantasy IV, the timed castle run in Final Fantasy V, finding a House inside a chest in Final Fantasy... But those will have to wait for another time. Rest assured, I will post more of these in the future.

Game on!

Final Fantasy VI

Here we are, after so long. I started this blog only a few months ago and we're officially seven games into the series. Six final bosses have fallen: Chaos, The Emperor, The Cloud of Darkness, Julius, Zeromus, and Exdeath have all met their end by my hand, thus far.

But now, we come to the title that everyone knows. Final Fantasy VI. The last of the so-called classic Final Fantasy titles and arguably the best of the entire series. Not only was it, undoubtedly, one of the best Final Fantasy games ever made but it was also one of the most technically advanced games ever released on the SNES.

No more playing around. Time to get serious.

Many of you who lived and gamed through the 16-bit era remember Nintendo and Sega blustering about with their made up technological terminology about why their console was better. Sega often talked about it's "Blast Processing" and the term 16-bits was even just a marketing term. Well, Nintendo often talked about it's Mode 7 capabilities. Without getting two technical, this was a method of background rendering that provided a 3D-ish effect. It was super early and honestly doesn't look all that great now but it was a huge achievement for the time.

FFVI Credits Sequence using Mode 7...

...compared to a standard cutscene, not using Mode 7.

My point in talking about this is twofold: one, I've wanted to talk about the technology behind Final Fantasy for many posts now and this is finally a good opportunity and two, Final Fantasy VI probably has the best Mode 7 effects of any game on the console. Ironic that although we often come back to this game for its classic feel, it was probably one of the strongest graphical powerhouses of its time.

Up until this point, each game (with the exception of Adventure) has been directed by series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. Since he was promoted within Squaresoft, he wasn't able to direct Final Fantasy VI. This meant some fresh blood in a series already known for its extensive experimentation.While we lost the amazing job system from Final Fantasy V, we got the largest main cast of any game in the series to this date, some of the strongest character development, the introduction of equipable special items called relics (similar ideas are used in the next several installments, i.e. Materia in Final Fantasy VII), and the espers.

Don't forget the blatantly obvious Nazi reference!

I don't want to give a full review of the game already but suffice it to say that I've been looking forward to this one. I'm excited to see if the game holds up as well as I remember it from when I was a kid. Oh, and before I go, I feel the need to express my absolute fanboy nerd-gasm when I saw a good friend of mine who has copies of Final Fantasy 1-3 (US numbering) on the NES and SNES respectively, along with several other wonderful RPG's like Secret of Mana, Dragon Warrior 1 and 2, Chrono Trigger and many others. I've known this guy for years and had no idea he had one of the greatest classic game collections I've ever seen. So mad props to him and thanks for giving me my first taste of Contra and Super C!

Game on!

Die Tree, Die!

Game Over, 5!

Final Fantasy V on the SNES was never released in the US for the cited reason of being too difficult for US audiences. Despite the obvious condescension in this statement, I have to agree. This game is brutally difficult, particularly by the end. The game actively fights against grinding which is both good and bad for you.

Along with the standard levels, and probably more important overall, you have to level up each job individually. There is no penalty for switching jobs and doing so is encouraged. Leveling up the jobs doesn't improve your stats and actually, has very little benefit to that job at all. Instead, Job Levels provide you with access to that job's abilities while using other jobs. The more job levels, the stronger abilities you gain from that job.

This provides an extremely satisfying game of mix and match. Maybe you like your Red Mage to have access to Dimensional Magic (Time Magic) as well or maybe you want to specialize and have a Black Mage with full White Mage spells. If you level up Ninja, you can give your Knight the ability to dual wield two of the strongest swords in the game or the ability to dodge like a Samurai.

The possibilities are endless and immensely entertaining. Coming up with new combinations for each character and the party as a whole is easily the most fun aspect of all five Final Fantasy games so far.

It's everything else that makes Final Fantasy V a far worse experience than it could be. I'm all for hard games but there's a difference between challenging and just unfair. Challenging is when you face severe risk but using your intelligence and quick thinking, you can come up on top. Unfair is having enemies with a spell that kills you if you're the wrong level. Sure you could get lucky and simply not be affected by this. In fact, odds are you will be lucky. But luck shouldn't have anything to do with it. Other enemies will be able to absorb various elemental damage. This is fine for magic but by the end of the game, most weapons have an elemental affiliation and most aren't plainly expressed anywhere. Why does that make sense that a dagger to the gut would somehow heal an enemy rather than kill it? When you play against the risk of losing hours of gameplay with enemies that can kill your whole party the second the match starts or those enemies will be immune to your attacks, it stops making that risk worth it. 

Enemies also provide a ridiculously low reward relative to their difficulty. Sometimes you will face unbearably hard bosses who provide you with 0 gold or EXP while you'll fight a couple easy enemies that will give you thousands. It doesn't seem to make any sense but it always errs on the side of less. It's no coincidence that many of the top forum topics for this game are finding good areas to grind job levels.

Check out my last post to see my evaluation of the storyline. To summarize, the game doesn't get any better later. In fact, the ultimate goal of Exdeath, to flood the world with monsters, is perhaps the most cliche storyline in existence. Not only that but even this doesn't make sense by the games own logic. All of the big bad monsters have been stuck in the Void. Exdeath wants to free all of the monsters from the Void. To do this, he reunites the world which will bring the Void into the real world. To prevent anyone from stopping him, he brings everyone else into the Void. You recognize the problem here? All of the people who can stop the monsters are being brought to the monster's location. Even if Exdeath succeeds, it just moves everyone back outside. Nothing really seems to change...

And Exdeath is still a giant evil tree.

Don't get me wrong, the game isn't terrible. It's vicious and the story sucks but the job system literally makes the game entirely worth playing. The sense of satisfaction from getting the perfect combination of jobs and abilities is a lot of fun. The game isn't as strong as IV but the jobs alone beat out the NES trilogy.

Game Rankings:

Final Fantasy II < Final Fantasy Adventure < Final Fantasy < Final Fantasy III < Final Fantasy V < Final Fantasy IV

Game on!

My Final Post...

Just kidding! I know it probably seems like that since the time between posts has been getting longer and longer as time goes on. I've been struggling to find time as the wedding date gets closer and closer but I am still pushing my way through Final Fantasy V. Seriously, this is the longest game so far, but I'm finally in the last world, getting the super weapons to take down Exdeath.

So, I have to admit something. I know the quality of these blog posts have gone downhill recently. To be honest, I'm having a tougher time coming up with interesting things to write about while still avoiding spoilers for the games. Because of this, I've decided that I'm lifting the spoiler ban from here on out. I'm not going to intentionally spoil things for all of you just for the sake of spoiling things but this will allow some discussion regarding the actual story material of the games which is the bulk of Final Fantasy anyway. Since this series is older than I am, I figure that spoilers are around the internet anyway and it's unlikely that those of you who haven't played them yet and are reading Final Fantasy blogs don't know what's happened in pretty much all of these games.

The grand water of spoilers, reviving all it touches

My thoughts on Final Fantasy V so far have been that although the job system makes the gameplay the most interesting of all of them thus far, the storyline completely blows. There are four characters that you care nothing for throughout pretty much the entire game. Three of the characters stop their character development about halfway through the game and the fourth dies only to be replaced by a girl who cares for nothing other than the fact that the fourth character died.

The storyline has you established as the four warriors of light (or some derivation of such) who have to go around and protect the four crystals which are being destroyed. Too bad you fail miserably, as with every other Final Fantasy game, get transferred to another world and fail AGAIN.

I hope they never need to protect me...

So, by the end of the game, we have established that these four warriors are literally the worst heroes in all of gaming, failing at everything they try to accomplish. Oh, and what's the big evil force that's trying to stop them?

Well, that makes sense

That's right. Exdeath is really an evil tree out to destroy the world. An evil... tree. As is becoming of the most evil plant in all of existence, Exdeath is a failure as a villain as well. Sure he's big, bad and powerful but he's perhaps the dumbest villain possible. By the time you get to the third world, he shows his ultimate power by sucking entire cities into a giant void, erasing them from the world. But what does he do to the four warriors? Well, he gives them a giant naked woman to fight, of course!

Are those snakes? You know what? I don't even want to know.

It would just make way too much sense to suck them into the void along with everyone else. No, he has to give them the naked chick. Oh and if that weren't dumb enough, along with this boss, he gives them their party member back that was lost in the void. Because Final Fantasy V.

So, that's where I'm at right now. The story is absolutely absurd and I really don't see it getting better anytime soon. So, I'm hopefully going to be able to defeat the evil tree tonight and end this game but we'll see what happens.

Game on!