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 shitty! In fact, this ENTIRE MONTH has been one
shit 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 fucking kidding me? Wedge and
Biggs are from Star Wars! Star Wars was made in America you fucking
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 fuck, 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
fucking 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 shit,
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
SHIT! 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.
Get it
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