You all sound like chapters of a self-help booklet!
#1
Final Fantasy VI
a.k.a. The one with the opera floozy.
600 points • 19 mentions • Highest rank: #1 (Johnny Unusual, Purple, Torzelbaum)
Released on April 2, 1994 (Japan)
Producer: Hornobu Sakaguchi
Director: Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Ito
Composer:
Nobuo Uematsu
VI is the crowning jewel of the SNES Final Fantasies, in ambition if nothing else. It is a huge game, and one that really pushed the SNES to the max,
Graphically the game was a powerhouse. I’m not talking about the mode 7 map or the huge enemy sprites, which yes, were great, but this is as good as the character sprite work would ever get for the series, with every character being so finely detailed they could even wiggle their finger at the screen. The art of the game is mind-blowing.
Story-wise, it was a game with an assemble cast. While Terra and Celes are the big stars, the game’s 16 playable characters all have the spotlight in one way or another. This assemble approach to the story was reflected by its development - different team members contributed with different characters and basic story ideas for them, and it was up to Hiroyuki Ito to make all those pieces fit into a coherent narrative by giving them a common goal: defeat that genocidal son of a submariner Kefka.
And each character had something different to offer in battle. Jobs were once again pre-determined, like in IV, so each character had a different skill in battle. But then there were Relics - each character could equip up to two accessories, and some of them would grant new skills. And then there was the Esper system, which allowed characters to gain specific stats and use and/or learn magic spells. So while jobs were “set”, you had a lot of freedom on how you wanted to specialize each character.
And then there was the music. It’s a mystery how Uematsu managed to squeeze this much out of the SNES - lots of wonderful melodies with great sampling, including the world’s first 16-bit opera. But from the opening of the game to the very final battle (which includes the opening theme!) the music is top-notch.
VI is a triumph. It’s the series’s last 2D entry, and Square brought every single trick they had learnt in the past entries to this - and even managed to add plenty of new stuff. It was the end of an era, and it ended with a bang and a manic clown laugh.
Something Old
VI took a traditional element of the series - the summoned monsters - and weaved them into the core of the story. IV had done something similar, but they were side-characters; in VI they are a living McGuffin.
Something New
VI is when the series shifted and they stopped talking about the elemental crystals. Sure, crystals would become part of the references expected of a Final Fantasy, but starting with VI the series would reach out and try narratives that would not be tied around bad guys wanting to complete their crystal collection.
Gameplay wise, VI had two great innovations. The first one, and a really important, is that turns are skippable now. This widens your available strategies in battle, and, really, is the only way to make Cyan a viable character, with him charging while everybody else does their thing.
The second one? Limit breaks. Sure, they were RNG based, and they only had a chance to happen when a character attacked while in critical health, so some players never witnessed this desperation attacks. But they were there, and Square would keep playing with them and iterating the system with every entry.
Oh, they also introduced the idea of skills being tied to equipped items, something future Final Fantasies would run wild with.
Man, plenty of new stuff was introduced with VI, right?
Something Blew
Final Fantasy would never again have a cast this big. It was an ambitious undertaking, and honestly some days I’m surprised they managed to pull off something this big. But the choral approach would never have this many voices.
Score
16 / 16
self-help book chapters protagonists