I'm playing through all of Final Fantasy, and everyone is invited (Playing Lightning Returns now)

[FelixSH]

In Jidoor, there is a rare sword up for auction, but we don't have nearly enough money. Owzers house is the next goal, and it's still as big as before. The diary tells us how to turn on the light (which, for some reason, makes it possible to go up the stairs), and that he hired an artist that is probably Relm. He just wasn't satisfied with the others.

We find Gestahl - more correctly, his picture, which we look at twice. "The legendary treasure sleeps where the mountains form a star..." Seems like we will find Locke soon.

When looking at a picture of a lady, we are attacked. After winning, we can enter one of the stranger, more interesting dungeons, where looking at pictures get us attacked, and doors appear and disappear. It's a weird space. At the end, we find Owzer and Relm, who is still working on a painting. Owzer looks somewhat monstrous, but I guess that is just a restriction of sprites.

The picture is of a goddess, but it is possessed. Chadarnook, the possessing demon, attacks us, as he wants the girl in the picture for himself. Weird, gross ghost.

The battle background was one of the best in the games, with windows where we see lighting flash regularly.

After defeating the jerk, we learn that Owzer bought a magicite in the auction house, the Lakshmi one, which created a strong desire to paint the picture of Lakshmi. Which brought Chadarnook along.

I assume Lakshmi did possess Owzer, in a way? Because she is pretty self-obsessed?

With Relm on the team, we visit the Fanatics Tower, and get Strago back. It seems clear, that Relm is the only thing that gives hope and light to Stragos life. I would like to say more, but it's, as effective as it is, pretty simple.

Next up is the Phoenix Cave, which I thought demanded three parties. Thankfully, it doesn't. I didn't write anything down, so I guess not much happened in there? I did like the cave, having to make two parties is a really neat idea, and the monsters were weak enough, that both teams were competent.

At the end, we find Locke, who finally found his legendary treasure, the Phoenix magicite. The Phoenix seems to have burned itself up a long time ago, I think during the War of the Magi? The magicite is old, and full of cracks.

Together, we go to the sleeping Rachel. The Phoenix can revive Rachel, but only for a short time. She says goodbye to Locke, and tells him, to leave the past behind. And she asks the Phoenix, to get reivived again.

There is a fun, final bit, where Locke gives us all the treasure that was in the empty treasure chests, in the cave.

We learn about an Esper in Narshe. Well, we already got it, so that hint came too late. But that's fine.

For some reason, I assumed that I would need Locke, to motivate Terra (with him being the one who helped her earlier in the game), but that was wrong. Instead, we just needed to go back to her after some time. We learn, that Katharina is pregnant, and that Duane is a typical, shitty boyfriend. Including the whole "get angry and mean, let the mother do the emotional labor, and then come back and say how sowwy you are". Considering how he was a jerk, when we visited the first time, I don't care much for this guy.

Anyway, the earth shakes, and Humbaba attacks again. Terra still can't fight, and asks us to defend them. Which we do, until the overgrown goblin blows two of us away. At this point, Terra joins the two who are left, and turns into an Esper. We easily kill the jerk.

I do like the scene afterwards a lot, where the kids are first scared, but then realize that it's her mother. And now, she understands. She experiences love, for the first time. And she realizes, that she needs to fight for the people she loves, so she can protect them.

It's a really nice development. Finally, she can decide, just on her own, if she wants to fight or not. No one pressured her (I mean, the monsters and Kefka kind of did, but her friends were ready to let her stay back, and fight for her).

And now, she joins. And with that, we have everyone, except for Gogo.

Well, time to change that, and get the whole crew. But first, we go to Narshe and let Locke open die weapon shop, where we get the Ragnarok magicite. I don't let it get made into a sword, of course - I could never accept, that I had given away an Esper.

A visit to the opera house gives us Zona Seeker, and in the opera, we defeat the Earth dragon (who was very easy, after making everyone levitate).

Afterwards, we get eaten by a gross worm, and equip Molulus charm, because the monsters were weirdly strong. It's a neat dungeon - the gimmick with the bridges and the jerks who throw you off of them was annoying and strange, but the next room, where the floor falls down, periodically, was neat. Reminded me of Super Mario World.

Anyway, soon we get to the end, and find Gogo, the final party member.

A man shrouded in strange clothing.
...Or perhaps a woman?
Perhps not even human at all...

After taht, we go under the ground again, with Figaro castle, and find another cave. We fight a Master Tonberry, which was really annoying (though I don't remember why, anymore. Strago does learn a few blue spells, nice.

We find the ruins of a castle, where we see a flashback of the War of the Magi. Odin, an Esper, was the lord of the castle (I guess Espers were better integrated into the world, at one point). He is very strong, but gets defeated by a strong mage, who turns him into stone.

We find the body, which crumbles away. The magicite stays, though, and it's the only one that increases speed. Nice.

Next, we try the Fanatics tower (Strago finally learned reraise, and we have Molulus charm). Perfect. Even so, the tower seems like a really awful dungeon. Takes forever, no save points, and it looks the very same on every screen. Can't imagine, how awful it would be with enemies.

We try to fight the Magic Master, which is just a straight-up bad fight. I appreciate, that they tried to do Hein again, now that the battle system actually supports his decent design. But it is completely ruined, because the spell that let's you know his weakness makes him change said weakness. So, on average you do no damage (whatever you do at random, you will also heal at random). I guess you need Umaro, other berserked characters, or spells like Ultima and Meteor, which no one has.

Yeah, I gave up, that fight seems to be the definition of anti-fun.

Next up is Doma Castle, where we go to sleep, just to get into Cyans' dreams. The first part looks neat, like a typical dreamscape. We are, at first, on our own with Strago, but soon find Terra and Celes. Strago learned White Wind and Roulette here. Great!

At the end of this room, we fight the three Dream Stooges.

We reach the Phantom Train, or the memory of it, where I looked up how to solve the puzzle with the chests. I didn't realize that I had to go right first, and had no motivation to try all combinations of opened and closed chests. The Narshe Mines(?) follow, where Cyan runs away from imperial soldiers. And then, we get to the dream version of Doma Castle.

Cyans wife and son asks us, to free Cyan, from torturing himself for everything that happened in the World of Balance. He is targeted by Wrexsoul, which we fight. I actually had to look up the gimmick - I feel like, you shoul at least get a reaction, when you attack the possessed person. Would never have tried to actually killed everyone.

Dunno, the boss gimmicks in FF V seemed better. Here, they seem more annoying and strange.

Cyan gets a last chance, to talk to his family. They leave him a sword, the Masamune, which leaves them at Cyans side, all the time. Which gives him a way of finally moving on from the past.

Other side stuff that I did/tried:
Kill Deathgaze (I moved over every pixel with frameskip, he wasn't much of a challenge, with no one suspectible to level 5 death)
Defeat Leviathan (didn't work, he killed me immediately with a double attack)
Get Quezali from the beach, where Celes woke up
Get Seraph from the guy in Tzen

I know, there is still stuff to do, but it's time for me to get done. I get kind of tired of the game. More on this in my final post. So, I decided to try myself on Kefkas tower.

Well, it didn't work out. My teams were:
Terra, Celes, Mog and Strago (A-Team, by far)
Cyan, Shadow, Locke and Relm (C-Team, not able to defend itself at all)
Sabin, Edgar, Gau and Gogo (B-Team, able to kill random encounters, but nearly dead afterwards)

It kind of worked out, as the B- and C-Team just ran away from everything possible. Until B-Team reached the boss, and was absolutely incapable of defeating him. I assumed, Sabin and Edgar together would be strong enough, but they just have not enough MP and not enough strength.

So, two points:
- Feel free to tell me, where there is more stuff to get. I can't promise I get it, just if you have the urge to tell me. So, feel free to spoil me now.
- I obviously need a way to grind, and it should be fast and efficient. I'm not in the mood in trying anything here (honestly, I want to get done, so I don't want to do much more side-stuff). I'm sure you guys know how to grind efficiently, right?

I just want a simple session, where I get three strong parties, without too much time investment. Elsewise, I will be annoyed by the whole final dungeon, and I will be too annoyed to appreciate the final battle, and the epilogue.

Honestly, I can't believe that this easy game is the one, where I have to actually grind, and I don't like it. Grinding shouldn't be part of this experience. But whatever, I look forward to punch that stupid cloud in the face.

 

[4-So]

- I obviously need a way to grind, and it should be fast and efficient. I'm not in the mood in trying anything here (honestly, I want to get done, so I don't want to do much more side-stuff). I'm sure you guys know how to grind efficiently, right?

I don't know what version you're playing but the Vanish / X-Zone trick is easy way to wipe out pesky enemies. In terms of grinding, I will grind Dinosaur Forest until I have at least one economizer for everyone - they drop rarely from Brachiosaurs - and by the time that happens, everyone is well and leveled with most magic learned (since I'm rotating espers at this point). Maybe a trip to the Cultist Tower if trying to grind AP specifically, since Reflect Rings for everyone is pretty much all you need there.

Mind you, everyone with a relic that makes any spell cost 1MP and almost everyone having all the magic makes the final dungeon an absolute cakewalk but one of my consistent gaming joys is finding the particular sauce in any FF game that breaks the game open - and then I do that, every time. YMMV.

 

[Beowulf]

I also do the Dinosaur Forest thing. You can fight Cactuars in the desert near Maranda for lots of AP, too.

Things you might have missed: Did you find the hidden hut with Sabin's mentor? Did you get the Offering from the underground castle? If you get that sword from the Auction House, you can bet it at the Colosseum for a new esper. If you go back to Thamasa, there's a sidequest you can do with Strago and Relm for a chance at a good Blue Magic spell.

I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting.

 

[Mogri]

Magic Master can be defeated with relative ease if you berserk him. You'll still need to watch out for his on-death counter, Ultima.

Dino Forest is the best experience grind, Maranda Desert is the best AP grind. Both will utterly trivialize the rest of the game, so use at your own risk.

 

[Torzelbaum]

I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting.

Changing Odin. I don't think Felix mentioned doing that.

Breaking the curse on the cursed shield(s) but I think that is even grindier than leveling everyone up and teaching them all spells.

Also in WoR can't you get into the city that used to have the big Guardian robot blocking the entrance or am I mixing things up?

 

[nosimpleway]

Owzer looks somewhat monstrous, but I guess that is just a restriction of sprites.

Nope! That sprite is a pretty accurate representation of the original Amano sketch. Owzer looks like a morbidly obese toad.

For some reason, I assumed that I would need Locke, to motivate Terra (with him being the one who helped her earlier in the game), but that was wrong. Instead, we just needed to go back to her after some time.

All you need is the airship, and enough power to beat Humbaba. You can go Mobliz -> Nikeah -> Figaro -> Daryl's Tomb -> Mobliz and pick her up.

We learn, that Katharina is pregnant, and that Duane is a typical, shitty boyfriend.

It's a shitty thing to do but I can't say I was any different when I was 17. Uh, not that I got anyone pregnant while all the adults in my life had been killed in the event that destroyed the entire world when I was 17, but I still probably wouldn't have reacted well.

Well, time to change that, and get the whole crew. But first, we go to Narshe and let Locke open die weapon shop, where we get the Ragnarok magicite. I don't let it get made into a sword, of course - I could never accept, that I had given away an Esper.

You can also get the Cursed Shield in Narshe, and once you dispel the curse (fight just a goddamn shitton of fights with it equipped, bring a Ribbon) the dispelled shield also teaches Ultima. The Ragnarok sword can be bet at the Coliseum for the Lightbringer, far and away the best knightsword in the game.

We fight a Master Tonberry, which was really annoying (though I don't remember why, anymore.

Counters everything with Traveler, which is unblockable nonelemental damage. Strago can learn it but when it consumes a turn it's not good.

We find the ruins of a castle, where we see a flashback of the War of the Magi. Odin, an Esper, was the lord of the castle (I guess Espers were better integrated into the world, at one point). He is very strong, but gets defeated by a strong mage, who turns him into stone.

Callback to FF5, where Break Sword is the quickest and easiest way to defeat Odin? Maybe!

We find the body, which crumbles away. The magicite stays, though, and it's the only one that increases speed. Nice.

Sounds like you're playing the version with the extra espers added in, so it's not the only one.

Next, we try the Fanatics tower (Strago finally learned reraise, and we have Molulus charm). Perfect. Even so, the tower seems like a really awful dungeon. Takes forever, no save points, and it looks the very same on every screen. Can't imagine, how awful it would be with enemies.

Exceptionally awful.

We try to fight the Magic Master, which is just a straight-up bad fight.

Oh, you didn't even get to the biggest, final "fuck you" of the Magimaster fight!

So in the sprit of this worst part not coming as a surprise: His death counter is Ultima. Might need to practice with Phoenix for a bit and get Reraise before you try again!

And then, we get to the dream version of Doma Castle.

If you wander around the Doma dreamscape a little bit you can find some scenes of Cyan with his family.

He is targeted by Wrexsoul, which we fight. I actually had to look up the gimmick

In the SNES version, a well-known bug means you can cast X-Zone once and win the fight. You miss the drop for the relic that gives auto-Protect and Shell, though.

Dunno, the boss gimmicks in FF V seemed better. Here, they seem more annoying and strange.

Overall this seems like a fair assessment.

Honestly, I can't believe that this easy game is the one, where I have to actually grind, and I don't like it. Grinding shouldn't be part of this experience. But whatever, I look forward to punch that stupid cloud in the face.

Go back to Daryl's Tomb and nab the Growth Egg by solving the gravestone puzzle. The Growth Egg doubles the EXP its holder gets from fights, so it makes grinding slightly less awful.

Let's see... Did you get Golem at the auction house too? You buy it just like you did Zona Seeker.
Did you go back to the throne room in Doma to get Alexander? It was onscreen briefly during the post-Wrexsoul cutscene but I've missed it afterward in some runs.

Leviathan you've found, on the ship between Nikeah and South Figaro. Needless to say some water-absorbing equipment will make your life easier here, since it'll null Tidal Wave, Aqua Breath, and The Nino.
The "really expensive sword" at the auction house is Excalipoor. Guess who you find with that one! (Bet it at the Coliseum, you get into a fight with your whole party under your command like usual. Have Strago with you, dude knows a ton of Blue Magic.)

The best place to grind is probably the desert south of Maranda, west of the auction house. Here you'll find Slagworms, which are tough overall but are vulnerable to Death (which avoids their constant Sandstorm counterattacks) and give some decent EXP. You'll also find Cactuars, which give 10 magic AP and I think 10,000 gil for winning. Three HP, shitton of Evade, just use one of the dozens of options you have that auto-hits. You'll learn your magic in no time. If Strago doesn't have 1000 Needles yet, he will soon.
Once you beat a bunch of Cactuars one of the desert tiles becomes a spiked tile that throws you into a fight with Gigantuar. It's always the same one, in the bit that juts out to the southwest, so you can just not go to that side while you level and learn. Gigantuar hits with only 1000 Needles, and its death counter is 1000 Needles ten times in a row, so it's just a beef check to determine whether you win. Gigantuar is weak to water, so maybe try after you've had some practice with Leviathan.

(The best place to level up on account of EXP drops is Jurassic Park -- a more topical reference in 1994 -- which is a forest a bit north of the Veldt. Tyrannosaurs and Brachioraidos lurk there, and I'm pretty sure the Tyrannosaur x2 fight is one of the highest EXP drops in the game for a single encounter. Those dinosaurs will wreck you, though, since Tyrannosaurs can cast Meteor and Brachioraidos know Disaster and Ultima. They're both weak to ice! Good luck!)

Bring Strago and Relm to Thamasa to start the sidequest to learn Strago's best Blue Magic. (Go back to Solitary Island and sketch one of the sand scorpions in the desert if you haven't found Mighty Guard, the other best Blue Magic.)
Bring Sabin to the little X-shaped arrangement of trees north of Narshe to learn all his Blitzes.
One of the rooms in the Cult of Kefka Tower has a secret switch immediately to the right of one of the chests. Hit that switch to open a door on the floor below, to a room with the Air Anchor, Edgar's last tool. (Air Anchor kills an enemy after the next time it moves.)
There's a trapped chest in the Ancient Castle that gives the Master's Scroll, which turns attack into X-attack, basically the !Rapid Fire move from FF5. The SamuraiSoul in the chest can be confused and it will instant-kill itself.

The eight dragons, one for each element:
Wind is in Mt. Zozo, as you saw.
Earth is in the opera house.
Fire is in the Phoenix Cave. Gives the Dragon Horn, which combined with DragoonBoots (or Quetzalli, I guess) can make Mog an utterly devastating fighter.
Water is in the secret basement under the Ancient castle.
Ice is in the snow fields behind Narshe.
Holy is in the Cult of Kefka Tower.
Lightning is in Kefka's Tower.
Poison is in Kefka's Tower. It looks undead, but it's not.
If you beat them all you get one more magicite and unlock an optional dungeon that is super duper not fun, but has everybody's best weapons (or in the case of Gau and Umaro, equipment) and the last totally-not-worth-it magicite inside.

Rages:
Rages were awesome in the early game, when they let you use spells and skills nobody could otherwise access. Now that you've got endgame magicite, most of the Rages are obsoleted by the things you can do on command. The Veldt gives full AP, money, and item drops while you fight, but no EXP, so keep that in mind as you wander around looking for monsters.
Magic Urns are in the side rooms in the Cult of Kefka Tower. As a Rage they cast Curaga, which is... fine, I guess. But they're also damn near invincible, with all eight elemental absorbs and full status immunity.
Rafflesia are some flowers you can fight in one of the paintings in Owzer's gallery. As a Rage they bring status immunities, water absorb, and fire weakness, but their special skill is Entice. Entice turns an enemy into your ally, forcing them to attack the enemy party instead of you. Nothing is immune. It can't be removed. It's a completely broken ability to have.
Yojimbo are in the later bits of Kefka's Tower. Their Rage gives Shock, just like Leo did, which is nice to have purely for the novelty.
As before, Fiend Dragons from Kefka's Tower give Northern Cross, which tries to freeze enemies solid. Again, nothing is immune.

The Coliseum:
Good stuff to be had, but save between every fight since the autobattle script your characters will use is dumb as hell. Using a Ribbon and the Master's Scroll on your chosen fighter is probably your best bet for most fights, but sometimes you need a Safety Bit instead to shrug of instant-death moves.
Bet a Tintinablum to fight a Dark Force and nab another Growth Egg.
Bet an Elixir to fight a Cactuar for a Rename Card. The Rename Card isn't that good (lets you rename a character) but you can bet that to fight a Fiend Dragon and earn Miracle Shoes. Miracle Shoes are auto- Protect, Shell, Haste, and Float, which is no damn joke.
If you have extra Magicite Shards, you can bet those to get more Elixirs to turn into Rename Cards to turn into Miracle Shoes.
And if that's not enough, you can buy Phoenix Downs to bet for Magicite Shards to turn into Elixirs to turn into Rename Ca-- look, you get the idea.
As before, if you have more Behemoth Suits than Strago and Relm need, you can bet them to fight a Yojimbo for Snow Scarves for Mog and Gau.
If you still have your old Healing Rod kicking around, you can bet it for another Magus Rod. Any other "Suit" goes up the chain from Tabby -> Chocobo -> Moogle -> Nutkin and then Nutkin Suits turn into Genji Armor.
Thunder Shields can be bet for Genji Shields.

 

[Bongo]

Monsters in the dino zone drop the imp equipment. When equipped by a character with the Imp status applied to them, the numbers on this gear is much more powerful. Imps can't use character abilities or cast spells other than Imp, but they can benefit from relics that change the properties of the Attack command. I like to give Cyan the Dragoon Boots and then use this technique, just for funsies.

You can get multiple copies of some strong weapons by stealing them during the final boss fight. Unlike the SNES version, the GBA version saves after you win, so you can keep the loot - and then go back and repeat the fight for even more. In this way, it's possible to have both the sword and the esper.

Speaking of flagrantly unnecessary grinding, the GBA version also has a glitch that lets you reset a character's experience level while keeping all their magic and stats, allowing you to continue to make number go up until all their stats reach the maximum attainable value of 128. It's only really practical to apply the glitch to Terra and maybe Locke, of course, but one day I was bored enough to do it. Did you know that when numbers get that high, it doesn't matter what tier of spell you cast or how strong a weapon you equip?

 

[nosimpleway]

In my LP I did the level reset with everybody up to Strago and Relm. My slowest party member after the I-got-Cactuar-already level grind was 55. Strago ended up with magic power 120, Mog with attack power 120 (since he was a Jump-er instead of a Dance-er), Shadow was Strength 120 and Speed 100. Sabin had both Strength and Magic 125.

The bonus dungeon was still an anti-fun slog. It's just that bad.

 

[gorha]

We try to fight the Magic Master, which is just a straight-up bad fight. I appreciate, that they tried to do Hein again, now that the battle system actually supports his decent design. But it is completely ruined, because the spell that let's you know his weakness makes him change said weakness. So, on average you do no damage (whatever you do at random, you will also heal at random). I guess you need Umaro, other berserked characters, or spells like Ultima and Meteor, which no one has.

This counterattack script is one of the oddities of FFVI's mechanics. Many enemies counter when they receive damage, but they use their counter if they have been damaged, ever, not just if the ability they're countering damaged them. I think it's a bug, but as far as I know it's never been fixed in any of the ports. So Magi Master probably wasn't supposed to use Barrier Change when you scan him, but he does. The fight is extremely obnoxious for other (intentional) reasons anyway, of course.

- Feel free to tell me, where there is more stuff to get. I can't promise I get it, just if you have the urge to tell me. So, feel free to spoil me now.
- I obviously need a way to grind, and it should be fast and efficient. I'm not in the mood in trying anything here (honestly, I want to get done, so I don't want to do much more side-stuff). I'm sure you guys know how to grind efficiently, right?

The desert with the Cactuars is a good grinding spot, as nosimpleway mentioned. While you're there, summon Ragnarok to turn some Cactuars into Saucers. Bet them at the coliseum to get Cat-Ear Hoods, which are the best helmet in the game, but can only be worn by Relm. Bet extras of those to get Merit Awards, accessories that let you equip most heavier weapons and armor, notably the Genji stuff. They're very useful for Gogo and Sabin in particular, since they can't use much good endgame armor otherwise. Sadly, they don't let you use the Cat-Ear Hood itself, and I think in the GBA version, Gau can't use them at all, which removes one of their main uses in the SNES version, giving him weapons.

Bet the Regal Gown at the coliseum for a Minerva Bustier, the best armor for Terra and Celes.

Even if you're not going to go after all 8 dragons, the White Dragon in the Cultist's Tower is worth beating for the Holy Lance it drops.

If you have money left over after buying the sword at the auction house or deciding not to bother with it, do some shopping in Maranda: Tao Robe is the best armor for Gogo if you're not going to give them a Merit Award, Oath Veils are good for Terra and Celes if you don't have enough Genji Helms and Red Caps to go around, and Falchions are the strongest storebought weapons that can be thrown. Enhancers are worth equipping for their stat boosts; you can buy those in South Figaro if you didn't already.

 

[FelixSH]

Thanks for the input, everyone. The grinding did take two hours, or so? Wasn't too bad, when watching TV at the same time, but I hope this is an exception.

I grinded everyone to around level 40 in that dinosaur forest (T-Rex was ok, if obnoxious at times, I just fled when the Brachiosaurus, or whatever it's name was, appeared). Then, I taught Ultima to Terra, Meteor to Celes and Flare to Relm, with Relm, Strago and Edgar having access to Arise and Curaga. Cactuars (who make their first appearance here!) were easily killed by Edgars drill, but sketching them would also produce 1000 needles. Simple to kill them, in this game.

The fight against Gigantuar wasn't really hard, but I had to revive people from time to time. It just worked out - after 10000 Needles, only Terra was still standing with 758 HP. Gigantuar, by the way, looks great - the mustache is delightful and majestic.

I always liked Cactuars, and enjoy them as part of what makes a Final Fantasy. Really strange, that they appear so late in the series. I always think they are in V.

With the three ultimate spells, Magic Master is easy. Really not much of a challenge there, which is also true for the Wind Dragon, who I visited again, while also getting the chainsaw (and I didn't forget to get the anchor, though I never used it).

Then, we went to Thamasa, where we get really nice scenes from Strago and Relm. He feels old, when compared to his energetic granddaughter. We find Gungho (the elder, right?) in bed, hurt from Hidon, the legendary monster he and Strago used to hunt down. Strago decides, that it's time to end this danger. There is another nice exchange, where Relm explains, that he will not go alone. After disagreeing at first, he relents (come on, she was on the floating continent, the cave can't be any worse than that).

The dungeon is really weird. For some reason, it's the only one with a smaller radius of visibility, which might be a DQ reference? Dunno, I don't really get it. But the really bizarre part was the talking treasure chest, which demanded pieces of coral. Then, we are teleported randomly to single rooms (sometimes, we would get teleported into the same room we teleported from, which, uh, what), where we find chests with different amounts of pieces of coral. After way too many rooms, we finally get back to the start, and can give them all to the chest, which decides to hop back.

Don't get me wrong, I sound like I'm complaining, but I do like this weird, living chest, that is just sitting in the way, until we feed it. I guess it's a benevolent mimic?

In the back, we find Hidon, who might have been a challenge earlier on. But now, with the strongest attack spells, it doesn't survive long enough to be dangerous. Strago does learn a great blue spell, at least.

Seeing Strago overjoyed, like a little kid, was really fun to see. He runs back to Gungho, and talks the whole night about the encounter (where he seems to think, he used his staff to hit the monster over the head with?), until he falls asleep. The elder goes outside, were he talks to Relm. He was never hurt, it was just a trick to motivate Strago.

I really liked this sidequest, thanks for bringing it to my attention. Strago and Relm are a really fun duo, with a very nice, close relationship. Yes, she is somewhat respectless, but she does love him, and he loves her. It comes out very believable, here, more than anywhere else in the game.

Next, we visit Duncan, Sabins master. Which starts, by Sabin crying, because he is so happy that Duncan is still alive. Which I didn't expect at all - I love, that this game makes it's somewhat dumb muscle man actually emotionally connected to the people around him. Sabin is a good guy.

Duncan is a fun, actually nice guy - he loves at first, when thinking that Sabin might have thought he had died, but than takes him seriously, when he realizes that it's the truth. To cheer his pupil up, and so that we can punch Kefka in the face, Duncan decides to teach Sabin his ultimate technique - Bum Rush. We see a delightful anime fight, and then get the news. Sabin is stronger now.

For the record, I only did these two sidequests after beating the game. No idea why, I was just motivated to defeat Kefka, after doing the grinding, so I went there first. Worked out fine.

I also tried to see Shadows flashbacks, but only got the first one. Where someone named Baran misses his partner, Clyde (who I understand to be Shadow). I tried sleeping multiple times again, even switching places, but never got another dream. Oh, well.

And with that, it's finally time. The last dungeon awaits. Before going in, Celes thinks about the consequences of destroying the Warring Triad, and defeating Kefka. Espers and magic would be vanishing from the world. No one knows, how this will effect Terra, but she might disappear with it. But we have no choice, Kefka must die.

The teams are the same, except that I exchange Gogo for Umaro.

Team 1: Terra, Celes, Mog and Strago
Team 2: Cyan, Shadow, Locke and Relm
Team 3: Sabin, Edgar, Gau and Umaro

As you have probably guessed, Team 3 is the weakest, by far. Having two uncontrollable characters isn't great. And remember, Sabin still didn't have Bum Rush. At least, I got T-Rex for Gau, but with his weak magic stat, the meteor only did around 2500 damage.

Anyway, there isn't much to say about the dungeon. The concept of splitting into three groups is really cool, but the dungeon design isn't great. I mean, you have so many characters, more than four should participate in the finale, but I think we just get to the restrictions of the game engine - I think you can't do much more with this, than have single groups press buttons, to let others continue on.

My bigger problem was, that it looks boring. There are a few nice places, like the one where the Espers where held, but on the whole, it just looked like a huge, jumbled mess. Probably my least favourite final dungeon.

Maybe I can give it a few points for theme. Kefka is a nihilist, he doesn't value anything. So, instead of surrounding himself with anything nice, he just takes signs from the only thing that he believes in - that everything becomes garbage, and loses it's value, at some point. It's a place without hope or future.

Team 2 soon reaches Ultima Buster, who was surprisingly weak. Relm dual-casting Ultima killed it pretty soon. A shame, both Ultima Weapon and Buster look and seem pretty cool, but with your overpowered mages, they just don't stand a chance.

Team 3, though, faced that horrible boss made out of three parts, which was a real challenge. I died a few times here, just not able to get through the tons of damage, that this jerk would throw at me. I guess part of that was countering, which I couldn't control, with neither Umaro nor Gau under my control. Edgar was busy healing, and Sabin was often too - even if not, their damage output was relatively weak (or maybe...probably I'm just comparing them unfairly to Celes, Terra and Relm).

Later on, I fought the Guardian with Team 2. Sketching was pretty useful here, as it produced a casting of Mighty Guard for the whole party. From the few times I used it, I really like sketch. It even can get neat abilities from bosses, sometimes. Surprisingly useful, if probably not all the time.

I did forget, that each team had to fight a final boss, in the three parts of the Warring Triad. I remember Kefkas fight starting with three parts, on top of each other - I always thought, that was the Triad.

Well, wrong of me. Team 2 found it's part first, Demon. Who falls very easily against Relms dual-casting. Team 1 fought against Goddess, who also had a bad and short time. Terra and Celes are, as always, overpowered. Team 3 fought Fiend, and had a way harder battle. I didn't die, but there was challenge involved. Maybe I should have given Terra to this team. Oh, well, it still worked out.

With that, the Warring Triad is defeated, but magic still exists. It seems, like Kefka had drawn all the power out of them, or focused them on himself, or something.

We finally reach the jerk, and he welcomes us. Which clearly shows, that he knew we were coming, and didn't take the easy way out, by just shooting our airship. He finally shows how nihilistic he is, talking about how everything is pointless, as everything falls apart, anyway. Why are people rebuilding, if it falls apart again, anyway?

We tell him, that it doesn't matter. You just need something to fight for. Essentially, you just need a reason from within you, not from outside.

Kefka even asks. Did everyone find something, that is worth fighting for. And everyone did (except for Umaro, but come on, we know that he just likes hitting stuff).

But Kefka decides, that he doesn't care for this, and shoots more death lasers at the people on the ground. He tells us, that he wants to destroy the whole world.

So, why wait? Why wait FOR US?

When Kefka asked, if everyone found a reason to fight, he reminded me of Terra. She asked similar questions to the people around her, because she wanted to understand.

I don't buy that Kefka doesn't care. He does. He is lonely, he is sad. He is probably really bored. He could have killed us on the airship. He could have destroyed the world. But he didn't. Because there is still something left, a part, from before he was experimented on, and became insane.

Terra, being a way better person than Kefka, decided to look for more answers, but couldn't find any. Even after being able to control her Esper for, which would have given her the chance to take vengence (even if Kefka could have easily killed her), she never did. Because she tried. She faced her fears.

Kefka didn't. Was he afraid all along? Is his insanity just his inability to deal with his huge power? My read is, that he is just horribly scared of everything, and his aggression is just a mask, so he doesn't have to face his weakness. That's why he was so strongly driven, to get more and more power - so he could feel powerful, while still being the pathetic loser he always has been.

Just imagine, this life can't be fulfilling. Just sitting up there, not having anything to do, no one to talk to. Just the ability to kill and destroy. He waited for us, because it gave him some sort of purpose, something to wait for.

And honestly, it felt like Kefka didn't even throw down that many death lasers. Maybe that's just my read, due to a bit of minimalism, because of SNES hardware. But the people seem to be afraid more of something that could happen, than something that regularly did, just because the few times it does, it's so awful.

Thinking about it, I imagine it is now a year, since Celes woke up on Solitairy Island. Which is supported by the fact, that Katharina doesn't seem to be pragnent, when we meet her the first time. And now, after defeating Kefka, the child is born.

I know, it's due to the freeform nature of the WoR, but even so, Kefka could have done something within a scenario. But he doesn't. He has the power for two years, and during his second, he doesn't lift a finger. There is no drive to him.

There is a bit more, but I think I will stop now, and save that for the final post. Let's get on to the fight.

It's pretty bombastic, looks and sounds great. Having the whole team, all twelve people, fight, with a predecided order, is a really cool idea. This is obviously due to restrictions of the game engine - the whole crew, everyone we found, fights against Kefka here, together.

We fight against three...things? I assume, these are imaginations of Kefka, ways of him, viewing himself. First is the brute, an unstopable monster of destruction, that looks horrifyingly dangerous and evil. It's simply Kefka, thinking of the terror that he can strike in everyone. Except for us. It's also not a hard fight, with Ultima, Meteor and Flare.

Next up, we see him as the absolute despot, who sits in all his imagined glory on the helpless bodies of victims. He is the highest and mightiest, worth more than all the other, regular, ugly people. These people are just a machine, that keeps him (or more precisely, his image) high up. That one was actually challenging, due to all the status effects. I died here one time, because everyone got frozen or zombified, all the time.

And finally, the saint. With light starting to shine through the cloud, bright, blinding light, we see him as the benevolent(?) master, who decides who lives and who dies. Maybe he actually sees it as benevolence, that he doesn't just kill everyone at once. He can take live, or "give" it. Another easy win.

But we fall for nothing, and so, we reach Kefka as god, who decends from above to smite us. Glorifying light shines in the background, as he is the sun of the world, everything is below and beneath him. But his images didn't fool us, we know how pathetic and horrible he really is. Everyone does, except Kefka. And so, this form is just a last try. And it's not like he isn't hitting hard, but he just has nothing left to survive. He dies pretty fast.

There are no words from Kefka left, as he is slain by us. No final speach. His live was empty, maybe he accepted, that his death would be, too.

But killing Kefka is all the party was interested in, here. No one cares about last words from him, as it should be, after all the torment he brought onto the world. We essentially slew the rest of the old world, essentially forming a new one, when making magic disappear completely. Kefka was the past, a creature without a future or vision. There was no hope in him, nothing that spoke to life. But our group, this family, had all seeds in their hearts that gave them strength, and would lead a way into the future, a new era. And maybe, it would be a better world, as the old one seems to have been pretty bad.

Fake credits run, as we end our play, and show the actors a last time, highlighting them while they flee the crumbling tower. These credits are beautiful - they start by showing us a book. Are we going down in History? Will there be epic stories, about the 16(?) heroes, who created the way for a new world?

The little scenes we see of everyone are very nice to watch, and show us a bit more about the characters. Favourites are the one from the Figaro brothers, where Sabin saves Edgar just in time from a steel beam (Sabin is STRONG, you guys), and then apologizes for leaving all the responsibility to Edgar. Cyan has a fun bit, where he tries to get over his fear of machinery, Edgar saves Mog with a crane (I assume we act, like Mog is a creature in a crane game machine? It's a cute scene), Umaro just destroys a giant wall, when a door is stuck, Gau rides stones down the wall, Relm carries Strago, as he is to weak to go on, while telling him that she would love to draw a real painting of him.

With Terra, we see the Maduin magicite disappear (as did some of the other magicite, directly after Kefka died), but only after telling Terra that, maybe, if her feelings are strong enough, her human side might survive.

These are all great scenes, and it looks just beautiful, when the camera moves from one object to the other.

When finally on the ship, Terra flies forward, showing the others the way. But when they are away from the tower, the last piece of magicite disappears, Terra loses her power, and starts to fall. Setzer gives it his all, and dives for her. And he is successful - we find her human form on the deck.

While falling down, Terra talked telepathically to Katharina, who was in the middle of giving birth. "Don't give up. Not now."

The actual credits play, and we see the airship flying over the world. The child is born, as a symbol of a new era, and new hope. The plant from the mother and child finally does grow, and the Figaro brothers wave to the people below.

And as a last symbol of freedom and hope, Terra opens her hair, letting it blow in the wind.

-----------------------------------------

And that's Final Fantasy VI. The world is saved, and a new era has begun, a new chance for everyone. I have more to say, but I'll save that for a final post. Maybe two, this time, depending on how much I have to say.

For now, that's it.

 

[Purple]

I might have mentioned this before, but it's always really struck me how FF6 is, while not the only game that fits this description (Phantasy Star is basically in the same boat), on an incredibly short list where you aren't arriving at your confrontation to stop the final boss' big evil plan. He's done all the evil stuff already, you're just here for closure/revenge/the sake of future generations not having to put up with this creep still being around. And I think there's some real power in that.

 

[Issun]

I agree that Kefka's Tower is just kind of there. Not really interesting at all. It's too bad, too, because FF games generally have amazing final dungeons. Of the first ten games, only 6 and 10 have what I would call less than stellar final dungeons, and at least 10's is fairly short

 

[Torzelbaum]

I think a problem with Kefka's Tower is that it goes on for a bit too long with too much switching back and forth and it wears out it's welcome.

I am glad that Felix finds Sketch useful. I think I am biased against it because of how glitchy and possibly harmful it can be in the SNES version.

 

[Juno]

I might have mentioned this before, but it's always really struck me how FF6 is, while not the only game that fits this description (Phantasy Star is basically in the same boat), on an incredibly short list where you aren't arriving at your confrontation to stop the final boss' big evil plan. He's done all the evil stuff already, you're just here for closure/revenge/the sake of future generations not having to put up with this creep still being around. And I think there's some real power in that.

Yeah, when I replayed it a couple years ago I noted this very same thing, and it can work because of the unique situation the plot is in- there doesn't need to be an immediate threat because we've seen how bad things are, and that they won't get better while Kefka is still around. That's enough motivation for the cast to go after Kefka. At the same time, the fact that there is no literal meteor in the sky about to hit the planet means that it's believable the characters would decide they can afford to spend time searching for friends before heading to end things.

 

[nosimpleway]

Sketch is a neat idea but when you already have Strago and Gau copying enemy abilities and doing it better the implementation is lacking. The way everything is set up, there's just no reason to spend a turn using Sketch when Relm could spend her turn doing something else. She's got good Magic for her own spellcasting. She can equip rods and exploit elemental weaknesses with her physical attacks.

I said it before, but Sketch's problems are twofold: first, monsters follow elemental or status themes, and are immune to their own tricks. Good job, Relm, you Sketched the Ice Dragon and it cast Blizzaga on itself. Second, the attacks use the monsters' stats instead of Relm's. Only 11 monsters in the game can top Cyan's abysmal innate Magic stat of 25, and IIRC the only monsters that can top Relm's innate 44 are immune to Sketch. Even Relm's noodly ten-year-old magic-user arms pack more of a punch than half the monsters in the game.

Felix liked Sketch, sure, but the examples given were two instances when it called on spells that Strago himself could have cast on command, 1000 Needles and Mighty Guard. Sketch will instant kill the Death Warden, but so will a Phoenix Down. Sketch will kill the Samurai Soul, but so will a Confuse spell. You can use it on, uh, Fiend Dragons! Yeah, it'll shut those guys right down, and they even have the decency to appear in a dungeon where you need 12 people, so Relm's likely to be included.

 

[gorha]

Kefka's tower might be favorite final dungeon in the series, though VIII's is close. The atmosphere is cool, the enemies are fun to fight, there are lots of bosses and none of them are the annoying ones like Wrexsoul or Magic Master. Most of all, using all the characters you spent the second half of the game finding and building up feels really rewarding to me. I'm the kind of person who likes to rotate party members in and out anyway, though, and I do get how it would be less enjoyable for people who like to use the same party for the whole game.

 

[nosimpleway]

Good job, Relm, you Sketched the Ice Dragon and it cast Blizzaga on itself.

This actually got me thinking, so I ran a few numbers.

You see, Sketch can do two attacks. Yes, the Ice Dragon will Blizzaga itself when Sketched... 75% of the time. The other 25% of the time it'll exploit its own weakness and cast Firaga instead. Most monsters are not this polite!

So in this specific circumstance where the monster will exploit its own elemental weakness, maybe Sketch is worth using, eh?

(For these calculations I'm assuming Relm doesn't have any Earrings, isn't Berserked, anything like that, and nobody did something silly like cast Protect and Shell on the Ice Dragon. I'm also ignoring the random variance in damage. I'm arbitrarily using 32 as Relm's level, since that's a reasonable midgame level for her to be, and it's half the Ice Dragon's own level. I'm not giving her any Esper level bonuses or equipment bonuses, though, she's plain ol' regular Relm as she was when she joined the party in the World of Balance: Strength 26, Magic 44.)

First, whether Sketch works at all is a level check. For Sketch to work 100% of the time, Relm needs to be the same level as the target. Unfortunately, the Ice Dragon is level 74. Relm will need to be at least level 50 with the Beret to make sure Sketch will work, or risk losing turns to whiffing her attack. At level 32 Relm has about a two-thirds chance of getting Sketch to work on any given turn, and a one-third chance is misses. Then there's the 75% chance that Ice Dragon's sketch will cast Blizzaga, healing the thing for about 750 damage. 25% of the time it will cast Firaga, doing about 1490 damage instead.

So what else could Relm do?
Well, if she's got Fira, that'd be a good choice. We're comparing the Ice Dragon using an elemental weakness on itself, at the very least Relm can use the same element. You can't not have Fira available by now, you get both Ifrit and Maduin before Relm herself ever shows up.
Powered by her innate magic of 44, Relm casting Fira would do 3544 damage. And she wouldn't have to worry about ever missing with her spell, Ice Dragon has a Magic Evade of 0.

Okay, maybe that's not completely fair. That's definitely playing to Relm's strengths.

...if she hits the Ice Dragon with a Fire Rod, exploiting the elemental weakness but using her much lower Strength, she still does 1026 damage to the damn thing... with a 25% chance of then casting Fira. And it's not like Fire Rods are hard to come by, the player has found several and seen them for sale in Thamasa already.

Ice Dragon has 24,400 HP. If everyone else was playing defensively (or maybe frozen solid, whatever), then Relm would be able to cast Fira seven times (costing her 140 MP) to win the fight.
Assuming the Fire Rod were reliable and cast Fira every fourth turn, then it would take Relm fourteen turns (maybe thirteen, if the damage variation per attack rolled her way) to defeat the Ice Dragon by herself.
And if all she did was Sketch, then she has to roll a 66% chance to get a 25% chance... seventeen times in a row. That's pretty close to a 1% chance of working at all. At least she doesn't have to worry about running out of MP?

Level Relm up to 50 and give her the Beret, and Sketch won't miss anymore. Then her odds improve to only needing a 25% chance something like fifteen times in a row (since her level is also factored into the damage calculations, so the dragon's self-Firaga does more damage). But Beret is also Magic +3, and at level 50 with Magic 47 you're also looking at over 4000 damage with Relm's own Fira spell, and are you tellin' me you got her to level 50 without getting Varigarmanda or Phoenix to teach her Firaga?

 

[Mogri]

The Ice Dragon is on the way to one of those espers...

 

[Vega]

Celes takes the sword and turns toward the paralyzed party. Gestahl steps to the left, mentions promoting Celes to second-in-command, and Kefka has a little fit that moves him to where Gestahl was standing. Celes turns and lunges without looking. That sword was meant for Gestahl.

That's what I imagined. Kefka is like an insane, greek god, isn't he? It's just, when I imagine Kefka not being there and Gestahl being on top, I can't help but imagine it being harder to win. Kefka doesn't actually stop us, does he? As soon as we can reach him, and survive the tower, we can fight him. If Gestahl would be the one in power, we would have woken up in a dystopian nightmare, where everything is made out of metal, and guards were everywhere. I just imagine it being way harder, to make it to Gestahl, who would have probably built the structure of the world around him being untouchable, and everyone being chained by harsh, random rules, being watched by a secret police all the time. Something like that.

I know that sounds horrible, because Kefka just killed so, so many people, but I feel like the world was kind of lucky that Kefka took over, and killed Gestahl. I mean, Gestahl would have probable killed a ton of people too - probably everyone, who wasn't worthy of becoming magical humans like Kefka and Celes. And he would actually have put structures in place, that were hard to break through. There would be no world of ruin, just another world of balance, except the balance would be one of a living nightmare.

I'm not saying Kefka is good, in any way, shape or form. I just feel like Gestahl would be even worse, as a leader. But maybe that's just me - nothing scares me as much as a dystopia with a totalitarian government. In SMT terms, I know that a world where the demons win, and everyone could die anytime, would be incredibly horrible (like Kefkas WoR is, kind of), but that is, for some reason, only an intellectual fear. I just can't imagine being in mortal danger, because I live a very priviliged live in Central Europe. But the world were the angels win, and everyone is under strict rule of ORDER, always strikes emotional fear into my heart. I couldn't imagine to live in a world, for example, where being gay was illegal. It would make me go crazy, not being able to stay true to myself here. And then not even die, but being tortured and broken. Gestahls world would be exactly such a world.

How's this for a mod or new game: It begins with Celes meeting the Emperor and Kefka on the Floating Continent. The Emperor and Kefka are positioned differently so Celes stabs the Emperor. The Emperor responds by using the Warring Triad's power to kill her and the other Returners present. He then starts giving Kefka orders, which Kefka refuses since he wants the Triad's power himself. Kefka fights the Emperor but is beaten and wounded. Kefka escapes onto the Enterprise. The Returners are shocked, but since Kefka isn't interested in fighting them right now they drop him off on the ground and part ways. The Emperor uses the power of the Warring Triad to build his World of Tyranny.

You play as Kefka in this tyrannical world, vowing revenge against the Emperor for taking the power you wanted for yourself. You rampage through this world using the power of the Espers you've collected. You're not a god but you're powerful. Along the way, you pick up a couple of party members who also have it in for the Emperor and are powerful enough to stand up to him. (Maybe they're former Returners, former Empire, or other, I dunno). When you reach the Emperor, you realize the Triad's power is too bound up with the Emperor for you to ever have it for yourself, but you can deprive him of them by pushing them out of alignment and killing them and him. The final battle has a counting up timer: the longer the Triad are alive and out of alignment, the more the world is destroyed. Kefka doesn't mind destroying the world but the other party members, who care more about the world's well being, do.

I haven't thought through what living and fighting in the World of Tyranny would be like. I gave Kefka party members because there have to be people close to him who have a stake in the world's well being and want to minimize the harm the disruption of Triad does to it. The party dynamic would be like Frodo, Sam and Gollum in Lord of the Rings, with Kefka being Gollum. The only thing they agree on is depriving the Big Bad of the Maguffin. Since the party would be small and Kefka would start out alone, the gameplay wouldn't necessarily have to be like FF6. It could be a brawler or an action RPG like Trials of Mana.

 

[Vega]

Umaro can do some pretty funny stuff, with that Berserker Ring. If he's confused, he can pick himself up and throw himself at himself.

Better still, he can throw someone else at himself! He jumps back to his position very fast in order to get hit, then jumps back to the other character's position in order to catch them!

Spoiler: later dungeon gimmick spoiler

If he's in magitek armor he can still tackle and throw, too.

Spoiler: later dungeon gimmick spoiler question

Does this mean he can throw magitek armor at himself?

 

[Vega]

You can get a lot of the best items in the game by getting Imp Halberds from the dinosaur forest, bet them at the colosseum, then bet those items, on and on. You can get Exp. Eggs (double exp. per battle), Tintinabars (regen HP while walking), Marvel Shoes (casts haste, regen, shell and safe on the wearer) and Merit Awards (a character can equip anything). I'm going by the SNES names of those items.

We try to fight the Magic Master, which is just a straight-up bad fight. I appreciate, that they tried to do Hein again, now that the battle system actually supports his decent design. But it is completely ruined, because the spell that let's you know his weakness makes him change said weakness. So, on average you do no damage (whatever you do at random, you will also heal at random). I guess you need Umaro, other berserked characters, or spells like Ultima and Meteor, which no one has.

You can also have one character cast Palidor (or whatever the name is of the bird Esper from the Solitary Island that picks your party up and drops them all like they're dragoons) and have Gogo repeat it. But to survive the boss's final attack you either need to cast Life 3 on someone or pray someone is still in the air when the boss dies.

 

[FelixSH]

Kefka's tower might be favorite final dungeon in the series, though VIII's is close. The atmosphere is cool, the enemies are fun to fight, there are lots of bosses and none of them are the annoying ones like Wrexsoul or Magic Master. Most of all, using all the characters you spent the second half of the game finding and building up feels really rewarding to me. I'm the kind of person who likes to rotate party members in and out anyway, though, and I do get how it would be less enjoyable for people who like to use the same party for the whole game.

I actually tried to rotate my party, with Celes as the only one who I always used. It wasn't enough. Maybe I missed some levels, because I skipped the monsters in the Fanatics Tower, and didn't do Stragos sidequest, but I felt like I did enough, that my team should be on a level, ready to take the dungeon.

I am glad that Felix finds Sketch useful. I think I am biased against it because of how glitchy and possibly harmful it can be in the SNES version.

I don't think it's a super useful ability, or anything, but it is just a super fun ability, I think. I love it, when art can be used as a tool to focus magical power, or just be magical in itself. I love Bards in D&D for that reason, the idea of getting actual power out of music is so beauti- and flavourful. Sketch feels similar to me.

Aside from that, I find it just plain fun, trying to sketch a monster and maybe get a fun and/or useful effect out of it. Getting a free Mighty Guard in a boss fight was a very nice surprise, and was a good moment. Sure, from a min-max standpoint, there are many other tools that are more potent. But that's not my focus, the game is easy enough, on the whole, that you can have some fun with your abilities.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Before I forget to mention it, while grining exp with T-Rexes, I saw my first and only desperation attack, from Locke, of all people. It was really strong! I wonder why they are so extremely rare. I mean, it's probably programmed that way, but I assume a reason is, that you rarely stay long enough in critical - either you die soon enough, or you heal. But I like the concept, and I'm glad they planted this seed, so they could do something more usable in the later games. And, if nothing else, it's a really neat idea. Not everything has to be really useful, after all. Looking at it as a bit of flavour, I like them a lot, if only as an idea.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

When I played FF VI for the first time, I enjoyed it a lot. It was one of the few games from my early emulation days, that made me stay with it, instead of trying something else after a short time, because of the big amount of games to choose from. I was never clear if this or Chrono Trigger was my favourite game of all time. I thought it was great.

I still do. The spritework is amazing, the story and the characters are well done and complex, the approach to learning new abilities is interesting, if flawed, the music is excellent (especially the opera, I'm still baffled how they managed that)... There is a lot to love about this game.

And yet...I'm not as into it, as I was back than, when I first played it. Which, granted, is to be expected. But, from the games that I have played up to now, there are many that I will probably visit again sooner than this one. This has nothing to do with the quality of the game (as I mentioned, it's a great achievement of Square in many ways). But as I played, I realized that I don't really enjoy spending time in this world, which is a very important thing for me.

I do feel, like this is the first FF were the world feels actually like a world, where nations feel like they actually interact with each other. Not just when they are attacked, like it was in FF IV. Vector alone has such a strong influence on the other cities on the southern continent, and there is constant interaction between the Empire, and other cities, mainly through the Returners. Birds are used to send letters to the other side of the world. Stuff like this make the world feel much more like an actual world, where cities are not walled-off entities, but interact with other cities.

That said, the world is always in a dark, grim state, until the very end, when Kefka finally falls. The game indicates, that the World of Balance wasn't a good place. Not only at this point, but there have been horrible wars before, and people who just can't take the world anymore, and to a better place. Granted, these are little snippets - there was likely a lot to love about the world, especially before Gestahl found the Esper world. But the game paints everthing pretty bleak. It is well done, and it's intentional, no question, but it's just such an uninviting, cold place. It's telling, that you start in a snow field, during the night. This is a cold, uncaring world.

That said, it's a fantastic intro, up to now certainly my favourite. It sets the tone perfectly, it introduces you to the battle system and the world in a competent way, with not much a of a risk of dying, you get to know one of the most important members of the cast and find an interesting variation of the old memory-loss trope. Also, you start by fighting for the enemy. That's pretty cool.

I find the setup with the Empire and the Returners to be very interesting, from Terras point of view. I mentioned this during my write-ups, but it's worth repeating, I think: Both are just different sides of the same coin. Terra looks for a home, for family, but all she finds are people who want to use her for her power. While the Returners are clearly the better people, they can't offer her what she is looking for. It's one of the things that makes Terra into a pretty complex character, considering that we are talking about a video game from the mid-90s.

We talked earlier about the themes of the game, and that it's major one is redemption and healing. And, yes, Purple was absolutely right there. Everyone was horribly hurt, in this awful world of balance, where the balance was moving to become one of permanent terror from a near-almighty god-emperor, who would use his power to watch your every step. And probably kill you, if you aren't useful in producing his perfect magical beings. Some of them even added to the hurting that went on. Then, the world got hit by a giant catastrophe, and everyone is on their lowest point. With up as the only way to go forward.

It is pretty interesting, that the Empire and the Returners are basically forgotten, which is embodied by Celes. No matter what people thought of her, if there was still mistrust (I'm specifically thinking of Cyan here, even if it doesn't come up, after they meet up for the first time), the stuff from the old world simply doesn't matter anymore. This is a new chapter, in the History of this world, and who fought on which side is of no consequence. Partly, because everyone is focused on Kefka as the worst monster. It probably puts other stuff into perspective, at least for the time being.

But this game is also about giving people a second chance. Celes, who probably did horrible things in her past, is now the one to get everyone back together. Her old live isn't important. It's about her actions now. I imagine her time on Solitairy Island, together with Cid, changed her a lot. Which is probably true for everyone - all our characters had to wake up in this destroyed world, and get to terms with the fact that they lost. But also, that the war is over, and that there are other things to think of now. Because that was the only thing, everyone was focusing on - how to deal with the Empire. I mean, of course they did, but now they have actually time to think.

Sure, Kefka is still there, and has to be stopped, and that is the main point. But the pressure is off. You don't have to try to outthink the Empire anymore, because it's gone. As Juno and Purple mentioned, the plot is in a really unique, interesting state. We have to do something about this threat, but we do have time to breath. Kefka might do something horrible, but he obviously doesn't do it often. We probably won't lose much, if we try to get to terms with everything, and take a bit of time off (for finding our family, for example).

Something else I mentioned already: I'm still struck by how the World of Balance is this rotten place, that is moving very fast to something horrible (be it Kefka or Gestahl, it doesn't matter). It sounds like the better place, but everything is so locked into a movement in the absolutely wrong direction, that the name sounds pretty cynical. Yes, there is balance, but it will be the balance of a totalitarian, military dictatorship. The World of Ruin, though, offers actual hope, because there is time to think of other stuff (even with the threat of Kefka). And people do have hope. They are rebuilding, or even creating new things (like the coliseum). Kefka might have won something, but it wasn't much. He never could stop people from hoping for a better world.

Also, I find it interesting, that the one thing that Kefka effectively destroyed is the thing that created him: Gestahl and his Empire. I mean, yes, countless people died, but the culture survived. There is still a Jidoor, with rich people buying luxury. There is still an opera house, where people enjoy culture. Many of the cities DID survive.

I don't want to minimize the tragedy of all the dead. What happened was horrible enough. But the only thing Kefka really was able to destroy, is this horrible Empire, and the monster who made it into a threat for the whole world.

----------------------------------------------------

Before talking about the individual characters, I want to focus a bit on Gestahl.

In my memory, he actually wasn't that bad. I (and I think most people) remember Kefka as the Big Bad, the one who did all the horrible things. No one mentions Gestahl. Which feels kind of off. I mean, sure, Kefka is the antagonist the game focuses on, but Gestahl is the one who started all of this. He created Kefka. Without him, the war wouldn't have started, and all this tragedy would have been avoided.

Who was Kefka, before the experiments were done on him, and made him go crazy? Probably not a good person to begin with, considering that he was probably in Gestahls army. But still, Gestahl made him worse, and gave him power through the army. Whatever Kefka did, Gestahl is responsible too.

I just remembered things wrong. For some reason, my main memory of Gestahl is, when he acts like he saw the error of his ways, after the Espers attack. I always knew that he was on the Floating Continent too, and was the one who went to the Esper world. But the game always shows Kefka doing all the horrible things, which puts him into my mind, when thinking about the monster from FF VI. Gestahl is only in the background, giving orders, but you nearly never see him actually do something bad.

Except for the backflash, where we see Maduin and Terras mother hoping for a chance of a nice life in the Human world. Every time I think of it, it seems like a bittersweet ending. We even change to this beautiful looking forest. But the hope is in vain, and the worst thing happens - Terras mother dies, Terra and Maduin are both enslaved by this horrible monster. With nothing to be done about it.

This is, to me, the most intense scene of the whole game. Even with something like Doma, there wasn't really hope in that sense. But in the backflash, it really seemed like there was a chance for something nice, only to be completely crushed seconds later.

Kefkas insanity is horrifying and scary. But Gestahls is chilling. I can see the world he envisions, and it scares me so much more, than what Kefka creates. If you can call it "creating", considering all he does is throwing death lasers everywhere.

But I will probably never not see Gestahl as the actual villain of this game now. Maybe that's technically not correct, but it feels right to me. Without Gestahl, we just have no Kefka, and no war. He is the absolute worst, and watching him being thrown of by Kefka was the only time during the whole game, where it felt like that awful clown did something good. Not that it excuses anything else, but seeing this old fart finally die felt good.

-----------------------------------------------------------

With that, let's get to the characters. I still think the game does a great job of giving everyone a personality, marrying that with a game mechanic (the character-specific ability) and still giving you the tools to form them, to a certain point. And I find it really great, how the game gives you these absolutely brutal spells, like Ultima and Flare, showing you how terribly powerful magic really was. I know, you can technically also do insane damage with certain physical setups, but, for most of the game, magic just feels clearly superior.

Combined with that, I find it interesting that the game itself argues implicitely, that the individual abilities of everyone, which are part of what make them individuals and special, are not as effective as teaching everyone Ultima. There is a certain trade-off between power and individuality. Gestahl wanted to make everyone into a magical being, taking away their personality (partly assumed here, but I'm sure Gestahl doesn't give a single shit about his subjects - they are subjects first, people way later). We can do that too. The important part is, that we have a choice.

Ok, this time really, on to the characters.

Celes

Clearly my favourite, partly for how incredibly powerful she was, but also because of the great arc she goes through. I still feel like the comparison with a Paladin fits - specifically, she is a way better Cecil, than Cecil ever was. She first fights for the antagonists, but with full intention. Then, she realizes the errors of her way, and pays horribly for it. In a more direct sense, than Cecil ever did. Sure, he had to climb that mountain and face his old, evil self, but it was mainly Rosa who paid for it, by being kidnapped.

Like Cecil, she becomes the leader of the heroes - while the others also are looking for their friends, she is the one who actually gets it done. But, while Cecil is always looking backwards, being always held back, Celes looks forward. The old world is dead, and they need to kill the last piece of garbage that survived from there.

She always got magic +1/+2, and became what the game wanted me to see her as anyway - a super-powerful warrior-sorceres, who could destroy even ancient evil (like Ultima Weapon).

I couldn't care less for her romance with Locke, though. Not much to say there.

Terra

Another favourite of mine, and probably the most complex of all the characters up to this point. Or, at least, as far away from the norm as possible.

I'm not sure, if I still see her as any sort of protagonist of the game. I mean, looking for a protagonist in this game seems kind of off to me anyway, it is just so clearly an assemble piece, where everyone is important. Terra is too, but it takes a lot of time for her to get any actual agenda. Her hand is forced for so much of the World of Balance.

I find it really fascinating, that, in the middle of the 90s, we get a JRPG with a character who just hates to fight. She does it, and at the end she understands why it is necessary, but it's obvious that she detests it. Terra actually reminds me a bit of Vivi, in how she is looking for a sense in life, and finds it only at the very end, when she is finally loved, just for who she is. And can give love back.

Ok, I'm not sure how much Vivis journey mirrors hers, but they certainly are both looking for answers of hard questions. Way more than all the others, she isn't about fighting. She is about protecting, and loving. Growing away completely from that, which defines JRPGs so much.

I can see the others still live a life, where they fight regularly. Terra, though? I imagine, she will keep a sword in a drawer, somewhere, just in case. But, together with the time of magic, her regular fighting days are over.

Cyan

He, too, is a favourite, and I'm actually really surprised, but I like that guy. He is classy, he has a sense of justice, he is just a good guy all around. His quirks, be it his way of talking or his fear of machines, were fun to me. And he has one of the most tragic things happening to him from the whole cast.

Or maybe it just seems that way, because we see it happen here. It's a horrible moment, and the one that shows that Kefka isn't just a harmless jerk who likes to dress in fancy clothes. He has less of a moral center than even Celes, who seems, at the point before we meet her, to be someone who has no problem with killing a lot of people.

But back to Cyan. I didn't even remember, how he sent letters to the woman who had lost her boyfriend, because he couldn't take it, to see her so sad. Not that this was the right thing to do - I imagine Cyan is someone, who can't really deal with problems, so he tries to shield others from them too. Or maybe that's just, because what happened at Doma was so traumatizing. But, I think, the game implies that this overprotective part of his was created through his trauma, and that it will go away again, after we went into his dreams.

Right or not, he certainly has the heart in the right place.

Sabin

Aside from being a great fighter for most of the game (or all of it, especially if you give him the right Espers), I really liked his personality. He isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he clearly loves his brother. And I like that we get a hardcore martial artist, who can survive in the wilderness, but is still emotionally connected enough, that he can cry at special moments. Both the backflash, where we learn that he just can't deal with the death of his father, and the scene where he cries, because he is so happy to see his master still alive, were very touching. He is a bit of a comic relief, which doesn't hurt in such a bleak game.

Also, I loved the part during the ending, where he finally apologizes to Edgar, for leaving the kingdom to him alone. I generally love the relationship between these two. It's so nice, to see brothers who unconditionally love each other.

Edgar

I don't like, that he is a creep, but elsewise? Pretty good character, I think. Someone mentioned something about what he would become, had he known about using Espers, like Gestahl did, something like that.

Honestly, I can't imagine him as a strictly bad ruler. South Figaro seems like a nice place, where one could enjoy life. He seems more like a benevolent ruler, who would use magic to the wellbeing of his subjects.

I assume that is partly due to him not actually caring about power. He loves machines, and tinkering with them. He probably would have preferred a live, in some big city, where he could invent new, great machines to help the people there. Ruling a kingdom doesn't seem to be what he would have done with his life, had he a chance, which speaks well for his character.

But maybe this is all in my head, and he actually enjoys being king. Dunno, he reads to me that way.

Strago

You get Strago way too late. In FF V, you get the Blue Mage at the very start, and have the whole game to build up his repertoire of spells. You even get the Beastmaster relatively soon, so that you can control monsters. But Strago...in the World of Balance, you get him right at the end. Sure, you can take him to the Floating Continent, but I assume I'm not the only one who has a favourite team at this point, which they will use. And, if you follow the clues instead of going wherever you want, in the World of Ruin, you get him pretty late, too. Getting his spells needs some grinding. But then, I got a nice amount of spells for him, and just had him come along a lot, so maybe it's not so bad?

But aside from that, I really enjoyed him, and his interactions with Relm. They have a very nice, loving relationship, even if he is clearly established as an old guy, who is not equipped to deal with the energy of his granddaughter. He tries to be strict, at times, but fails pretty much completely.

His sidequest also shows this to be an actual nice, peaceful part of the world. The are not attacked for a long time, probably don't have many visitors in general, and are just a little community.

The implication, that either magic transformed over the decades, giving the people here special forms, or that Strago and Relm are simply very gifted, is a cool one. My point is, I like that there are special forms of magic here. And the idea, that you have this old man, who is also very wise and knows a lot about magic, can learn new spells by just watching them. It really shows, what a great scholar he must be, that he can understand magic on such a level.

Relm

I don't think I have much else to say about her? One thing, though - I never liked her, because little, precautious girls always annoyed me. But I didn't find her too bad, this time. She is a bit of a brat, but not overwhelmingly so. And, as mentioned, I find her sketch-ability really cool.

I wonder what happened to her parents. Maybe the monster that we kill in the sidequest killed them? The game never even mentions them, does it?

Gau

I do think, his ability is a really cool idea, with an execution that is very much not ideal. But being able to act like every regular monster in the game is really great. The scene, where you get him is really funny, and he plays well off of Sabin and Cyan.

The scene with his father was very touching, even if I don't like the end result too much. I'm just a bit tired of the "I'm just happy he is happy, everything else (read: how I feel) isn't important." It's just...it's ok to be sad, or angry, in such a moment. And having a reaction like this in media, makes it seem like the correct thing to ignore your own feelings, just so someone else can be happy.

Similar to the "I will sacrifice myself for you", it ignors the person who does the sacrifice. They are important too, and will leave a hole in the lives of their friends and family. They matter too.

But I'm getting off-topic here. Maybe, because there isn't much more to say here. I enjoyed, letting him play a ridiculously powerful cat, though. That was fun.

Mog

Did you know, that I love Moogles? Mindblowing, I know. But seriously, I love them especially in the SNES games, there they have such a great look. I mean, my favourite interpretation of them is in IX, where they are just amazing. But later on, I don't like how they look. I think of the design in XIII-2, of that one moogle that is with you (PC too weak, didn't play much of it, no idea who that moogle is).

I still think it's great, that you get a moogle in your party, in this game, and that it is a not-obvious sidequest in the world of balance. Kind of lame, that it was spoiled all over the place, though. I imagine it would have made for a great surprise.

In the end, there isn't much to him, storywise. But it's still striking, how he is the last of his race, and that you get an artifact from his loved one, that protects you from harm.

As I mentioned somewhere, I love how they reinterpreted both the geomancer and the dancer, to create something that I like more than both classes (which is a nice achievement, considering that I already liked both classes quite a bit). You still get the random factor, but also some sort of control (with added risk).

Shadow

I always found him super cool, just from the way he looked. But as I was too dumb to look how cheap throwing stars were, he was never as strong as this time - his weapons just aren't as powerful as the throw command. When he was in my party this time, he destroyed the enemies.

I do love the gimmick, that sometimes, Interceptor would come and tear a monster apart, because it dared to attack Shadow. Interceptor is a great dog. Love him.

There is more backstory, and I would have enjoyed it, I assume, but the dreams didn't trigger. And I wasn't motivated to watch them on Youtube, so he is still mainly the cool killing machine. I just lack context, to make more of his attitude. It was striking, though, that he seemed to stay back in Kefkas tower? Did I get that right?

Locke

Sometimes, you find a character in media who is beloved, and you don't get it. Locke is one of these, for me.

Somehow, he always reminded me of Bartz. Both are freedom-loving adventurers, and I feel like, were Bartz in Lockes situation, he would do what Locke does, and vice versa. Well, for the most part. I don't think Bartz would have this weird relationship with women.

See, with Edgar, the game at least calls the gross stuff out. But here? The game never says anything to the effect, that what Locke does is creepy and weird. I always come back to the part, where he rescues Celes. Would he have rescued Leo, had he been in the same situation? One can't say for sure, but my feeling say "No". Because rescuing someone wasn't part of the mission, and Locke seems to much of a professional, at least in general, to risk his life for a random stranger. And he didn't even rescue Celes, but a woman that reminded him of his forever sleeping girlfriend.

But that's probably enough negativity. Except that there is still...

Setzer

His ability is fun, I give him that. But elsewise, I'll just agree with Peko - I would have preferred Darill so much, it's not even funny. Setzer wasn't on my party, in the final dungeon, in none of them. He just doesn't work for me. And (knowing that three female characters is probably still a lot, considering the time) it would have added a fourth female character, by a cast of that size, with mostly men.

The scene in the tomb was great, but it would also have been great with Darill, who thought back on Setzer.

I don't have much else to say about him. I DO like the idea of this free, rich person, who just goes wherever he wants, and tries to have some fun (which he can't, because all the thrill is just there, so he can get his thoughts off of Darill).

Umaro and Gogo

It would have felt unfair, not to include them here. But I don't have much to say about them, except that their ideas are nice (and that I enjoy, having secret characters to find, though only Gogo feels really secret - Mog mentions Umaro, after all).

I do find it hilarious, that Umaro can throw Umaro at Umaro. And he is decently useful, there is a lot of strength behind him. For a berserker, he is pretty decent.

While writing this bits, I realized how many forms of love are explored in this game, that are, untypically for a JRPG, not romantic in nature. We have the love of a father and husband in Cyan, a deep, brotherly love in the Figaros, the love of an old man for his grandchild and vice versa. Maybe, we could even make an argument for Mog and Umaro, if they were a little bit deeper.

And, of course, Terra, whose whole arc is to find love. Which isn't romantic, but protective.

I'm nearly done, but I need to talk about one other character:

Kefka

I remember Kefka as one of my favourite villains of all time, and definitely my favourite from the FF series (that honor is now owned by Exdeath, with the Cloud of Darkness in a good, second place - but also a lot of apreciation for the Emperor).

I still enjoyed him as a villain. His antics are entertaining, and he makes you think, that he is a useless loser, who made it through the ranks for any reason, except for competence.

And then, he poisons Doma. And nearly everyone dies. An act, that is even too much for the other generals.

But with me thinking more of Gestahl as the most despisable monster in the game, it somehow dillutes Kefka, for me. He is still threatening, he is still dangerous - but, as I mentioned, the World of Ruin scares me less than Gestahls vision.

And, without wanting to excuse ANYTHING of what Kefka had done, there seems to be a bit of humanity left in him, after everything. Honestly, he seems like a mirror to Terra (which is intended, I assume). Both are looking for something.

I assume, Terra could have become a general of Gestahl too, right? Except, that she wasn't a warrior. I mean, she is powerful, and Gestahl loves powerful mages. So, Terra didn't WANT to help the Empire. She didn't want to even cast her spells.

Kefka though? No questions asked, he always wanted more. I assume, he was a bad dude, even before the experiments, but became simply deranged afterwards.

When we finally reach Kefka, he actually asks, what we found. He is curious. I don't buy, that he does it just for fun. He feels the emptiness, of having gotten all he wanted, and still being unfullfilled.

Both he and Terra have this emptyness inside them. Terra tries to understand it. Kefka tries to shut it down. Until there is nothing left for him to try, as his plan failed. So, everything is pointless, right? And, if it's pointless for me, it has to be pointless for everyone else too, right?

I always thought of Kefka as someone, who has no depth, and who just likes to see everything burn. But this seems to simplistic now. It's the emptiness that fuels him. Again, not excusing anything, just saying that he hurts. And Gestahl uses that pain.

I often read, how people found the fight against Kefka too easy. Aside from the fact, that the fight has four stages, and all four together seemed challenging enough, for me - I get the feeling, that the last form is supposed to be easy. It's not trivial, like the very last "fight" against Sephiroth. But you can beat him pretty easily, he just doesn't have the HP to last.

But you made it through his visions of himself, cutting them all down. The demon, that could tear down the world. The power, that could abuse everyone at will. The holy, that would be appreciated and awed at. Part by part, we smash Kefkas image of himself, until he tries the last thing - he as a god. But his heart isn't into it anymore. He sees, that there is only emptyness.

And love, hope and healing will always win over emptiness and destruction. At least in JRPGs. So Kefka goes down. Without a single, last word.

------------------------------------------

Maybe I forgot something that I will add later, but for now, I'm done. I'll take a break again, maybe one or two weeks, and then start with FF VII. I'm very curious about that one, especially after realizing how much it has in common with VI. Please expect me to point out how similar these two games are, all the time.

I'm kidding. Mostly.

See you then. Thanks for reading and posting.

 

[nosimpleway]

Could this be... could this be the last massive Final Fantasy post where I quote and address multiple points? I don't think I have as much to say about FF7-and-beyond as I do FF6-and-previous. I guess we'll see, huh?

Unless you're doing Tactics too. Hmm.

I actually tried to rotate my party, with Celes as the only one who I always used. It wasn't enough. Maybe I missed some levels, because I skipped the monsters in the Fanatics Tower, and didn't do Stragos sidequest, but I felt like I did enough, that my team should be on a level, ready to take the dungeon.

30 is possible but hard, 45 is probably comfortable, 60 should be pretty easy.

But... didn't you do Strago's sidequest? You talked about getting Grand Trine and seeing the cinematics where he talked about beating Hidon with his staff instead of his magic.

But I like the concept, and I'm glad they planted this seed, so they could do something more usable in the later games.

Desperation Attacks turn into Limit Breaks, which turns into Trance, a major plot point in FF9. So yeah, that's exactly what happened.

And yet...I'm not as into it, as I was back than, when I first played it.

They say your favorite Final Fantasy is the one you played first. Which was six for me, too, but thinking about it I'm not sure which one I'd say is my favorite.

Kefkas insanity is horrifying and scary. But Gestahls is chilling. I can see the world he envisions, and it scares me so much more, than what Kefka creates. If you can call it "creating", considering all he does is throwing death lasers everywhere.

There's a Tumblr post floating around that talks about the reasons why people have sympathy for Voldemort and none whatsoever for Dolores Umbridge. The difference, this posits, is that no one typically deals with Wizard Hitler in their day-to-day life. Nobody had their parents killed by a death curse, or have been kidnapped for evil magic rituals. Voldy's a fantasy villain, and not something that people have to deal with.

But everyone's had to deal with a corrupt authority figure that no amount of complaining or reporting to higher authorities can displace. Everyone's had that teacher who gives extra punishments because they just don't like you. It's the petty, everyday sort of evil that we all know and are intimately familiar with in our real lives.

The contrast between Gestahl and Kefka seems pretty similar. I don't have to worry too much about someone bumping into the cosmic keystones that keep divine powers from destroying the world, but someone using a cult of personality to attain an undeserved position of leadership and destroy anything that gets in the way of his own self-aggrandizement? I can think of a few people like that...

Combined with that, I find it interesting that the game itself argues implicitely, that the individual abilities of everyone, which are part of what make them individuals and special, are not as effective as teaching everyone Ultima.

That's a very good point. Even Cyan, the worst mage in the game, can use a spell to become virtually unstoppable. I'm not talking about Ultima, though. Quick freezes time while the character takes their turn, and then does it again so they can take a second turn immediately. Normally the time freeze just saves you some menuing, maybe, but in Cyan's case it means he has aaaaaaall the time in the world to meditate on his advanced Bushido techniques.

In my Let's Play the first Celestriad I found went to Terra, since I also gave her the Soul of Thamasa for dualcast. The second went on Strago so he could cast his Lores for almost-free too. The third went to Cyan. He only cast that one spell, but boy was it expensive.

Edgar

I think the whole character hook for the two princes Figaro was that neither wanted to be king. But somebody had to be, and Edgar was willing to rig the game so that it was him. There's not even any indication that Sabin wanted to be any sort of ascetic or learn martial arts (people talk about how scrawny he was as a kid, he wasn't always a muscle-head), it's just where he ended up after he left the kingdom. If the succession had gone the other way there would be King Himbo on the throne and a brilliant inventor in South Figaro working on his machines and carousing with the ladies.

Honestly, I can't imagine him as a strictly bad ruler. South Figaro seems like a nice place, where one could enjoy life. He seems more like a benevolent ruler, who would use magic to the wellbeing of his subjects.

It comes up once or twice in Final Fantasy 7. Somebody in a side conversation goes "Hey, have you noticed that literally all the magic and abilities we get from Materia are for fighting? How come that is, do you think? The life of the Ancients must have been incredibly violent."

In this gameworld magic is something granted to humans specifically for fighting and killing one another by the Warring Triad, so that's that.

Esper magic comes from killing espers, and gives the ability to kill others. That's perfect for Gestahl's agenda! Edgar's, maybe not so much.

Strago
The implication, that either magic transformed over the decades,

Pretty sure this is outright stated by someone in Thamasa sooner or later. The bloodlines of the original magi were thinned down to the point that only remnants of magic remain. Terra gets original Warring-Triad-derived esper magic, Celes gets an artificial infusion of esper magic, Strago and Relm get weird spinoff magic abilities instead.

Gau... is just... really good at pretending...?

Relm
I wonder what happened to her parents. Maybe the monster that we kill in the sidequest killed them? The game never even mentions them, does it?

Not her mom, at least. You can learn exactly what happened to her dad.

Gau
Similar to the "I will sacrifice myself for you", it ignors the person who does the sacrifice.

And that's Edgar's plot hook, dammit.

Shadow
It was striking, though, that he seemed to stay back in Kefkas tower? Did I get that right?

Yep. Shadow, in a game where the theme is healing and redemption, gains neither. He simply comes to grips with his regrets and allows himself to die.

The most generous interpretation is that killing is all he's good at, as he says himself, and without the conflict from the Empire or Kefka's godhood, there's no reason for him to be around anymore. But it's not even that. He's just tired of running from his past and sees himself as beyond any sort of redemption. He never even <spoilers> to his <spoilers> <spoilers>.

seriously though the dreams fill in a couple of the questions you're still asking, but if you wanna watch them, turn your sound off first. There's no music, but the dreams have some seriously obnoxious buzzing/shrill sound effects going on.

Kefka
When we finally reach Kefka, he actually asks, what we found. He is curious. I don't buy, that he does it just for fun. He feels the emptiness, of having gotten all he wanted, and still being unfullfilled.

I like that when all of your party members present talk about what they've found in that dying world, Kefka actually stops for a moment. He looks down, turns around, and seems to sincerely consider it.

But he just doesn't get it, and this human feeling called "wuv" confuses and infuriates him. Cue his theme music, and he starts throwing around bolts of judgment, shoving the landscape around, and declaring that he'll destroy everything.

But you made it through his visions of himself, cutting them all down. The demon, that could tear down the world. The power, that could abuse everyone at will. The holy, that would be appreciated and awed at. Part by part, we smash Kefkas image of himself, until he tries the last thing - he as a god.

Chaos has his full heal and partywide elemental blasts, Palamecia is damn near impossible to even scratch while he drops stars on your head, and the Cloud of Darkness doesn't futz around with anything but blasting everyone with particle beams. I feel like Zeromus was the last Final Fantasy boss to be really hard, and not that Big Bang and Black Hole are anything to sneeze at, I think that's mostly due to his extensive counterattack scripts.

That's probably a general shift in design philosophy. People get invested in the story, closure is one fight away, and banging their head against a nigh-invincible endgame boss is just frustrating. If you want a combat challenge, the chest with Shinryuu in it is right over there --->

 

[Mogri]

Zeromus is at the very least the last final boss designed to be the greatest challenge in the game, and while I admit to enjoying a good superboss now and again, something was lost in that transition.

 

[4-So]

President Shinra also shares a bit of creative DNA with Gestahl, in that both are the overarching antagonist of their respective games but ultimately not the most important one. I think it's obvious Kefka and Sephiroth also share more than a bit of creative DNA, including the bit where they kill their old masters. No Shinra, no Sephiroth; no Gestahl, no Kefka.

I'm not as familiar with the games that proceed FF8 but isn't this theme repeated in FF9 and FF10, where the main villain ends up being a product of a more powerful but narratively minor villain?

 

[Mogri]

That's a fair description, yes.

 

[Issun]

Zeromus is at the very least the last final boss designed to be the greatest challenge in the game, and while I admit to enjoying a good superboss now and again, something was lost in that transition.

I think the swerve towards multi-form bosses is why the true final boss tends to be on the easy side. When you've just fought through 1-3 difficult battles, and you're one fight away from finishing the game, it can be incredibly frustrating to die and have to go through all that all over again.

 

[nosimpleway]

Sephiroth* kills the first President Shinra, who is onscreen something like thirty seconds before that, but not Rufus. Rufus is killed** when Diamond Weapon zaps Midgar to try to not get shot by the Sister Ray.

Spoiler: * - ... spoilers? like a huge major plot point in FF7 but one a lot of people missed on account of the shoddy translation

A clump of Jenova cells that escaped containment and are now shaped like Sephiroth and using a copy of Sephiroth's trademark sword, under the influence if not direct control of the real Sephiroth, who is thousands of miles away

Spoiler: ** - super less important spoilers for EU

Advent Children reveals he survived, anyway

I think the swerve towards multi-form bosses is why the true final boss tends to be on the easy side. When you've just fought through 1-3 difficult battles, and you're one fight away from finishing the game, it can be incredibly frustrating to die and have to go through all that all over again.

I wonder how many people complained about the giant endgame maze, huge tower dungeon, extradimensional rift, and four-boss gauntlet fight running up to Cloud of Darkness before Square relented and made all the sub-bosses on the moon optional and slapped a Save Point right before the Lunar Core.

 

[Purple]

I'm not as familiar with the games that proceed FF8 but isn't this theme repeated in FF9 and FF10, where the main villain ends up being a product of a more powerful but narratively minor villain?

Not really.

9 is kind of a mess, where early on there's this evil queen we're making out to be this big deal but her whole thing ultimately proves to be a provincial concern and fizzles out. And then we get... Vegeta, who has nothing at all to do with her in any way and has his own thing going on where he's working for some evil emperor type guy who's not introduced until a ways in and ultimately doesn't matter. But THEN, turns out the REAL final villain is just... some incarnation of pure evil that comes from space and isn't mentioned one single time until literally right before you fight him. Which is... about as confused as you'd expect from a game whose whole script is the result of throwing the first 6 games in a blender.

And in 10 you spend the first... however long it takes to see the twist coming that's basically spelled out to you like an hour in assuming that the big evil threat to the world is a big whale that likes to destroy cities, can't be killed, and must be appeased by ritual sacrifice every 10 years, and then later it's eventually revealed that nah you can kinda just kill it all regular and what's really going on is the Vatican keeps turning the bodyguards of sacrifice victims into giant monster whales as part of an elaborate coverup of the fact that not only is the whole ritual sacrifice thing but also the entire concept of death is a big scam they have going. Which is kind of the complete opposite, really.

 

[Beowulf]

9 is kind of a mess, where early on there's this evil queen we're making out to be this big deal but her whole thing ultimately proves to be a provincial concern and fizzles out. And then we get... Vegeta, who has nothing at all to do with her in any way and has his own thing going on where he's working for some evil emperor type guy who's not introduced until a ways in and ultimately doesn't matter. But THEN, turns out the REAL final villain is just... some incarnation of pure evil that comes from space and isn't mentioned one single time until literally right before you fight him. Which is... about as confused as you'd expect from a game whose whole script is the result of throwing the first 6 games in a blender.

I object to the claim that

Spoiler

Necron is the "real" final villain. It's an event; another thing that happens during the final sequence, not a character or anything you can call an antagonist. They are definite aping the Geshtal/Kefka dynamic with Garland/Kuja; and Kuja is the final villain and the final battle that concludes the narrative arc. Necron is part of the denouement; cleaning up the mess Kuja made.