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FINAL FANTASY Community Thread: XV Mainline Entries and Counting
- Thread starter Kagari
- Start date
I follow a tumblr called "fyeahterrabranford"
tiggerkiddo
Member
I'm kinda terrified of this concept...
Yeah, I always thought her design was pretty great. What her persona ended up being is not at all what I imagined throughout the entire "will we ever get this game?" phase of localization.
Aww yiss. Love me some mecha piloting, super saiyan, magic knight girl awesomeness.
I exaggerate somewhat. Tiz is mostly guilty of being generic without being Warrior of Light's kind of funny genericness.
Ah, well, maybe she gets better. Even if she doesn't, there's still Edea.
I sort of felt The Adventurer was sort of an hommage to Gilgy.
I thought the Adventurer was supposed to be a Red Mage? Like the one in Four Heroes of Light?
Maybe. I would tell you why I think what I think, but I won't for now.
Agnes gets so hilariously shrill at times that it literally is comic relief in what's supposed to be emotional situations.
edit: Anyone playing Bravely Default should keep Tiz as monk the entire game because it's the only job class that fits an uncouth country bumpkin such as he.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
It's my turn now!
Tomorrow I'll start it ^_^ can't wait!
Tomorrow I'll start it ^_^ can't wait!
ArchedThunder
Banned
I asked this question yesterday and didn't get a reply, do the mobile versions of Final Fantasy I and II have the PSP FMVs? I know that they are based on the PSP versions but I also know that Square has removed FMVs from their mobile ports before.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Not really. The Adventurer is a separate character created in the Four Heroes of Light. So the Adventurer is a homage to the Adventurer.
Alrighty-o, never played 4HoL.
Been really enjoying myself with X and X-2, I've been playing them effectively non-stop since they released, outside of work and other obligations. X, X-2, and XII are probably 3 of my top 5 in the series. And they are all so different too. I know this is a bit of a valueless post but I guess I wanted to blurt that out.
Oddly enough, some of the "j-pop" stuff is annoying me a little more now than it did before, when you feel it should just be the opposite. I find myself rolling my eyes when Yuna says something faux-tough and then the girls hop and high five all around. It's just a small annoyance, since the game is so much more than that, but last time I played this I would have just sat through scenes like that, eyes glazed over.
I wish I wasn't so obsessive about maxing jobs before moving to the next. I hardly ever change jobs in battle because of it. It's a general gaming habit that I've had for a long time that I've not quite ever been able to bend or break.
Oddly enough, some of the "j-pop" stuff is annoying me a little more now than it did before, when you feel it should just be the opposite. I find myself rolling my eyes when Yuna says something faux-tough and then the girls hop and high five all around. It's just a small annoyance, since the game is so much more than that, but last time I played this I would have just sat through scenes like that, eyes glazed over.
I wish I wasn't so obsessive about maxing jobs before moving to the next. I hardly ever change jobs in battle because of it. It's a general gaming habit that I've had for a long time that I've not quite ever been able to bend or break.
Played some TWEWY last night. Man, Joshua really is the perfect foil to Neku. He's stuck up and a bit of an author's pet, but the way he just completely screws with Neku and gets him to come out of that self-absorbed shell is great.
"Follow my lead!"
"SCREW THAT!"
Dis game.
"Follow my lead!"
"SCREW THAT!"
Dis game.
tiggerkiddo
Member
Second best RPG of all time and best Final Fantasy title.
tiggerkiddo
Member
Don't speak up or they'll hear you and consider it!
I've been desperately pining for a FF4DS style FF6 remake for who knows how long.
I've given in to the despair
I'm honestly torn. On the one hand, a Yoshida 3DS FF6 remake would be awesome. On the other hand, a Nomura PSV FF6 remake would be too damn good.
The real answer is that they need to spend more money than anyone ever would and make an HD version of FF6 in full blown Amano. Six billion "Are Video Games Art?" threads will cite it, and the collectors edition will never, ever go down in price.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Beef and I will sit in a corner.
In all seriousness, what gets me about FF6 is:
PS: I like Celes a lot. Terra's... well, her portrayal in Dissidia is pretty accurate to me. Put a voice to those lines in FF6 and she'd sound the same way. Edgar is dope. Suplexing a train is dope. It had some of the best spritework on the SNES, overall. Very revolutionary to me since everything used just one sprite with different animations. And those animations were really good. They flowed so naturally. Kefka's a good character. I'm generally fond of Woolseyisms so I like the SNES version's localization a lot.
It has one of the best openings in a game I've seen. I've written about it in detail in the Final Fantasy Playthrough Thread, and I still think it's very good. It's why I thought the mobile version of the game messed it up because the lighting was all wrong.
I also like that the game doesn't really waste the player's time. Things happen for a reason, you do a lot of things that have a meaning associated with them, and outside of the WoR, a lot of the game's events do not feel superfluous at all. It flows well.
Multiparty dungeons are a good idea since some of the earlier dungeons in the game are a little boring.
The soundtrack's great. Earthbound Papas had a neat arrangement of Dancing Mad on last year's album. I think it was Aeana who said it before, but she's right: FF6 really... doesn't sound like an Uematsu album at all, heh. It's like inspiration struck him or something and he ended up delivering something incredibly cohesive with many nuances.
What FF6 did at the time was push the SNES in terms of its showing technical aspects without getting lost in the game's technical aspects. It's something I've started to criticize later Final Fantasy games for. When I whine that animations are taking far too long or that something that I'm doing in a later FF is a complete waste of my time because it doesn't matter in the end, I can look to the SNES FF games and say, "well, these games did it right": I'm not wasting my time with superfluous animations or quests that don't seem to matter.
FF6 balances cartoonish styles (sand in my boots, Celes awkwardly being in an opera) and humour (Ultros) with darkness where one of the main characters wishes to commit suicide in the midst of a dying world. This is the first time in the series that the villain won, even if you win later.
It also moved away from "crystals" being an integral part of the game's narrative, paving the way for FF7 and the later games to stop relying on the crystal story and use other devices to deliver a narrative instead. It helped push the series a little further for narratives that can try to make social narrative points. The game also pushed the cinematic nature of Final Fantasy even further than FF4 did, especially with how 'scenes' were created, and the characters' ever-present and in-depth animations. It is an incredibly detailed game. If anything FF6 paved the road for FF7 to make its debut and carry the series even further. I regard both games as sister games because they essentially do the same thing.
Linking this game back to the present, it's funny because Lightning Returns actually tries to do a lot of the things that FF6 does, but it doesn't do it very well. It never does it as successfully as FF6. LR suffers from mood whiplash where characters ask you do to something serious like reunite a family, but the animations and the characters' wardrobes create a dissonance which doesn't match up with what you're doing. You're seeing realistic characters try to do something serious and then do something stupid, but it just doesn't match up and it undermines the flow and mood of the quests in general. Part of that is because of the difference between cartoony sprites or even cartoony models (because other games that have stylistically-rendered characters like The Wind Waker or Skyward Sword or even Tales of Xillia 2 can successfully balance levity and seriousness) and realistic models. You expect something entirely different from realism. At least, that's what I think.
So no, while I give FF6 a lot of flak for many of the things that just bug me in video games, I still respect it in other areas.
In all seriousness, what gets me about FF6 is:
- how bloated the cast is, regardless that they're all optional in the WoR
- how the Esper system is borked so badly that casual players don't even use it as it's even intended since it's the only way to level up your stats in the game (heck when I did my playthrough before stopping, some people were telling me that they didn't even know that on level ups, only HP/MP increase unless you have an Esper equipped to increase certain stats on a level up)
- game is so easy peasy that you should probably use the difficulty patch to play it
- dem cave tilesets oh lawd someone stop it
- plot can be all over the place, but that's FF games in a nutshell at times
- quest types are put into different halves of the game that it exhibits some of FF13's flaws at times (ie: the pacing can be awkward because it's all-or-nothing at different fractions of the game)
PS: I like Celes a lot. Terra's... well, her portrayal in Dissidia is pretty accurate to me. Put a voice to those lines in FF6 and she'd sound the same way. Edgar is dope. Suplexing a train is dope. It had some of the best spritework on the SNES, overall. Very revolutionary to me since everything used just one sprite with different animations. And those animations were really good. They flowed so naturally. Kefka's a good character. I'm generally fond of Woolseyisms so I like the SNES version's localization a lot.
It has one of the best openings in a game I've seen. I've written about it in detail in the Final Fantasy Playthrough Thread, and I still think it's very good. It's why I thought the mobile version of the game messed it up because the lighting was all wrong.
I also like that the game doesn't really waste the player's time. Things happen for a reason, you do a lot of things that have a meaning associated with them, and outside of the WoR, a lot of the game's events do not feel superfluous at all. It flows well.
Multiparty dungeons are a good idea since some of the earlier dungeons in the game are a little boring.
The soundtrack's great. Earthbound Papas had a neat arrangement of Dancing Mad on last year's album. I think it was Aeana who said it before, but she's right: FF6 really... doesn't sound like an Uematsu album at all, heh. It's like inspiration struck him or something and he ended up delivering something incredibly cohesive with many nuances.
What FF6 did at the time was push the SNES in terms of its showing technical aspects without getting lost in the game's technical aspects. It's something I've started to criticize later Final Fantasy games for. When I whine that animations are taking far too long or that something that I'm doing in a later FF is a complete waste of my time because it doesn't matter in the end, I can look to the SNES FF games and say, "well, these games did it right": I'm not wasting my time with superfluous animations or quests that don't seem to matter.
FF6 balances cartoonish styles (sand in my boots, Celes awkwardly being in an opera) and humour (Ultros) with darkness where one of the main characters wishes to commit suicide in the midst of a dying world. This is the first time in the series that the villain won, even if you win later.
It also moved away from "crystals" being an integral part of the game's narrative, paving the way for FF7 and the later games to stop relying on the crystal story and use other devices to deliver a narrative instead. It helped push the series a little further for narratives that can try to make social narrative points. The game also pushed the cinematic nature of Final Fantasy even further than FF4 did, especially with how 'scenes' were created, and the characters' ever-present and in-depth animations. It is an incredibly detailed game. If anything FF6 paved the road for FF7 to make its debut and carry the series even further. I regard both games as sister games because they essentially do the same thing.
Linking this game back to the present, it's funny because Lightning Returns actually tries to do a lot of the things that FF6 does, but it doesn't do it very well. It never does it as successfully as FF6. LR suffers from mood whiplash where characters ask you do to something serious like reunite a family, but the animations and the characters' wardrobes create a dissonance which doesn't match up with what you're doing. You're seeing realistic characters try to do something serious and then do something stupid, but it just doesn't match up and it undermines the flow and mood of the quests in general. Part of that is because of the difference between cartoony sprites or even cartoony models (because other games that have stylistically-rendered characters like The Wind Waker or Skyward Sword or even Tales of Xillia 2 can successfully balance levity and seriousness) and realistic models. You expect something entirely different from realism. At least, that's what I think.
So no, while I give FF6 a lot of flak for many of the things that just bug me in video games, I still respect it in other areas.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
So let me weigh in a bit here. Not specifically for the sake of argument nor persuading you, Schala, since I can respect your view while disagreeing with it, but more for the sake of providing my own thoughts on it. VI is actually my favorite game in the entire series, but I will attempt to keep my commentary from becoming overly wordy. Maybe.
Let me get out of the way that I don't actually think VI is the best in terms of gameplay. V is the better SNES game and VII takes VI's systems and improves them tenfold. Which is almost all I really have to say about the gameplay: that it introduced numerous concepts VII would perfect in every way it could. I do want to say that multi-party dungeons are glorious, though, specifically because they require the player to make a more full use of the cast. Similarly, the two "war" sequences in the game are a lot of fun for this very reason: using the whole cast at once and trying to build a strategy around that is great. It's something I wish Tactics games would do, since you tend to have a full army and only ever need some 5-10 units max.
Where VI really excels, though is in its presentation and its cast. I'm tempted to say its story-telling, but I'm not as confident in that, and I cannot make as good a case for that, but I can and will assert that the game's cast continues to be a triumph of characterization and character development within the genre. Visually the game is, perhaps even moreso than Chrono Trigger, the pinnacle of Square's spritework in the SNES era. Character animations are vastly improved from V, mode six (seven?) is on full display during the game's ending airship sequences, and environments are often surprisingly detailed. While the game does get knocked for using caves, it should be noted that even those caves are oftentimes more ornate than the ones seen in V and IV, which often relied on a total shift of coloration for differentiation and which were usually littered with no more than torches or a smattering of skulls. Nomura's monster designs are at their finest in the game, and his work and Amano's really come together to make FFVI stand out fantastically from all prior entries in the series. The previous 5 games had all relied upon a similar frame of sprites, npcs, and in-battle sprites. FF6 completely discards 5 game's worth of spritework for its own style, shows off by having in-battle events involve characters moving around the battle screen, and numerous other points, most notably the opera.
FFVI's cast resolves the chief issues of FFV and FFIV: rather than being flat archetypes, they're all (excluding, obviously, Gogo and Umaro), fleshed out characters who are capable of silliness, seriousness, and sometimes profound melancholy all at the same time. Take, for instance, the character of Cyan. He's introduced as a proud warrior race dude who quickly loses everything and joins the fight out of revenge. We see him clash with party member Celes once her identity is revealed, and at first glance he's a fairly grim character. The more we get to know Cyan, though, the less this actually remains constant. Cyan is a luddite of the first degree, and his struggles with Magitek, as well as other moments later on show that his character can work just fine in silly scenes. When the game needs him to be serious, he can craft silk flowers and write heart-wrenching love letters as he agonizes over the death of his family. When the game needs him to be a goofball, the party can discover his collection of "fine Samurai literature" and witness his reaction to it. At no point are Cyan's traits discarded, and jokes about his adversity to technology remain a facet of him right to the end. This is true of each cast member, I think, excluding Umaro and Gogo. Gau used to take a lot of flak, for instance, until players witnessed his reunion with his father.
There's some controversy over the character of Terra, but I think this is overstated and somewhat dismissive of the strides her character makes. As the series' first female protagonist, Terra takes the game in some directions that are at once akin to ones previous protagonists Bartz and Cecil took, and at the same time really opens things up to newer avenues in the story. Following her release from the Empire in the game's opening, Terra passes a brief period of doubt, fear, and confusion. Over the course of the game she goes from being the girl who balks at Bannon's invitation to be the symbol of hope for the Returners to being able to sit down and forgive the man who killed her mother to being willing to sacrifice her life for the people she loves and becoming the symbol of hope for the entire world. Her personal arc takes her from confusion, doubt, and fear to hope, love, and confidence. Most especially, Terra's arc does not conclude in a romantic definition of love, but in a maternal one instead. Rosa Farrel Terra is not, and unlike other heroines in other games, when she fully comprehends love, she does not lose her usefulness. In fact, the game makes a point of demonstrating that understanding love is exactly what gives Terra the power to keep fighting in a world as horrible as the one FF6's becomes. The disconnect I think people ultimately encounter with her character is that some never seem to move on from how Terra behaves when the game begins (which is not surprising, considering there are those who bafflingly feel that Cecil's character development ends midway through the game.) The problem with Terra's presentation in Dissidia is then, not her presentation overall, but that her presentation does a poor job of reflecting her later growth. This is not to say that her presentation in that game does not reflect it at all, however, as it has been noted that after advancing to a certain point in her storyline in DFF, some of Terra's lines in battle change, most notably she adds "No more running!" prior to using the Riot Blade.
FF6 is also, I feel, the first Final Fantasy to really develop its own stylized world. While every game prior to that point had been distinguishable in some way or another, FF6 is the first one to really have its own style going on. The Victorian buildings, the industrial revolution themes, the unusual steam-punk factories and the final boss's tower of literal garbage are all aspects of this.
The game also does a magnificent job of tying its cast, protagonist and villain all into the same themes of hope, despair, love and hatred. Terra's entire quest to understand this is an undercurrent of the game perfectly encapsulated by moments like the revelation of her parentage, or her dialogue with Kefka prior to the final battle. Shadow being able to find peace, Celes discovering the will to live, Sabin and Edgar's past, all of it relates back in some way to the game's central theme, and the ending is a glorious show-stopper dedicated to capping off the cast's characterization because of it.
All of this is without touching on Amano's lavish artwork for the game, or Uematsu's masterpiece of a score. I could go on and on and on, but the point is that from a presentation and cast point, Final Fantasy 6 is an extremely well made game.
Let me get out of the way that I don't actually think VI is the best in terms of gameplay. V is the better SNES game and VII takes VI's systems and improves them tenfold. Which is almost all I really have to say about the gameplay: that it introduced numerous concepts VII would perfect in every way it could. I do want to say that multi-party dungeons are glorious, though, specifically because they require the player to make a more full use of the cast. Similarly, the two "war" sequences in the game are a lot of fun for this very reason: using the whole cast at once and trying to build a strategy around that is great. It's something I wish Tactics games would do, since you tend to have a full army and only ever need some 5-10 units max.
Where VI really excels, though is in its presentation and its cast. I'm tempted to say its story-telling, but I'm not as confident in that, and I cannot make as good a case for that, but I can and will assert that the game's cast continues to be a triumph of characterization and character development within the genre. Visually the game is, perhaps even moreso than Chrono Trigger, the pinnacle of Square's spritework in the SNES era. Character animations are vastly improved from V, mode six (seven?) is on full display during the game's ending airship sequences, and environments are often surprisingly detailed. While the game does get knocked for using caves, it should be noted that even those caves are oftentimes more ornate than the ones seen in V and IV, which often relied on a total shift of coloration for differentiation and which were usually littered with no more than torches or a smattering of skulls. Nomura's monster designs are at their finest in the game, and his work and Amano's really come together to make FFVI stand out fantastically from all prior entries in the series. The previous 5 games had all relied upon a similar frame of sprites, npcs, and in-battle sprites. FF6 completely discards 5 game's worth of spritework for its own style, shows off by having in-battle events involve characters moving around the battle screen, and numerous other points, most notably the opera.
FFVI's cast resolves the chief issues of FFV and FFIV: rather than being flat archetypes, they're all (excluding, obviously, Gogo and Umaro), fleshed out characters who are capable of silliness, seriousness, and sometimes profound melancholy all at the same time. Take, for instance, the character of Cyan. He's introduced as a proud warrior race dude who quickly loses everything and joins the fight out of revenge. We see him clash with party member Celes once her identity is revealed, and at first glance he's a fairly grim character. The more we get to know Cyan, though, the less this actually remains constant. Cyan is a luddite of the first degree, and his struggles with Magitek, as well as other moments later on show that his character can work just fine in silly scenes. When the game needs him to be serious, he can craft silk flowers and write heart-wrenching love letters as he agonizes over the death of his family. When the game needs him to be a goofball, the party can discover his collection of "fine Samurai literature" and witness his reaction to it. At no point are Cyan's traits discarded, and jokes about his adversity to technology remain a facet of him right to the end. This is true of each cast member, I think, excluding Umaro and Gogo. Gau used to take a lot of flak, for instance, until players witnessed his reunion with his father.
There's some controversy over the character of Terra, but I think this is overstated and somewhat dismissive of the strides her character makes. As the series' first female protagonist, Terra takes the game in some directions that are at once akin to ones previous protagonists Bartz and Cecil took, and at the same time really opens things up to newer avenues in the story. Following her release from the Empire in the game's opening, Terra passes a brief period of doubt, fear, and confusion. Over the course of the game she goes from being the girl who balks at Bannon's invitation to be the symbol of hope for the Returners to being able to sit down and forgive the man who killed her mother to being willing to sacrifice her life for the people she loves and becoming the symbol of hope for the entire world. Her personal arc takes her from confusion, doubt, and fear to hope, love, and confidence. Most especially, Terra's arc does not conclude in a romantic definition of love, but in a maternal one instead. Rosa Farrel Terra is not, and unlike other heroines in other games, when she fully comprehends love, she does not lose her usefulness. In fact, the game makes a point of demonstrating that understanding love is exactly what gives Terra the power to keep fighting in a world as horrible as the one FF6's becomes. The disconnect I think people ultimately encounter with her character is that some never seem to move on from how Terra behaves when the game begins (which is not surprising, considering there are those who bafflingly feel that Cecil's character development ends midway through the game.) The problem with Terra's presentation in Dissidia is then, not her presentation overall, but that her presentation does a poor job of reflecting her later growth. This is not to say that her presentation in that game does not reflect it at all, however, as it has been noted that after advancing to a certain point in her storyline in DFF, some of Terra's lines in battle change, most notably she adds "No more running!" prior to using the Riot Blade.
FF6 is also, I feel, the first Final Fantasy to really develop its own stylized world. While every game prior to that point had been distinguishable in some way or another, FF6 is the first one to really have its own style going on. The Victorian buildings, the industrial revolution themes, the unusual steam-punk factories and the final boss's tower of literal garbage are all aspects of this.
The game also does a magnificent job of tying its cast, protagonist and villain all into the same themes of hope, despair, love and hatred. Terra's entire quest to understand this is an undercurrent of the game perfectly encapsulated by moments like the revelation of her parentage, or her dialogue with Kefka prior to the final battle. Shadow being able to find peace, Celes discovering the will to live, Sabin and Edgar's past, all of it relates back in some way to the game's central theme, and the ending is a glorious show-stopper dedicated to capping off the cast's characterization because of it.
All of this is without touching on Amano's lavish artwork for the game, or Uematsu's masterpiece of a score. I could go on and on and on, but the point is that from a presentation and cast point, Final Fantasy 6 is an extremely well made game.
1) I thought the large cast was one of FF6's strengths. Ensemble casts are notoriously difficult pull off in fiction, but FF6 manages to do it while never overstepping its bounds. The important characters get enough exposure, while the side characters are there to add flavor to the story.
2) I think you're overestimating how "borked" the esper system is. The game does a poor job of explaining the stat level up system, but it's really not that egregious. By your own admission, it's absolutely possible to beat the game without optimizing your stats (equipment and spells easily pick up the slack). Those who "do" understand the system are rewarded with optimized stats. It's undeniably flawed and obtuse, but it's really not that.
3) The game's difficulty is a joke, but it's flexible. You can tweak your experience without resorting to hax, and still have a somewhat difficult time. I actually played through solo character runs (Terra & Locke to be precise) and had a great time. FF games err on being easy anyway, so it's really not a problem that's unique to FF6. (Though the final boss is quite laughable...)
5) I didn't think it was convoluted. In fact, I thought FF6 kept things simple, in comparison to later FF titles. The game's story boils down to stopping the corrupt Empire from abusing the magic they extracted from the Espers. A lot of things happen (The death of Cyan's family, Leo's death, Ramuh's sacrifice, Kefka's ascension to godhood, Terra struggles with her identity, and ultimately learns to love etc) but it's a straightforward narrative.
Terra's portrayal in Dissidia is buttcheeks. It's a pale imitation of what she was like in FF6. It only attempts to mimic her persona in the early half of the story. It completely misses out on her development by the end of the WoB + Mobliz. Which is understandable to be fair; Terra learns to "love" and that drives her towards stopping Kefka. That's completely glossed over in Dissidia, it's some shonen garbage about using her powers to protect her "friends." Speaking of her friends, there's this obnoxious sentiment where they try to "protect" her. Like, Terra is constantly being saved by "dudes" in Dissidia, because she's constantly "emotionally compromised." It's completely unlike how it was in FF6. Her friends don't protect her (as she's by far and away the strongest member of the party) but they let her lean on them and they pick her up when she's down. The World of Balance is so great because the group's focus (despite their differences) is chiefly motivated to saving Terra. Not because she's a damsel in distress, but because they care about her, and they know that she's the
Like i'm not even mad that they didn't make her into a badass in Dissidia, but it sucks seeing her being rendered helpless all the time.
PS: And as an aside, it's completely stupid how Terra (The Magitek Elite) cannot equip Swords or Heavy Armor, despite being able to do so in her original game. Meanwhile The Emperor can equip Swords and Armor, and Cloud and Squall can equip heavy armor despite not being able to. Stay classy SE.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
I think it's a good demonstration of CS Lewis's 4 loves. For those who aren't that well-versed in Christian ethics or ethical philosophy, there are four types: agape (unconditional love), eros (sexual love), storge (familial love), and philia (brotherly love/friendship).
That's kind of what makes Terra "Terra": a desire to learn. I always felt that her Dissidia presentation tried to emulate that at least. Making her look and sound so uncertain until she bonds properly with others. The thing that it missed was her maternal instincts and learning to take care of others and the group itself. I think that's what makes her affinity with children a little more valuable: they're trying to understand the world around them, just as she tried to did when she got that Slave Crown off. That's why she seems to 'get' them more, and thus she feels the need to protect them when the adults in Mobliz died. She loses the will to fight because she just doesn't understand what she feels, and it's a question that's plagued for a year. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Terra has a difficulty understanding the human side of herself. And when she feels something different that she doesn't recognize as a being that isn't entirely human, it confuses her completely, she loses the will to physically protect people, and she doesn't readily embrace it until the last moment.
By contrast, Celes becomes more attached to Locke after so many years of self-reliance and slowly falls in love with him. She begins to think of herself as his replacement for Rachel, and when they meet up after she defects, he questions her loyalty to the party and she's inevitably hurt. Even after we know that Celes fell for Locke due to his kindness towards her, she isn't rendered useless because she ends up being the one who tries to bring the party back together again. Celes has a natural devotion towards Cid because he was the one who took care of her (storge). If he dies, she attempts to throw herself off a cliff because she realized that she's all alone. It's a direct contrast to how she behaved at the beginning of the game, where she assured herself that she didn't need anyone around until Locke came into her life. Celes has a lot of issues too, where she considers betraying the party even on the floating continent. But that is merely because she is a product of her own homeland. Her issue is also one of patriotism and her own conscience. That is why she relied so much on her pride and being on her own before. It wasn't until she came to experience Locke's and party's ideals and concepts of ethical behaviour that she began to see why friendships, family, and eros love were entirely necessary to her. The opera scene is certainly a method to try to draw Locke and Celes closer together, but at the same time, it isn't just a scene to showcase some random hilarious shit. It's a scene that contrasts with Celes's idea that she doesn't need anyone. While Aria di Mezzo Carattere drones on and on the promises of love and marrying another dude instead of the dude she loves, it also goes on and on (in several different translations, in fact; even the Italian one) about how the fellow the singer is in love with is her shining star to bring her out of the darkness, and thinking of her love in times of sadness and pain. Eros love is intense. If you've ever been in love with someone, it can feel like a thrilling rush that can make you smile like an idiot or can cloud your judgement just a little. I think it's the type of love that Celes actually needed to understand the necessity of the feeling. By opening her up with the rush of eros, she could slowly graduate into appreciating the other three types.
I think the Spanish translation of the song is a little different, but I haven't seen it in full.
Overall, I think both characters, because this is an RPG and teamwork is essential, learn the importance of philia, but in different ways. As I said before, Terra learns why it exists and how it feels like. Celes learns why it's important and why it's necessary. Terra's story is one of learning independence and learning to understand human emotions while her teammates protect her. Celes's story is one of learning how to depend on others, learn the usefulness of emotions to forge bonds, and trying to get her teammates to actually trust her. Both characters are trying to embrace their humanity, but in completely different ways. Both confront Kefka's nihilism because they learned how important bonds can be and how important the four loves are. Terra says it herself: she says "love" when Kefka asks her why she fights. Celes says it's the ability to find acceptance from Locke (and supposedly everyone else).
So, I guess, ultimately, you could consider one of FF6's largest themes to be love. Even moreso than FF8's at times.
tl;dr: Rosa is still the shittiest FF girl, bro.
I don't think the plot is convoluted. It's very straightforward. I just think it wanders all over the place re: quality.
Regarding difficulty, I don't think I ever liked it when I had to impose an artificial difficulty on a game before to make it more enjoyable. It's just like how I don't like some Tales games being too easy regardless of difficulty, playing FF4 vanilla and trying to make it harder through various means, etc. I don't think that's very fun, because I guess I live on the old D&D concept of loving when I get stat ups or when I can allocate points to my stats on a level up or waiting to see what skill/spell I'll learn next. I don't even use magic/summons much in later FF games anymore because they take up way too much time and it kinda sucks.
With respect to FF6's cast, I feel like some characters just do not need to be there at all since they don't seem to be as engaged with the game's utmost conflict and don't demonstrate that much character growth like the others to make a more cohesive story. I mean, you're talking to someone who likes Suikoden here: the game with 108 characters, and only a fraction of them get a ton of development. But at the same time, the 108 characters necessitate the lack of development because you end up solving their subplots so they join you since they feel like they owe you, or they adhere to the "join the army because of necessity/joining the army because you want to fight for your country" ideal.
I mean, I'm fine with people liking it. I'm not Beef where I'm all like, "auuuuuuuuuuuuugh whyyyyyyyyyyyy".
Maybe I had the wrong impression of Dissidia, but I just felt like every character's arc was a minor retread of their arcs in their respective games. Hence why only half of Terra's arc is covered.
As an aside, while I don't care much for Terra for reasons that you and I have gone into before, I can appreciate that when she finally begins to understand love, it is in the form of agape/storge love as opposed to eros love, which so many FF games are prone to doing. It leads into her foil with Celes again, whose character development and even abilities (the ice to her fire) completely parallels Terra's. Where Terra wanted to understand the emotion and truly wanted to apply it to be part of something, Celes had to understand why the emotion was necessary and why being proud all the time/having power and status didn't have its uses. Terra savours whatever Celes had previously neglected until she realizes that it's a necessity.
That's kind of what makes Terra "Terra": a desire to learn. I always felt that her Dissidia presentation tried to emulate that at least. Making her look and sound so uncertain until she bonds properly with others. The thing that it missed was her maternal instincts and learning to take care of others and the group itself. I think that's what makes her affinity with children a little more valuable: they're trying to understand the world around them, just as she tried to did when she got that Slave Crown off. That's why she seems to 'get' them more, and thus she feels the need to protect them when the adults in Mobliz died. She loses the will to fight because she just doesn't understand what she feels, and it's a question that's plagued for a year. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Terra has a difficulty understanding the human side of herself. And when she feels something different that she doesn't recognize as a being that isn't entirely human, it confuses her completely, she loses the will to physically protect people, and she doesn't readily embrace it until the last moment.
By contrast, Celes becomes more attached to Locke after so many years of self-reliance and slowly falls in love with him. She begins to think of herself as his replacement for Rachel, and when they meet up after she defects, he questions her loyalty to the party and she's inevitably hurt. Even after we know that Celes fell for Locke due to his kindness towards her, she isn't rendered useless because she ends up being the one who tries to bring the party back together again. Celes has a natural devotion towards Cid because he was the one who took care of her (storge). If he dies, she attempts to throw herself off a cliff because she realized that she's all alone. It's a direct contrast to how she behaved at the beginning of the game, where she assured herself that she didn't need anyone around until Locke came into her life. Celes has a lot of issues too, where she considers betraying the party even on the floating continent. But that is merely because she is a product of her own homeland. Her issue is also one of patriotism and her own conscience. That is why she relied so much on her pride and being on her own before. It wasn't until she came to experience Locke's and party's ideals and concepts of ethical behaviour that she began to see why friendships, family, and eros love were entirely necessary to her. The opera scene is certainly a method to try to draw Locke and Celes closer together, but at the same time, it isn't just a scene to showcase some random hilarious shit. It's a scene that contrasts with Celes's idea that she doesn't need anyone. While Aria di Mezzo Carattere drones on and on the promises of love and marrying another dude instead of the dude she loves, it also goes on and on (in several different translations, in fact; even the Italian one) about how the fellow the singer is in love with is her shining star to bring her out of the darkness, and thinking of her love in times of sadness and pain. Eros love is intense. If you've ever been in love with someone, it can feel like a thrilling rush that can make you smile like an idiot or can cloud your judgement just a little. I think it's the type of love that Celes actually needed to understand the necessity of the feeling. By opening her up with the rush of eros, she could slowly graduate into appreciating the other three types.
I think the Spanish translation of the song is a little different, but I haven't seen it in full.
Overall, I think both characters, because this is an RPG and teamwork is essential, learn the importance of philia, but in different ways. As I said before, Terra learns why it exists and how it feels like. Celes learns why it's important and why it's necessary. Terra's story is one of learning independence and learning to understand human emotions while her teammates protect her. Celes's story is one of learning how to depend on others, learn the usefulness of emotions to forge bonds, and trying to get her teammates to actually trust her. Both characters are trying to embrace their humanity, but in completely different ways. Both confront Kefka's nihilism because they learned how important bonds can be and how important the four loves are. Terra says it herself: she says "love" when Kefka asks her why she fights. Celes says it's the ability to find acceptance from Locke (and supposedly everyone else).
So, I guess, ultimately, you could consider one of FF6's largest themes to be love. Even moreso than FF8's at times.
tl;dr: Rosa is still the shittiest FF girl, bro.
My issue is that the system is ultimately wasted and it shouldn't have even been incorporated if it seems meaningless due to the game's lack of difficulty.
I don't think the plot is convoluted. It's very straightforward. I just think it wanders all over the place re: quality.
Regarding difficulty, I don't think I ever liked it when I had to impose an artificial difficulty on a game before to make it more enjoyable. It's just like how I don't like some Tales games being too easy regardless of difficulty, playing FF4 vanilla and trying to make it harder through various means, etc. I don't think that's very fun, because I guess I live on the old D&D concept of loving when I get stat ups or when I can allocate points to my stats on a level up or waiting to see what skill/spell I'll learn next. I don't even use magic/summons much in later FF games anymore because they take up way too much time and it kinda sucks.
With respect to FF6's cast, I feel like some characters just do not need to be there at all since they don't seem to be as engaged with the game's utmost conflict and don't demonstrate that much character growth like the others to make a more cohesive story. I mean, you're talking to someone who likes Suikoden here: the game with 108 characters, and only a fraction of them get a ton of development. But at the same time, the 108 characters necessitate the lack of development because you end up solving their subplots so they join you since they feel like they owe you, or they adhere to the "join the army because of necessity/joining the army because you want to fight for your country" ideal.
I mean, I'm fine with people liking it. I'm not Beef where I'm all like, "auuuuuuuuuuuuugh whyyyyyyyyyyyy".
where's the voice clip where she's all like "get away D:" because that's actually not like her
Maybe I had the wrong impression of Dissidia, but I just felt like every character's arc was a minor retread of their arcs in their respective games. Hence why only half of Terra's arc is covered.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
FF6 wasn't any good until the GBA version came out. Since you know GILGAMESH is actually in that one.
Zantetsuken88
Member
Why does everybody capitalise Gilgamesh? Am I missing a joke?
I actually agree, Schala, that Terra and Celes are meant to represent two different sides of love and that their arcs are meant to parallel one another. I sometimes worry people take that to mean that Celes is of equal importance to the plot, though, when Terra's character is still a driving force of the game's second half in a way that Celes' isn't. That said, though, I think the two of them really are meant to reflect one another, and I think that the game's one missed opportunity is that Celes and Terra don't interact more. They converse prior to the battle of Narshe, though, and I think that conversation demonstrates that the two of them really do reflect these two branches of love.
I want to take a moment to just sort of steer this discussion into how beautifully that really ties into everything, and specifically the game's ending. Like, if we look at the whole cast they really embody those four loves in different ways. Terra begins without love and transitions to storge before achieving agape in the game's finale where she is willing to sacrifice herself in order to save others. Locke, Celes, and Setzer are all eros. Much as Edgar WISHES he was eros, he, along with Sabin, Cyan, Strago, Relm, Gau and Shadow all play much more into storge. But the most important part of this, I think, is actually how it relates the cast to the final boss.
Kefka is a villain who needs no real introduction or explanation at this point in the franchise's history, but I think there's some stuff worth mentioning as a lead in. A lot has been said about Kefka, and there have been some really crazy fan theories about him, especially suggestions that he may have raped Terra based on deleted lines and the like, Regardless of these, I think one major point in Dissidia's favor was explaining that a major reason Kefka does what he does is because it fills a void in him. Terra says that the reason Kefka destroys in Dissidia is because it's all that really fills the hole inside him. Essentially, Kefka does not comprehend Love. He really more or less lays it out prior to the final battle, and I think that the more you look at what's going on in that lead up, the more the game's central theme is truly reinforced there.
Kefka sits atop a tower he made out of pure garbage, the dreck and dross of a civilization he himself ruined. That alone is symbolic enough to go on and on about, but I appreciate that nobody here needs to have the significance of an evil god atop a tower of the filth of civilization really spelled out to them. Prior to reaching Kefka, the party has to engage the three Gods of the world of FF6. Now, as we know them, these Gods are twisted and monstrous, but then again, we don't really know anything about them prior to Kefka's twisting them to his whims.
We know basically only that the Triad stand at war and that their war created the Espers and the Magi. Consider, then, that the Triad may represent, and I grant that this is only speculation on my part, any of a number of things. For instance they may be symbolic of the Trinity (which is a fairly apparent guess to make, since any group of three Gods tends to be). It should be noted that Nomura actually gave names to the members of the Warring Triad that didn't make it into the game. Poltergeist was Zurvan, who was the creator in a form of now defunct Zoroastrianism, Goddess was Sophia, the Gnostic Goddess of Wisdom, and Fiend was given the name of Sephiroth, which are revelations of the Divine Will. So had these names come into the game, it would signify traits these entities were meant to wield and which Kefka had robbed them of in addition to their power. He had taken from them Wisdom, Creation, and Divinity.
The next phase of the game's endgame is a little more well known, I think.
Essentially, the final battle mirrors or parodies Dante's Divine Comedy. The party begins in the Inferno, symbolized by the large trunk, which is reminiscent of Dante's description of Lucifer in a loose sense, modified into Kefka's appearance (as are all other aspects of the ascent.) From there the party passes through Purgatory to Paradise, where they meet the Madonna and Kefka's twisted Messiah before at last reaching an audience with their new God. What this boils down to is a display of egomaniacal power on Kefka's part. He's already labeled his death-ray the Light of Judgment and now he intends to make good on that whole "A God Am I" bit. What's important about all of this is the simultaneous power Kefka displays and the actual ease of victory (You should have 14 party members, at least 12 of whom had to be tough enough to get this far, and all 14 can fight, meaning this really is a pretty damn easy final battle.)
Why? For a long time now people have had a hard time really putting into words how or why it is that Kefka, at full on Godhood, can lose to a dude with a chain saw, a little girl with a paint brush, and some super fly dance moves. Permit me, briefly, to turn you to the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians.
The word Paul uses here, I'm told, is caritas, which depending on your translation, definition and personal belief can differ somewhat from love, but for the intents and purposes of the conversation I will liken to Schala's aforementioned agape and in a more general sense simple, plain, old fashioned love. What I'm getting at here is that Kefka doesn't just not understand love, he rejects it as a concept, as an idea, and as a part of himself. There is no room for any kind of love inside him, and that is what undoes him. Because though Kefka has attained Godhood, has Omnipotence, some degree of Divine Wisdom, and can reshape the world to his very whim, he has no idea what Love is, and has no space for it in himself. Whether you wish to say then that Kefka is the opposite of love, or runs on pure hate, I don't know, but the climax of the game, I'm trying to say, is that love, true love, all kinds of actual love and just plain ol' love is what saves the world. As Paul says, no matter what Kefka is, without love he is nothing. Terra's journey to understand love climaxes in her use of it, and the party's individual loves come together to overcome a being who cannot feel love and does not want to. It's a hallmark of Final Fantasy games that I'm not entirely sure exists in them anymore, or would suggest is not often executed as well.
Just as a conclusion, while I think FFVIII is much more a love story, FFVI is a story about love. It's not a romance, it's a tale about the power of love in all its forms and how people can take love and use it to overcome the very end of the world. And if that ain't a showstopper, folks, I don't know what is.
I want to take a moment to just sort of steer this discussion into how beautifully that really ties into everything, and specifically the game's ending. Like, if we look at the whole cast they really embody those four loves in different ways. Terra begins without love and transitions to storge before achieving agape in the game's finale where she is willing to sacrifice herself in order to save others. Locke, Celes, and Setzer are all eros. Much as Edgar WISHES he was eros, he, along with Sabin, Cyan, Strago, Relm, Gau and Shadow all play much more into storge. But the most important part of this, I think, is actually how it relates the cast to the final boss.
Kefka is a villain who needs no real introduction or explanation at this point in the franchise's history, but I think there's some stuff worth mentioning as a lead in. A lot has been said about Kefka, and there have been some really crazy fan theories about him, especially suggestions that he may have raped Terra based on deleted lines and the like, Regardless of these, I think one major point in Dissidia's favor was explaining that a major reason Kefka does what he does is because it fills a void in him. Terra says that the reason Kefka destroys in Dissidia is because it's all that really fills the hole inside him. Essentially, Kefka does not comprehend Love. He really more or less lays it out prior to the final battle, and I think that the more you look at what's going on in that lead up, the more the game's central theme is truly reinforced there.
Kefka sits atop a tower he made out of pure garbage, the dreck and dross of a civilization he himself ruined. That alone is symbolic enough to go on and on about, but I appreciate that nobody here needs to have the significance of an evil god atop a tower of the filth of civilization really spelled out to them. Prior to reaching Kefka, the party has to engage the three Gods of the world of FF6. Now, as we know them, these Gods are twisted and monstrous, but then again, we don't really know anything about them prior to Kefka's twisting them to his whims.
We know basically only that the Triad stand at war and that their war created the Espers and the Magi. Consider, then, that the Triad may represent, and I grant that this is only speculation on my part, any of a number of things. For instance they may be symbolic of the Trinity (which is a fairly apparent guess to make, since any group of three Gods tends to be). It should be noted that Nomura actually gave names to the members of the Warring Triad that didn't make it into the game. Poltergeist was Zurvan, who was the creator in a form of now defunct Zoroastrianism, Goddess was Sophia, the Gnostic Goddess of Wisdom, and Fiend was given the name of Sephiroth, which are revelations of the Divine Will. So had these names come into the game, it would signify traits these entities were meant to wield and which Kefka had robbed them of in addition to their power. He had taken from them Wisdom, Creation, and Divinity.
The next phase of the game's endgame is a little more well known, I think.
Essentially, the final battle mirrors or parodies Dante's Divine Comedy. The party begins in the Inferno, symbolized by the large trunk, which is reminiscent of Dante's description of Lucifer in a loose sense, modified into Kefka's appearance (as are all other aspects of the ascent.) From there the party passes through Purgatory to Paradise, where they meet the Madonna and Kefka's twisted Messiah before at last reaching an audience with their new God. What this boils down to is a display of egomaniacal power on Kefka's part. He's already labeled his death-ray the Light of Judgment and now he intends to make good on that whole "A God Am I" bit. What's important about all of this is the simultaneous power Kefka displays and the actual ease of victory (You should have 14 party members, at least 12 of whom had to be tough enough to get this far, and all 14 can fight, meaning this really is a pretty damn easy final battle.)
Why? For a long time now people have had a hard time really putting into words how or why it is that Kefka, at full on Godhood, can lose to a dude with a chain saw, a little girl with a paint brush, and some super fly dance moves. Permit me, briefly, to turn you to the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians.
1st Cor. 13:2 KJV said:
The word Paul uses here, I'm told, is caritas, which depending on your translation, definition and personal belief can differ somewhat from love, but for the intents and purposes of the conversation I will liken to Schala's aforementioned agape and in a more general sense simple, plain, old fashioned love. What I'm getting at here is that Kefka doesn't just not understand love, he rejects it as a concept, as an idea, and as a part of himself. There is no room for any kind of love inside him, and that is what undoes him. Because though Kefka has attained Godhood, has Omnipotence, some degree of Divine Wisdom, and can reshape the world to his very whim, he has no idea what Love is, and has no space for it in himself. Whether you wish to say then that Kefka is the opposite of love, or runs on pure hate, I don't know, but the climax of the game, I'm trying to say, is that love, true love, all kinds of actual love and just plain ol' love is what saves the world. As Paul says, no matter what Kefka is, without love he is nothing. Terra's journey to understand love climaxes in her use of it, and the party's individual loves come together to overcome a being who cannot feel love and does not want to. It's a hallmark of Final Fantasy games that I'm not entirely sure exists in them anymore, or would suggest is not often executed as well.
Just as a conclusion, while I think FFVIII is much more a love story, FFVI is a story about love. It's not a romance, it's a tale about the power of love in all its forms and how people can take love and use it to overcome the very end of the world. And if that ain't a showstopper, folks, I don't know what is.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Man, Corvo, that's exactly what I wrote about it in 2008. Except in a VGM context:
It’s probably one of the best themes ever composed using a keyboard. It features a synthesized pipe organ which leads the entire theme into all of its movements appropriately. The piece consists of four separate movements, each featured during four battles with the same person who continually changes to try to get the better of your characters. This is the longest boss battle piece ever in the series.
The piece contains several motifs from the game: Opening Theme during the first and final movements, Kefka during the third and final movements, and Kefka’s laugh (woo-hoo-hoo-hoo) during the final movements before it loops. Each movement loops twice in the recorded piece.
The second movement of theme carries a fugue-type of nature (assisted by the organ cadenza), which is very fitting considering the different movements, or ‘tiers’ if you will, correspond to the different boss transformations. In fact, the entire theme reminds me of Handel’s Messiah (or Bach’s Fugues), which is probably what Uematsu and the game designers were going for, given Kefka’s appearance and rise to power.
In fact, the entire thing is almost an ode the Divine Comedy. Kefka is insane. The non-canonical version goes like this: his loss of sanity was due to the experiment that gave him magical powers, but he was a very brilliant student. In fact, he was likely a strategist, but his sanity drastically deteriorated when Celes was appointed to a position greater than his. He had a terrible childhood, and that’s probably what sped his descent into madness along. This hasn’t been proven by Square-Enix, however, but I’ve seen many fans of Kefka cite this. It would explain how he became such a terrible person.
Kefka is essentially a nihilist: there is nothing, there will always be nothing—life is meaningless and insignificant. He wanted to destroy everything, life itself. What was the point? Now that he’s a “god”, he can do anything he wants.
The final battle against Kefka draws strongly from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (and probably Milton’s Paradise Lost). The battle is divided into three tiers: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise/Heaven. The final, I think, is God. The Inferno tier is represented by a demon. It is a grey-coloured Kefka with large muscles, fused to the ground from the waist down (remember Satan from Inferno?). It has two arms: a long and short one, both of which need to be defeated. I’ve heard this portion represents Kefka’s rage. This portion is the first thing you hear when the fight begins. It includes the Opening Theme motif at the beginning and at the end of its segment. There is a break where the organ and synth voice play a motif of Kefka. The theme then begins to pick up in tempo with a beat of the backing percussion, and it sounds epic.
The Purgatorio tier is a collage of several beings. It contains beasts, people and machinery. I’ve heard people say that the people are representations of Kefka’s split personalities (power, magic, anima, and two other beings) and mind. The support of this tier is a machine, depicting how the people of the Gestahl Empire relied on machines to function. People relied on technology to survive. It is a pillar of society. What would happen if this pillar got knocked down? This portion begins with the organ playing being assisted by synth voices and percussion. This is probably my second-favourite movement. It almost makes the player know something serious is going to happen. It ends once the synth organ begins playing on its own.
The third tier, Paradisio, is represented by Michaelangelo’s Pieta, which is a sculpture of Jesus’ body lying on Mary’s lap post-crucifixion. Only, instead of Jesus and Mary, Rest and Lady replace them. Rest is the one that damages everyone so that Lady stays healed. Lady absorbs all elements. She also casts Full-Life if Rest is defeated before her. This tier is fully supported by the organ pipe introduction and subsequent parts (helped by a bell), playing a motif of <I>Kefka. It sounds like it should be in a church, but it definitely is—the church of Kefka. This portion ends once the motif of the Opening Theme begins.
The final movement is my favourite. The final tier is where Dante comes face-to-face with God, who explains the meaning of life. This is in sharp contrast to the Returners and Kefka. Kefka says life is meaningless, while the Returners try to convince him otherwise. Angels are said to have many, many wings, not just two. Kefka himself is a dark purple being (almost imperfect, or battered and bruised), with four feathered wings and two bat-like demonic wings. One could almost say, using the non-canonical evidence a few paragraphs above, that Kefka is a fallen angel, similar to that of Lucifer (given that Kefka was brilliant, and one of the top strategists for Gestahl, it almost seems that Kefka parallels Lucifer). The final movement begins with the Opening Theme motif, perhaps signifying a reunion with Kefka. But the percussion begins as quickly as the motif finishes, with the synth electric bass and synth organ joining the uptempo fray. I love this portion just because of the synth organ solo, with a motif of Kefka thrown in for good measure. The theme slows down once we think it’s looped, which is actually pretty good pacing, leading into Kefka’s iconic laugh. It sounds like a hard-fought battle. And Kefka is no slouch; he’ll hit you with everything he’s got.
This is probably Uematsu’s ode to Bach, but more importantly, it’s a slick, refined piece depicting a descent into madness, yet an ascent into godliness. Kefka isn’t exactly the most sanctiful person in the world. Okay, he’s far from being the epitome of sanctity. He’s a power-hungry lunatic. But you can’t help but to argue that his madness was a product of man. Are we sometimes to blame if someone becomes a nutter later on in life? Is it society’s folly that makes people like these? No one will ever be like Kefka (well, I can think of a few people in history who followed the “Kefka Way”
Actually, Zoroastrianism is still a thing! There are still 11K folks practicing in the US alone.
I'm sorry, that's a syntax error on my part. Zurvanism is a defunct sect of Zoroastrianism is what I meant, not that Zoroastrianism itself is defunct.
ArchedThunder
Banned
So what script for FFVI is better? The SNES/PSOne version, or the GBA version? I know the GBA version is more faithful to the Japanese version, but I'm asking which has better writing, is more interesting and/or amusing. I ask this because I haven't decided what version I want to play for my first playthrough of the game.
I kind of like the GBA one more, since things like spell names make a lot more sense. Some people are attached to the jokes in the SNES one but I don't recall any of those jokes not getting redone in such a way that they wouldn't still be funny to first timers.
ArchedThunder
Banned
Didn't the PSOne version fix the spell names?
It apparently has terrible load times.
It's good stuff, though.
hipsterpants
Member
I sure can't explain my feelings on FF6 in one gigantic wall of text (writing ability as well as I have other important things to be doing right now) but it's pretty low on my list of favorite FFs. I think there are far too many characters and that it leaves far too much to the imagination in terms of character development/motivation. I never felt like I actually knew the characters enough to care when big emotional moments occurred.
As a villain I can respect that Kefka is crazy just because he's crazy, but I don't necessarily see that as being some great achievement in terms of villainy as some do. They don't actually explain why the empire has an insane clown as a second-in-command in either (I know some random NPC explains it or something).
Also the World of Ruin sucks. I can appreciate what Square was going for but its just a complete mess. Since there was know way of knowing who was in your party, there's all those really awkward "nameless" dialogue boxes which I always found to be pretty jarring (at first I thought it was supposed to be the whole party speaking at once or something).
The kinds of stories I like are pretty much the opposite of FF6's more minimalist style. Pretty sure X is my favorite and that game is like endless cutscenes.
As a villain I can respect that Kefka is crazy just because he's crazy, but I don't necessarily see that as being some great achievement in terms of villainy as some do. They don't actually explain why the empire has an insane clown as a second-in-command in either (I know some random NPC explains it or something).
Also the World of Ruin sucks. I can appreciate what Square was going for but its just a complete mess. Since there was know way of knowing who was in your party, there's all those really awkward "nameless" dialogue boxes which I always found to be pretty jarring (at first I thought it was supposed to be the whole party speaking at once or something).
The kinds of stories I like are pretty much the opposite of FF6's more minimalist style. Pretty sure X is my favorite and that game is like endless cutscenes.
I haven't played FF6 recently enough to comment a lot on it. I like it more than FFVII or IX, though. The sprites certainly age better, and I actually appreciate the larger cast.
Anything more and I feel I would be relying on nostalgic faux-memories than actual memories, if that makes sense.
Anything more and I feel I would be relying on nostalgic faux-memories than actual memories, if that makes sense.
Professor Beef
Banned
FF6's birthday is today?
*shits on the cake*
*shits on the cake*
tiggerkiddo
Member
Oh they are bad, very bad coming from playing the SNES version.
Ganon Dragmire
Member
FFVI is one of my favorite FF games. During that time, I've played and loved FFIV, Earthbound, Chrono, but for me VI surpasses them. I think I've played this one to completion the 2nd most. (IV being the first due to it's many remakes.)
Most of the cast and their arcs are great, BUT make way here comes the show stealer
He comes in, the cast doesn't matter anymore, and it's all about what is he going to do now. Sadly when he wins, we don't see him till the very end.
____________________________________________________________
I guess this is SE's way of celebrating VI's birthday:
Most of the cast and their arcs are great, BUT make way here comes the show stealer
He comes in, the cast doesn't matter anymore, and it's all about what is he going to do now. Sadly when he wins, we don't see him till the very end.
____________________________________________________________
I guess this is SE's way of celebrating VI's birthday:
____________________________________________________________
I guess this is SE's way of celebrating VI's birthday:
What even is this?