Lol, the title is a bit of a lie, or at least it's hyperbole. I am walking through a guide when I feel like I'm getting stuck, or I just want to plow on through parts, but I'm not trying to look ahead too much for spoilers. After my previous post, I was at the part in the game where I was going to open the Esper Gate. I was aware that the main world seemed to be about half the game and then there's some realm that is the second half, or at least a large part of it. I assumed I was about to enter that second-realm and start the second half of the game.
Oh, the naivety! Opening the Esper Realm sent a bunch of Espers flying, they destroyed Vector and now the story had to progress a bit more in the main over world. I'm fine with that as a game mechanic but let's just say when I opened the Esper Realm and I wasn't given a new area to explore... Yeah, I walked away for a time and needed to take a break. I wasn't mad. I was just expecting something completely new and I was a tad disappointed and lost a little motivation.
This of course meant that as the days ticked by, I got busy and found myself wanting to do other things and play other games. The week I'm posting this is also the first week of the NES Weekly Challenges and although I always suck at those, I really have fun participating in those. Am I going to remain loyal to this goal, or jump into the NES Challenge full steam ahead?
Heck no, I'm not giving up! This is the year of Final Fantasy VI, baby! Unless something really, really life changing happens, I plan on fully finishing this game! In fact, I'm using that desire to play the NES Challenge or to participate in the N64 Completion thread to motivate me to make goals for each week before I participate. For the past two nights (Saturday and Sunday) my goal has been to try and get to the Ascended World (or whatever it's called.) I know I said I'm not looking ahead in the guide for spoilers, and I'm not really, but the wonderful Caves of Narshe site guide is what I've followed and when I paid attention to the headings of the guide chapters, I could see that I was more than a few away of finishing the main overworld because their guide is divided up into 3 sections and I think the third section is bonus material. Section two, I think, is into the Ascended World of Kefka... maybe.
So this weekend I plowed through the story, picked up a couple of key items and Lores that I needed went back to the airship to go to the realm above the ground. Being that at this point I was still a few guide chapters away from Part II, I knew this wasn't yet the end and it was good to have that expectation. Man, these enemies up here are toooooough. On cheat-mode in the Pixel Remaster version (I have all battle rewards set to 4x so leveling and GP is easy to get now), that's not entirely true. My party is around levels 42-50 at this point and taking on most of this literal, and figurative, behemoths isn't that difficult. However, if my level was anything normal, I'd be toast up here!
So far I've put about 20 hours into this game and I assume at least 10 more are left. I'm amazed that some people can complete this game in around 10 hours, even if they are speed runners! That's impressive as I feel like I really have tried to lightening-play my way through this game, which does require some grinding to become OP so you can breeze through bosses.
The good news is the past two nights have really invigorated me to keep going! I'm about to enter the final battle with Kefka before Part II of this game begins. That has been my goal for this week so I can move onto some SMB3 playing for the weekly competition. Hopefully today I'll complete this goal and then it's time to go collect some coins in worlds 1-1 thought 1-4 of SMB3! Here-ah we gooooo!
Part One: My Gaming History
I guess a good place to start with a blog like this is to ask, why would I blog about this game? I mean, I've played countless games and I've enjoyed several long RPGs, but I've never written more than quick reviews or given my opinion and commentary on different titles. So, what makes this game special?
Simply put, I was introduced to Squaresoft and the name "Final Fantasy" around 1994. One Saturday, while I was at the flea market with my grandfather, I happened past a table run by a mom who was selling all kinds of stuff from her home. It turned out she had a few Game Boy games that she was selling for her son. One of those games was Final Fantasy Adventure. Though it was missing the box, it did come with the manual and the map, which also contained the full list of all items and stats on the back. I'd heard that Final Fantasy Adventure was a good game, but I didn't know anything about it. However, seeing a game with a fat, square manual and a map intrigued me. So, I bought it for $15 and I had no clue that my gamer life had just changed forever.
I fell deeply in love with this game. Final Fantasy Adventure has many similarities to games like Legend of Zelda, but I never owned Zelda, and at that time, it was a game I just couldn't get into since I was only ever able to borrow it for a night or two from a friend. Granted, Zelda seemed fun, but I could tell it was a title I'd really need to deep-dive into to fully enjoy, so I never played it much. But the itch for an adventure game was there. Unbeknownst to me, Final Fantasy Adventure would open my eyes to both adventure and RPG-style games.
So if this is a blog about Final Fantasy 6, why am I bringing up Final Fantasy Adventure? Because when I finished Final Fantasy Adventure in 1994, I had to have more Final Fantasy! But there were a few problems. First, in 1994, I owned an NES, a Game Boy, and a Game Gear. I joked in my later childhood that the SNES era was my "dark ages." This was because earlier, probably around 1990, my mom and dad bought my brother and me Dr. Mario. Typically, parents see video game-obsessed children and then decide that video games are bad, or should be scaled back. However, in our house, my mom became the one truly obsessed with Dr. Mario. After several weeks of playing this game non-stop, to the point of starting to feel neglectful of her responsibilities, my mother vowed to give up Dr. Mario, and she was "awoken" to the fact that games can be bad. Real bad. So bad that she declared she'd never, ever buy another video game system ever again and she didn't.
But all hope was not lost. Mom and dad still bought games for the systems we owned. However, this meant that I was not going to get either a SNES or Genesis. At that time, I was too young to have the income to afford buying a SNES on my own, much less buy the games if I got one. I did, however, settle for what I thought was the next best thing, and I bought my own Game Gear! So, from about 1993 to 1996, these three systems I had access too.
But I digress... an entire console generation passed, and all I knew about the SNES was from general schoolyard scuttle and occasionally a friend would let me browse his Nintendo Power at lunch.
In 1994, playing Final Fantasy Adventure was a new experience for me, just with old media. At that time, Final Fantasy III was already out in the US, and I was slightly aware of it, but I didn't know anything about it. In fact, as a kid (and even to this day), if I feel like I have no hope of enjoying something that I know I would enjoy, I try to avoid and ignore it as to not torture myself about wanting an experience I can't have. This was my experience with Final Fantasy III.
Deep down, I really, really wanted to play Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III, but I couldn't. Instead, as I was getting older, I turned my focus to doing whatever I reasonably could to get Squaresoft's next supported console. As can be expected, I ended up getting a PS1 and Final Fantasy 7. In fact, I bought Final Fantasy VIII before I even got a PS1 as I was that intent on getting MORE Final Fantasy. This may seem curious because wouldn't I want to get the system first so I could play other games. True, but keep in mind this was 1997. The release of Final Fantasy came out and I knew how game releases worked. They'd come out and if the game met mediocre sales, they'd be off the shelves in 3-4 months. Since I didn't think I'd have the cash to buy a PS1 by Christmas that year, I didn't want to have to hunt down a used copy which was tough at that time, so I was 100% sure I had my copy when it came out! Lucky for me, my dad bought me a PS1 for Christmas, which was completely unexpected, and I got the opportunity to play Final Fantasy VII probably a year earlier than I expected. These memories are why Final Fantasy VII is so important to me and why, in a way, it blew away any desire I had at that time to play an "old looking game" like Final Fantasy III for the 2D SNES.
Part Two: But I always wanted to play this game... really!
When the PS1 era hit my life, things changed. I got the system when I was 16 but shortly after I got my license and a job, all of a sudden I had a lot of expendable cash. I lucked out at the time, and my first job paid about $1.50 over minimum wage. Since all I had to pay for was car insurance and gas, that extra cash went into video games and Star Wars CCG cards (cough... yeah.) Most of my money went specifically into RPGs. I had a CD wallet packed with PS1 titles, and I enjoyed several games through that era but my focus was almost 100% on moving forward.
Eventually though, Final Fantasy Anthologies was released and I fully intended to catch up with my Final Fantasy historical classics by playing Final Fantasy 6. However, about that time, I was heading out to college and when I got there, I mostly gave up RPG gaming. 3D FPSes were all the rage for dorm life and for four years, that's mostly what I played.
So, Final Fantasy Anthology fell along the wayside, and to make extra cash for college life, I ended up selling off all of my original PS1 titles, which I deeply regretted. Final Fantasy VI would have to wait for another day. This was the first time this game ended up in my library, only to be ignored.
After college, I managed to get a Game Boy Advance from a friend at a cheap price. He had won it at a raffle at the company he'd worked at, but didn't really care to have it, and he didn't have kids or a niece or nephew to pass it off too, so he sold it to me for a super-good price. I don't recall when but at some point, I did pick up Final Fantasy VI along with Final Fantasy V.
My goal was to play both, in chronological order but this plan created an unexpected problem. I fell in love with Final Fantasy V but since I was just starting my professional life, it was a title I'd pick up, play a bit, and come back to. I almost finished that game (which is a notorious flaw of mine--I love a lot of games but almost never finish anything), and once I was finished with Final Fantasy V, I didn't come back to Final Fantasy VI. Instead, I moved on to Final Fantasy X on the PS2, as well as Dragon Quest 8, which was the title that introduced me to the wonderful Dragon Quest series. I played both of these titles off and on for about 2 years and never made it back to Final Fantasy VI.
Having titles around that I never play bothered me back then, especially as when started dating my future wife. My wife never pressured me to sell my games, but as the hobby slipped further and further out of my life, I found myself selling the games and hardware I didn't use. I did keep my original GBA (and I still have it!), but both my original Final Fantasy V and VI copies for the GBA were casualties of the sell-offs.
So, beyond a boot up and maybe a few hours of game play, my second ownership of Final Fantasy VI resulted in nothing.
Part Three: Well did I ever experience this game at all?
Since my initial purchase of Final Fantasy Anthologies, the GBA title, also getting it on the Wii Virtual console... and even getting a SNES Classic, I have started this game every. single. time. I have no clue why but I've either been too busy to seriously dive into this game, or at that time in my life my interests were a little different. Off and on I've tried to come to this game and give it a try. In some instances, I was in a bit of an RPG lull, and this was the first game I'd try to come back to after those periods. I guess I never had it in me to tackle a classic at those moments in the past 30+ years since this game was released.
At most, I've put 10 hours into this game when I'd start up and try to play it. I never got too far into this game, and of the 4-6 times I've started it in the past, I never got much farther than the river sequence and the absolute farthest I ever made it was to the opera house. I honestly don't know how many false starts I've had with this game. At this point it feels almost shameful.
If you've stuck with me for this far in the story, this has been one of those games that's sat closest to the top of my backlog pile for ages, begging to be played, but I've just never been able to get it done. Yet, wanting to finally accomplish this goal this past January I evaluated which available versions were most likely to get played. I made the decision to play Final Fantasy VI on iOS. My reasons were because this version is mobile. There are also features in this version to turn random encounters on and off, so I can lightning through dungeons if I want, but I can also multiply all leveling stats by 2x or 4x, which makes grinding MUCH faster.
Is this cheating? Absolutely! But at this point in my gaming life with little time to dedicate to RPGs, cutting on those 4x leveling stats is a great balance that allows me to see most of what this game has to offer, without having too waste to many hours grinding.
Part Four: Where am I now
I've been playing this on iOS now for about 16 logged hours. I will make another post discussing my current thoughts and detailing where I'm at but the short version of my current status is that I'm about to enter the Esper Realm... I think. I am at the Vector Outpost and all of the guards are missing, *gasp*. So we'll see where it goes from there. Until my next post, thanks for reading. I promise the next post won't be half this long! (Probably...)
Well, I had a lengthy post ready to go that I needed to proofread but I've been busy and then I had a browser restart and lost it. Luckily for you all, this means things should be shorter.
As I mentioned in my last post, I've restarted this game several times over the past 25 years and have never made it much further than about 10 hours into the game. It may sound like I've gotten bored with it, but I haven't. In fact, I believe that for any 2D game, Final Fantasy VI has the most amazing starting sequence I've ever seen and it makes me want to come back to it frequently.
The game starts on a mountaintop, and three characters are revealed—Biggs, Wedge, and a girl with a mind control crown. Immediately, you get a sense that there are problems ahead, likely caused by this crowd. Then, with a wonderful, slow build, your party walks to Narshe. The music and atmosphere at this point are amazing, and in my humble opinion this is the best part of the game that I've experienced!
But after the beginning, the game shifts and becomes a more traditional RPG for Squaresoft. I'm not saying anything rough or mean, but you are going to get a traditional 2D, top-down experience, and when you can finally fly, the game goes into a Mode 7 scaling mode. All standard for a Squaresoft RPG for the SNES.
Previously, I've played both Final Fantasy IV and V. Both are excellent games and I maintain that FF V is my favorite 2D Final Fantasy game. The story of FFVI so far has been enjoyable and as I'm about to enter the sealed gate, I've enjoyed the discovery of how the full weapon, combat, and player customization works.
Final Fantasy VII has been my favorite Final Fantasy title and will likely remain as such. However, now that I've finally acquired and learned how the Esper/Magicite thing works, I can see the full evolution of what Squaresoft did with their RPGs and character advancement, which I missed from the jump from Final Fantasy V to VII.
In FFV, Square used a familiar mechanism of allowing each player to select a job class that the can level by JP experience. This mechanism existed before FFV and persisted after with titles like Final Fantasy Tactics. The real benefit of the job class system in FFV is that once you leveled up and mastered a class, your player could equip one class ability. For instance, you could equip White or Black magic. This meant that if you were fighting as, say, a monk you could have strong barehanded attacks but also cast healing spells. This novel approach provided a way for you to give each character a focus that could work well for their unique stats, while also allowing for some novel customization of ability pairing. Neat!
In FFVI, it seems that they wanted to expand this capability with the Esper system. In FFV, it took a while to max out any job type, but with FFVI, maxing an Esper on a player isn't that bad. The benefit of maxing the Esper is whatever magic spells you've learn from an Esper, you've learned for good on that character. In effect, this approach is very similar to FFV but instead of having the limitation of choosing one secondary job function to equip, maxing Espers allows you to keep ALL of the Espers' magic abilities.
Even though I've not gotten to far into FFVI, I think that the Esper system might be a tad too powerful. I've currently maxed all of my current character's Espers abilities, and I did it in about 2 hours of grinding. Granted, I'm doing this on iOS, and it allows me to get 4x XP and AP with each battle but even if I only focused on my primary party members and spent, say, 2-3 hours leveling in a regular game, I could be in the same boat without cheating. I definitely feel that might be OP.
For further comparison, Final Fantasy VII seems to have learned from this mechanic and even further refined the customization of character abilities. Instead of equipping jobs or Espers, you now have Materia. Equipped Materia gives you numerous potential abilities. Instead of coupling spell or ability power directly with player leveling, it now levels the Materia item itself, as it is used, regardless of who has equipped it! To this day, I find this mechanic to be one of the greatest RPG mechanics I've ever seen. Part of the problem with a system like Job classes or Espers is that you can only level the strength of an ability by leveling the player. This function is is tightly coupled to the character. But with Materia, the strengthening of the ability is coupled to the ability itself. Or rather, it's coupled to the equippable item that gives the ability, which means maxed out abilities can be swapped around from character to character.
None of this is a complaint. I've enjoyed FFVI so far and I think it's unfair to judge it based on its successor. What I'm really pointing out is that jumping from FFV to FFVII, I didn't see an evolution in character upgrading and enhancing. Job Classes vs. Materia were two very different but creative mechanics. Espers are kind of in the middle. Instead of there being a big leap in variation, I now see it was an evolution of these series between FFV and FFVII, which helps me appreciate both of those games in a different way.
I've waited to make this blog post before continuing my gameplay. Hopefully, I can jump back in tonight or tomorrow. Let's see what happens when I strike out to explore... the next world!
