Today I have finally finished Final Fantasy 6. Extremely good game, I think I enjoyed it slightly more than FF7 (which I wrote about
here), however the latter is undeniably better in some respects. I actually think they're pretty similar games in their broad intentions, with FF6 being almost a prototype for FF7 in presentation, gameplay setpieces, and even the character customization systems. I still have yet to play other entries in the series (I am going to start FF5 very soon).
The major blemish of FF6 is the lack of engaging gameplay in the first six hours or so. Combat encounters are tuned to be extremely easy at this stage, particularly with the introduction of characters like Edgar, Sabin, and Cyan, whose unique commands are capable of quickly dispatching entire groups with little effort. The game is very linear and setpiece-driven at this stage, and the main character customization system (magicite) doesn't even show up until you've cleared this part of the game. The game is of course still charming at this stage, but it doesn't make up for the lack of substantial gameplay. One redeeming highlight of these dull early hours comes at a moment in the story where the burgeoning party splits up to make a strategic advance on the Gestahlian Empire; in Locke's scenario, the thief has to sneak into a now-occupied South Figaro to gather intel. The town is converted into a stealth puzzle dungeon, and is capped off with Locke rescuing the defected imperial general Celes from the manor's mazelike basement, now teeming with imperial guards, in a rare section of gameplay that challenges resource attrition.
In any case, as soon as the player reaches Zozo the game skyrockets in quality. Enemies and bosses become an actual threat, the dungeons get more complex, and the player finally acquires magicite. Equipping a particular magicite grants a character access to a powerful esper summon, as well as passively teaching them spells as they defeat enemies and in some cases offer stat bonuses on level up. This system allows players to customize their party's abilities and grow their stats in a number of directions, with many distinct viable strategies. Celes, a rune knight who specializes in absorbing enemy spells as MP, can be specialized as a tank with utility spells or as an offensive mage. Sabin, a monk capable of unleashing powerful martial arts Blitzes, can be geared towards strength, magic, or even max HP as one of his abilities heals his party based on his current HP. Gau, a feral youth who can copy the attributes and abilities of any enemy he has lived amongst, could occupy literally any role in combat. Even characters with obvious niches benefit from learning a variety of spells which can enhance their own abilities or support their team. For example, the samurai Cyan specializes in bushido sword techniques which have a long charge time, but this can be neutralized if he learns the Quick spell to take a double turn, which pauses the battle entirely until both of its turns have been resolved (I discovered this strategy on the final boss after teaching Cyan the skill on a whim, and he carried my team to victory).
Characters can also equip up to 2 rings, charms, or other artifacts to gain potent passive buffs, become immune to harmful status effects, or even modify their special commands, e.g. the thief Locke's Steal becomes Mug which attacks during the theft attempt, the gambler Setzer's Slots are replaced with Gil Toss which allows him to deal great damage without investing in Strength or Magic, and the pictomancer Relm's ability to Sketch an enemy to copy a random attack upgrades to the ability to Control them instead. As the player collects more magicite and relics, the strategic possibility space grows multiplicatively.
The freeform character progression systems are further elevated by the game's more player-driven narrative and gameplay structure after the railroaded early hours. Even in moments where the story is chiefly centered around one or two characters, the player is always permitted to choose the makeup of the rest of the party, and in many cases this actually leads to unique dialogue from the characters that were brought along. This is a feature that Final Fantasy 7 would iterate on along with hidden consequences for dialogue choices to emphasize the protagonist Cloud's growing relationship with other characters. Meanwhile in Final Fantasy 6 there is no clear protagonist, and the player is encouraged to cast whomever they like among the ensemble to play the supporting roles in character-driven scenes, and can find missable scenes as a result of who they tend to bring along.
The player is also softly encouraged to frequently utilize each of 14 playable characters. When characters are first recruited or brought back into the party after being separated, their levels are brought up to the party average. If the player spreads experience evenly across their party, the recruited character will gain fewer "dirty" levels absent any stat bonuses from magicite. There are also three sequences in the game, including two substantial dungeons, where the player must assemble multiple viable parties to progress through a series of challenges, rewarding investment in more than just the player's four favorites.
Arguably the game's best content is found in its second half, when the party is scrambled and the player must recruit them back into the fold. After a few recruitments which proceed in a linear order, the player is on their own, and must find clues on their allies' whereabouts and seek them out in whatever order they choose. This section houses some of the game's best dungeons, as well as a number of optional superbosses offering new gear, magicite, and even character abilities. The game's final dungeon is a challenging test of the player's fully built parties, featuring difficult enemy encounters, a sprawling multi-level maze, eight sub-bosses, and a four-stage final boss which tag in downed characters for the benched party members as it progresses, achieving a daunting scale with some of the most ambitious presentation on the SNES.
Aside from the unengaging early hours, there are still problems with the game. First of all, it's apparently one of the buggiest entries on the SNES, with fans ROMhacking hundreds of bugfixes in the years since release (I recommend the
Revised Old-Style Edition for a easy collection of patches, along with a faithful update to Ted Woolsey's translation). On the design side, the spread of magicite isn't balanced all that well, with a lot of spell overlap and lopsided stat bonuses, as well as some esper summons being much less useful than others. Finally, the game's ATB system is highly flawed, as unlike in prior titles, the ATB gauges do not pause during battle animations, leading to commands piling up on the queue. This makes the Speed stat relatively useless and enables “Wait tricking” abuse, where the player selectively enters a command submenu in Wait mode to pause ATB and gain a turn order advantage. Commands are made even less responsive by the reintroduction of execution delays from FFIV, and the Battle Speed config option counter-intuitively applies only to slowing enemy ATB timers. Over the second half of my playthrough I
workshopped my own ROMhack to address these flaws, building on the work of other modders. I was able to enjoy the final dungeon with substantively more strategic battles as a result.
Final Fantasy 7 has better pacing and a more consistent difficulty curve, as well as an even more robust and expansive character customization system. Final Fantasy 6 has greater challenge to offer near the end of the game (as with most RPGs this is negated if you grind, but the final dungeon was a stiff challenge at level 37), and in my opinion had more engaging level design overall, despite the overabundances of caves. Both employ sublime presentation and snappy gameplay setpieces to sell their narrative, with FF6 perfecting of the craft for the SNES and FF7 confidently doing the same on a brand new system, albeit with less visual consistency. I found the character focus of Final Fantasy 6 especially charming, and the medley of their themes during the ending credits sequence to be rather moving -- Nobuo Uematsu may be the best game composer of all time.
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