The BEST game ever!!!

And no that title is no exaggeration. My next review I feel should be on Final Fantasy VI. I realise my blog has pretty much become a place for reviews on Final Fantasy but I promise my next review won’t be on the FF series. Cross my heart promise ^_^.
If you’ve read my earlier review on Final Fantasy I you will by now understand that I somewhat like the series…..in fact I somewhat like it a lot. Now if there has ever been a game people should play, it’s this one.

Of recent years it seems Final Fantasy VI has sort of become a missing game. People rave about it’s successor VII and III and IV have had remakes onto the DS, but so few people have played this game. As a die hard VII lover, this beats VII hands down. Yes we all know Sephiroth of VII is a brill bad guy, but Kefka in VI does what not even Sephiroth can achieve….but I’ll come to that later.

VI starts off very simply showing a young girl and two soldiers attacking a mining town in these small mecha suits. The girl ends up in a mine and is rescued by our hero Locke. As is pretty standard fare in RPG’s in general, the girl has no idea who she is other than her name is Terra. It quickly becomes to the attention of the player that there is a large empire in this world seeking to take it all over, Locke just happens to be working for a group called the Returners who are fighting against the empire. So let me get this straight so far:

*Girl with no memory
*Hero working for underground rebels
*Empire seeking to take over the world

At this point it’s all very standard stuff. But then the story seems to just take over and it’s the characters that make this game something completely different.

For a start there are 14 playable characters, the most of any of the games in the main numbered series. And, eventually, all of these can be accessible at once, meaning you can mix and match your party as you wish. Now, 14 characters is a lot for any story, be it in a book, movie or game. I mean look at the car crash movie that is love actually, does anyone actually remember any of the characters stories from that movie other than Hugh Grant was supposedly the PM? No you don’t, and why? Because there’s so many characters in it, you don’t get any time to bond with them as individuals. Does that happen in VI? You can bet your life it doesn’t! Every single character has a fully developed personality, back story and progresses through out the game. Some characters such as Locke, Terra, Edgar and Celes have slightly more developed stories than say Gogo or Strago, but by the end of the game you know exactly why the characters are doing what they are doing. As a testament to how great the character development is, I can still name every single character in your party and tell you details about each one, and I promise you, you will too once you’ve played it. When you compare it to the later game of XII where you only really have 6 characters in the game but don’t really care about any because none of them grow or change or really do a whole lot besides running round the world map, VI does everything correctly.
The story is a very familiar one as I have already mentioned with Terra eventually finding out she’s half human and half esper (the summons of this game…and yes VII fans Terra was the magical girl before Aeris was even thought of) and the Empire trying to control magic in the world…a power that the majority of your characters can’t use until a later point in the game meaning you have to plan your party on what strategy’s your employing to progress in the game. But it dos have some really good twists in it, such as bad guys swapping sides and double crosses, while Kefka actually does what other villains fail to do, and takes over the world. Pinky and the Brain eat your hearts out.

The game also has a quite unique idea whereby at times, the large party splits up and you will play several short story sections with only a few characters. This happens early on when Locke steals into a town, Terra and a few other characters are protecting an old man and some of the other characters board a ghost train…yes you heard that correctly, a ghost train.

The game has some wonderful scenes in it, from the aforementioned ghost train scenario to, what is arguably, the best scene out of any Final Fantasy game, the opera scene. There are a million and one reasons why I love this scene so much. For starters the music in it is wonderful. The tune is simply beautiful. But also the character interaction here is really nice. We start to see the blossoming love between Locke and, up till this point, the quite cold hearted Celes. The graphics themselves are none too shabby either, really making full use of the technology available at the time of it’s release. It’s just a very captivating moment.

Which brings me onto the music, the Opera theme, as already mentioned, is simply a delight to listen to, but so is a lot of the music in the game. It’s all done to a lovely high standard with Nobuo Uematsu really out doing himself on them. I’m sure that any VII fans listening to the Opera theme will notice a strong resemblance to a certain tune played as a certain character meets their demise in VII. Not that I’m saying anything of course….but VI came first ^_~

The battle system is pretty standard, working on the ATB system with individual characters having their own unique attacks and abilities such as having Locke being able to steal while Terra can turn into her Esper form.

As already mentioned, the magic is something that originally only two characters can learn. However all characters can learn it eventually by equipping them with magicite and then levelling them up. Depending on what type of magicite they’re equipped with, characters will learn spells and gain statistical bonuses. These spells are learnt through the aquistion of Magic Acquisition Points accrued from most battles.

Despite the battle system being pretty simple and the story initially seeming a little over done, Final Fantasy Vi saves itself with a top class cast of characters and a world that literally sucks you in. As I played through later games, I continually see characters and events that are reminiscent of those from VI, a testament to how good the game actually is as it’s legacy lives on.

Plus once you’ve completed the game, you’re treated to a lovely little CG FMV that recaps over key points in the game. Seriously, after playing through the game for about 60 hours, getting to see my fave characters in CG like this really makes your day. The only downside is that our wonderful hero, Locke is somewhat absent from this….oh and Terra’s gone blonde, but other than that it really is a nice touch and a great treat once you have finished.