So, since Kamarile is at home with the parentals, I've decided to wait a week to start FF7. Instead of moving on without her, I've decided that I'm going to present to you, our loving audience, actual pictures of iSketch games we've played recently.
| Merit Award | Bad Man |
Also? For your enjoyment? Lolcatz.
Wow. It's hard to believe that we're up to round 7 of the Blog. We're practically finished, we are.
Final Fantasy 7 still has a special place in my heart. I was 17, a plucky young junior in High School, and we spent our weekends alternating between playing Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, and Final Fantasy VII.
It was my first RPG team sport, if you will. I even remember when one of our clan was penalty boxed and exiled from the house when he erased the save game that was thirty hours in. Whoops.
For those of us who came from sprite-based games, it was amazing popping in that first (of THREE!) disks, and seeing these... people (blocky people, yes, but stay with me) on screen.
People! They... looked realistic. A little pointy, but realistic all the same.
This was huge! No longer were storymakers bound by the limits of pixels! We could have fantastic creations, each one more beautiful than the last.
You'll soon hear me decry this fantastic innovation as the giant-ass sword through the heart of what makes the series great, of course, but still, at the time, this was huge in a good way.
I'll start my journey later this week; I've got a lot of crazy work stuff coming up due, including major deadlines in my first quarter-million dollar project, as well as some wacky home renovations during the holidays, but rest assured, you, the reader, are at the forefront of my mind. [Interesting fact: While in a meeting for said work project, the lead programmer's cell phone rang and it was his wife. Her ringtone? Totally FF related.]
Plus, if I play my cards right in this playthrough, I'll have the opportunity to use the hoyay and racism tags in the same post. How awesome is that?
The real thing isn't really less ridiculous.
As soon as I can get an AV multi-out cable for my PS2 to connect to my brand new Gamebridge, Matty and I will be starting our playthrough of FF7. (Actually, I need to find a memory card, too. Yuck.) As with FF5, we have devised a special set of rules for this playthrough. They're a little bit on the byzantine side, so let's run through them:
1. Matty and I compiled a list of FF characters with set classes/classlike abilities. This includes the casts of FF4, FF6, and FF9.
2. We then determined which materia in FF7 approximate the spells and skills of each character. Some wind up far more useful than others.
3. We assigned a number to each character, then, going down the list of FF7 characters, we used a random number generator to decide whose skillset each FF7 character would be able to use.
The intent of this is to thwart the main drawback of the materia system: namely, that the player ends up using the same three characters over and over again. With this system, the characters can ONLY use the materia assigned to them , and therefore we'd be forced to use more characters over the course of the game.
Here is what I ended up with.
Cloud: Cyan
Counter
Slash All
Double Cut
HP Absorb
MP Absorb
Odin
Added-effect/Time
Barret: Gogo
Mimic
*Can equip whatever magic materia the other members of the current party have equipped
Tifa: Strago
Enemy Skill
MP+
Aeris: Edge
Double-cut
Throw
Exit
*Can use offensive items
Red13: Gau
*Can only equip one materia at any given time
*No weapons allowed
CaitSith: Eiko
Titan
Phoenix
Alexander
Restore
Revive
Heal
Barrier
Time (not Slow)
Transform
Seal (not Sleep)
Destruct (not Death)
MP+
Magic Plus
MP Turbo
Cid: Dagger
Shiva
Ifrit
Ramuh
Odin
Leviathan
Hades
Bahamut
Restore
Life
Barrier
Heal
Transform
Mystify
MP+
Magic Plus
MP Turbo
Destruct (no Death)
Vincent: Vivi
Fire
Seal
Ice
Time (no Haste)
Lightning
Poison
Gravity
Comet
Destruct
Contain
Added Effect
MP+
Elemental
Yuffie: Sabin
Deathblow
Fire-All
Enemy Skill (Aero and White Wind Only)
HP+
Double Cut
All in all, a pretty balanced party. Happily, thanks to the double dosage of white mage/summoner skillsets, I won't have to use Cait Sith after all.
Matty rolled the following:
Cloud: Amarant
Throw
Restore
Life
(no All)
Deathblow
HP+
Long Range
Magic Plus
MP Turbo
Added Effect
Counter
Cover
Preemptive
Magic Counter
Return
HP absorb
MP absorb
Barret: Kain
XP+
HP+
SPD+
Tifa: Zidane
Enemy Away,
Steal
Preemptive,
Sense
Deathblow
HP+
SPD+
Added effect
counter
Cover (if in a party with 2 girls)
Aeris: Vivi
Fire
Seal
Ice
Time (no Haste)
Lightning
Poison
Gravity
Comet
Destruct
Contain
Added Effect
MP+
Elemental
Cid: Edge
double-cut
Throw
Exit
*Can use offensive items
Red 13: Relm
Manipulate
Cait Sith: Quina
Enemy Skill
MP+
Added Effect
Counter
Vincent: Terra
Fire
Heal
Restore
Life
Exit
Ultima
Gravity (only Demi)
Contain (only Break)
Morph (for kicks)
*either HP+ or MP+
Yuffie: Gogo
Mimic
*Can equip whatever magic materia the other members of the current party have equipped
Some of my favorites didn't get rolled at all, namely Rydia, who would have been a crazy black magic/summoner powerhouse. But the results of this experiment should be interesting. It took a long time to set up, but I think it'll be worth it!
In the meantime, why don't you sit back and enjoy some of these vintage FF7 commercials?
"Will never come to a theater near you"... if only! Damn you, Advent Children!
Yes, they were right! It couldn't be done in a major motion picture! Which is why Advent Children went straight to DVD... because it was awful!
Okay, I can't say anything else mean. I love FF7, I really do. What I don't love is my lack of a proper AV multi out cable! Curses. Anyway, we will get to this game as soon as possible.
| So, Kammy. FF6. FF6 -- They just don't make games like they used to, huh, matty? This? Truth. I feel like we could have probably gone on for a good six months about FF6. We almost did. ;-) Quiet, you. Well, there are many things you can talk about in this game. It's extremely dense. The awesome thing about FF6 to me is that every time I play it, I discover something awesome I didn't know about before. Like the toilet squatting? That was new to me. Yeah, me too. Who knew that during your grand adventure to save the world, you had time to drop the kids off at the pool? Wait, there's a pool? That, dear, would be slang for dropping a deuce. ....Anyhoo! |
Getting the lyrics wrong is also rewarding. | I really think that FF6 is the top of the rollercoaster ride for the series. You go down a little hill and back up with FF7, and then it's the start of the inevitable decline. I wonder why that is? I mean, obviously the game has lower production values, is less technologically advanced, and less polished than its descendents. I think that too much emphasis got put on things like 'graphics' and 'unique game mechanics'. Like, look at all the bugs in this game! This run I got a sketch bug that froze my ATB bars and I had to reset I never actually use Relm, unless I'm Lore whoring, so no sketch bugs for me, although this and the other bugs are usually things that you'll never do, like sketching an invisible confused ally. It was weird, I never got one before. Or it might have been unrelated to sketching. But I think Relm was in my party. Anyhoo. I am shocked you'd never use Relm. Shocked. I think my affection for FF6 and FF7 comes from my affinity for those things which are ambitious and a little unpolished. FF6 does some wacky things. The experiment with non-linearity? Suicide, teen pregnancy, in a video game? An entire sequence where you go to the opera? These are crazy experiments. They're things which would not necessarily be attractive to the audience. Although, I suppose that Japan likes suicide, so maybe I'm off on this one. There's something to that. Six was an epic story, had a lot of great, versatile characters (if you set things up right), but lacked a strong translation for the script which left you scratching your head in confusion. I was surprised at all the 'taboo' cultural things in the game, what with the teen pregnancies and the suicide attempts. But I think those are outshone by things like the opera scene, Cyan's dream. The parts of the game like that are pretty much fully immersive gaming experiences. It's true; the actual cutscenes that don't involve the player are few and far between. The way the opera scene is designed, it forces the player to be involved and on his toes. I remember the first time playing the Opera scene when the game just came out, before the advent of internets and such. I actually had to write out the score, because it seemed important at the time. |
| I also think, at the time, I named all the characters swear words. Remember that time that we named Terra EsprSx over and over again? "Only EsprSx can bridge the gap between esper and human"? Will you be our hope.... EsprSx? There's so much dialogue in this game, and I think the average player won't see a good third of it. That's what gives this game replay value. I won't replay a game just to get the ultimate weapon or whatever. I WILL replay a game if it means I get a better story. Which is a shame. So many of my favorite scenes (Gau and Father, the Brothers in Figaro, etc.) people won't see because they're not mandatory. Okay, am I a total nerd if I kind of tear up when you go to see Gau's dad? I'm sorry... Yes... But it's a well done scene. It's goofy, and poignant. That's a good summary of FF6 in general, actually. Example: The whole guilt Ultros into letting Relm sketch a picture of him so he'll attack himself and leave, only to have your sketch fail because the hit rate sucks on it? Hilarious. No, seriously, you're right. Goofy, but poignant. Like the opera! | me every time too. |
power on | The other story thing that interests me is that this is a very Star Warsy game too, but it doesn't bother us like 2 and 12. Well, in 2, you actually had to go into a death-star like dungeon to rescue the princess. That's true. And 12 smacks of the 'prequels', what with the clone war and the robot fighting. FF6 takes the base elements, small group of rag-tag rebels trying to overthrow the evil Empire and they have the decency to stop short of having Kefka be Terra's father. I think that's why 6 (and 7, but this post isn't about that) is so great. They take all of these really good ideas and mechanics, and they don't overuse them. For example, you only have a small number of multi-party dungeons. If you had twenty of them? Overkill. You have a fair number of mandatory character selections based upon the story, but a lot of the time, you're open ended as to who you want to use. I actually like the bonus dungeon in FF6A, since that makes great use of the multi-party system. It's also hard as balls. Hard as balls? Maybe you should have that looked at. ;-) Zing! Zing indeed. |
| I mean, I hate to be rabid fanboy about a game, but 6 is probably in the top 3 favorite games of all time. I agree. I think its imperfections are endearing. The limited text space, I think, really keeps the game chugging along. Dialogue in later installments tends to be quite overwrought, and not as quotable. That's true -- I still have issues with the script, like where they edit out the Celes suicide attempt to be an enjoyable theme-park thrill ride, but beyond that, the characters are likable, well-written, and believable. But everyone who plays it KNOWS that she's killing herself. The code for that is so transparent as to not really matter. That's true, but I'm an advocate of calling a spade a spade. So you can't watch I Love Lucy because they can't say the word "pregnant" when she gets knocked up? It's the same sort of thing. I still stand by my Kefka is the greatest villain of all time just due to the fact that he's believable statement. What do you think, K? Greatest villain ever, or confused clown who lost his circus troupe? I love Kefka too. First boss to get an angelic choir backing him up! This, however, becomes overdone eventually. | And it comes after your mom. Zing! |
This is like Ultima, but actually effective. | The problem with future FF games is that they go, hey, people loved this in FF6. Let's add it to this game too. Everytime you cast Ultima, a Final Fantasy villain gets his wings. Does anyone actually cast ultima anymore? I mean, I've not used that spell for a long time because there are always mechanics in place that outstrip magic spells. The kids have Waterga instead, nowadays. Ultimaga-Os! Part of a balanced breakfast! I think the problem with newer FFs is overexplanation. They're too neat, if that makes sense. They don't take as many risks, and don't reap as many rewards. That's a good point, I suppose. I think a bit of the opposite, actually -- that the future FFs are just too overcomplicated, if anything. I *still* to this day don't understand the plot of FF7, FF8 was too high-school romance (which no-one really understands)... the list goes on. |
| Okay, and maybe this is just me here... but when I was a kid, and I had an SNES, I would play things like Zelda and Secret of Mana with my sister and we'd like, make up dialogue between the characters, basically as if we were playing dolls or something and that's something a kid couldn't really do with a newer game. You could with FF8, since all Squall ever says is '...'. I guess. But you don't have the mysteries purposefully left unresolved, like Shadow and Relm. I mean, it's easy enough to figure out, but the game never actually has the tearful family reunion scene, or anything. Yeah, but if you couldn't figure out that they had some sort of family connection... I mean, the fact that they're the only two who can use the memento ring, for one thing. Then again, I'm sure there's a whole group of people who play RPGs and don't read any of the plot. But my point is, the game doesn't overexplain and make it a hallmark moment. That's true. FF6 doesn't try to beat you over the head with 'you must feel sad now!'. | name than Clyde. And he has backstory in spades! |
| The line that always gets me is Celes' right before she stabs Kefka on the Floating Continent. "Power only breeds war... I wish I'd never been born." I mean, that says a lot of stuff in one line! Lamely, that line was not kept for the Advance version. There's something lame instead. I'm continually impressed with how well Woolsey did with the script. That line totally outdoes the Advance translation: "Celes: Power only breeds war... It's something we'd all be better without." -- The 6A script is really awful. That's a lot more sterile. I don't know, I don't think the most accurate translation is always the best translation. Though 6A does actually have the suicide scene correctly worded, so I suppose it's six of one... The FF6A script isn't awful, it's just that too often they throw away the baby with the bathwater. I don't know. They went in and changed a lot of things. Future games shouldn't set precedent for past ones, and with all these remakes, that's what happens. They take out a lot of things that made the games great, and put puns and pop culture references in to try and make the script 'funny'. They took away the son of the submariner line, and my favorite Celes line, and the subsequent Kefka "hate" spiel. But there was planty of good, too. I mean, it's a translation by committee. It's not going to have the personality of one done by a single person. I suppose. I still think they butchered it, but maybe I'm getting nostalgic in my golden years. Come on, Matty, you didn't think that when you played it in February! I've played the classic again, and realize how wrong I was. Also? I mainly like it to tweak your nose. Remember how bent out of shape you got with the fan-trans that called him Cefca? That is a level of accuracy that is too retarded for me. |
| I wish FF games would get back to the trend of renaming characters that have names that sound stupid in English, like "Lulu" or "Fran" Fran is a great name. She was the nanny, you know. It's not a good name for a bunny girl with no sense of humor. Would you rather her be called Snooty McHopsalot? Anyhoo, back to six. It's practically perfect in every way. You've got tons of backstory, a driving and engaging plot, characters that are, for the most part, well-balanced and provide limitless possibilities for future playthroughs... I think I'm ready to score this piece if you are. Let's do it. Alright then. I'm not ashamed to do it. Any negative points in six are far outshined by all the gold. 10/10 for me. I feel loath to give it a perfect score, because it's not perfect. That's true. But nothing is perfect, after all. There are plot holes, there are incredibly bad glitches However, I do not think there will ever be another RPG like it. 10/10. Let me get out my calculator.... that means that FF6 gets a FFNerds score of... 10! The prophecy has been fulfilled. Coming up next, FF7! Welcome to the era of fantastically bad hair. (No - not the 80s.) OMG, I can't wait. Did you know that FF7, if you don't count Mystic Quest, was the first FF I played? I did, indeed. Did you know it was *not* the first FF I played? Yes, I know. Hey, and when I played it, I didn't know anything about anime, so I thought that being able to fight dragons with a machine gun was super original! Machine guns, dragons, motorbikes.... FF7's got it all. Stay tuned, folks, you'll love it. |
Now what are we going to say about the ending to FF6?
Other than the fact the ending to FF6 is the best ending in videogame history?
You mean better than Mario 2's "It was all a dream" ending?
That was actually the exact counterpoint I was thinking of. I mean, it's easily the best FF ending compared to the prior ones, in that, I don't know, you're not fighting a fucking tree.
Interesting note: FF6 and FF5, the only games in the series with non-linear endings. Unless you count X-2, which you don't.
I can't believe you'd sully FF6 with a post about X-2. I mean, FF6's ending is brilliant. It has customized parts for every character that ties into their individual storylines. It's actually probably the most serious part of FF6, though.
Yes, two of your party members die in the escape!
Sadly, none of them are Relm.
For me, a discussion of the ending of FF6 really rests upon the music. Uematsu has three tracks in FF6 that are better than anything else he has ever done. One is the opera. One is the final boss music. And one is the ending.
This is true. I think that, occasionally, I play FF6 just for the music.
It's here that you realize how clever Uematsu really was with his character themes. Like, how he designs Celes' and Locke's themes to be played together.
Locke and Celes - together because of harmonies since 2007.
I mean, the music adds a real poignancy to the ending-- an ending that isn't really so much about what the characters are doing as who the characters are.
Somewhere on the Internet, I'm sure you've just spawned a novella about philosophy in FF6.
Well, when you look at the endings to FF4 and FF5, they're very action-oriented and happily-ever-after-ish. In FF4, seriously, everyone becomes a king, except for Kain, who becomes an emo. And in FF5, the non-linear aspect is pretty much the luck of the draw, based on who is KO'd at the end of the final battle. In FF6, your ending changes if you didn't find certain characters. Celes gets a different ending without Locke, Relm gets a different ending without Strago, Edgar gets a different one without Sabin.
That's true, there's a lot of dialogue change, but on the all, it's also a very happy ending too. Terra goes back to being a baby momma, Celes and Locke doink on a bed of bandanas... even Strago and Relm ride off into the sunset together.
That's all implied, though. It is implied that Celes and Locke get together, but they ever actually confirm their lurve throughout the entire game.
Okay, if Celes is like, hoshit, this place is collapsing, gonna die, whoops, dropped a bandana of Locke's have to go get it... that's a little more than implying.
No, but if this were FF4, we'd see the wedding.
This is true.
I think if there were a fanfic that said that Celes and Locke broke up after a year because she's too emo and he loves his ex too much, I wouldn't call that OOC.
I don't know that they've got the true love that shall live forever, but you definitely know that they're rocking it in that tent on the save circle.
Okay, I'll give you that. Another sad thing: Shadow kicks it.
Well, he was understandably emo that his partner-in-crime/partner-in-the-sack died.
Right. So, all I'm saying, is that the ending is on the bittersweet side.
It's not all rainbows and sunshine, but it's pretty cheery, really.
Of course, once everyone realizes that Terra is alive, and can be a real live human girl, everything gets SUPER happy.
Exactly. Note to Square: Better ending? Terra dies.
Oh, come on.
Look, I'm sorry. But it's true.
You have to have a heart of stone not to smile just a little when the FF Prologue music is playing, and flowers start to bloom... and Duane sits in the back room while the small children of Mobliz deliver Katarin's baby...
I mean, that could all still happen with Terra taking a dirt nap. If Terra dies, everyone goes home a little wiser.
Awww, but FF6 is all about hope! If Terra died, it would be so nihilistic.
Admit it though, you'd bawl your eyes out if she did die. They could bury her next to Leo.
No, they couldn't, because if she died, it would be because the esper part of her poofed away like the magicite!
So they could bury half of her.
Oh, whatever. You can't kill your hero at the end of the game. It just doesn't happen.
Maybe it should. Wouldn't you have liked FFX better if Yuna died? No sequels.
So what makes FF6 the best game ending ever, if Terra's survival renders it imperfect?
It's a lot like the game. It's quirky and serious. Everyone gets to play a role in your survival, even if you've neglected to level them because they suck ass.
I think I screencapped like, everything in the ending.
As did I. It's all gold. I'm just saying that I could see a very good ending where Terra dies. Or even where it's left ambiguous.
FF6 is the happy medium between the overexplained ending of FF4 and the extremely ambiguous ending of FF7.
I think that's why it's so great. It's like the baby bear's stuff in Goldilocks. It's not too this, it's not too that, it's juuuust right.
Of course, I also love the FF7 ending, but many people didn't, at the time.
The 7 ending is a lot more clear than the 7 story.
I still think that if Terra died, it would defeat the whole point of the game, which is about Terra trying to find her place in the world.
Her place in the world could be in a wooden box!
You're a meanie!
I know. I'm a horrible, horrible person. Let's see if you defend Cloud so much in FF7 when I say he should have died.
I think the same is true for FF7. The game is pointless if Cloud dies, because the game is all about trying to figure out who Cloud is.
I mean, Terra couldn't die and have the ending make sense, of course. It's silly. Cyan beating up on machines, Setzer not trusting his luck... it's like everyone grew a little bit after saving the 
world.
I mean, yeah. And the growing is small and incremental, and not dramatic in every case. The game doesn't overreach.
Which, for any other game, might be an insult. The game doesn't strive for some the highest peak, it chills in the middle and speaks with the people.
Like, I said before that this game is ambitious, so I'm not like, revising that or anything. I just think that it is true to its characters and to itself.
I mean, that's 6's strong point. The plot and character development. They carry that right on through to the end, without doing something silly like, I dunno, killing the main character to be edgy.
Yeah, that would be silly, wouldn't it.
And not FF6 silly, appearantly.
So, our message to Square: You go, girl.
Are there any high ranking girls at Square?
Probably not. It's Japan.
Oh, right.
Anyway, stay tuned for our FF6 edition of Games In Conclusion.
It'll be great. (And someone might die!)
This is how FF6 Advance translates the name of Sabin's ultimate blitz.
Lies! All lies!
See? BUM RUSH. I mean, Phantom Rush? Come on. We all know that Sabin doesn't take it up the phantom.
Oh yeah! I went there!
I know, I know, we always say that FF6 doesn't have a protagonist, but really, it does. It has two, in fact. Terra:
And Celes: 
That's right, bitches. They're bitches. FF6 is the only game in the series where a woman can be considered the main character. It's the only RPG I can think of off the top of my head, too. Well, that and Phantasy Star, which I haven't played. And Parasite Eve, which I haven't played either. And I guess in the early Dragon Quests you can make your hero a girl if you want. (That was awesome. The DQ4 party of Mara, Nara, Alena, and Kammy? Unbeatable. Who says you need men to kill metal slimes? Anyway, I digress.)
This is another neat risk that the game developers made that they didn't have to. I'm sure there are many little boys out there who don't want to play video games where they have to be the girl, just as there are probably many who think that sitting through an in-game opera is totally gay. To this, I say: Way to go, Square. You weren't pandering here. You thought about what would be the best concept, and went with it, rather than market-testing and determining that 15-year-old boys want to have large, potent dongs, and then making your character designs accordingly.
The way Squaresoft generally treats female characters hasn't changed too much since FF4. There will always be three girls in your party. One will be the gentle, innocent, and naive white-magic user, who is the love interest of the hero. The secondary female character will be a cold and aloof fighter, who may or may not need to be mastered by the wang of some guy in the party, even though she pretends not to need teh cock. The tertiary female is a cipher whose main purpose is to be jailbait. Gee, these archetypes sure don't tell us anything about Japan, do they? The ladies of FF6 can indeed be catgorized in this way. Relm, of course, is the jailbait.
Celes is the frigid ice maiden.
Terra is the innocent girl with a magic pendant. Did you know she has a magic pendant? ALL Type A Japanese RPG female characters have magic pendants. 
But surprisingly, this game manages to transcend the character types. Let's look at Terra, for instance: sure, she has the trappings of the heroine that needs protecting, in much the same w
ay as, say, an Aeris, or a Yuna, or a Rosa. However, she's got some of the trappings of the traditional MALE FF hero too: amnesia, a history of working for the Evil Empire before joining the rebels, a knack for communicating with ellipses. Moreover, her big exis
tensial crisis-- her fear of her inability to love-- is not resolved in a traditional way: ie, falling for the male hero. Instead she discovers what love is by being a mother to the abandoned children of Mobliz. This denouement is surprisingly feminist for something coming from Japan: Terra's personal discovery comes from herself, and isn't dependent on a man. At the same time, she is genuinely feminine, unlike the fantasy/sci-fi trope of the invulnerable warrior babe. Could you imagine a man like Cloud taking some time to run an orphanage and consider his capacity for love? OH WAIT, that happened-- in Advent Children. GOD, I hate that movie. Can we just pretend it never happened?
Celes, on the other hand, does get a romantic plot, but the love story with Locke is handled in a very subtle way, compared to the more love-centric FFs that we have come to expect in later years (FF8, FF9, FF10.) It's complicated by her past as a war criminal, and the fact that he has his ex-girlfriend's corpse hidden in some guy's basement. They never even say that they love one another; instead, they prefer to exchange as significant glances as 16-bit sprites are capable of, and to refer to one another's aweseomeness obliquely.
Celes' love is, in fact, the driving force that binds the game's disparate World of Ruin half together. For the first half of the game, she is depressed, nihilistic, and, dare I say, a total emo. "You'd better leave me here in this dungeon, because I'm not worth rescuing and I deserve to die!" "Omigod, Gestahl and Kefka, you are so awful to me! I wish I'd never been born!" and of course, the memorable "Everyone I love is dead, so I might as well throw myself off this cliff!" Then, when she starts believing that Locke could be alive, she becomes a beacon of positive thinking, and travels around the world to get people to put down their pints of Haagen Dazs, quit listening to Evanescence, and get ready to save the world again.
Also, keep in mind, that while these two ladies may have lovey-dovey character arcs, they can also use the Atma Weapon and Illumina. Oh yeah, and the Minerva.
So they're not delicate little flowers. Come on, Squaresoft, it worked so well! Plus, it's kind of nice getting to play a game as a girl. Why can't you do stuff like this more often?
So, for my final FF6 post before our joint ending summary, I'll throw out the two final innovations I wanted to bring up.
What makes FF6 one of my favorite games is that they took the concept of multiple worlds from FF5, but did them right. This screenshot? One of the most epic testaments to how awesome the game is.
And it's only eight little words.
Check it. You're fighting this epic battle for truth, justice, and light. You hit your epic climax, where you stare evil in the face on a giant floating continent. Your psuedo-ally, ninja for hire, slits-his-mamas-throat-for-nickels, has sacrificed himself to save you and your party, and then what happens?
Total. World. Annihilation.
Eight little words open up the entire rest of the plot. And the plot is good. Amen.
Suicide references abound in FF6. And, last? The plot.
Which is really deserving of a post unto itself. (Maybe Kamarile will bring up a post for it). But I'll mention it briefly.
I have 1500 pictures. Most of which are some sort of interesting in-game dialogue. This game, to me, is probably the pinnacle of story-driven gaming.
Kamarile and I have argued much in the past, as you no doubt have heard me mention. Great plot won't forgive horrible gameplay, great gameplay will do much to forgive horrible plot.
But, in the case of FF6? It almost makes me believe that plot could forgive all evils.
But then I remember X-2, and think that no amount of plot could forgive that.
When I last left off, I was extolling the virtues of FF6, and it's great multiparty dungeons. They do this again, with a slightly different twist, in the form of a one-screen battle royale, except this time, the enemies are actually on-screen.
Now, I know, lots of other games before have had you fight creatures you can see (as opposed to random encounters, which occur seemingly randomly). But this? Very cool. It's Terra! And she's in trouble! And you have to protect her!
A fair amount of strategy can go into this too. You can charge boldly forward, trying to outrun the guards coming the other direction (who are taking their sweet time, I'll add).
You can do what's being illustrated in this screenshot, and just block the damn path, effectively stopping the forces of the evil Empire from being able to walk past you and your two stuffies.
Or you can, if you're doing a low-level game, memorize their moves and walk past every soldier to battle the commander hassle free.
It's cute, it's fun, it's vaguely gimmicky, and it'd suck if it was used any more than it is, but it's a bit of a delightful diversion from the walk ~40 steps, get in a fight, lather, rinse, repeat.
I know what you're thinking,
and that is so not kawaii.
You wouldn't believe how many
screenshots I have of him dealing this
much damage...It may strike some of you as surprising, but I'm going to throw this on my list. Ridiculously broken game mechanics.
Setzer, amazingly, is one of the godliest characters in the game. He has the (somewhat unlikely) potential to deal 39,996 damage per turn at his lowest level.
That's right.
This all comes from the fact that the damage from the dice are not halved when you use the offering (4x attack), and that the damage is: 2x Level x Dice 1 x Dice 2 x Dice 3. So a level 10 Setzer that throws 4 4 4 would deal 1,280 damage... except that he gets another 4x for rolling all fours. That's 5,120 damage instead.
Now, sure, most of the time you'll hit less than a thousand, but more often than not you'll bust out some crazy numbers. 5120. 9999. And with four tries per attack? And if you slap a Black Belt on him, letting him counter attack? He's crazy deadly.
Setzer isn't the only one who can deal damage like this, of course, but those are under slightly less crazy broken game mechanics.... but since I've already done my post for today, you'll have to wait for the next one.
So, according to Kamarile, I apparently love the hell out of game mechanics. A typical IM conversation for us today led to the topics of our next two posts -- we discovered that she loves plot and story, and I love cool mechanics and the methods by which you convey yourself from plot point to plot point.
And it's true. You've seen on this very blog an argument about games with great plot and bad gameplay and with superb gameplay but atrocious plot. I still believe, on some level, that great mechanics will forgive really poor plot. I'm not so sure about the other way 'round.
But, back to Final Fantasy 6. The first cool thing about it is the sheer number of characters you have. Look at them! There's fourteen! And, shocker, they're all unique! They're not like, generic mage type person #316, and random chick with giant gozongas #4.
Other games have had a lot of characters, and they've been unique, but here, you've got a chick that can double her magic power, a friendly thief, a samurai that turns time into powerful attacks, a ninja who can throw, a sexbomb who can use machinery, a body builder who uses a street fighter style mechanic to deal damage, a girl who can absorb magic, a blue mage, a kid who can control people, a sexbomb who can use slots, a moogle that can berserk himself and dance, a wind god who can take on the attacks of pretty much any enemy in the game, a character who CAN do anything in the game....
And, um, a sasquatch. Hey, they can't all be winners. 
Step one, put a pointer in that box.
Step two, throw a PC in that box....
Another innovation, and my favorite mechanic by far to be honest, is multi-party dungeons. Check it. There's Gau. But wait! There's Gogo! How can this be? Law clearly dictates that you must wander around the world with no more than 3 of your friends, all compacted into the space of one person.
This is one of those mechanics that is used well, and used at the right times. There are a whole two dungeons in the World of Ruin that use this mechanic -- the final dungeon, and the Phoenix Cave. (The GBA version has a third, bonus dungeon that employs this mechanic.)
This is nice, because it allows you to explore the depth and variety of all the cool characters that you end up collecting, rather than continually using a stock party of three or four characters.
One might argue that you then have to spend three times longer leveling up, but, again, nothing is perfect.
... it's that family is a beautiful thing. If your brother becomes some sort of black-garbed, cackling villain, all that you need to do is stage an intervention with your uncle if you want him to realize the error of his ways. Even deadbeat dads who are also hitmen can provide you with free puppies, if you play your cards right. Isn't that great? Families are so special.
However, there is one thing that you should know when it comes to families. And that is that you should never have grandchildren. Because if you have grandchildren, YOU WILL DIE. This isn't a value judgement or anything; it's a cosmic rule of the universe. Nothing shows this better than FF6.
Exhibit A: A healthy, happy, Cid, dressed like a condom, as is his wont.
Aww, isn't that nice? A happy reunion. But uh oh, what's this?
WHAT?! Celes wants Cid to be a grandpa? No, Cid!! No! Don't do it!!
SEE? The instand that Cid becomes a grandfather figure, he is stricken with a mortal illness that I am too lazy to cure.
Oh Cid... it didn't have to be like this.
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