I finally revisited this game after 10 years, and... I just couldn't beat it again, albeit for very different reasons. I started FFVI on emulator as a teen, and really enjoyed what I played of it, I got roughly 1/3rd through the full story and had gotten so sucked into the combat that I loved just grinding for fun on end. I only never finished it because I got so distracted with other games and priorities that I forgot to go back to finish it. I came back to it recently after playing Crisis Core Reunion made me remember wanting to check out this game again, so I gave it another shot. I got to the final act and... just don't have the motivation or drive to keep going now.

I think this game's first half is incredible, very much ahead of its time. In the same vein that Dragon Quest V's story and gameplay mechanics were revolutionary for the RPG genre in the early 90s it was made, Final Fantasy VI is very similar. It has a lot of really interesting and cool ideas for its characters with specialized roles, such as complex button inputs for Sabin's martial arts and special abilities, different timing to get different moves out of Cyan's Bushido, Slot Machine rolls for Setzer's abilities, and more. The story also takes a lot of interesting new directions and risks, such as having many different focal points of characters you play as through the story, constantly swapping your party all the time, as well as the villain actually succeeding in some areas that had never been done in any other RPG up to this point (other than Dragon Quest V).

But at the end of the day, I feel that VI's real claim to fame is just that. It was revolutionary for its time and set the foundation for future JRPGs, within its same series and other series to go much further with the ambitious ideas it introduced and polish them up to a shine and utilize them far better than VI ever could. I understand completely why people love this game, and I think it has a lot of good in it. But I sadly lost all interest in beating this game when the final act became a giant grind of having to recruit all my party members, level them up seperately, go through a giant gauntlet of bosses and other dungeons to do so when the game's story has crawled to a halt and holds little to no real substantial content to keep me interested anymore. This final act really just soured what was an otherwise great game for me, and I just can't bring myself to finish it anymore. I'll always respect VI, but I think this will be the last time I ever play it.

Here's hoping I enjoy Chrono Trigger way more, as it sounds like it aged much better than this game has.

What a journey this game is... Holy shit.

First of all, how the fuck did they manage to do this in 1994? IN A FUCKING CARTRIDGE TO TOP IT OFF!

From the very start with that extremely long cinematic sequence, to the raft moment, the theater, the boss fights, the flying ship... COME ON, this feels like a game done last year with outdated graphics. It feels like it has travelled back in time somehow. But the truth is, it didn't travel anywhere, instead it created the foundation of most modern JRPG's.

The music, the characters, the way of telling the story, the open world... It is so good. Even these fucking ugly 2D assets who only have 2 animations made me feel way more than MANY modern characters with incredible detail and movements.

Choices are EVERYWHERE. You can get all the party members... Or not, you can save a couple of characters... Or let them die, you can follow the path that the game wants you to go through... Or completely ignore it and go directly to the last boss.

It is also very long, in fact as long as pretty much you want it to be. It can be both short or long depending on the player, their choices and how much they want to delve into the lore. But ultimately THIS-IS-YOUR-CHOICE. There is no forced sidequests, there is no forced filler. Play however you want, the choice is yours.

The story is, in my opinion and very ironically, one of the weakest links of the game. The first act was really good, very nice pace (very Chrono Trigger-like), things happening constantly, characters appearing left right and center... But the second act is pure freedom and we ain't talking about modern freedom, we are talking about VERY early in open world-style videogames. It isn't bad by any means but the story pretty much gets paused from the moment the second act starts to the ending (except a minute or so whenever you get back any companion). I think the story would have been perfect if it kept the linear style.

The villains are... Well... VILLAINS... Kefka is bad becuse "HIHIHI HAHAHAHA HEHEHE ME VERY BAD, ME THE JOKER" and that's pretty much it. There's barely any backstory on him and he's just bad for the sake of being bad. I must say he is a heartless piece of shit and you truly want him to die, but I was hoping I'd get more of his motivations besides "hihi haha you are all going to die". The rest of the villains are pretty much nonexistant so I won't even mention it.

The music is incredible. By today's standards it is INCREDIBLE, plain simple. It just doesn't get better than this. The combat is also fun, I dislike this mixure between action and turn based combat, even more so when there's plenty time limit quests but I still think it is done very well.

The ending is decent but I expected a bit more. FF's generally aren't known for having a fantastic closure but I expected more closure to some of the stories (a certain ALMOST couple comes to mind, for example). I do think they just literally couldn't put more into the cartridge because the content the game already has makes no sense at all. These guys pretty much managed to put a truck inside my toilet and the toilet worked even better than prior to having a truck inside of it, to put it in layman's terms.

It is hard judging a videogame as old as this one (30 fucking years old) and I like to value everything to the era it was born in. If this game was released today I would be giving it a solid 8 or so, but I still can't believe this game was released in 1994, it revolutionized EVERYTHING for the genre. This is as close as perfection as you get when you try to judge it from the perspective of 20-30 years back in time.

Thank you Square and I truly hope we ever get a remake of this game and we also get some modern old fashioned FF games.

an unbeliveably epic, lengthy and tragic tale all about how even in the face of utterly indescribable loss and tragedy, people will always find a way. has some of the best characters in this series ive experienced so far, some of the hardest hitting story moments, some of the most memorable locations, boss fights, scenarios and more, and some of the most fun battles in JRPG history. an utter triumph and a near-perfect note to go out on as far as this era of final fantasy goes. as far as problems go, it can get a bit monotonous, a bit frustrating, and the 2d top down graphics make it so the best moments of its story dont hit as hard as they could (no fault of the game, just the fault of time itself). but fuck those moments are so good. this game will fuck you up emotionally speaking. while not all of its characters are made equal, the most important ones more than make up for it. so many highlights. AND THE MUSIC HOLY SHIT ITS SO GOOD like even for FF standards where music is always amazing so many songs on this soundtrack hit hard. an unforgettable adventure im so happy i spent nearly 2 months playing. im genuinely so sad its not in my life anymore.

(This is the 98th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)

Couldn't really bring myself to get back to this game after having played it for 10 or so hours a while back. Probably a prime candidate to be replayed some time in the future but for now, there are two main reasons for why I ended up dropping this.

1) I played a lot of Final Fantasy the past year, 3, 4, 5 and now 6, in addition to other JRPGs of its time. As commendable and ahead of the pack Final Fantasy was at this point, these turn based battles are usually tolerable at best, considering that the majority of battles are very simple and repetitive in how they unfold. If you loved combat from FF3-5 or even the successors to FF6, then this should not discourage you from playing FF6.
2) The above would be more tolerable if I enjoyed the dialogue and liked the cast of characters as well as where the story was headed. In this regard, FF6 chooses to do things differently to other entries in the series, which, again, is very much going to be something each individual will have their preferences about. In FF6, there are a lot of "main characters" instead of one or up to 4 of them, and you are sent back and forth between them over the course of this game. Considering that there are multiple characters with mysterious backgrounds who don't have much in personality in the early going, I thought giving them little screen time made me care very little about pretty much the entire cast as a result, at least during the time I played. The resolutions might be satisfying, but combined with everything else, I could not make myself play this for 20-30+ more hours to see the results.

Again, I might revisit the game at some point, especially if FF7 and beyond finally make me fans of Final Fantasy games. For now, what I can say, despite my subjective criticisms, is that it is clear during every minute that you play this that FF6 is way beyond 99% of video games at its time in terms of production values. And if there is one thing I really liked about this game, it would be its soundtrack. Terras Theme is definitely my favorite Final Fantasy theme as of now.

But to conclude, FF6 progresses the series forward but the paths it chooses to take in storytelling combined with your affinity (or lack thereof) for the battle system will determine whether you will want to see this through.