Final Fantasy VI

I need to make a confession. I never really beat Final Fantasy VI, one of my favorite games of all time, as a kid. I mean, yes, I poured hours and hours into the game, and on at least one file of mine I beat Kefka in the final dungeon and saw the credits roll. Game beaten, sure. But that was a file on which I used a Game Genie cheat code halfway through the game to boost my whole party to maximum levels, maximum stats, you name it. I was tired of getting my ass kicked by random encounters, you see, and no matter how much I grinded (ground?) I could never reach a point where I was capable of surviving all the random encounters by even the midway point of the game. (In hindsight this is because I was eight years old and mostly just mashing "fight" with every character in every battle, using equipment loadouts that focused exclusively on strength and HP, strategy be damned.) So eventually I said, fuck it, and I used a Game Genie and made all of my characters basically invincible, and still thoroughly enjoyed the latter half of the game and the way it resolved the stories and arcs put in play by the first half.

But I finally did it the right way (well, sort of the right way - still peeped a walkthrough at some points just to make sure I didn't miss anything, whatever, it's 2017) and beat Final Fantasy VI in the honest-to-goodness manner it was meant to be played, on my SNES Classic, about a month ago.

I have a ton of thoughts, and far too many to make one long rambling post, so instead I want to highlight the differences in my perception of the game between when I first played it, back on Christmas Day of 1994 (so, sure, call it 1995) and today. Obviously my memory today of my thoughts in 1995 is imperfect and colored by other thoughts I've had about the game in the, holy shit, 22 years since, but I still think it's an interesting exercise in contrasting the way I felt about this game as a child, when it was one of my favorites of all time, and today, when it remains one of my favorites of all time.

TERRA

1995: She's boring and whiney. Spends the whole game asking people what love is, and what it's like to be in love. Is she some kind of idiot? And what's with this unpredictable morph ability?

2017: A young woman with no real history or family, who's spent her life as an enslaved weapon of the Empire - as an adult, I completely understand her utter lack of confidence and self-awareness, and get why she's so full of regret and an unwillingness to fight in the second half of the game. Plus, morph is an excellent move that makes Terra arguably the greatest fighter in the game. Girl's trending up!

LOCKE

1995: This guy's got a bit of a hero complex.

2017: Yeah, he does. His whole unwillingness to abandon either Terra or Celes when they're in need is admirable, but it also makes him the de facto main character of the second "act" of the story, at a point in time where he's actually one of the worst and weakest fighters. Still a great character with a great story, and it makes perfect sense that, after spending so much time with him in the World of Balance, he's one of the toughest characters to reacquire in the World of Ruin.

EDGAR

1995: He is cocky, which is unbecoming for a king. He is also a ladies' man, and as a seven-year-old, I'm not cool with that.

2017: One of my biggest changes of heart involved Edgar. Even at a young age I knew he was one of the World of Balance's best fighters, thanks to his toolset, but back in 1995 I was completely incapable of understanding that any man, including Edgar, would not actually want to be the king, and that power is a burden, and that Edgar shouldered it willingly in order for his twin brother to have a better life, free from the responsibilities of governance.

SABIN

1995: Oh my God, this is the best character in the game, he is ridiculously potent as a fighter, and as a character he's completely awesome too - just a bodybuilder who lives in the mountains and isn't afraid to throw down anytime, anywhere.

2017: Yes, all this is correct. Now that I'm older than Sabin's supposed to be (27? Ha!) I feel like he's at least a little bit of a musclebound meathead, but so what? What video game wouldn't be better without its own Rob Gronkowski character?

CELES

1995: Locke's love interest, and someone who keeps betraying both sides of the war like some kind of double agent. She's obviously one of the good guys, though, so let's just have faith in her.

2017: I never really appreciated it this way until now, but Celes is almost entirely amoral in the first half of the game. When she double crosses your party in the Magitek Factory, and even when she almost does the same on the Floating Continent, I don't really think she's playing. I think she's legitimately on Kefka's side during those moments, tempted like he is to become powerful and godlike. When you start the second half of the game with no one but her, it's because she's a completely blank slate now that the war has ended; her whole identity was rooted in allegiance and betrayal, to the point where in the game's most famous scene at the Opera House, she's able to put on another personality like a glove. She's no one and nothing until the world ends, and then she's free to just be her, and to find out what matters to her in life. (It's Locke.) There also isn't nearly, at all, a love triangle between her and Locke and Terra like I used to think there was.

CYAN

1995: The formal-talking guy who talks like he's in a Shakespeare production but swings a badass blade. A knight! He lost his whole family, and that's very sad.

2017: Well, he's a samurai, actually, as Doma Castle is very clearly, uh, "Oriental," with respect to the rest of the very European-looking game. And yes - the poisoning of Doma Castle remains one of the darkest and dirtiest plot points in any video game I've ever played. Two countries are at war, and evil old Kefka just goes ahead and poisions an entire water supply. Not cool, bro! Cyan's one of the few characters in the whole dang game who's still older than I am today, and I still can't relate to what it must be like to lose your family and hometown in the blink of an eye. Anyway, as a fighter, his special technique is actually completely useless because it takes fucking forever to charge up and use; you're so much better off just using the charge-free basic attacks he's got. His magic sucks too, which becomes a real hindrance late in the game, and I think his speed is among the lowest in the game. What I'm saying is, he is sneakily and quietly the worst fighter in the game, easily. Absolutely love his music and his tragic story, though.

GAU

1995: Ugh. Just an angry, feral kid who's useless in battle. His backstory is sad, though.

2017: It is a sad backstory, but Gau absolutely is not useless in battle. Just because you can't control him doesn't mean he can't absolutely fuck enemies up. I still think there was no need to have him, Umaro, Relm, and Strago - seems like they used four characters to cover and remix the two or three class tropes of "blue mage" and "berserker" and "mediator," but whatever.

SHADOW

1995: This fucking guy, a silent assassin with no loyalties except to his dog, I am loving him.

2017: I was prepared to hate this character, or at least dislike him a lot, but no - Shadow is legitimately a great character, bailing your party out of more than one tight bind in the first half, and probably dead and gone in the second half if you fell victim to one of the all time greatest traps in RPG history. (When given the choice... WAIT!) I also missed, back in 1995, the way his story ends in the epilogue. It's a subtle suicide, and damn, is it just perfect.

SETZER

1995: Some kind of world famous airship gambler. Not a great option in battle.

2017: Yeah, more or less nailed it back then. I will say, it's kind of depressing that the game's most iconic sequence, at the Opera House, plays out the way it does because Setzer is trying to kidnap a beautiful singer and make her his bride. Like, that's extremely Bowser of him, very rapey, and so on. it also doesn't really make a ton of sense that there's one airship in the entire world and the Empire never tries to acquire it in any way. It'd be like if the only space ship with light speed in Star Wars were the Millennium Falcon. The craziest thing I learned about Setzer this time through is that he is supposed to be 27 years old. Dude is a hard-living airship captain with white hair and a face full of scars. He's a rough 36 at best, and more likely 48. Get out of here with 27.

MOG

1995: Just a weird little moogle critter who wants to hang out and throw down. Good fighter.

2017: More of a "meh" fighter - I think younger me was just deluded by the fact that Mog joins the party at an insanely high level early on - but the description's pretty apt. This dude was '90s cool - chill, really - and also looked like a cuddly little teddy bear with a red pom-pom antenna. Why not?

STRAGO

1995: Crazy old man blue mage.

2017: Nope, that covers it. This time around I did do an optional Strago quest in the World of Ruin for the first time, but honestly... it added nothing to his character or his story. Too bad!

RELM

1995: Precocious ten-year-old girl who... paints pictures of her enemies, that then come to life, and do harm?

2017: Look, maybe 14 characters really is too many. Strago and Relm - and really Mog and Setzer also, and especially the next two characters - join the party too late to have any meaningful impact or interaction with what I'd call the "main" cast of Terra, Locke, Edgar, Celes, Sabin, and maybe sort of Cyan. Cyan's borderline out, Setzer's borderline in, Shadow and Gau are out by deliberate design, but these final five are really just here for no reason other than to pad the character total - something I still appreciate, and respect, but unnecessary inclusions all the same. Relm's a fine character, though. It's just weird to see a group of grown-ass adults decide that, sure, a ten-year-old girl is a good asset for their team.

UMARO

1995: Just a big old berserker sasquatch, hard to find without knowing where to look, who adds nothing to the story.

2017: Again, nailed it back then. I had more fun throwing him in my party this time around, though. Dude can mash.

GOGO

1995: Probably the best fighter in the game because he can use anyone else's ability

2017: Sure, yeah, but his stats are complete garbage. Sabin's Bum Rush is legitimately a one-hit kill on almost any non-boss; Gogo's is a pale immitation at best, and he can't even equip espers. No, boo, pass. All the fan theories about who he might be are interesting, but they're only interesting because there's clearly no corret answer; Gogo is whoever you want him - or her - to be.

Whew! That took a while. Let's move on to just a few more key things, and then I'm done, I swear.

KEFKA

1995: I hate this pesky little clown, and I hate that he becomes an evil god. Such an asshole!

2017: younger me was spot on, but let's take a slightly deeper philosophical dive when it comes to World of Ruin Kefka. What's his deal? What's his motivation? I find him fascinating. Having conquered the entire planet, does he build himself an ornate castle and sit upon an elaborate throne with the world at his feet? No, not at all - he isolates himself in the center of a mountainous tower of garbage and decay, completely free from all human contact, just sort of annihilating cities around the globe one by one. He's pure and unfiltered nihilism - everything is meaningless, there is no hope, and so on - but he's... bored. He's waiting for you to show up, it seems, not actively trying to stop you from doing so. If you don't end up killing him to end the game, I mean, where does he even go from there? It's phenomenally boring and lonely to be truly omnipotent when there's nothing but hatred in your heart, apparently, and Final Fantasy VI at least begins to pull on that thread. And this has always been an overlooked aspect of Kefka, I think. Yes, he's obnoxious in the first half of the game, a bratty, angry white man with no empathy or sympathy, a true sociopath. But in the second half he's... an anti-god. And there's no benevolent higher power in the game to counter him at all - just you, your party of grudge-bearing individuals. You don't even kill Kefka in order to restore order to the world, or to save it - you do it just to give the world hope. I think that's great. I think the whole angle here is awesome.

THE WORLD OF RUIN

1995: I miss the old world, where I knew where everything was and the towns all looked so pretty and peaceful.

2017: This is, of course, the point. If Final Fantasy VI were made today there would absolutely be some shoehorned in option once you hit the second half of the game where you can return to the World of Balance. It'd be some bullshit NPC you find and talk to and she says "for a sall price, I can take you back to the way things were before the change..." and that'd be fine. I'd even use that feature, and go back and make sure to fill out my beastiary, and get all of Strago's lores and Gau's rages, and so on. But that would absolutely destroy the momentum of the game and the impact of that crucial moment when, holy shit, Kefka destroys the goddamn world! I also think I took for granted, as a kid, this notion of there being a "dark" world that came after the "light" world; I'd seen what A Link to the Past had up its sleeve, after all, and in Final Fantasy IV you can go underground and also to the moon for a total of three different world maps. But the World of Ruin was crazy, in hindsight. The showdown on the Floating Continent is meant to feel climactic because you're about to prevent Kefka from destroying the world, only then... you fail! And the world is destroyed! And then there's another whole half of the game where you just recollect yourself, extinguish some past demons, and get back to whoopin' Kefka's ass, finishing what you started. Amazing.

GAME LENGTH AND PACE

1995: I mean, I'm lying if I say I ever clocked it back then, but I'd say I took my sweet ass time on this one. I used to grind a ton right out of the gate, like a good little boy, training up for the bigger fights sure to come down the road; little did I know this was useless, because the game is designed to allow you to get through the first third of it or so without any grinding whatsoever. In fact really the whole game is designed that way, and by merely doing every side quest you'll be more than capable of taking down big bad Kefka by the end of the game. Anyway, I'm rambling; I'd have called this a 40-hour game if you asked me in 1995.

2017: It's a 30-hour game, and I wish it were longer. Seriously, I know falling in love with a game is a rarer and rarer thing as you age, but even re-playing this thing, I couldn't shake the notion of, "wait, that's it? I'm done? There's really nothing left to do but take on the final boss? Well, okay then." I was also stunned by how quickly the game moves early on. There's understandably a lot of script to get through, but man, the end of the "first act" I've referred to a handful of times can take place after like, five or six hours. The famous opera scene happened seven hours into my game this time. I guess JRPGs are, by design, very story-heavy early on and very gameplay-heavy later on, so most of what happens in any of them probably happens early on temporally speaking. But yeah, the third "act" (of three) has probably fewer lines than either of the first two, and unfolds completely nonlinearly via tons of optional sidequests, and it still took up more than half of my gameplay time.

Gah. I love this game. Have for twenty years, and always will. I could write about it all day, if only the day wouldn't feel wasted for doing so. This is as good a point as any to stop, but holy crap, check this one out if you haven't yet. It's so fucking good, guys. Just so goddamn good!