Throwback Thursday - A Weekly Classic Game Discussion Vol. 1

Welcome to the first edition of Throwback Thursday, where each week I will review a classic game from my childhood, and why it is still such an important game. This week we will take a look at the last of the classic RPG's from the Super Nintendo era.


Final Fantasy VI (Or Final Fantasy III for the SNES)

The game opens with an overview of three people in mobile armored units known as Magitek Armor. The game discusses an Ancient war between beings of magic and the people of the earth, known as the War of the Magi. When the player takes control, you control a girl with magical abilities, named Terra. Terra is enslaved by the Gestahl Empire, and its general Kefka Palazzo. Kefka has assigned Terra, Vicks, and Wedge with the task of acquiring an Esper, an ancient being of magical power in the Mines of Narshe. As the game progresses, you square off against the evil Gestahl Empire, and acquire several party members a long the way, until you have a massive square off on a floating continent with Emperor Gestahl and Kefka Palazzo. On the continent, Kefka succeeds in killing the Emperor and almost completely destroying the world leaving only a few hundred people left. When you awaken, you play as Celes, another one of your compatriots you meet throughout the first half of the game. Celes escapes the solitary island one year after the "end of the world" happens, and begins seeking out the rest of your friends. Once all of the party is reassembled, you split up into three parties and begin climbing Kefka's tower, where he rules as the God of Magic. Once the parties reach the summit, an all out battle for the fate of the world begins, in what is probably considered the longest final boss battle in Final Fantasy history. In the end, Terra, Celes, and their compatriots escape Kefka's Tower, and balance is restored to the world, and magic ceases to exist.

So now that the synopsis of the game is over, let's discuss a few of the positive points of the game. First, the game features depth in a way that has not been paralleled since. The game features 14 different playable characters, and all but two of them have their own place in the story to shine. The game also allows any character to be able to learn any spell in the game, however, different bonuses are given for each type of spell learned, so the game rewards you by teaching the right spells to the right people, however, there is nothing stopping you from teaching every character every spell in the game. The game's story lasts for well over 24 hours, and you will spend a few hours extra finding all the goodies to make the climb up Kefka's tower doable. The game even allows you to ascend the tower with only 4 people, however, you will absolutely need at least 12 to complete the tower successfully. The game's original soundtrack is killer, and one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time, and each track fits the game so well. The game also has probably the best villain of the Final Fantasy franchise (in my opinion) in Kefka. Kefka is a sadistic Magitek Knight who's powers made him become deranged. He fascinates and lusts for death and destruction all over the world. Kefka believes emotions, hope, dreams are all meaningless, and the only thing that matters is the complete and total destruction of everything. The final battle is about a 17-20 minute encounter with the Esper Statues and ends in a climatic battle with the God of Magic himself Kefka. If you have a chance to play this game yourself DO IT. You are rewarded with the best final boss sequence possibly in video game history. If you don't have access to the game, look up the final boss on youtube sometime!

Now there are only a couple of negative points to this game that I could possibly find, that I believe would have taken away from the game, The first of which being that this game has a lot of depth and complexity, while a good thing, some times goes over board in customization, and sometimes makes the game feel confusing. In a similar note, While it is great that the backstory and character development was there for each of the characters, you had to do a lot of side exploration, and spend extra time that you would normally not have to do. Sometimes, it is really confusing to locate certain points on the map, and often found myself looking on google for a map of the world. One improvement I would make to the map system is to set it up like the system on Golden Sun and later Final Fantasy games. 

Final Thoughts and Grade: 9.5 out of 10. 

This game can be as deep and rich as you want it to be. You will find yourself, as a player immersed very heavily in the story, the game has a very memorable story, characters, and soundtrack that you will find yourself wanting to come back for seconds or thirds. This is definitely the defining chapter of the classic Final Fantasy games (1-6), and I would argue the best Final Fantasy of all the games. I recommend this game to all. This was one of the best games for the Super Nintendo and Super Famicom System. 

P.S. Dancing Mad is the greatest final boss soundtrack of all (yes I'm looking at all you One Winged Angel fanboys out there).

We will see you all next week for our Throwback Thursday Post!

UltimateDave469.