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We continue our journey with the "Golden Age" of Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy VI: The 2D Grand Finale

If Final Fantasy IV was the opening act of an epic stage production, then Final Fantasy VI was the grand finale. This game was a massive undertaking compared to the previous games in the series, and took strides to evolve the presentation and storytelling of the franchise to the next level. It pushed the powers of the Super Famicom further than any game that had come before, weighing in at a staggering 32 megabits. By comparison, Super Metroid (released the same year) fit into a 24 meg cartridge. Every aspect of the design of Final Fantasy VI displayed the confidence and skill honed in the preceding five games.

Even though Sakaguchi started out as the director of Final Fantasy VI, his responsibilities within Square were too much for him to be completely hands-on with the project. He moved into a producer role and the game was ultimately co-directed by Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Ito, the father of the ATB. Kitase had been with the company since 1990 and his first project was on the first Seiken Densetsu game (known as Final Fantasy Adventure in the West, but actually the first Secret of Mana game). He also worked on Romancing SaGa and Final Fantasy V in some capacity. He considered himself somewhat of a stage director in his early days. Kitase would go on to direct Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy VIII before moving on to produce. He is still with Square Enix as of this writing.

Yoshinori Kitase

Yoshitaka Amano resumed his role as lead artist. By this point he had designed characters for more games than Dragon Quest artist Akira Toriyama. Nobuo Uematsu crafted his most ambitious score to date. The soundtrack of Final Fantasy VI featured personal themes for each of the 14 playable characters, as well as the various towns in the game. One of the most famous tracks was an in-game opera that featured synthesized voices “singing” the lyrics. The “Ending Theme” of Final Fantasy VI has a 21 minute run time and in a Q&A at a Distant Worlds concert Uematsu said that if he was forced to pick his favorite composition it would be this piece of music.

Final Fantasy VI was released in Japan in April 1994 to rave reviews. It scored a 37 in Famitsu, which was the highest score a Final Fantasy game had received from the notoriously harsh magazine to date. The game sold over two and a half million copies in Japan alone, and went on to sell almost another million units worldwide.

Like Final Fantasy IV before it, story in Final Fantasy VI took the center stage. The game featured the first female main character in the series; the amnesiac, magic-wielding Tina—a name that was changed to Terra in the English localization. After being brainwashed and turned into a mindless soldier by the Empire, she ends up escaping and finding her way into the good graces of Locke, a thief with a heart of gold. Locke introduces Terra to the Returners, a resistance group dedicated to overthrowing the Emperor. Along the way they gain the aid of the princess of Figero; Edgar and Sabin; the noble knight, Cayenne (Cyan); the solitary ninja, Shadow; and many others. They do battle numerous times with the mad jester Kefka, who breaks the world in his quest for absolute power. It becomes the task of the magitek knight Celes to reunite her companions—scattered to the four winds—and make their way into Kefka’s twisted monument to his own power and defeat the evil clown once and for all.

 

Final Fantasy VI had a much darker storyline than any game in the series to date. Kefka has no compunctions about slaughtering innocent lives, even going so far as to poison the water of an entire kingdom. His ascension to power nearly destroys the world and the overworld music in the second half of the game is more funeral dirge than a song of exploration. Themes such as suicide and teen pregnancy are explored and each main character has at least one section of the game that explores their story in a deep and meaningful way.

This story was made possible through the vastly improved graphics in the game. For the first time, the character sprites used in battle were the same as the ones used in the map areas. These sprites were much more colorful and animated than previous games; displaying subtle emotions such as doubt, joy, and even a coy wag of the finger. The map was displayed in full Mode 7 this time, and the slightly skewed perspective made the world seem large and imposing. Speeding around in an airship from a pseudo-3D view was something that players would  show off to friends as proof of the power of the SNES. Yoshitaka Amano’s monster designs featured nearly every bit of detail that his original art contained and every set piece in the game was bursting with lush imagery.

On top of this was a refined battle system that combined some of the best bits of the series, continuing the long tradition of iterative evolution the series would become known for. Characters once again had defined roles in the party, with each character bringing a unique ability to the table. This was the first time that the designers would implement more action elements into the gameplay; Sabin had a variety of martial arts attacks that were performed with specific fighting game-like button commands. In addition to these abilities, any and all characters could learn to equip magicite. These crystals contained the essence of an Esper—mystical creatures from another realm.  As magicite gains ability points, new magic spells are learned by the user. In this way it was possible for every character to learn every spell if the player was dedicated enough. For the first time, accessories (called relics) could be equipped, conferring all manner of special attributes to characters. With the combination of a Genji Glove and the Offering for example, a character could attack with two weapons four times per turn, for a total of 8 attacks.

This was the first game to receive a localization by Ted Woolsey, a man who would go on to do many translations for Square. He was told to study the mistakes made to Final Fantasy II (IV) before working on the American version of VI, which was of course called Final Fantasy III. Woolsey did a much better job than the previous effort, and even completed the translation in a mere 30 days, allowing the game to be released in America in October of 1994. A few changes were made to the script for censoring purposes; lines that dealt overtly with death were changed, and elements of sexuality were taken out to meet Nintendo of America’s stringent policies. Religion was also removed once again, with Holy getting yet another name change, this time to Pearl. Certain other changes to the script were made for space saving reasons, so spell and item names were shortened. Thundara became Bolt 2, and Phoenix Down became Fenix Down. No major changes were made to the core gameplay, however.

 

Final Fantasy VI was an epic conclusion to the 2D sprite era of the franchise, and for many fans was the end of the “Golden Age” of the series. It has not only been referred to as one of the best games on the Super Nintendo, but also one of the best games ever made, and is always brought up in the same conversations as Final Fantasy IV and VII. It was the end of an era beyond simply saying goodbye to detailed sprite graphics, however; it would also be the final mainline entry into the series to appear on a Nintendo platform. Well, at least for many years. Tune in next time when we take a look at the young console upstart Sony with the PlayStation Years!