Once a character masters a spell, it remains in their repertoire even if you decide to remove the Esper and use another. Not only do you gain immediate access to a powerful summon by doing so, but you gradually learn magic spells like Cure, Fire, Haste, or the devastating Ultima by fighting and accruing ability points with specific Espers equipped. Espers are acquired throughout the game and equip to one character at a time. Each ability helps differentiate the characters from one another and the more generic “Attack, Magic” commands available to the party from the get-go.Įquipping espers provides the chance to learn magic.Īside from Terra and Celes, most characters learn magic abilities by equipping Espers, FFVI‘s equivalent of summon spells, to their person. Locke steals, Gau takes on a “Blue Mage”-esque berserker role if players learn monster abilities for him, Mog tangos to damage enemies and support allies, Relm sketches copies of enemies, and so on. Celes’ Runic ability allows her to absorb spells and negate their damage to the party as a whole, while Sabin’s martial arts mastery shines in his combo-laden Blitz commands. Instead of the job class systems found in FFI, FFIII, or FFV, the sixth game seems to have taken its cue more from FFIV: every character has a job or role specifically attuned for them. The title takes the active time battle system of the previous five FFs and expertly fine-tunes it. I had a blast uncovering twists and plot developments the more I progressed through the title.įrom a gameplay stance, there isn’t much to fault FFVI with. Simply put, the narrative and characters making up FFVI are truly phenomenal. Their journey is easily one of the grandest FFs I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing through. This motley crew bands together against the empire’s machinations, with perhaps some help from a mimic and abominable snowman along the way. There’s the “treasure hunting” adventurer Locke, the flirtatious and inventive King Edgar, the gung-ho martial artist Sabin, loyal retainer and family man Cyan, imperial general-turned-traitor due to her conscience Celes, mysterious assassin Shadow, a feral wild child named Gau, a talking Moogle who likes to dance called Mog, the “still able to show these youngsters a thing or two” grandfather Strago, his artistic and precocious ten-year-old granddaughter Relm, and gambling airship pilot Setzer. Her hero’s journey evolves from a simple quest of self-discovery to a battle to save the world and beyond, joined by a cast of incredibly likable and colorful characters. What should’ve been a fairly routine mission goes horribly wrong for the empire when the young woman and Esper come into contact.Ī free-yet-amnesiac Terra finds herself on the run from the empire’s soldiers, landing herself smack dab in the middle of a resistance movement as she tries to uncover the mysteries surrounding her ability to use magic. Two soldiers and a mind-controlled “witch” go to the city of Narshe after rumors that a frozen supernatural entity (called an Esper) was apparently unearthed there. The mighty and foolish Gestahl Empire is dangerously trying to gain control of that mysterious power once more to spread their dominance further. But, as a newcomer to the title? I can safely say that, like a Brachiosaurus’ Snort in the World of Ruin, the pixel remastered version of FFVI blew me well-and-truly away!įinal Fantasy VI sets its stage in an epic, sweeping fashion: the narrative quickly explains the devastating impact a horrific war involving powerful magic had on the world. Of course, that was before the Pixel Remasters of the original six Final Fantasies were released, providing me a chance to play FFVI at long last! Having never played another version of the game for comparison, I can’t tell you in this review whether this definitive version is ultimately worth investing in compared to other versions. Despite my personal gaming goal to play all the main Final Fantasy installments, FFVI always remained that one unreachable lingering note in my gaming backlog. Truth be told, I was constantly distracted by other PS1 games when FFVI was rereleased on that console, and I didn’t have a Game Boy Advance to play that version either. To be fair, I only got into RPGs during the PlayStation era and Final Fantasy VII, so I naturally missed out on the initial western release as Final Fantasy III on the SNES. Though I’ve often heard excellent things about it, the much-lauded Final Fantasy VI constantly eluded me.
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