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Thread: 2019 is the 25th Anniversary of Final Fantasy VI - Post Your Memories

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    Cool 2019 is the 25th Anniversary of Final Fantasy VI - Post Your Memories

    Famitsu magazine says that Square [Enix] is planning on some special events in 2019 to coincide with Final Fantasy VI's 25th anniversary. I'm guessing we are going to see a lot of FFVI merchandise.

    This got me to thinking, what are your memories of initially watching or playing Final Fantasy VI (A.K.A. III for the SNES in North America)?

    For me, I didn't own any 16-bit consoles at the time. The newest I owned were my NES (1989), Game Gear (1991), and PC (1993). Therefore, though I couldn't play FFIII at home, I could watch my friend play it at his house on his SNES. After all, his family won a medical lawsuit and the mom spoiled them so they had a new PC, Genesis, SNES, 32X, etc. and their latest games as they were released. Occasionally my friend would offer to let me play FFIII, but usually I would just watch as he played the game. After all, the few times I would play, it would usually be from the beginning for a bit or using his game save - but without overwriting the save - so I could see what he wanted me to see. Therefore I wasn't very far into the game, and he was much further into the game than I, so watching was good enough as I didn't want him to be bored, to spoil things for me, nor tell me where to go.

    Final Fantasy III / VI was majestic. I thought FFII and FFIII were incredibly awesome, and watching them be played and occasionally playing them was really cool at the time and the beauty of the graphics and soundtrack often left me dumbstruck. Mostly my friend would play whatever was newest, so FFIII was what I saw the most and wanted to play the most. While I liked and respected FFII, something about FFIII resonated with me more.

    It would be years before I would own both the hardware and software which would allow me to play Final Fantasy VI on my own. However the waiting made me appreciate it all the more. When I finally was able to properly play Final Fantasy VI, it was the CD version for PlayStation released as part of Final Fantasy Chronicles. And yes, despite all the lengthy and frequent loading times, I played through the whole game from beginning to end.

    Yet there is one part which I wish was "more spoiled" for me. You see, my friend played through the game first and yes, he even showed the ending to me. Thankfully, I didn't understand much of it thanks to being unaware of what happens in the rest of the game. One thing he did explain to me about the ending was about Shadow the ninja. Now I won't repeat it here in case you want to play Final Fantasy VI in a spoiler-free manner, but otherwise I recommend conducting a little research before you play too far into Final Fantasy VI. Unfortunately, while my friend did explain things to me at the time, his words didn't fully stay in my mind as so much of what he was saying was incomprehensible to me as I had played so little of the game. When I finally properly played through FFIII and remembered part of what he told me, I couldn't remember it all, so I had quite a bit of anxiety around a certain moment in the game. However, I didn't want to lose all of my progress through the many difficult battles since the previous save spot. I didn't want to spoil things by reading a strategy guide or a FAQ or a walk-through as I like discovering the content of games for myself and forging my own path.

    So I took a chance and bit the bullet. I wish I hadn't. I considered making two different game saves - one before the moment and one afterwards with the path I first chose so I could go back and replay the section in question - but I wasn't sure how long it would take before I'd see the difference caused by my actions. Ever since then, I've been tempted to replay through Final Fantasy VI, but it seemed like so much work just to change one little yet important choice. Sure, I could watch a video of it, but it's not the same, now is it?

    What are your memories of Final Fantasy VI?

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    Oh no, WulfeLuer's at it again...

    I've gabbled on about my weird block on finishing the game and finally doing it last year, and stealing a cart like a prick when I was a kid. Let's try something a bit more positive and nostalgic for a change.

    I remember reading about FFVI in a gaming magazine, maybe EGM but can't really say. I had no idea what the whole ballyhoo was about, despite owning a copy of Final Fantasy Legend 2/SaGa 2 I wasn't really into RPGs or even quite clear what an RPG was yet. It wasn't for another two years that I would get to play the thing at a friends house.

    Holy crap.

    This is the game that grabbed my brain and gave me a very long obsession. I was very fortunate to have this introduced by a very nice and indulgent friend, so I got to do a good series of long runs on his machine and TV. The graphics were solid, and the soundtrack is still one of my all time favorites. There were all these little bits and moments that we laughed or argued about. Suplexing the train was funny, but we thought one-shotting it with a Fenix Down was even better. Even though we had access to a guide, we kept wondering if Vargas was going to show up anywhere and use those unfair moves again. There was somebody deleting our saves all the time, so we played all the way through the big swerve of the game and a few dungeons after and then have to start all over again. We had the early game and most of the mid down to a science. My friend beat the game and afterwards was gracious enough to let me boot up his save so I could beat the final boss and 'earn' the ending. My early story with FFVI was also the story of my really good friend Dino.

    Soon we drifted apart (mostly because I was a self-interested little prick) and other friends introduced me to stuff like Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG. But I kept coming back to FFVI, even when FFVII came out and started taking over our lives. Something about it just really clicked for me. Some of it was the great graphics and the wondrous soundtrack, some of it was the story that managed to resonate somehow. There was a melancholy throughout the whole experience that somehow really touched me. The characters would go through all sorts of hell, and still truck on, and I liked that.

    Finally I came back to FFVI again. I had tried the PS1 version but couldn't really stomach it since it butchered the soundtrack, then tried the GBA remake. That one was much better, and in some real ways a better version than the original but I just couldn't make myself get very far. I finally broke down and got a SNES again, along with an 'untainted' copy. I fired it up, and was amazed all over again. While the shocking swerves weren't all that shocking, I kept remembering all the little parts I likes and finding even more little things. Did you know there is actually a sidequest in Mobliz, and you get a nice little reward for your time? I didn't; my experienced RPG player sense was going off like mad and I found it. For a veteran player, FFVI is a gold mine.

    Needless to say, Final Fantasy VI is still one of my favorite games. Oh and it's encapsulated well in a Skyrim quote: When life gives you lemons, go murder a clown.
    RPGs: Proof that one you start done the dork path, forever will it dominate your wallet's destiny.

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    I was 12 or 13 when I first experienced it. My friend got it when it was new and showed it to me at her house. She was in Kefka's tower. Luckily she suggested that I start a new game instead of watching the end. I played it until Sabin got introduced and I knew I had to have it. Flash forward a few months and I'm in Walmart with ~$60. Woe unto me, FFIII had a price tag of $70! I had to seek out my Dad in the store and beg him for ten bucks. I put the game on the counter to buy and naive teenaged me had forgotten about taxes... I had to go beg my already annoyed Father for a few more bucks. It was all worth it. FFIII soon became my favorite game. I even got my older brother into it. We've both played it through dozens of times and plan to play it again soon. I now play it via my SD2SNES with the newest Ted Woosley Uncensored Edition patch applied. Best way to play. The PS1 version was painful to play through for me. The much heralded GBA version has entirely too much slowdown, not to mention the inferior music and screen resolution. After playing tons of amazing RPG's over the years Final Fantasy III still ranks near the top of my list and is the reason I got into the genre to begin with. So thank you!

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    I remember that it was released, and that Square ran some neat ads for it.

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    Final Fantasy VI was the game that got me into RPGs. Tho it needed some help.

    It was the mid-1990s, I read a lot of game magazines. For some reason magazines like Diehard Gamefan used to talk up the quality of RPGs all the freakin' time (I remember one letter section had the Postmeister, their mail person, taking almost an entire page in response to a long fan letter on the subject, to bitch about how America doesn't get enough RPGs... it was, in retrospect, the most "Glorious Nippon" thing ever because he made claims like that licensed games don't exist in Japan and people there only play RPGs, which nowadays we know is bull).

    Anyway, I vaguely kinda knew what an RPG was because my family had a PC and one of the games on it was Dragon Wars (no relation to that movie that came out a coupla years back) and I basically made the connection that it was an RPG, and I also had played Hydlide, but still I somehow knew those basically didn't count. Other magazines like Nintendo Power and GamePro started running RPG-specific sections and NP once had a feature on Japan-only games (this being where I first heard about Fire Emblem), and eventually I decided to try the genre out.

    So one weekend I rented Final Fantasy VI (yes, for SNES--screw the renumbering), tho the same weekend I also rented Earthworm Jim because this was when that was popular, and to be honest I wound up playing EWJ more. That copy of FF6 had a save in the World of Ruin, and I remember playing it, getting in the airship, getting attacked by some flying monster that kicked my ass, and wondering why this game was so hard. I also tried a new game and somehow got my ass kicked by that snail. These days I'm not sure HOW I could've been such a neophyte as to lose to the snail boss, but there you are. I remember bitching (at least internally) about how stupid it was that you couldn't move, or about how the "zombie" condition would kill you if all your party caught it even tho they were clearly still fighting (I actually at first thought "zombie" was just what happened when a character hit zero HP).

    Yeah, when people say RPGs have no player skill involved, I remember this stuff and laugh.

    But even tho I hated it at first, FF6 somehow hooked me (altho I had a brief divergence at one point to play FF4 because I stayed at a grandmother's house in another town and the rental close to her had 4 but not 6). I kept renting it weekend after weekend and finally just got my own copy (I wish I had kept the box and everything. Yes it was brand new).

    I remember one thing I used to do was run from all the battles. Then the bosses would be super-hard. I had a cousin who saw my save game and wondered what the hell I was doing and when I explained why my characters were so weak, he was like "Dude, you need to fight." Admittedly to this day I still sometimes just run from battles because I get impatient.

    So there was a weird thing where due to my primary copy being a rental, I would play, then not see the game again for a week, but wind up having to start a new game because my copy was overwritten by someone else... I didn't mind tho because I actually was engrossed in the game. Like, its kinda silly to say now, but back then these characters felt so human that I felt like they could be people I actually knew. It's kinda sad that I don't get feelings like that from fictional media anymore.

    I remember actually thinking it was an amazing achievement when I beat FF6, like "Wow, I actually beat an RPG!" Nowadays I know that RPGs are the most beatable genre out there, but again, at the time it felt like I had climbed a mountain.

    Those are some of the memories that came to me at the drop of a hat. May have more in there.

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