matt

Weekend Spotlight

After reading about the 10 anniversary of the Nintendo 64 over there at Infendo, I decided to play… my SNES. My urge for nostalgia went a little farther, I guess.

Anyway, after dusting the ol’ SNES off and finally figuring out which controller worked completely, I popped in one the greats: Final Fantasy VI. One of the best, if not THE best, RPG of all time.

Incidentally, I’ve never actually beaten the game before, and this is after I bought the thing for like $50 on eBay last year. The game is great, but it’s hard to find time to play all these 40+ hour fantasies, now that real life has reared its ugly head. The last time I left off, I just completed the famous Opera scene. I will say that that scene was truly amazing. YouTube it if you have to, just see it.

Musically, it’s one of Nobuo Uematsu’s best scores. Terra’s Theme is easily one of my favorites in the entire FF franchise. If you can find it, pick the OST up. iTunes actually sells it in their store, if you’re so inclined. Even though it’s MIDI, it still sounds amazing. Many people say that Uematsu has never come back, musically, and in some ways I agree.

Although, after playing FFX and a few other recent RPG’s that have far more advanced battle systems, I can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed by FFVI’s gameplay. You have to force your mind back to 1994, erasing more than 10 years of battle system evolutions in the RPG genre. Only then can you truly appreciate it.

It was either Chrono Trigger or FFVI this weekend, but an unfinished adventure always beckons me on…What would you have chosen?

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pat
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pat
17 years ago

im in the opposite situation.  ive beaten ffvi more than once but never finished chrono trigger.  i have a save maybe two hours or so from the end and just havent gotten around to finishing it. as you said, real life.   while i see your point about how dated these games can be, i do think that the esper system is better than any of the subsequent magic learning systems in ff games.  

Matt
Matt
17 years ago

Chrono Trigger will always have a special place in my heart as the very first RPG I’d ever beaten. I bought the PS1 version, and played it for like a month. When I beat it, I was one happy camper. Another thing that underwhelmed me about FFVI was the character sprites. In CT, they were fairly large and detailed, but in FFVI, they seemed to be just high-res NES sprites. Square never upgraded the looks for the SNES FF’s.  

Ali AUG
17 years ago

Old school RPG battle systems will always be dear to my heart.  After FFIX, it went down hill though.Are there even any new games with old school RPG battles?  Was FFX-2 the last of them?Yeah… back to Disgaea 2 =)

pat
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pat
17 years ago

i really liked ffix a lot, and never felt it got the credit it deserved (even though reviews were good).  like its the lost final fantasy or something.

jay
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jay
17 years ago

I didn’t play IX enough to have any strong opinions about it. I have to agree with Pat’s comment on the FFVI battle system, though. Taking into account both the esper system and that every character has a unique ability, it’s probably at least as complicated as Dragon Quest 8’s.

 

Ali, I’m playing Disgaea now. Is the sequel significantly different or better?