I’m going to address this right out of the gate: This game is too low on the list of retro gaming essentials at No. 22.
That’s a statement of quality in itself, that a game can be underrated as a best-of list’s No. 22.
But it’s true. I can’t deny it.
And it’s not because of industry standards, or impact on the genre, or critical consensus, or anything quite so grand as all that.
No, it’s actually too low among my own personal favorites.
How? Why? What?
Well, I covered the why right here. I wanted variety at the top of any list of recommendations.
And the how is covered right here. I went with Final Fantasy VII up high (No. 12!)* instead by the slimmest of margins, leaving Final Fantasy VI in the uncomfortable position of having to tumble down the list to accommodate my “no series repeats” criteria.
* One might have a problem with the FF7 choice, and that’s fine. I can only say in my defense that it was a REALLY close call.
Well, that criteria of no repeats, I decided, should only apply to the top 20. The rationale being, yeah, you want some variety at the very top, but gosh, if a game is great, it still deserves to be advocated for.
And Final Fantasy VI is undeniably great.
Final Fantasy VI
Genre: RPG
Released: 1994
Platform: SNES
Electronic Gaming Monthly’s No. 9 console game of all-time
That is not a hot take. The aforementioned critical consensus LOVES this game.
They love it because it innovated in a notable way, AND also because it told a tremendous story.
6 & 7 are widely regarded among the olds as being true highlights of the series, and it’s because of those two things: innovate, and tell a good story.
The nature of the series, wherein the games don’t tie in with one another except in title and play mechanics, provides absolute freedom to tell any story the creators want. They get to start over from scratch every time.
And so when Final Fantasy VI landed in the American market on the Super Nintendo in 1994 as “Final Fantasy III” (titled differently because it was only the third entry in the series to be ported to North America), it blew minds on a storytelling level by dumping a lot of traditional RPG tropes like wizards and knights and medieval settings and so forth in favor of a futuristic steampunk vibe.
The story follows a group of rebels trying to prevent potential annihilation at the hands of a pyschotic dictator, and it tells that larger story against the backdrop of several more personal, intimate stories involving specific characters as well as a sea of vivid imagery in a post-industrial society.
To tell more would perhaps reveal too much of the plot, which has its share of twists and turns and is so much of the reason to play that spoiling any of it would be counterproductive.
What I can say is the story is fresh and weighty, even all these years later. Part of the reason for that is the presence of what is a downright epic villain in Kefka. This dude is crazy AND genocidal, the kind of pairing that inspires a genuine threat (who also happens to be endlessly interesting).
His efforts to impose his will on the world result in some of the more fascinating story turns we’ve ever seen in gaming. And it’s all told beyond competently.
The game is truly cinematic in nature, which seems to be a common theme for most of the great games from that era. When designers and developers set about trying to evoke a feeling of immersion with strong story beats, they ended up creating some games of truly enduring stature, hardware limitations be damned.
Said hardware did not prevent Square from doing some incredible things with the sprite work and music, crafting gorgeous imagery and sound that holds up today in a way certain other games of that era do not.
I came to play Final Fantasy VI when it was re-released on the Playstation, picking it up along with several other Playstation classics in the early 2000s when those games went on mega-sale. I grabbed Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Tactics, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy Chronicles, and Final Fantasy Anthology all for something like $8 a pop. (I have no regrets.)
But the point of that slight diversion of a paragraph, I think, is that Final Fantasy VI, even then when the Playstation 2 and Xbox were promising more impressive sounds and visuals, held up beautifully. In a lot of ways, this game was the pinnacle of what had come before, a natural refinement and improvement over previous iterations, that nevertheless found a way to be unique and special in the process.
It takes the whole package, doesn’t it? The graphics, the sound, the story, and the innovation all work together to give a game a timelessness.
And ah yes, the innovation.
What did we see here that we really hadn’t before? Well, don’t sell short the already mentioned factors, such as the soundtrack that pushed every possible hardware limit in achieving things not done before and paved the way for the future direction of the series as being on the cutting edge of immaculate game scores. But the game play here was different too.
For the longest time, RPGs leaned into a stale turn-based approach to combat, wherein the player would trade blows/moves with the AI opponent. The player could spend a few seconds or a few hours thinking of their next move, which is fine, but has the effect of slowing down the proceedings and also killing the immersion.
If you can wander off in the middle of what’s supposed to be a pulse-pounding battle for the fate of the universe to make yourself a sammich, is it really that interesting a thing to return to?
The developers took the novel approach here of introducing a more active-time battle system, in which a timer, unique to each character in the battle, would tick along until each character could then engage in an action again. In essence, each character – enemies included – had to wait after performing an action, but when that timer ended, when they could act again, they were free to do so.
So if you stood around strategizing for too long, the enemy’s timer might come up and he/she/they could hit you in the head with a brick while you weren’t paying attention.
This active style of combat debuted earlier in the Final Fantasy series, but here it was integrated a little more seamlessly, with other battle dynamics such as character-specific actions and desperation attacks coupling to make the action feel enjoyable and pressing. (Other RPGs hadn’t by this point gotten the memo that having forward momentum was a GOOD thing.)
The story and action work together to spark interest and drive the narrative forward. And they do that partly because they aren’t boring or tired or overdone.
This game, in other words, is the precise opposite of stale.
So what makes it worth playing today?
Innovation and storytelling. This game achieves those things better than most, making it a thoroughly enjoyable play, as well as historically important title as well.
One could flip a coin on whether to try this one or Final Fantasy VII first, with the tiebreaker perhaps being which game is more readily available to you personally, but I absolutely think both games are must-plays, not only within the RPG space, but also simply as games that are among the best ever created.
Not an RPG fan? Give either of these titles a try and you may change your mind. Weird about older games? This one, again, might change your mind. The story and themes hold up beyond any expectation you might have for them. And the sounds and music are realistically as good as you could possibly hope for with a late-stage SNES title.
This is one of the greatest games of all time.
Dave’s Score: 10/10
Check out the whole Retro Gaming Essentials list here!
How to play
- Original hardware (SNES)
- Final Fantasy Anthology (Playstation)
- Gameboy Advance
- Virtual Console (Wii & WiiU)
- SNES Classic Edition
- Pixel Remaster: Mobile (IOS/Android)
- Pixel Remaster: PC (Steam)