Final Fantasy VI

One of those gaming cardinal sins I felt I’ve committed is that the only final fantasy game I’ve ever beaten was FFXV. I’ve tried FFVII, but it didn’t hook me, and honestly I was surprised I even managed to beat FFXV considering I thought a lot of the ending parts were very… unfun to play, and I had a lot of problems with the general flow of both the gameplay and the pacing of side content.

On the other hand, I recently played through FFVI which I thought was a fantastic game. Definitely helped that I had a friend guide me to make sure I didn’t miss any missables, but I really enjoyed the game despite how old it was (though it also helped I played the remasters which had some nice QOL).

One of the things that I thought was really nice was that it didn’t feel like it had that much padding (unless you include random encounters). I enjoyed how each member of the party (for the most part) had their own little character story, and how it tied into the main story too.

The music was also really, really good. I really liked the way the game used the character themes and one of my favourite musical moments was when in the world of ruin the overworld theme changes. I thought it was a really good change from this somber depressing song to a really uplifting theme instead.

Gameplay wise I think my biggest complaint with it is that magic seems to kinda overpower characters unique strengths (outside a few), which I thought was kind of a shame because I think each character having their unique command was a really cool idea.

The writing is a bit dated, but it still surprised me with how it felt to play through. The characters were pretty charming, the main story beats were interesting, and like I mentioned before, I found it refreshing how it was paced. There never felt like a time where I thought there was too much, or it was too slow.

It almost made me wonder where my idea of very long JRPGs came from, or more accurately where it started haha. But yeah, I really enjoyed it! Now no longer will the only FF game I’ve finished be XV!