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Final Fantasy VI
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1994 SquareSoft - Square - SNES
Storyline
When the game starts you have no idea who you are. All you know is that you're on a mission together with two guys in big armoured mech suit things (you've also got one). Your mission is to retreive something from the mountains of Narshe, but you don't really know what it is. Later on you'll find out that the person you were controlling in the beginning was being used by the Empire (the bad guys). The Empire is trying to take over the world, but a group of rebels are doing everything in their power to stop them (sup starwars).
To conquer the world the Empire is trying to get hold of Espers. Espers are creatures from another world that used to be directly connected to the human world and their powers are awesome. That's just about all you have to know about the storyline I guess. Well . . . each of the playable characters also has a great personal story, but I don't want to spoil any of that. But I can say that the story in this game is one of the best stories ever written for a game, if you're willing to look away from some obvious Star Wars rip-offs (which tend to pop up in Final Fantasy games for some reason).
Gameplay
Everything involving the controls in this game is just about perfect. The fighting system is sort of like an upgrade from the previous Final Fantasy-games and all commands are easy to understand. If you have problems with anything there's also a school in Narshe that you can visit to find out more about the things you're having problems with.
Your party can consist of four people at once. The game is made so that either you can choose what four characters you want in your party, or you will only have four party-members available at the moment due to various story driven reasons.
I bet that, if you like RPGs, you'll get caught up in this game in no time, and then it's impossible to stop playing. All the events are well made, and the story takes some dramatic turns that really is going to surprise you. You will understand as you play it. And certain things only occur if you make certain choices earlier in the game. Some of these choices are more serious than others. Some might result in the death of one of your characters while others only will result in a new or lost item.
The menu system is really easy to understand as well. It's the same as in so many other RPGs. Use one button to select and one button to go back in the menus.
Controlling the character on the world map is, again, a lot like in other games. Later on in the game you will also get access to an air ship, which puts you in a Mode-7 (flat 3D) environment, at which point the controls get a bit more complex. It is still easy to control, but you're now moving incredibly fast and see everything out of a new perspective, so it's easy to get lost. There is something of a map to help you find your way around, but that could have been better.
Graphics
What can I say. . .great. The 2D animations and backgrounds in this game are astounding. The graphics uses all of the SNES' power, and if you play the game on a PSX you will understand how advanced they really are. The PSX-version actually has loading-times, and the SNES-version doesn't. So the power of the SNES is still pretty good.
Anyway, the character design is also great. I don't think I've ever played an RPG where I've grown to love the characters this much (both graphically and personality-wise). My two favourite characters have got to be Shadow and Cyan. Shadow is a mysterious ninja that will bump into the party from time to time and Cyan is a knight-dude that used to live in a castle that the Empire destroyed. Cyan's personal storyline is also one of the best things about this game. It's really dramatic and touching, and it really gets you involved in the game.
The battle animations are also very nice. Some of the spell-animations can be really impressive, but not dragged out like in many of the more recent FF games.
Sound
Judging solely by my WinAmp playlist, this game's got great music. I personally consider the music in this game some of the best music ever made for a game. You can listen to the songs over and over again without getting tired of them, and the songs always fit into the events they are tied to. The battle-themes of this game are some of the most classic video-game tunes ever. Everyone who's ever played this game should immediately recognize them if they're played somewhere else but in front of the TV.
The sound effects are also good. No annoying sounds at all actually, at least not what I can think of at the moment.
Replayability
Well. . .I spent roughly 65 hours of game time the first I got through the game and never grew tired of it. (I wanted all of my characters to be level 99 and ended up killing the last boss in two hits.) After so many hours you will also forget some of the things that took place in the beginning of the game, which makes you want to play it again. And thanks to all the choices you can make throughout the game it won't be exactly the same as the last time you played. So the replayability of this game is very good I suppose. It still suffers a bit from the "massive game" syndrome in that you have to be in a specific mood to be able to replay it all again, but far less so than most new games.
Originality
The story in this game is mostly original, except the whole Empire thing, and Square has put a lot of their own original ideas into it. The CRPG systems used aren't brand new, but they are influenced by unique ideas.
Overall
Seven years ago when I typed this, I called it "the best CRPG ever." Since then, Skies of Arcadia: Legends has taken its spot, but I am still proud to call it the second best CRPG ever. It may not have perfect scores in all categories, but the few bits that could have been better don't take much, if anything, away from the overall feeling and enjoyment of the game. It's hard to imagine how it could have been better without anything else in the game suffering from a change, so it is damn near a 10. If I used decimals, it would get a semi-arbitrary 9.9.
Ratings
Storyline: 9/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 10/10
Replayability: 9/10
Originality: 8/10
Overall: 9/10
Screenshots
//Benny
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Staff Comments of Awesomeness
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August 4, 2011 - 07:25 BST - Nate
It's time to end this somewhat hiatus and start writing video game reviews for no one again. Funny that after all of these months of college and unemployment I start wasting time with video games and shitty reviews once I finally get a job.
Also, maybe I'll start reviewing games that have been released within the past six months for once thanks to my new disposable (heavy emphasis on this word) income. Maybe.
June 12, 2010 - 15:30 GMT - Benny
I got an urge to collect crap for my chao in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. I had quite a lot of fun until I realised that I already had a chao with 99 in all stats. That took a bit of the fun away but I have another 16 chao I can level up. But now I'm in a mood to play Zelda instead.May 31, 2010 - 15:53 GMT - Benny
I'm quite glad I went through with this The Green Shell idea. Combined with Hair, I've managed to build up a little backlog of updates that could last me at least a week. Although I have a feeling I'll put out a few of them at a time, which means I'll run out sooner. But yeah, while it's not necessarily easy to come up with shitty ideas for it, I have been looking around at a lot of random video game stuff over the last 12 hours and it's quite fun. I also need to play some more Star Ocean; I've got reptile aliens to kill and annoying girls to ignore! My hatred for Welch has gone down a lot since I got Lymle into my party. That annoying fuck pisses me off, 'kay.
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