Final Fantasy VI Review: Episode I

Magical Predestined Ladies, Unite!

Then it all goes to hell.

It's been a while since I last ventured into a traditional JRPG. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what was the last one I played, given that Demon's Souls was not traditional. [Edit: My last JRPG was Persona 4 Golden. I'm an idiot.] It's also been super long since I played a Final Fantasy title, my last one being XIII. Of course, this isn't just any Final Fantasy. When people fight about which is the best, this one is often thrown in with much fervor.

My first one was Final Fantasy VII, which was also the first one to be rendered in 3D. While the graphics to that one were laughable by today's standards, it is also considered one of the greats and might still stand as my favorite. I don't know if nostalgia is a big part of that, but I just remember a supremely engaging title that was fun to play and fun to witness.

Ooh, intrigue!

My husband, whom I got into the series, played Final Fantasy VI well before me and insisted that I do the same. However, I have always had a problem with reaching back when it comes to media. If I get into a musician's second album, I often hesitate to check out the first. Classic movies of the 80's that I never saw may remain unseen for my entire lifetime. And looking back into the SNES era for games I haven't played, of which there are many, is daunting. There are so many games from what is now last generation that I haven't played that going truly old school (as opposed to playing a new game with old school graphics) almost feels foolhardy.

I didn't want to play his PS1 edition, so I waited until it was released digitally and on sale to buy it. So what I'm playing now is not the Final Fantasy VI of my contemporaries' childhoods but rather the 2011 digital re-release of a 1999 special upgrade of the 1994 original. The digital release didn't add anything, but the 1999 one for the Playstation added 3D-rendered cutscenes and some other graphic retooling. Note that this edition was released between Final Fantasy VIII and IX. I guess that's what the kids were clamoring for at the time.

Starting Final Fantasy VI leads to a brief explanation that the Empire is using Magitek armor and searching for espers, magical beings of the past. A thousand years prior, there was the War of the Magi, which ended with the abolition of magic entirely, turning society into something strictly agrarian or steampunk, depending where you reside. The player controls Terra, who wears a headband that prevents her from riling against her captors accompanying her on this mission to find an esper. Terra, of course, is mysteriously able to wield magic with no other tools to assist her, and thus becomes the center of much of the story. Her green hair is of little concern, though.

Small dose of cuteness.

After finding the esper, which kills off Terra's partners, Terra ends up unconscious and under the care of some locals. Meanwhile, the Empire is taking over cities left and right for no immediately clear reason. When Terra awakes, she and her new friends hop from city to city meeting more and more people invested in finding out what's going on with the Empire and their use of magic.

Thus far, the story hasn't really resonated with me, but it's not uncommon for a Final Fantasy game to take a while to get to its point. I hope I'm not wrong in assuming that there is more afoot than an Empire amassing magic and property. There better be something more sinister or complex going on. Still the narrative was initially engaging because certain events saw the team breaking apart and meeting new people more quickly than any other title I've played. I was about five hours in and had already controlled nine people in battle, which is larger than the cast of other Final Fantasy titles.

The divergent narrative was exciting and introduced a number of scenarios really quickly, including fighting enemies while floating down a river on a raft, battling a train while it chases you, and defending a mountain top with three teams in a maze. It's been a number of hours, though, since everyone has come together again, so I'm not sure if we'll break up once more, or if this is it. For the time being, Terra is out of commission, and I'm leading my party of four with Celes, a fallen general of the Empire who was fused with magic by her employers.

Sometimes conversation happens mid-battle.

Battles are typical Active Time Battle fare, though I do find it interesting that each character has unique skills I can utilize without using up magic points. Edgar uses Tools that you can purchase in shops, which have a variety of effects on enemies; Sabin, his twin brother, has Blitz attacks, which are basically fighting game inputs that do reasonable damage, and Cyan has sword skills he deploys based on how long the player waits for a timer to count.

Celes is inherently blessed with the ability to use magic, which is handy for curing your party if you're not an items fan. (I'm not.) Unlike all of other Final Fantasy games I've played, this is the first one where magic doesn't become available to everyone until a particular story point. In the others, either they could use magic from the start (after tutorials), or they were never allowed to use magic because of their class. Still, I appreciate magic being tied to the story. In this case, magic comes with the ability to summon espers, and one learns magic from the esper equipped.

It's not a terribly complicated system, though none of them are once in practice, but I'm finding that I have almost no reliance on magic yet. Celes is still the only one I use to heal, and the others chip in when appropriate. The summons themselves fall short of the grandiose animations I've become accustomed to starting with VII. They just appear, do something ambiguous, and disappear. Maybe espers acquired later on have more to offer.

That whole crazy thing.

Actually, battles are generally amusing to me since I never had to witness them play out like they do. When a party member attacks, he or she simply waves his/her weapon and damage is done to the selected enemy. Enemies attack by flashing, and occasionally there's an accompanying animation done to a party member. Only magic and skills have more pronounced animations that actually demonstrate the characters engaging with the enemies. Again, I'm not used to this, but I do know this was once how it was.

The only technological complaint I have is for the chocobo riding, which I've only done once as dictated by the narrative. It looks like Square tried to shoehorn 3D map travel into this 2D game by flipping the perspective so that chocobos actually run on top of the map. It looks just awful, though, because everything flattens, even buildings and mountains. It's like walking on a drawing. I'd have been perfectly content riding my chocobo on the same map in the same perspective as my party does. I do miss being able to rotate the map and see objects in the distance, though. But I get it.

In terms of progress, I've played over twelve hours, mostly due to grinding, and just passed the famous opera scene. I'd like to express that it was way overrated. As a game scenario, it works just fine and is in line with the rest of the game. That's not my problem. What bothered me is that the actual opera is merely fiction that doesn't enhance the main narrative.

Bosses get to look like people…kinda.

While the song is pretty, it is ultimately just a thing that happened, and I found it challenging to connect to it on any emotional level. Couple that with the fact that you can fail the actual opera scene itself, and I'm left a little confused about why its so impactful to some people. Some folks, who I'll refer to as Six-splainers, expressed that it was an impressive feat for the technology at the time. I guess I'm inclined to believe them, but I can't seriously be expected to be floored by what the SNES could or could not do in 1994 at this point. Either the scene contributes, or it doesn't, and in my opinion, it's the latter.

The scene also exemplifies a problem I have with Celes' character. She has no agency, and seems to be dragged around at the whim of all the other characters. She was a general! Unless that was a mistranslation, or I'm misunderstanding, this should an important facet of her character. Despite my efforts to make her important, putting her at the lead of my party, she thus far has been in command of nothing. And she only performs in the opera because someone else nominated her to do so. She even objects but does it anyway with no real argument.

One of the cooler scenarios.

I will admit that I'm waiting for that a-ha moment when it all gels together. As explained above, I am assuming it's coming. I was halfway through Final Fantasy X before I cared about a single character, but by the end of the game, I was shedding a few tears for them. It just took that special something to come out of the woodwork, and right now, I believe Final Fantasy VI has that. For now, I'm just going through the motions, and it feels like I'm running on the tracks, fighting a giant hype train.

All images obtained from GameFaqs. Although I'm playing on the Playstation Vita, the Playstation emulator doesn't allow screenshots. :-(

Gil's Best of 2013

As promised, here is my list.

The Best Games I Played in 2013

10. I Am Alive

Due to all the middling reviews this game got, I almost never gave it a chance. However, Scott Nichols vehemently defended it on Twitter, and it eventually went on sale, so I got it. I can honestly say that playing it was extremely rewarding, and I fell in love with the combat that played out more like a puzzle than a shooter. I understand that it did not live up to original hype and trailers, but it's a game worth juxtaposing against other survival games that often go astray.

9. Thomas Was Alone

I played this game last month when I had some downtime and ended up finishing it and getting all the achievements in one night. Not only are the mechanics extremely simple and accessible, but the lovely narrator creates compassion for these quadrilaterals that we never thought possible. Coupled with a wonderful soundtrack and beautifully simple graphics, Thomas Was Alone easily placed itself on my top ten list.

8. The Last of Us

Winter. I already gushed quite heavily about this game, but it's worth repeating that the story is touching and affecting in a way few games have managed to accomplish for me. I know this is topping many other lists, but the rote gameplay that only manages to distinguish itself during one wonderful chapter knocked it down some pegs. Still, this is a must buy for Playstation 3 owners.

7. Asura's Wrath

I was curious about this game from the get-go, but even after checking out reviews and trailers, I did not know what to make of it. Coincidentally, I found it for pretty cheap on some website, and I played it and its (English) DLC over the summer. While it lacks a lot of gameplay to speak of, the bombastic story and events are brilliant to watch, providing entertainment for more than just the player but also anybody watching. Although a game primarily made of QTEs has a limited audience, I can honestly say they went a long way towards making me feel like I am actually accomplishing the ridiculous feats Asura performed.

6. Tomb Raider

My only experience with Tomb Raider was playing the original for the Sega Saturn for about a week. I did not know what to really make of 2013's entry and so ignored it mostly until it was on sale. How wrong I was! Although many aspects of the misfortunes Lara experiences made me uncomfortable in a bad way, she managed to maintain a strong persona amidst a sea of poor female representations. And this action story laced with mysticism actually made a ton of sense. This game felt good to play and good to watch, much like Uncharted 2, but more affecting and personal. I just hope the next entry is not riddled with such poor happenstance for our heroine.

5. Demon's Souls

I started this in 2011 but put it right down when the going got too tough. But all the hub-bub about Dark Souls gnawed away at my distaste until I picked it up again. Although not my favorite game, I had an amazing experience conquering this beast, which I wrote about elsewhere. It also provided me with the rare instance of enjoying consulting Wikis for information, which the game provides little of. Finishing it left me with a sense of accomplishment that is just hard to describe. You feel somewhat sexy for having this under your belt.

4. Gone Home

Gone Home caught a lot of flack from privileged cisgender white male gamers who balked at it for having a feminist or even gay agenda (and for being short, of all things!). I'd rather not directly engage with such an ignorant group, but I don't understand why a very well-written story about a teenage girl falling in love with another girl is considered part of an agenda. Sifting through the Greenbriar family home was just an awesome experience, more akin to Myst than Blue Is the Warmest Color. There is a true feeling of loneliness and suspense coursing through the few hours is takes to complete Gone Home. Simply put: it's an incredible return for the adventure genre that I recommend to all fans.

3. Persona 4 Golden

To say there is no game like Persona 4 would be a lie because other Persona games are like Persona 4. Though distinctly a JRPG, Atlus created a genre unto itself in many ways. The story is long and fascinating with supernatural occurrences just becoming par for the course. I loved collecting and fusing my personae and building my relationships daily. There's always something fun to discover as you work your way towards the end game. The next game is on the horizon, and I can't wait, because this is seriously one of the best RPGs you'll play in your life.

2. Antichamber

I love Antichamber. Somehow, Alexander Bruce managed to sneak in a puzzle game whose tutorial teaches the player more about life and love than about playing it. The visuals are striking, and the music and sound effects are poignant; nothing is overdone. I also really enjoyed the challenge, which required me to both learn and unlearn in order to progress. Sometimes, solving a puzzle means just sitting and staring at the screen for a few minutes until you finally consider the one action you haven't tried. I can easily recommend this to absolutely everyone because of its simple controls and hours full of "A ha!" moments. Although beating it feels triumphant, it also feels personally fulfilling as if you're a better human being because of it.

Also, this is the default Game of the Year for 2013 as this is my highest ranked game actually released in 2013. It was going to be #1, but recent events changed all that…

1. Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

OK. I didn't beat this game in 2013. No, I beat it on January 3rd, 2014, at about 3 in the morning. But it just seemed extremely stupid to lump it into next year for no reason. Here's the deal. As mentioned in my last post, my husband bought me this game, which necessitated my purchase of 999 before it. And 999 was a great game. Now, if you take 999's story and make it about 20 times more complex, you'll get Virtue's Last Reward.

Like its predecessor and Asura's Wrath, it is arguably not much of a game. There are definitely puzzles to solve — plenty of them — but you spend more time reading/listening than doing those. But what you witness is, in my opinion, just amazing. I found myself becoming truly obsessed with this game, which not only provided crazy amounts of twists and turns but found a way to work multiple playthroughs into its narrative in a way I hadn't witnessed since Eternal Darkness for the Nintendo Gamecube.

I do plan on writing a review for it, but just know that it's hard to describe exactly why this is one of the best games I've ever played. Yes, that's right. Ever! I just adore it, and it really revitalized my game-loving spark at just the right time. I'm so thankful for my husband for buying it for me.

Screenshots were either taken by me through Steam or the Playstation Vita, from Game Informer's website, or from the amazing Demon's Souls Wiki.

Gil's Gaming Year in Review 2013

What Sacrificing All Other Hobbies Looks Like

I don't know how many people are looking to me to judge my own year's worth of gaming, but I thought I'd give this a go for the first time. Thanks to trophy tracking on PSN, Steam's "Last Played" date markers, Raptr, and a handful of saved conversastions on Gmail, I was able to tabulate a fully comprehensive idea of how my gaming looked in 2013. Let's go down this road. Shall we?

What Did I Play?

Here, for you to ruminate, is the full list of games I played in 2013. I have gone to the effort of highlighting which games actually came out in 2013, since that'll be important later on. Also, note that I did not beat all of these. That's next.

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors	Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Alien Rage	Knytt Underground
Antichamber	The Last of Us
Asura's Wrath	Legend of Kyrandia (Book One)
Betrayer (Alpha)	Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate (Book Two)
Beyond: Two Souls	Legend of Kyrandia: Malcolm's Revenge (Book Three)
Bioshock Infinite	Mass Effect 3: Citadel
Blackwell Convergence	Mass Effect 3: Omega
Blackwell Deception	NiGHTS into Dreams HD
Blackwell Legacy	Okami HD
Blackwell Unbound	Persona 4 Golden
Borderlands 2: Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty	Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
The Cave	Rain
Dead Space 3	Rayman Origins
Deadlight	Sonic: Lost World
Demon's Souls	Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Dishonored: Knife of Dunwall	Syndicate
Doki-Doki Universe	Thomas Was Alone
Expeditions: Conquistador	Tomb Raider
Gone Home	Total War: Rome II
Gravity Rush	Unfinished Swan
I Am Alive	XCOM: Enemy Within
Ibb & Obb	Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
Injustice: Gods Among Us	Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands
Jade Empire

That's 49 games played last year, which I think is darn impressive. Referring to my subheading, I was able to accomplish this by severely limiting free time devoted to much else. People who are more well-rounded may watch a lot of TV and movies, but I pared down my viewing of either media to what most would consider meager. I've never been a book-reader, so compared to others, that wasn't something I had to actively sacrifice.

Of the 49 games (including DLC listed above), I beat 41 of them, or 84%, which I also think is impressive. I had numerous reasons for not beating certain titles. Some of these games were assigned as review material, and I did not see finishing the games as necessary to be comprehensive in my review by deadline. I only dabbled in the story mode for Injustice: Gods Among Us, but since I only bought the game because it was on sale, I decided to devote my play time towards other titles. And Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning had the distinction of boring me out of playing it. I might go back someday, but for now, I don't see that time coming soon.

Now, onto 2013 exclusives. While it is probably not that tough for major gaming sites and blogs to pick out what they've done all year, I had a lot of Googling to determine what I've played that actually came out in the same year. That said, as you can see in the table above, I played 21 games published in 2013. Of those, I beat 15 of them or 71%, which is still not bad. I probably would have played less 2013 games had I not been assigned reviews, so I'm thankful for those opportunities.

Here are some handy dandy charts I generated for stat freaks:

Lessons Learned

On that note, I learned a lot about different gaming genres and niche games last year. Expeditions: Conquistador and XCOM: Enemy Within were the first turn-based strategy games I've played since Blazing Heroes for the Sega Saturn, which I only rented because it looked pretty. Total War: Rome II, which has a turn-based mode and a live battle mode, was also added to the strategy mix last year. Although XCOM's rather unrelenting difficulty left me a little sore, I was impressed with how much I was able to accomplish in each title. Although I am unlikely to desire a strategy game in the future, I think those games are a testament to how approachable the genre has become for newbies.

I got a lot of my point-and-click on via the Blackwell and Kyrandia series, thanks to GOG's awesome offerings. Although the Kyrandia games allowed me to relive some nostalgic memories, they also pointed out some of the major flaws in the genre back in the early 90s — arbitrary puzzle solutions, maze-like maps that also required backtracking, and genuinely being at a loss for where to go next were among the worst offenders. In that respect, the Blackwell games manage to offer up adult tales that eschew most of these errors. On the nostalgia note, nothing brought me back to the feeling of playing Myst like Gone Home, which managed to fuse a contemporary tale of family and romance with a true sense of adventure and exploration.

2013 exposed me to niche games like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies, 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, and Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. All of these fall into the interactive visual novel genre if I had to choose, and although I enjoyed each of them, I have to admit that only a certain kind of (patient) player would want to play them. If you exclusively enjoy action games, turn your eyes away, I say. Though I'd still take a gander at Asura's Wrath. Featuring more interactivity at certain points, it was a crazy ride for what is mostly a giant QTE.

Lastly, I learned something about disappointment. Both Ibb & Obb and Rain fell way short of my expectations, the former requiring exact platforming with inexact controls and the latter just falling flat in terms of narrative and creativity. The Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3, although entertaining, became majorly frustrating due to a niggling bug for which I could find no solution on Origin's boards and FAQs. The game kept crashing at a certain point no matter what choices brought me there, and I managed to solve it by deleting my local save. Apparently, my hard drive and the cloud were fighting.

Although I didn't have high expectations for Sonic: Lost World, I certainly thought it wouldn't be a piece of shit. (Note, I don't curse much on this blog, but I can find no other description for such a game.) I specifically played the Nintendo 3DS version, and though the WiiU version didn't fare much better with reviewers, I can honestly say the handheld version was like the console version took a dump into a 3DS cartridge.

Keeping the criticism going, even though I heartily recommended Bioshock Infinite for its primary story, its gameplay was a large letdown that soured more in my mind as time continued to pass. Bioshock was a lot of fun to play, and I did so at a time when I had exactly zero FPS games under my belt. Having played a number more than zero between it and Infinite, I realized that there is something indeed lacking from the latter. It just felt like a shooter. And let's not forget how it brings up a story about racism only to drop it like a bad habit, even going so far as to be racist in doing so. Bitter, bitter tastes.

The Year of the Handeld?

In 1989, my parents bought me a Nintendo Gameboy. It went on to be the only handheld gaming system I'd own until 2013. I bore no distinct dislike of handhelds, but I just didn't want them. I thoroughly enjoyed my HD gaming on console and PC, and I also had few traveling opportunities to play like others who commute by train or bus.

However, the urge to play Persona 4 Golden grew too great, and my husband chose to help me scratch that itch as a gift for our marriage/anniversary. I loved Persona 3 FES when I played it on my Playstation 2 a few years ago, and even though I owned the PS2 copy of Persona 4, I felt the Golden version calling to me. Having a Playstation Plus account made that purchase more worthwhile, and I got to play both Gravity Rush and Knytt Underground for free. In retrospect, I'd probably pay money for them now.

As for the Nintendo 3DS, I did review two games for it, but I played them on my husband's 3DS, which I bought for him a few years ago. However, I then ran into this predicament recently:

I'm sure Nintendo hears this all the time.

So now you know why I bought a Nintendo 3DS XL and played 999 this year. Out of sheer coincidence, I ended up buying the golden edition of the 3DS XL made for The Legend of Zelda: A Link between Worlds. I was going to buy it anyway, and buying this edition saved me $20. Go me!

Despite abstaining from purchasing a handheld, I somehow found myself to be the owner of two last year. And now I have no excuse for not going through the backlog and playing some of the awesome games that came out for the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo DS, and the Playstation Vita in the past years. What was already an impossible task just became a joke.

The Future of Gaming

Anybody who's been paying any attention to video games last year is aware that the next generation of gaming consoles made its appearance in 2013. I originally had no intention of buying either at launch in November, but I did plan to get a Playstation 4 in 2014 when a worthwhile game came out. I just knew I didn't need it right away. (Like the Xbox 360, I have nothing against the Xbox One. I just don't actively want one. If I had either, I'd play it.)

Well, much like my random handheld acquisition, I randomly acquired a PS4 in the 11th hour. I browsed Twitter briefly one day, and I saw someone mention that Amazon had them in stock. I went to the Amazon app to verify this, imagining they sold out in minutes, but I was wrong. I stared at it for a moment and then checked the currently available library of games. Nothing. I wanted nothing of what's out right now. I had already claimed my freebies in November, but neither excited me.

Yet the Playstation 4 found its way into my cart and into my home as of December 26th. It would have been sooner, but we were out during the first delivery attempt on Christmas Eve. It doesn't matter. It has been nine days since I've received it, and I still haven't hooked it up. I was honestly so drawn into Virtue's Last Reward that I had no compelling need. Maybe tomorrow…

Best Of 2013

Obviously, one should end a retrospective with a Best Of list, right? Next time, Kitties. Next time!