The first masterpiece JRPG (Final Fantasy VI Retrospective)
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- People who weren’t around back in the day often ask what makes Final Fantasy VI (also known as FF6 and sometimes FF3 US) so good. But the game’s true value cannot be measured in how well the gameplay, story, and music have held up, but rather, how groundbreaking the whole package was in 1994.
In this video, I’ll show you what Final Fantasy VI was like, how it built upon and changed the formula from the previous games, and how it offered more freedom than ever before, but sometimes struggled to balance it against a linear narrative.
This is my love letter to Final Fantasy VI - the first ever masterpiece JRPG.
UPDATE: Some of you have expressed concerns about my use of AI generated images in parts of this video. This is valid criticism, and I take this feedback seriously. The impact of generative AI has been constantly on my mind over the past year. This is something that's been bothering me even before I received such comments, and the fact that this has been brought up has made me even more doubtful about using such tools in my future content.
#FinalFantasy #JRPG #retrospective
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🎦 My other Final Fantasy retrospectives:
▶ Final Fantasy I - • The original Final Fan...
▶ Final Fantasy II - • The most important gam...
▶ Final Fantasy III - • Final Fantasy’s last t...
▶ Final Fantasy IV - • The blueprint to Squar...
▶ Final Fantasy V - • The last great adventu...
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:33 Opening
05:32 Brave new world
09:18 The Magitek tutorial
14:01 16-bit beauties
18:04 Complex storytelling
22:02 A branch in the path
26:28 A new kind of dungeon
30:32 Pixel Perfection
34:57 The invisible job system
40:12 Rage against the machine
45:04 Freedom to get overpowered
50:00 An ensemble cast
54:53 Choose your own adventure
59:43 Optional scenes
1:05:03 The paradox of choice
1:08:59 Magicite dreams
1:13:18 A night at the opera
1:18:50 Endless horizons
1:23:03 Inventing “Magitek”
1:28:50 A game for kids
1:33:56 The end of the world
1:39:09 The world after the end
1:43:27 The final battle
1:47:37 Dancing Mad
1:54:44 The price of freedom
1:59:01 Hope
2:04:46 The first masterpiece JRPG - Hry
FF6 is by far my favorite of the whole series. It inspired me to make the Woolsey Uncensored Edition hack. If you're looking for a vanilla experience with numerous bugs fixed and delivered a cleaned up script with all the classic Woolsey lines.
Hey dude, thanks for stopping by! I've heard good things about the Woolsey Uncensored Edition. Definitely plan to give it a try next time I go through FF6 :)
Almost 30 years later, this is still my favorite video game of all time. Thanks for putting together such a great video.
Thank you! :)
As someone else whose favorite track from FFVI is Searching for Friends, for the longest time, I didn't know its name. I only knew it as the World of Ruin airship theme. When I found out its name was Searching for Friends, i sat back and thought for a solid minute about how much *better* that made the song.
Totally agreed! The naming of things can have a lot of power. Just knowing the title of the track opens up a world of emotion!
Searching For Friends is amazing. But I quickly get tired of it because I always need to level all my characters to 99 and teach them all spells. Many hours in the dinosaur forest… and listening to that song.
Well, my fave is still the end credits song. First the character theme medley, and then the “Balance Restored” theme, which totally blew me away the first time I heard it and saw the ingame cinematic. It’s some 24mins long, and Nobou Uematsu literally composed the shit out of it, and out of the SNES console. The arrangements are masterful, sometimes cranking up the tempo and the mood where you didn’t think it could get any phatter - I thought my heart would explode from the joy.
At any rate, no matter what our fave is, music has affected us, and it unites us in our love for this game.
I still find myself whistling some of the tunes from this game even today (almost 30 years later!). What a brilliant game. Thanks for your review here - it makes me want to go back and play the game again!
Thanks! Glad you liked it! :)
I can't believe how criminally under subscribed your channel is for the quality, keep it up!
Thank you so much! That really means a lot to me :D
Agreed, love this channel!
I absolutely agree. Great videos!
UPDATE: Some of you have expressed concerns about my use of AI generated images in parts of this video. This is valid criticism, and I take this feedback seriously. The impact of generative AI has been constantly on my mind over the past year. This is something that's been bothering me even before I received such comments, and the fact that this has been brought up has made me even more doubtful about using such tools in my future content.
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I have created a monument to my love for Final Fantasy VI! I swear, this is the shortest I could possibly make the video - I cut SO much stuff I wanted to include lol. Dear god, the amount of work I’ve put into this video… I wasn’t sure I’d ever finish.
Next in my retrospective series: Chrono Trigger. But first, I have a couple of Xenoblade critiques I want to publish - Torna: the Golden Country and Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
What’s YOUR first great JRPG love? Let me know! And as always, thanks for supporting me! 😍
My first great JRPG love? The one and same: FF6.
Outstanding video! I didn't think anyone could show me something new about this game. Some games I play again, and I'm like "oh wow, this is worse than I remember." FF6, Tactics, and Chrono Trigger don't suffer from this and hold up so well.
@@hawkbirdtree3660 Thank you so much! Yes, it's a rare few games that hold up this well even after almost 30 years :)
This one is my favorite
Why does it show ff3 in 3:15
I recall picking this up in 1994 and playing it over an entire weekend, getting less sleep than I should and finishing the game. It has such a fond place in my memories. I was in my late teens and was already an avid RPG fan on the NES and SNES, but this game was the culmination of perfection of that era,
Yeah, it really felt like the start of the golden age for me...
It was my first special and still biggest relation with a video game, and your tribute to it makes it even more complete and greater, very, very good content there, thanks!
Thank you so much! :)
Thank you so much for all your love and care put into this brilliant video. This was incredible. Your narrative and analysis tapped into things i always felt and also put words into the feelings I never knew how to convey about why this game is so important.
I cannot thank you enough... Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Wow, that makes me super happy to hear! I’m so glad I was able to convey what I wanted to convey with the video :)
Best of the best. When it comes to gaming; FFVI belongs to the deepest part of my heart because of it's many aspects.
In case you don't know since it wasn't mentioned in video - Whole final battle scene was based off "The Divine Comedy" aka "Dante's Inferno" giving it even more depth. Like the "Dante" character in The Divine Comedy, we must literally climb from Hell, through Purgatory and up to The Paradise in order to reach your ultimate goal, slaying Kefka.
This "paradox of choice' pretty much also applies to innovative FFVIII I recently completed few months back. Few segments in game forces player to select a party and couple of cutscenes had surprisingly a lot of variables. This and goofy dialogue were my favorite things of VIII I'd say.
Thanks for sharing! Do you have a source for the link to the Divine Comedy as inspiration for the final battle? I haven't seen that in any of the interviews I found and I'm always interested in learning more about the creation of this game :)
I first played this game on ZSNES back in '99 and I remember being absolutely blown away by it. Over the intervening two decades, my fondness and appreciation for this title and what it did to elevate the artform of video games has only continued to grow. I'm so glad to see this title still getting the love and attention it deserves. This was a phenomenal retrospective! Hopefully you will give a similar treatment to Zelda: LttP and Chrono Trigger! ^_^
Thank you for all your amazing work! You just earned a sub. Shared this video with some friends as well! Wishing you all the best with your channel!
Thank you so much for your kind words! Chrono Trigger is next on my list of retrospectives, and I might cover Link to the Past as well, if I think I can do the game justice.
I remember being 14 years old and using money i had saved up to buy this game brand new for almost $100 !!! And to be fair... im 43 years old right now, and i STILL think about and play this game, and STILL find New Things in it. So you can say...
Best $100 i have EVER Spent
Game prices were kind of insane in the 90s 😂
Wtf. Even $100 for a new game in 2023 is way too expensive.
@@icyboy771z agreed. But this game was EXPENSIVE when it first came out. Totally worth it though, the fact everyone still talks about it To This Day says it all
@@dantediss1woah. I don’t remember it being $100. Was it???? I can’t even remember if I bought it now that I’m thinking of it. I might’ve just borrowed it to finish from my friend.
"...it all sounded exactly like this in my head back in 1994." Exactly. Transcendent.
I absolutely loved the "hidden in plain sight" approach to storytelling. Instead of shoving it down your throat, it actively rewarded you for paying attention, which makes for very satisfying moments and gives the "illusion" of a lot more character depth. Heck, I only figured out Shadow's was Relm's father 15 years later and I was blown away!
And today I learned that the game was supposed to end at the Floating Continent. Man that would have been such a bummer. The villain winning turned out to be one of FF6's most unique and memorable moment. It would have been a completely different game with a different theme and impact had that not been so.
Amazing content!
It's amazing how much more satisfying these subtle plot points are when you get to figure it out on your own. :)
Thanks for sharing, and thanks your kind words!
To this day the opening of this game and the music cant be best. Here we are almost 30 years later ans it still holds up. Most SNES games do. This is the Final Fantasy to beat and while i enjoy 7 8 and 9 no other FF game has ever been able to top it for me. I love that games like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy are bringing this type of JRPG back and introducing younger generations to it
It’s a love letter to which I can easily add my name. 🙏 FF6 is the game I never get bored playing. I miss my old SNES for that. I am playing the pixel-remastered version for the first time, and I am in heaven (the orchestrated music 🤩). Thanks for your video - it could have been 3 hours and I would have watched it.
Thanks for saying that! :)
@@AltercateTV Above everything that made this game so great, one of my favorite features in FF6 was being able to play the game with my best friend using a second controller. To this day, it's still one of our favorite games that we've played together. FF6 is all about teamwork and friendship, right?! 😊
@@marcbabin True! I thought that was a really cool feature back in the day, even if me and my friends didn't use it much. Secret of Mana blew my mind though, being able to do 3 payer co-op with the multitap!
Snes best console of time
OMG, I can't believe I am posting my Final Fantasy story. A friend rented FF from a video store and we played it at my house. We loved it and barely got to the Marsh Cave before returning it to lose our save point. After thinking about FF for a month, I decided to buy it with my allowance for $40 USD. After playing and loving FF, I played through it multiple times and eventually put it down. The SNES was released. Instead of purchasing the SNES , I opted to play the newer games on my friends' SNESs. Several months after the SNES release I perused the video games at Wal-Mart one evening and saw Final Fantasy II (US) on the shelf. I was surprised and ecstatic. I walked back home, collected all of my lawn-mowing money and returned to purchase FFIV and the SNES console for $135 USD. I loved FFIV and was blown away by the depth of story and beautiful graphics. I played through FFIV several times over the next couple years and enjoyed every minutes. At some time, I learned about the release of Final Fantasy III and learned I could pre-order the game. I had never pre-ordered a game before FFVI and I haven't preordered a game since then, lol. A couple of weeks later, I drove to the Electronics Boutique in a mall where I pre-ordered and closed the purchase of FFVI for $90 USD with some of the money I had reserved for buying a guitar. Of all the hours I spent playing FF and FFIV, I'm sure I played FFVI for more hours than the previous games combined. It was easily my favorite game and remained in my top 2 ever since. Fun fact: Due to my pre-order of Final Fantasy III, I unexpectedly received a VHS cassette in the mail promoting the release of Final Fantasy VII. I never played FFVII or any other FF afterward because I was a broke college student... broke graduate student... eventually, spending all my lawn-mowing and guitar money on kids, cars, and houses. Long story, eh? If you got this far, thanks for reading!
Beautiful story! Thanks for sharing :)
This is easily is without a doubt the most biggest and most comprehensive review that I’ve ever seen in FF6, and watching this made me appreciate things that I didn’t even consider prior to watching this such as the verity of scenarios, dungeon design and how the characters and relics are similar to the job classes and abilities like in FF5 and I also admired how it tired to dealt with much more adult and complex themes then most video games where at the time of FFVI release. Though the Game isn’t completely perfect such as the stuff mentioned in this review.
The Biggest example of this for me at least is how the story is structured in how it deals away with having a main character into having a large ensemble cast of characters and having the world of ruin at the 2nd half of the game as being much more open ended. And on paper it’s a really neat idea having multiple different characters that you can freely switch and giving players a lot of freedom. And I can see why alot of people really like it. But because of that the game doesn't know which character is going to be in your group, and some of the major character development and events are completely miscible, it also causes other characters to feel less developed than others and once you do get to the 2nd half of the game's the story is pretty much over and doesn't really conclude until you face Kafka.
Which is why I genuinely much prefer more linear structured stories such that feature a proper main character and a fix party since it allows the story to flow more natural, have natural beginning and end points and it would mean I wouldn’t miss any important developments or major events to the characters which kinda why I liked FF5 a bit more for these reasons. So I wouldn’t say FF6 is my absolute favorite in the FF series or in my top favorite RPGs But I still did enjoy this one as it is easily within my Top 5 Final Fantasy Games and is really good for a game made in 1994.
And I’m hoping to see more future Final Fantasy retrospective videos.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Gavin, and thanks for the support!
I'm planning on covering every mainline game eventually, but it's going to take a very long time to get there... 😂
@@AltercateTV No worries I'm just glad I'm there to support you. Your doing great!
This was my favorite back in the day. After borrowing FF8 from a friend, I asked my parents to buy the game. My dad got me the Anthology. At first I was so dissapointed because it was the old pixel games. Until I played this and realised how great is is ! 25 years later I own every FF game ever created on 2 different systems. It was truly great.
Excellent video. Really love this long-form JRPG content, makes for excellent listening while I'm grinding in some game. Listened to this one while going through Colosseum fights on my Kingdom Hearts replay.
Glad you mentioned Shibuya's contributions to sprite design. Those iconic sprites are responsible for much of the charm of early Final Fantasy games and Shibuya really knocked things out of the park with FFVI. I can't even imagine what these games would be like without her work.
Thank you! Yes, I think Shibuya is very much an unsung hero of FF. I hadn't even heard her name before I started doing these retrospectives, which is kind of sad!
One of the moments in FFVI that is underrated and overlooked is the mid-game plot twist where Kefka literally destroys the world.
When I first played it back when I was 14, I thought I was about to fight the final boss on the floating continent, needless to say I was in for a shock. As a plot twist it hasn't aged that well; that is to say it has lost most of it's shock value due to it going on to become somewhat of a RPG trope, but in 1994 most games barely had dialogue nevermind a deep plot.
Yep, it's crazy how above and beyond this story was for 1994. Moments like the opera house, the story of Maduin and Madonna, and Cid's death (I wasn't very good at catching fish as a kid I guess lol) really hit me hard as a kid.
Yup. It was groundbreaking and I was in awe of its beauty. It SO deserves a 3D makeover. It would be an amazing game made in a realistic looking engine.
I like Sabin's journey too. It's like "we have a bunch of ideas we don't know where they should go, 2 characters we need to introduce and one guy we don't know what to do with".
Haha yeah, there's definitely a strong brainstorming energy to FF6's story 😂
I will always feel FF4 really holds this spot in my heart, and the greatness we see from 6 is built upon what was already being worked toward in 4 or 5. I will never forget how blown my mind was playing 4 back in 1991, there was nothing that ambitious in terms of storytelling and depth. Then especially since I didn't have 5 growing up, it feels wrong to make that cut off point at 6, when 5 did somethings objectively better. All that being said, 6 is a masterpiece and having played them in order when they came out really highlighted how ambitious they took each evolution of the game. I always hope they one day go back to an ensemble style FF game like this again, and see if they could pull it off for an entirely new generation. One can dream!
I played it for the first time 2 years ago and it held up great, for some reason it’s really easy to imagine the pixelated scenes as full movie scenes in my mind
Thanks for sharing! Yeah, your imagination really comes into its own with this game. Beautiful pixel graphics that leave a lot to the imagination :)
Honestly last year I finally finished Final Fantasy 6 and fall in Love with it, well I still like 9 the most but I'm honestly glad I that I was able to finish it and see why it was loved by fans and I can see why the Story and Characters will be forever my favorite in the series next to 9
Thanks for sharing your experiences! Glad you liked the game :)
When you take everything into account for when it was released - 1994 - this game was one of the best games ever made, period.
Along with Chrono Trigger just ONE YEAR later, we were truly in a Golden Age of JRPGs and Square in general
It hasn't been recreated since.
Now we have 4-10 year waits on major titles we love (Skyrim anyone?)
Agreed!
When you’ve gotten used to the modern game development cycle, it’s crazy how fast games were made in the past. There was a mainline Final Fantasy title per year in 1999, 2000, and 2001… And I still remember feeling like the wait for each new game was unbearable 😂
Hey! I was missing you 😂. Great video btw.
Thank you so much! :D
My friend, I can't tell you how amazing this video is. Thank you so much for making it. You put into words so many things I always felt about this game, my favorite game of all time. I will watch this many times in the future just to feel the nostalgia from someone else who I feel knows what I felt when I first played Final Fantasy 6 (3 when I was a kid lol)!
Wow, that’s such a nice thing to hear! I’m glad you like the video, and thanks for taking the time to tell me :)
Best two plus hours ever spent. 👍
I am also of the age where my first time playing the game would've been as FF3 on te SNES, so while I was a little late to the party, that feeling of newness if you will is mutual.
To think that my favorite part of the whole game, the World of Ruin, wasn't originally supposed to be there. That part made FF6 my favorite FF game and Kefka my favorite FF villain. Just think, despite all the new features and the greater emphasis on dark and mature themes, as a young man, I still expected FF6 to end in typical fashion of the heroes stopping the villain and save the world in the last minute. But then, even with the best efforts from Shadow, Kefka still won, and watching the world tear itself apart was just mind blowing even now.
I agree that it has its weaknesses, but I gotta say, the pros vastly outweigh the cons as it was alot of fun searching for the rest of the cast and grinding out new abilities and spells. I even find certain side stories work out better in the World of Ruin more than the World of Balance, like finding Gau's father. Gau saying he was happy to see him alive despite simultaneously getting insulted and complimented just felt all the more moving when the setting was all broken and gloomy.
Anyways, I am happy to have found your love letter to FF6. I only wished I found it sooner.
Thanks for sharing, and thank you so much for your kind words! It means a lot to me to know that there are people out there enjoying my videos!
This is such an incredible amount of work you must have had to put in here. This is so well done. A pleasure to watch, honestly. Most youtube videos you see on retrospectives, and reviews of old games are just copy/paste videos with stcok images or just some screenshots but you've really put so much effort into making this a real documentary and tribute to the game. The artistic nuances and the overall presentation of the video are just perfect. Thank you! I look forward to more releases from you and I've subscribed..
Thank you so much for saying that. My videos do indeed take a lot of work to create, so it's really nice to get this kind of feedback!
PS. Dragon Quest 1 retrospective coming tomorrow. :)
It's like you took the words right out of my head. Saving this video for anytime anybody asks me why I love this game so much.
That's very nice to hear. Thank you for saying that :)
I was a teenager in the mid-nineties when I first played this game. Since then I’ve played many games as the decades have passed but nothing has moved me more emotionally than Final Fantasy 3 (6) did. For far too long this beautiful game was sadly overlooked, this game truly special and deserves every single bit of the recognition it’s finally starting to receive!
Thanks for sharing! This game is definitely one of a kind.
I am from Germany, so I had a PAL-version of the Super Nintendo on which american games could not run. Company politics at that time also tried to regulate the market making it difficult and quite expensive to lay hands on imported games. Clunky technical bypass solutions were needed to work around the intended hardware restrictions. In the nineties there were slightly shady stores in bigger german cities who sold these devices and imported games. I bought FF IV there and was really amazed, what storytelling could achieve, the graphics did not convince me really,but the music did. So I was totally hyped, when in Print magazines FFVI was announced. Whe I finally played it, I was totally blown away by it. Your Loveletter describes perfectly my first playthrough in an era long before the internet, where I had to discover everything the game offered by myself. Up to this day the Soundtrack is still running regularly at my place. Even my children hum the tunes without ever having played FFVI (they played Chrono Trigger eventually). Thank you very much for letting me relive my awe and wonder playing it the first time with your brilliant video.
Thank you for sharing your experience with the game! I'm very happy that my video was able to recapture some of that magic. :)
Not only was this the greatest game ever made, it takes every person who ever played it back to a certain time of their life. I was 12 years old when I first played it and I still get my mind blown when I play it again now at 40 years old :). From the moment I turn this game on, memories flood back in. Good memories. Even the soundtrack to this game goes with the feelings I get when I start to remember where I was and who I was with back then :). final fantasy 3 That’s how I remembered it. now, we all know their is a lot of story that was deleted out of this game. Shadows mysterious past. Gogos identity. What happened to banon in the world of ruin? What happened to Arvis? this game needs to have a proper sequel or better yet Bring back all the stuff they cut out this game. They did it with final fantasy 7. They can do it with this. And I know it’ll be one of the most incredible games ever. The story is too rich with possibilities with all the characters. Please do it!
I’d be up for that for sure :)
My wife thinks it's silly that I still mourn (if that is the right word) General Leo. He was the best, and I was all hyped that he would join the party... then Thamasa. Holy crap, I get to control him! It's happening! His Offering made him mighty, Shock was strong and awesome!
And then, I cried like I had lost a close friend and mentor. On my first time through, I would periodically visit Thamasa, and look at that sword on top of the mound, and just lament not having Leo in the party.
I feel the same way about ffx but I gotta give this one a go seeing how much everybody loves this one.
In a magazine (I forget which one) when talking about the music of FFVI it said "In terms of the technology Nobou Uematsu had to work with, he painted the Sistine Chapel with a box of crayons"
I still consider Dancing Mad to be his Magnum Opus, fuck One Winged Angel
This was a great tribute, the nostalgia hits me really hard. I'm glad I got to experience this game when it was new. Celes is actually the namesake for my avatar's first name, when trying to come up with a name, I for some reason thought to myself what would be the male equivalent of the name Celes, and came up with Cerez.
I’m glad you liked the video! And thanks for sharing your story. Always fun to hear about the many different ways these games have impacted people’s lives :)
Been waiting for this. Thanks for putting in all the time and effort to create it!
Thank you for saying that! :)
Great look at my absolute favorite game of all time. I started getting big into RPGs with Final Fantasy Legend (rather SaGa I suppose) when it came out as my older cousin gave it to me as he wasn't a fan of non-action titles and I fell in love immediately. I can still recall in vivid detail my first time playing most of the mainline series but nothing compared to FF VI, how it blew me away with that opening sequence. I was strangely hesitant when reading previews, doubting that I would become as endured to the cast as I was with those in FF IV, but was very quickly proven wrong. To this day the opera is perhaps one my favorite moments in any form of media.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
The graphics, gameplay, story, characters, the MUSIC? Everything was just so amazing. As a 12 year old when this came out I couldn't imagine gaming getting much better. Good times. The 90s were an incredible era for gaming.
Great video. Finished playing the pixel remaster not long ago and can’t stop thinking about it. Shame that 6 isn’t talked about nearly as much as 7
Thanks! Yep, the conversation has turned mostly away from FF6 these days, sadly. Btw I was just watching your "anime dubs aren't cringe, anime is" video a while back, good stuff. :)
criminally underwatched channel. Kepp grinding, you'll make it some day.
That's very kind of you to say :)
Deserve million views minimum. Great content, man.
Agreed this is by far one of the best RPG games ever created
Have you considered doing a retrospective on the rest of this series? I'm curious about your thoughts on something like Final Fantasy Tactics!
I’m planning on covering all of the mainline entries in the series, as well as some of the spinoffs. Final Fantasy Tactics is definitely on that list!
This game punched faaaar above its weight. The ambition, music, world, and story could be fleshed out so well with prerendered backgrounds and cinematics like the psx era. The game deserves a remake moreso than 7 or 9 which hold up just fine.
Nice to see you around Alan! Yep, FF6 would be really cool to see in remake form :)
9 holds up nicely, 7 not so much. These very early 3d graphics aged really badly, I'd argue it's more pleasant to look at Ff6 even, these Pixel artstyles are timeless.
FFVI was my first FF game, and first game ever played. The concept of losing halfway through the game and the comeback in the second half is something I haven't found in anything I've played since.
It definitely had an impact on me as a kid!
Coming from PAL region, I know how I felt when I realized that we never got this game at the time.
It was during the N64/PlayStation era and FF7 was the first time I saw a game called Final Fantasy.
When I realized the first 6 were only on the NES and SNES, and then I realized PAL Regions in Europe and Australia/New Zealand never got those games at all despite I could have easily understood the American version.
Realizing that even if I did import, I would have had to get a separate SNES from a different region just to play it.
Considering gaming these days are no longer restricted to Region Locks, I can say we live in a blessed era these days compared to what I had to grow up in.
Blessed indeed! And now we get worldwide releases as well. Remember waiting months for games that were already out in America to get to the PAL region? Lol
@@AltercateTVAnd a gamer like me from Australia having to wait a few more months after the same game has already been released in Europe when it comes to niche JRPGs.
Yes I remember how it was as that was what my late teenage years were all about when I first got into JRPGs outside of Nintendo's own Pokemon series that was the exception back in the day.
I did play FF6 after completing FF7 and looking for more while FF8 came out. Even tho i just played it briefly, for maybe 40-50 hours and not having completed all of it, it was enough to create very fond memories of the Opera House, the story of Celes and finding the Falcon and reuniting the party. Wonderfully put together!
Thank you! And thanks for sharing your experience with the game :)
That title belongs to Mother 1 on NES, it has the best story and characters and very unique gameplay. The Mother seried is criminaly underrated.
Fair enough! Definitely a pioneering series.
Thank you for making this retrospective/tribute. Final Fantasy VI is my favourite game of all time, and you gave it the look back it deserves. Playing the pixel remaster right now, and I can say that I still love this game as much as I did when I first played it (maybe loving it even more actually).
Glad you liked it! Yep, the game still holds up. :)
Such a masterpiece. I'm playing the pixel remaster rn and they fixed a lot of the issues the game had : They give you hints for the cutscenes you can miss, they fixed the translation errors while keeping the good stuff, you can tweak the grindyness... And the new orchestral music is awesome too.
I really liked the Pixel Remaster’s rearranged soundtrack, even if it’s not always an upgrade! The original compositions hold up crazy well.
@@AltercateTV True. That Super Nintendo sound chip never sounded better than in this game. One of my only issue with the new soundtrack is that the bass line should be louder in 'Searching for friends'.
It's amazing how much you can feel towards these characters despite the huge cast and relatively little time given to the stories of some characters. Locke's story is still probably my favorite of any RPG character.
Yep, they got a ton of work done with very modest resources. It's crazy how well the game conveyed emotions and activated our imaginations.
come on, the Atma Weapon music and intro? that shit blew my 11 year old mind!
Glad I love this game enough to CZcams search “final fantasy vi” retrospective every few years to find this one. Onto to your FFIV retrospective!
Glad you enjoyed it! :)
Thanks for the long-form content. It gives me more stuff to listen to while working. 😁
Hey, any time ;)
You absolutely nailed the themes and moments that make this game a masterpiece! Thanks so much for your hard work here! I found myself yelling "You get it!" at the video out loud more than once. This is the retrospective this game deserves!
Thank you so much! That's really cool to hear :)
This was brilliant. I especially enjoyed you reminding me of how special this was when I was a kid, and how new and innovative so many aspects of the game were when it released.
I've watched a lot of FFVI videos, and this is easily my favorite.
Thank you.
Liked, subscribed, commenting for the algorithm
Wow, thank you so much for the kind words! Glad you liked the video :)
I agree that FF6 was absolutely stunning at the time (and it holds up pretty well), but I think FF4 deserves a lot of credit for laying the groundwork. It was FF4 that introduced the idea that you could tell a real story in a JRPG, with character development, conflict, and emotion, instead of just nameless heroes on a generic quest. Sure, it was greatly surpassed by 6 (my favorite in the entire series), but I don't think 6 could exist without 4.
Totally agree with that! If you're interested, I think I give a lot of credit to those aspects of Final Fantasy IV in my retrospective of that game. The reason why I personally single out FFVI as the "first masterpiece" is of course completely subjective, but in my eyes, it's the first game that truly hits every note in the symphony of mastery that would come to define this genre in the long run. That said, none of these games would even exist without the enormous contributions made by previous games in the series (and in the genre as a whole)!
I'm glad this is the first FF I played, it took a big gamble of changing the story from it's predecessors in terms of the established 4 Crystals and job system trope
This is a fantastic video and I really appreciate all the time you spent putting it together!
Thank you for saying that! That means a lot to me :)
I love the old vanish/doom bug. I love that in other games there are occasional references to it. I dont remember where, but I remember talking to a scientist character saying they were researching the link between magical invisibility and death magic and I immediately knew the developers were people of culture lol
Yeah I love that bug haha. I'm so salty about them patching it out of later versions.
I played FF7, as my first Final fantasy, in 2017. Friend of mine was a big fan, so I ended up playing 7, 10 and 9 with him sitting next to me. Later the same year I decided to pick 6, which my friend had not played. In a way it was a first for me, first FF game I played on my own without help. Unfortunately I did know about the whole World of ruin twist, but other than that I had no knowledge of what is to happen.
And I loved it
This game still holds up as a masterpiece
Hey, thanks for sharing! That’s awesome to hear 😀
It's great to see the essence of Final Fantasy VI in many indie RPGs I've played
It’s a game that’s inspired countless people for sure!
2 hours? 2023? FF6? Holy ... It must be your THRE LOVE.
Eh, it's an alright game ;)
Having been playing the pr version cyan actually has some lines at the banquet and during the battle of narshe. To the respective generals he fights kefka and Leo apologized to him.
Still have my original SNES cartridge with the box and manual from back in the day, FFVI will always be my favorite Final Fantasy.
After playing the first two hours of this game over the years, I finally finished the game with the pixel remaster. Excellent retrospective of the game. Glad I found your channel.
Thank you! :)
Thank you for making such a beautiful video describing your experience with final fantasy 6 my nephews are coming over for Christmas vacation and I'm going to introduce them to the world of final fantasy and this is the game I chose to do it with again thank you so much you got a new subscriber thumbs up on this video and you got a good comment with great feedback
I had to comeback and finish my comments because the final description you made at 2:05 12 seconds the way you described how has the jrpg that introduced him to the genre and the way you describe your experience will hopefully bring more new gamers to take a shot and experienced such a beautiful game almost three decades after it came out and if you keep making these videos like this I'm sure people are going to want to play i know so
Thank you so much for your kind words! :)
This was a wonderful journey. Thank you so much!
Thank you! That's really nice to hear :)
Subscribed!! Ff6 is my #1 fave of all time,i still have my first copy i got on release date! Awsome video!
Thank you so much! :)
This was an amazing look back at one of, if not my favorite JRPG's of all time. Keep up the good work man!
Thank you! 😀
Here's how well the dungeon segments flow into the narrative - it had never occurred to me before that the Floating Continent could be classified as a "dungeon," because it didn't feel like one. There was urgency, and energy, and desperation, and worry. But it absolutely is one. 29 years later, the game is still blowing my mind in new ways that are just as impactful as when I was 9.
Well said! And thanks for sharing your experience :)
Wow, how in the heck does this video not have more likes? This is probably the best video on ff6 I've ever seen. As some one who enjoyed it early in my life. I feel like this video helped me understand my own feelings, and remember why this game will always be in my top3 games of all time.
Thank you so much! That's very encouraging to hear. Glad you liked the video :)
Am I the only one who wish for a Remake of FFVI for people who played it back and for new people to see how the game is amazing ?
I'd want to see it, for sure :)
I can't put into words how great this video is, I enjoyed every 130 mins of it.
Wow, thank you! That’s very encouraging to hear 😀
Great work man, loved the video. You just gained a subscriber :)
Thanks so much for saying that! :)
This was fantastic. Great job. FF6 is my favorite game of all time. Although you thought a few of your criticisms were harsh. Nonetheless, this was the best retrospective of this classic I’ve ever heard.
Wow, thank you so much for the kind words! :)
2nd half reminds me of act 2 of DQ11. Key differences being requiring only 2 party members to be found rather than all of them, and none of the party members being perma-killed. Well, perma-killed w/o any timey whimey stuff.
This is it! I can't wait to watch this!
Hope you like it, buddy! :)
This was such an amazing video. I applaud your thoughtful analysis of this beautiful work of art
Thank you so much! That's very kind of you to say :)
Great job with this video. I enjoyed every moment with it.
Thanks, that’s very nice to hear! :)
I agree with you completely about ff6. I played it first in 5th grade and it changed the course of my life.
Why FFVI is goated? Sabin suplexed a fucking train.
Loved the video. Would be nice to know where you got all the beautiful pieces of character art though :O So many good ones, especially near the end showing off Celes, Edgar, etc. Also, Terra's Theme (the intro march), and Searching for Friends are THE best songs in the game.
Thank you, I'm glad you liked the video! The artwork is AI generated. I made them using Stable Diffusion, a lot of trial and error, and cherrypicking the best results from roughly 1,000+ images... plus touching some of them up in Photoshop afterwards. I know a lot of people are (justifiably) down on AI generated art, but it's remarkable how close I was able to get to the vision of the characters in my head...
Thank you for the wonderful vids and all your hard work.
Thanks for saying that! :)
love your channel bro keep it up your videos are always a joy to watch and thanks for the StarCraft guides as well
Thanks bro! I appreciate you saying that :)
I wouldn't say I paid an 'extortionate' price for FFVI at the time. I used to drive to an import video games shop in the Leeds area back then. And paid £65 for FFVI US version a couple of months after it's US release. Sold it all for £80 on ebay back in 2004 I think it was. Fully intact in box, with very good condition map, manual and cartridge edge protector etc.
I certainly still play the game regularly to this day. But it's in my 2nd place of favourite FF games personally. FFX is my favourite. (offline. FFXI and FFXIV are in a different league altogether.)
With Celes being my 2nd favourite FF character ever. Favourite being Fran from FFXII.
Not bad at all! Import prices could get pretty crazy in Sweden back in the day. Agreed about Final Fantasy XIV. And Fran is great. :)
This game really is one of the greatest game ever made - Your description and narration was perfect
Thank you so much :)
Nice work, lad! Enjoyed it.
Thanks! Glad you liked it :)
A wonderful retrospective for one of my favorite games of all time. Thank you for this
Glad you liked it! :)
this is a really well put-together video man! makes me wanna go back and finally finish FF6, so perhaps I shall make a start on that right now...
Thanks, that’s really nice of you to say! Have fun with the game 😀
I've always known you could do the phantom train without shadow but I've never actually done it so seeing the footage of two ghost guest characters was the first I learned that you could have two of them in your party at once.
To be honest, I'm not sure I've ever done it before, either! Learn something new every time I play this game...
Emotions tied HARD to this game
Ahhh so excited for the next video! Haven’t listened yet, but will on a long work drive I have so. Thanks so much for the final fantasy content!
Hope you enjoy it Will! Thanks for all the support! If you're listening rather than watching, be sure to take a look at the very end of the video later when you have time :)
@@AltercateTV oh, well with a hint like that, you KNOW I will!!! Thanks for being such a talented, passionate, and interactive creator!
Oh my, that’s so thoughtful! Thanks so much for the shout out. I’m stanning hard and look forward to all your new material. Let me know if you ever need any help!!!
@@williamishee9533 Thanks William! I appreciate it as you can tell :)
Can't believe you skipped over Lockes back story, that was the most gut wrenching story moment in the game imo.
Sir, this is the most beautiful reflection on this game I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Hats off to you, and to this beautiful masterpiece of a game.
Wow, thank you! That means a lot to me :)
@@AltercateTV Absolutely!
Damn dawg this is the best and most comprehensive and well articulated review of FF6 out there
Thanks! That's very nice to hear :)
One of not only my favorite Final Fantasies, but also one of my favorite games. I've beaten it so many times I can't remember. I beat the end skipping the others with only Celes, Setzer, and Edgar, a few scenes are pretty different, and low level challenge. Which was insane, some enemies you had to be sneaky to kill, like phoenix down on the train.
Thanks for sharing! I did the Celes/Setzer/Edgar challenge for this video to see the different scenes, although I was like level 70 so it mitigates a lot of the challenge 😂
Something I really wanna try next time I play is the no espers challenge, where you just use whatever the characters get naturally. Seems really fun!
30 years later ppl still making new videos about this game. That tells you all you need to know
Like the narrator here, I’m also Swedish. I have that issue of SuperPower magazine, and… because of the stellar review it gave FF6, I knew I had to have the game. One fine day I found it in a game trade shop. The was in nowhere near mint condition, but it contained everything - the manual, a full color map of both WoB and WoR, and of course the cartridge. For 600SEK (approx $50 at the time) the game became mine, only later I learned that it was an absolute STEAL. The shop owner didn’t know what they had, and the gamer who traded in FF6 musta gotten jipped badly.
The rest is history. The game now has a special place in a glas display case, together with Chrono Trigger. Whenever I wanna play it I have it on my phone, or I fire up my SNES Mini for that classic genuine feel. In orher words, FF6 is now a stable, enduring part of my life.
It will never get old. It’s timeless as new generations of gamers still talk about when they discover it.
Thanks for sharing! Those were some special times :) I won't rest until I've made my Chrono Trigger retrospective as well...