The GWJ JRPG Club - Q2 2022 - Final Fantasy VI!

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For our second game this year, we're taking a trip back to visit one of the greats: Final Fantasy VI. With the Pixel Remaster edition out, it's a great time to jump back in:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/ISVBSQj.png?2)

35 Hours? Child's play, compared to some of our other games!

Looking forward to playing this again! I know I've beaten it at least twice in the past, on Super NES.

I'm still considering my options with regards to the version I'm going to play. My original thought was to go with the version on the SNES classic, but now I'm thinking of going Pixel remaster.

Edit: Pixel Remaster has been purchased and is downloading now. Not sure I will start right away though, there's another game I want to finish first (and I'm at least 2 weeks away from that).

Continuing from previous thread:

Malkroth wrote:

Maybe the "remember cursor" setting is kind of funky and also remembers your target not just the last command? I will poke around at that next time I play.

Yes, this.

Turn 1: I cast Fire. The cursor begins targeted on the enemy.

Turn 2: I select Cure. The cursor remains targeted on the enemy until I manually change to target my team.

In the original game, it always assumes that you want to target damaging spells at the enemy and healing spells on the party regardless of what you were doing last turn. You can change that, say if you want to use a Cure spell to damage an undead enemy, but it always takes an extra button press so it's very difficult to accidentally target something you didn't mean to.

In the Pixel Remaster, you have to remember to manually re-target every time you switch from attacking to healing and vice versa. It's annoying.

This would be my - takes a few minutes to place each playthrough in time, context, and whatever else helps me differentiate one from another - sixth time going through the game.

Twice on the original SNES back when it dropped. Once on the PS version. Once on the GBA. One more on the original SNES cart for nostalgia's sake some years ago.

The Pixel Remaster is in the queue as we speak. This is the second most played FF title for me, squarely behind VII and only ahead of IX by a couple of playthroughs, which will now be three upon completion.

I said as much in the other thread, but to reiterate, if you see me quibbling about minor UI and polish issues in the Pixel Remaster, that should not be construed as trying to convince folks not to play it. It really is a very beautiful version of the game in a lot of ways, with lots of little QoL touches (love the way it handles Sabin's Blitz and Cyan's Bushido in particular). The new graphical effects are very pretty and tasteful, and the remastered soundtrack is amazing.

I put another couple hours in this morning, and while I continue to think it could use another coat of polish before it's all it could be, it's still very good. If you've already played through a previous version of the game at least once, then this is the version to play, for novelty alone.

Also they fixed it so that you can properly suplex a train-- confirmed through personal experience this morning-- so they got that much right, at least.

Started playing just now, and I made it to Figaro. I will definitely be looking for a new font.

hbi2k wrote:

Turn 1: I cast Fire. The cursor begins targeted on the enemy.

Turn 2: I select Cure. The cursor remains targeted on the enemy until I manually change to target my team.

I did it the other way around (Cure first, Fire second) and the game picked the correct targets for me. I'll try again later to confirm.

I noticed that I can walk diagonally! I'm pretty sure it was not possible to do that in the original.

Two quick minor complaints about the PC Pixel Remaster:

  • If you're playing without a keyboard (aka if, like me, you're streaming from your PC to your TV): There is no on-screen keyboard, and the confirm/cancel buttons don't seem to work on the name input screen for some reason.
  • Having to go to the configuration menu to quit the game is annoying.

I use this method to make the font better. Takes about 30 seconds to accomplish.

Diagonal movement is new, and the game unequips items when someone leaves your party. I've wiped and had to reload saves, so I'm not sure if it's got any built in autosaving.

There is an always-available map for locations and dungeons, and you can see how many items and chests you've found or opened. It doesn't account for where you are in the story, so if you can only access items after certain story points, it'll still show something like 0/13 chests found or whatever. Still a nice quality of life update IMO.

When last I played, I made it to Zozo and was frantically running around trying to avoid combat before tucking my tail between my legs and running. So that'll be where I pick up once I get around to it.

bobbywatson wrote:

I did it the other way around (Cure first, Fire second) and the game picked the correct targets for me. I'll try again later to confirm.

I noticed that I can walk diagonally! I'm pretty sure it was not possible to do that in the original.

It hasn't been super consistent about the targeting in general; I'm considering turning off battle cursor memory if it's going to be like this.

Diagonal movement is indeed new. I kind of don't like it, but that's just muscle memory and being an old man who doesn't like new things. I'm sure from an objective perspective, if such a thing is possible, it's an improvement.

beanman101283 wrote:

Diagonal movement is new, and the game unequips items when someone leaves your party. I've wiped and had to reload saves, so I'm not sure if it's got any built in autosaving.

The game is inconsistent about unequipping when someone leaves your party. As a test I equipped Locke with a helmet I only had one of right before he leaves the Returner's Hideout just before the Lethe River segment, and it was unavailable to me when I next had the opportunity to equip my party.

I'm currently in the Sabin scenario right before Shadow is about to leave Sabin and Cyan (right after the Phantom Train, just before the waterfall fight and the Veldt). I'm doing the same test with him, I'll let y'all know what happens.

I've heard that Shadow no longer has a random chance of peacing out on you after a battle. I can't say for sure whether that's the case, I didn't stick around in any of the spots where he could do so in the original to test it, but he didn't peace out on me for whatever that's worth.

Quick question for the group:

Since this is a very old game, should we bother with marking spoilers? I'm pretty sure most of us have either played it before or have heard the story beats so many time that there isn't much left to spoil anyway.

I've played it a million times, so I'm fine being full spoilers-off.

If we have anyone here who hasn't had the story spoiled already and would prefer to keep it that way, "anything after the Floating Continent definitely goes in spoiler tags, use your best judgment about anything before" should keep most of the big story surprises intact.

I've had a few aborted attempts at playing the game so I'm really only familiar with the first 5 hours or so.

A big patch for the Pixel Remaster came out this week so it’s possible some odd behavior seen previously has been fixed as well.

I have the memory cursor turned on and noticed the same targeting behavior that hbi2k mentions. With that setting on, it remembers the last menu, last spell, and last target you had selected. I targeted fire on all enemies, then when Terra's turn came around again and I selected cure, it was targeting all the enemies by default. So if that doesn't sound appealing, leave the memory cursor setting off.

As mentioned in the other thread, I played it several times in my youth but never completed it. So I vaguely remember a lot of early and mid story beats but don't know anything about the ending. Although like Chrono Trigger, the story told by the in-game dialogue so far is pretty barebones (just started the Cave to South Figaro). These SNES era RPGs really relied on you filling in a lot of detail with the visuals and implied connections.

100%. That's why Chrono Trigger deserves a modern remake. Aesthetics are fine. But the dialog is clearly so limited and stilted due to resolution/memory limitations. Plus, even for a traditional game, I prefer a bit more meat in terms of gameplay mechanics these days. So, with consideration of the era aside, I could never say it's the greatest game of all time.

I’m at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. God, I wish games would shut up and let me play more nowadays. Looking at you, Triangle Strategy, Trails, Tales, Persona…

Resonant Arc is a podcast/video group I like that’s focused on storytelling, and one of the main focuses of their analysis of Final Fantasy Tactics is that the story is told effectively because the cutscenes are punchy and don’t overstay their welcome.

The problem is that the play isn’t that interesting and the dialog is stilted to the point of being unnatural.

hbi2k wrote:

I've played it a million times, so I'm fine being full spoilers-off.

Fine with this too

Mr GT Chris wrote:

I've had a few aborted attempts at playing the game so I'm really only familiar with the first 5 hours or so.

Are you aware of the major plot beats and twists? I could see that you might have absorbed that knowledge just from hearing about the game. But if you prefer to have us spoiler-tag stuff that comes later -- say, after the Floating Continent -- we can.

There’s an opera scene and the big bad guy is Kefka. That’s about all I know. So definitely would prefer main plot points to be spoilered.

Gotcha. I'll try to be careful about plot spoilers then. Thinking over the plot pre-Floating-Continent, I suppose

Spoiler:

the fact that Terra is half-Esper, and the whole deal with the Emperor engaging in fake peace talks

could be considered spoilers too, although it's not like they tried too hard to trick the player with the latter.

Mr. GT Chris: I'm amazed you managed to avoid all spoilers for so long!

Spoiler:

The death of General Leo

also falls in spoiler category, I'd say.

Spoiler for beginning of the second part of the game:

Spoiler:

I learned some time ago that it's possible for Cid to survive. I will do my best not to kill him this time.

So I got to the Veldt today and I realized I goofed things a little. I didn't fight enough random encounters around the Doma region and I never encountered Stray Cat, meaning I can't get the Stray Cat Rage for Gau.

Gau is a character who is stupid OP if you grind up a bunch of Rages and consult a guide to know which ones do what and when to use them, and kind of useless otherwise. A nice middle ground with him between the extremes of "full completionist" and "he sucks, never use him unless you have to" is to get him the Stray Cat Rage, which does good physical damage and has no real weaknesses, so it's a nice one-size-fits-all solution that gives him something useful to do on those occasions when you do use him.

I think I might load up an old save-- I'm one of those people who will always use every save file a game gives me, filling up all 20 (in the case) slots and saving over the oldest file I have when they're all filled-- so I can get Stray Cat. It's going to be obnoxious, but the alternatives are either resigning myself to the fact that Gau will be a useless placeholder for the rest of the playthrough, or going back when I get the airship, at which point there will be a LOT more enemies to encounter on the Veldt and so it will take a lot longer to find the only one I actually want.

bobbywatson wrote:

Mr. GT Chris: I'm amazed you managed to avoid all spoilers for so long!

Spoiler:

The death of General Leo

also falls in spoiler category, I'd say.

Oh yeah, good call, I agree with this.

This is a good overview of the differences between versions, including the Pixel Remaster:

Just finished the ghost train section, feels like I need to burn through a lot of items with no magic support. Also, having to enter inputs for special attacks is a little annoying, I've already forgotten them, will have to look them up. Spamming attack seems to do the job for now. I assume the large cast will start to make sense, right now it feels bloated.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Just finished the ghost train section, feels like I need to burn through a lot of items with no magic support. Also, having to enter inputs for special attacks is a little annoying, I've already forgotten them, will have to look them up. Spamming attack seems to do the job for now. I assume the large cast will start to make sense, right now it feels bloated.

The section you're in now is the longest you'll ever have to go without access to magical healing. It sounds like you're playing the original version, the Pixel Remaster lets you select the Blitz you want from the battle menu and then displays the required inputs as a convenience feature.

Here's a tip for Blitzes: the game (both original and PR) doesn't actually distinguish between diagonals and cardinal button pressed during Blitz input. So even though it will tell you to do a fireball motion (Down, Down-Left, Left) for Aurabolt / Aura Cannon, which might make you think you have to do it in one smooth motion like a Street Fighter game, it will also accept tapping Down, Down, Left instead, which is much easier to do consistently. It's not a big deal for Aurabolt / Cannon, but later on you'll get Blitzes that are hardly worth bothering with unless you do it this way.

Another tip (for a character you haven't gotten yet but are about to, so spoilered in case you want to go in extra blind. No story spoilers, just game mechanics):

Spoiler:

You're about to recruit Gau, who doesn't have a Fight command and instead chooses from a list of enemy attack patterns or "Rages." If you don't like remembering Sabin's Blitz inputs, you're going to HATE trying to figure out which Rages do what.

A lot of people deal with this by just never using Gau past the scenario where he's required, and that's perfectly fine and honestly the least hassle if that's how you decide to do it.

Another option is to get him the Stray Cat Rage, which does good physical damage and has no big down sides, so it's a good for-dummies "I can choose this and he'll be decent against everything" option. You can only get Rages for enemies you've encountered at least once, and the little stretch of land between the Phantom Train and the waterfall with the piranhas is the last place you can encounter them for a while. Once you go past the piranha waterfall, you'd have to go way out of your way to get back there, so don't miss it if you can help it.

If you don't want to deal with any of that, Gau starts with the Magitek Armor rage, which gives him a free Safe status (halves incoming physical damage) and does decent damage against anything that's not strong against lightning attacks. It should get you through the rest of the scenario and the battle that follows it, after which you'll never have to use him again.

bobbywatson wrote:

Spoiler for beginning of the second part of the game:

Spoiler:

I learned some time ago that it's possible for Cid to survive. I will do my best not to kill him this time.

I learned about this recently too, I don't remember the Nintendo Power mentioning it. Here is what I saw as the way to do that:

Spoiler:

You feed him only the large fish.

Malkroth wrote:
bobbywatson wrote:

Spoiler for beginning of the second part of the game:

Spoiler:

I learned some time ago that it's possible for Cid to survive. I will do my best not to kill him this time.

I learned about this recently too, I don't remember the Nintendo Power mentioning it. Here is what I saw as the way to do that:

Spoiler:

You feed him only the large fish.

Spoiler:

the fish are all the same size, the key is to feed him only the fish that move the fastest, because those are the healthiest. The slow ones are rotten. Also only bring him one fish at a time, it only counts as one per trip anyway and the game chooses the worst one in your inventory to give him so it is actually a disadvantage to grab all the fish on the screen.

Call me a heartless monster, but I just let him die. I think that the extra cutscene you get and the extra character motivation it gives Celes makes for a better story, and there is no gameplay difference.

That's good advice thanks. I did run into the Stray Cats, a bit of an odd enemy I thought at the time. And I never could do quarter circles so that's helpful too.

I recruited Gau. It was fairly obvious what I had to do but it was annoying I had to attack him a few times until I could get to the village. Not really the basis for a longterm friendship!

Nice music, good to get a break from the battle music for a while.

It's been a couple decades since I last played through, so what the heck, jumping ahead in my franchise playthrough of the Pixel Remasters to this one!

Started in last night, and some serious nostalgia rushes coming along with it. Hit the spot where the crew splits into three "scenarios" and figured that was a good pausing point.

Really loving the soundtrack updates, as well as the modest graphical upgrades over the original (just as I have with earlier Pixel Remaster entries so far).

Yeah the soundtrack updates are the best part for me, followed by the improved spell effects.

I played for about two hours last night and got through the Terra path of the split, then started Sabin’s. This is my first play through as a dad, and Doma is a bigger bummer as a parent than before.

Downloaded over the weekend and fired it up this morning! Only made it through the first 15 minutes or so, to the point that I’ve named Terra and made it into the mines on foot.

The music is great, just top notch.

I turned the battle speed up to Very Fast because Fast felt like it was dragging. But because battles don’t pause on a character’s turn, but when I go into a menu (which I had forgotten), Ymir became needlessly tough: it retreated into its shell super fast and I got zapped a bunch. Oops! Fast it is.

Also realized I have never watched the opening Mode 7 scene with the approach to Narshe. This time, the game wouldn’t let me skip it. Weird choice not to roll the credits, I wonder why the change?

My guess is Square Enix did not want the names of employees that have been long gone (like Hironobu Sakaguchi) to be featured prominently.

Still weird that it's not possible to skip it.

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