Thread 3859552

great game, but genuinely why do people think it's the best in the series? I don't understand. It's the best of the nintendo maybe (i prefer IV) but how does it even come close to anything on the psx or ps2?

>"opinions"
yeah that's what i'm asking for

>>3859552 (OP)
start with a hypothesis. having played it yourself, what do you imagine would be the reasons that people would prefer it? try using your brain, you can do it. note that you don't have to agree to reach understanding.

Dunno, I always drop it somewhere in the world of ruin
Furthest I got was Kefka's tower, saw it was one of those party split dungeons, said I'd get back to it but never did
Ambitious but ultimately meh game, much prefer IV

>>3859558
i could do that by myself, i came on here to get other perspectives
try using your brain when you reply, you can do it. note that you do not have to reply if you have nothing to add to the thread.

>>3859552 (OP)
I really want a 3d remaster of this game, like they did with 4 and 3.

>>3859560
>tells others to use their brains
>can't use it himself
Basic critical analysis is something any person of average intelligence is capable of. So why can't you.

>>3859560
If you want your threads to have actual engagement instead of dying and having to bump them for months, try doing a bit of what you ask others to do.

>>3859560
don't be afraid to expose what you think. i'm not mocking you, i'm trying to help you, don't be defensive.

>>3859552 (OP)
Game supoosedly ended after the first half, but suits declined this, so gathering friends in the ruined world was added. Makes the game brilliant for me.

>>3859561
Didn't the devs say it would take 10 years of core dev time?

>>3859581
Only if they were to do it like FF7 remake but I think they learned their lesson with that approach.

>>3859561
Didn't the devs say it would take 10 years of core dev time?

>>3859597
Wtf, why suddenly a double post?
>>3859593
Did they? I doubt se or multinationals in general are capable of 'learning'.

>>3859552 (OP)
- Largest main cast in the series, lots of distinctive, memorable characters.
- Interface and graphics are much more polished and accessible than previous entries.
- Retains emphasis on traditional gameplay (world map exploration, combat, dungeons, lots of simple towns/castles) and fast-paced storytelling while delivering numerous well-executed, "cinematic" cutscenes.
- Retains some of the mechanical depth lost as the series advanced. For example, in FF6 various weapons can be shared by different classes/characters. In the PSX era (+Chrono Trigger), graphical constraints and simplification trends prevented characters from sharing weapons. (NOTE: FF6's underlying systems have serious issues and feature quite possibly some of the worst system decisions in the classic series, but normalfags either don't tend to notice or care)
- Some people still prefer the classic 2D side-view, fixed-camera presentation of combat, finding it to be better balance of aesthetics, spectacle and practicality than the playstation era with its dynamic camera and over-the-top animations.
- One of the biggest narrative twists in the entire series with the cataclysm and World of Ruin. Kefka made a great villain.
- Contrarianism. FF7 was so insanely popular, FF6 was the original try-hard hipster alternative.

>>3859552 (OP)
Its genuinely a good game, as explained by >>3859720.

"Best in the series," in my personal experience, tends to be praise made by people who either
A. Played it as a child
B. Played it as their first FF
Or both.

>>3859720
>NOTE: FF6's underlying systems have serious issues and feature quite possibly some of the worst system decisions in the classic series, but normalfags either don't tend to notice or care)
This is really only true from a HIGHLY technical perspective. FF6's battle system is incredibly complex, and as a result it has a lot of bugs. However, most of them are not noticeable on a normal playthrough because the game was simply not very difficult. Yeah, I know you probably watched some YouTube video essay about how "InSaNeLy BrOkEn" FF6's programming is, but the fact is that very little of it affects normal gameplay because it's a game intended for children to beat.

>>3859720
>Kefka made a great villain
I'd argue that Kefka wasn't a villain, he had no real will, just nihilistic madness. Gestalt was the villain, he created Kefka. In this story the villain is killed by his mad dog, which then has to be put down.

>>3859720
>FF6 was the original try-hard hipster alternative.
In my experience, 4 and 9 take this title.

>>3859759
>4
Present-day, 4 is the one try-hards love to shit on. Back in 1997-1998, it just wasn't part of the discussion at all. FF fans who wanted to criticize FF7 almost always went to 6 as the contrast, not 4 or 5.
>and 9
9 obviously didn't exist when 7 came out. That's what I meant by "original contrarian". I think there's a lingering favoritism for 6 that exists because of this. Maybe not. Either way, I don't see 9's fanbase as particularly contrarian. FF9 fans aren't trying hard to be different and weird, they ARE different and weird.

>>3859580
Seems like a good call on their part. Would have sucked if it ends with Kefka destroying the world and winning.

>>3859552 (OP)
>It's the best of the nintendo maybe (i prefer IV) but how does it even come close to anything on the psx or ps2?
That basically answers your question. Many people consider it the best of the 2D FFs. If they like the 2D FFs and older RPGs in general more than 3D ones, then it follows they'd consider their favorite 2D FF the best one.

There are valid reasons for preferring 2D FFs over later FF, like a lack of load times, differences in gameplay, pacing, no voice acting, etc. It's a matter of subjective preference rather than 3D RPGs being strictly better.

>>3859552 (OP)
>genuinely why do people think it's the best in the series?
Maybe they played it as a kid and it blew their minds

I played it recently and I'll say this
>good graphics
>good music
>fun lil scenarios (splitting up, infiltrating the town, phantom train, the opera, etc)
>overall great for a snes game

>>3859720
>FF6 various weapons can be shared by different classes/characters
Miss that so much in games

>>3859750
>This is really only true from a HIGHLY technical perspective
No. It's observable even from a moderately attentive perspective. You don't need any special powers of observation to notice that all the characters have roughly similar base HP and Mana pools. You don't have to understand the details of damage formulas and defense-piercing rules to observe that for most of the game, there's almost never a good reason to use the "Fight" command on Edgar, Sabin and Cyan (despite all three characters being primarily weapon-using melee classes). It's become common knowledge that Magic Power is basically the only stat worth boosting.
>most of them are not noticeable on a normal playthrough
Yeah that's what I said.
>incredibly complex
Not especially, when compared to its peers (4, 5 and 7)
>it has a lot of bugs
I'm not talking about the bugs (although the Mblock glitch is awful). All FF games are full of bugs. I'm talking about design choices.
>know you probably watched some YouTube video essay about how
I've been hacking the FF6 rom since before YouTube existed.
This shit has been known for a long time. Vigor barely helps. Magic Power helps a lot. Stamina is almost pointless.
None of these things are an issue in 4, 5, or 7. In those games, the stats are all reasonably balanced with the formulas and content. If you equip Rydia with Heroine Armor and the Flame Whip, her melee power goes up and her casting power goes way down, just like you might predict.

>>3859789
Yeah, it's just a little thing that makes equipment feel more like equipment than a gated upgrade.

>>3859773
I don’t see anyone shit talking 4 nowadays, although I was thinking more how I recall fans’ opinions back in the 90s/early 2000s rather than current day, since I dropped the series after 10 and don’t pay much attention to it anymore. I recall a large contingent of fans who started with 7 and liked it, and then went back to explore the SNES games. 4 was often praised as a pure and old school game, while still more accessible than the NES games. Sort of a “I liked FF before it was cool” stance. And once 9 came out, there were proto-hipsters who praised it as a return to the older games, rather than the more modern style of 7 and 8, in the same vein. even if 9 sucked and was worse than any of the SNES games, or 7 and 8

>>3859812
>even if 9 sucked and was worse than any of the SNES games, or 7 and 8
Thank god. FF9 is one of the worst ones out there along with 8, X-2 and 13.

>>3859809
>there's almost never a good reason to use the "Fight" command on Edgar, Sabin and Cyan (despite all three characters being primarily weapon-using melee classes)
Strange perhaps, but there's nothing inherently bad about that. (not the anon you're responding to, just saying).

Also when you're a kid that fucks up Blitz regularly, Fight with Sabin makes sense sometimes.

>>3859841
Though it's pretty hard to mess up Pummel, or any of them once you know the tapping directions trick.

>>3859841
>here's nothing inherently bad about that.
In this case, I believe it reflects a lack of rigor in the design. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe it was really intended for the "Fight" command to be nearly-useless on those characters, it just turned out that way and they didn't have time to do anything about it. I think the original plans were more ambitious than they had time to balance in terms of all the different classes and characters.

For what it's worth, Square made the right business decisions on what they prioritized and delivered in the final game. Eg nerfing Tools to balance it with Fight is a midwit B-team fix that modern games would implement, but wouldn't have actually made FF6 a better game. Nerfing spell learning so that only certain characters can learn certain spells is another lazy, b-tier "fix" that doesn't actually make a Final Fantasy game more fun.

>>3859841
Sabin can actually normal attack well if you give him dual wield claws, can't he dual wield without the Genji glove too?

>>3859785
Idk what they were thinking. That's not an ending at all. It's as ridiculous as the bbeg choking on a mosquito before the final showdown and the mosquito inheriting his power.

>>3859811
>equipment than a gated upgrade.
Especially jrpgs do that. Every tiny village you visit somehow has a better piece of equipment than the last place you visited. In games like ff7 it's especially puzzling. Can't find good hardware in midgar, the city with the highest tech, but some village in the mountains have top notch gear, suitable to destroy a gundam.

>>3859909
Yakuza 8 has the best attack button. Not only can you chain attacks, but you can team attack as well. Attack should be a valuable option.

>>3859909
>For what it's worth, Square made the right business decisions on what they prioritized and delivered in the final game. Eg nerfing Tools to balance it with Fight is a midwit B-team fix that modern games would implement, but wouldn't have actually made FF6 a better game. Nerfing spell learning so that only certain characters can learn certain spells is another lazy, b-tier "fix" that doesn't actually make a Final Fantasy game more fun.
Yeah I agree with all that. Too many hacks don't understand this. It's possible to make something more challenging and balanced but less fun at the same time.

>>3859909
Unlimited spell learning absolutely makes the game less fun, the fuck are you on?

>>3859998
Why?

>>3860004
Because if everyone can pick up healing, revival, MP regain, and status effect removal, you don't have any attrition worth talking about and the exact thing that made FFI, III, IV, and V work no longer works. Your strategy and party building becomes a lot more samey.

>>3860005
>if everyone can pick up healing, revival, MP regain, and status effect removal, you don't have any attrition worth talking about
NTA
That requires grinding

>>3860008
It doesn't.

>>3860014
Yes it does

>>3860015
Nta does it? There's plenty of xp to have in the main story.

>>3859998
This is exactly the kind of B-team mindset I'm, talking about. You can identify an issue, but can't contextualize properly and thus won't arrive at a good solution

"Everyone can learn every spell" is part of the system's core appeal and a base premise. You can't change that part without turning it into a fundamentally different game with different appeal. You have to find some other way balance it. In the case of spellcaster balance, there are a couple of very obvious tweaks that would address the issues stemming from everyone being able to cast every spell, without having to restrict them. It's the same features that many other games (including other FF games) use to balance physical characters casting spells: limit mana pools and balance the formulas so there's a meaningful trade-off to boosting Mag.Pwr over Vigor and Stamina.

The problem with FF6 isn't that everyone can use magic, it's that everyone can use magic with similar effectiveness. Celes and Terra's mana pools are pretty generous, but reasonably balanced in the beginning. But then when you obtain Espers in Zozo (typically late teens by level) suddenly everyone gets a 200+ point mana pool. THAT is the problem. If Sabin and Cyan started out with ~30 mana, that would be enough for maybe five Cure1s or one Cure2. Useful in an emergency, but not to fully solve between-combat healing. It would preserve the "everyone can learn magic" theme without ruining the uniqueness of the classes and characters and eliminating the attrition dynamic.

The broken damage formulas are much harder to fix, but things like integrating Vigor into Sabin's blitz formulas would have gone a long way.

>>3860008
He's right. It doesn't require grinding to see issues. You can trivially teach Cure to Sabin/Edgar/Cyan and then you have 200+ points of healing magic to use in-between battles. Never have to think about consumables again really.

>>3860036
Everyone using ultima with the same result is boring, sure. Ultimately (huehue) your suggestion to limit mp pool among others is not making the game much better, if ether costs 25 gil and is available plenty everywhere. Another point would be that physical and magical effects both focus on damage, so you take the higher one. Some games try to tackle this by using breach and stagger mechanics - boring and ugly. Physical and magical skills should complement each other, not compete with each other.

>>3860036
>You have to find some other way balance it.
No I fucking don't. If your core premise is causing problems then you have a problem with the core premise and you need to go back to the drawing board.

>>3859909
Fight command was fucking boring anyway. 5 had already made it mostly irrelevant. But you gotta have it there for tradition's sake.

Sometimes I forget how autistic you guys are, lol.

>>3860042
Midwit confirmed. You don't understand the kind of game that sells to the audience Square was making it for.

>>3860040
>Everyone using ultima with the same result is boring, sure
This is an outcome you don't get without grinding, and for those people it absolutely is fun to blast the shit out of everything with Ultima. Some people won't even get Ultima without unlocking the Paladin shield.
>ether costs 25 gil and is available plenty everywhere
Making it an item that might be worth using sometimes. Item costs are easy to tweak if that's also an issue.
>Another point would be that physical and magical effects both focus on damage, so you take the higher one.
The FF series has always addressed this with content: encounters involve weaknesses, resistances, counter-attacks, debuffs, state changes and so on. One of the other issues with FF6 is the prevalence of defense-piercing abilities that can virtually always be used with few (if any) downsides.

>>3860048
Idiocy is not being able to read and comprehend a point with the proper weight and context, falsely perceiving every criticism (no matter how mild or qualified) as a REEEing meltdown.
Being honest and accurate is not autism. If there's an autist with communication problems here, it's you.

>>3860051
>few (if any) downsides.
Exactly. It's a very dated game in that regard and frankly, the genre didn't innovate much the last couple of decades.

>>3860036
As someone who played the shit out of FF6 and still believes it's the second best FF game of all time, I agree with your assessments. They aren't large tweaks. A modder could do it in, like, an afternoon.

>>3860036
>You can trivially teach Cure to Sabin/Edgar/Cyan and then you have 200+ points of healing magic to use in-between battles
If you go through the trouble, you're mentally deficient and need all the help you can get

>>3859552 (OP)
>how does it even come close to anything on the psx or ps2?
PSX games have bad 3D graphics.
X is a fucking joke.
Simple as.

>>3860005
Everyone gets healing in V too for that matter. Just switch to White Mage between battles. You're a bit more limited in MP and items are more expensive, but you're usually not hurting for healing and dungeons aren't ever that grueling to navigate. Truth be told, resource management in the FF series was hardly ever a big deal past the NES games. Even IV generally gives you copious healing. I agree VI takes it a bit further, but in practice the difference is small.

As far as formulas and stats go, things like stamina being useless are no big deal. Only a few Espers even boost it, easy to dismiss as a wasted bonus. Vigor vs. Magic Power is more meaningful, and it's odd that Vigor is less important than you'd expect. But that doesn't hurt the game by itself, it's just a quirk you can accept. The main issue with the game's balance is less about the formulas and more about the bosses and encounter design. As >>3860051 said, some things like too many defense piercing abilities do make it harder to design challenging enemies though. In general, enemy design and content in RPGs makes a bigger difference than formulas being super clean or not.

All that said, I have to say I appreciate the balance choices in FFVI more nowadays. The game is actually well-balanced in the sense that battles stay enjoyable throughout, it's just balanced to be on the easy side. The battle system is more interesting than the vast majority of JRPGs, which for the most part are equally easy. I've also been watching someone play through the series the first time recently, and surprisingly they struggled with VI in more places than in their FFIV playthrough. FFV tripped them up more than both, but mostly just a few bosses. Had he been more willing to experiment with swapping Jobs there would've been less issues (he usually would stick stubbornly with the same Jobs until hopeless).
>>3860085
Right after Zozo you get Cure x5 from Kirin, so it's no trouble really.

>>3860085
It's no trouble at all.
Have you ever even played this game?

>>3860061
Technically, maybe. The bigger challenge is ensuring the result is balanced with the content. Once you get far enough along in the development process, some things are harder to rework. Damage formulas are one of those things that are probably locked down pretty early on. You don't want to be halfway through designing bosses only to have to redo everything because changed formulas screwed up the difficulty. When you're pushing to release, basically any tweak that makes things easier and more forgiving is going to be biased over a tweak that increases challenge too much and risks introducing an unforseen hard filter. And you can see how almost all the big issues in FF6's design 'favor' the player.

>>3860091
>>3860092
>i gots to make sure all my lil toons get a chance to have this esper so they can stop and use cure otherwise i might have to use a dedicated healer or one of my 100 potions
Are you guys literal vaginas

>>3860091
Was 3 or 5 the first game with interchangeable jobs? Was se that innovative that they invented came... I mean jobs?

>>3860104
3 was the first with the job system, 5 has a more advanced version of it (you couldn't mix job abilities in 3 for example)

>>3859552 (OP)
New poster here, FFVI was never the best one. It may have been the most polished Snes FF game or the one with the best sprite work but it was never the best. I can certainly see why or how some people claimed that maybe back in 1995 or the mid 90's when it was the newest one and known as FF3.
as soon as FFVII came out it was seen as second place at best and even there some people argued FFIV was better than VI. Almost nobody knew FFV back in early 2000's since it never had a western release. Now that it's been 25 + years, FFV is much better than VI.

>>3860091
I think FFVI's battles are great, the only thing I would've wanted is more optional challenges. Some proper super bosses and extra optional challenges spread throughout the game - like how FFV had some things like fighting Shiva early or the Gil Turtle. GBA version and hacks give you that at least, but I wish there were hacks more focused on extra content without massively changing the game. Even just putting the Dragon's Den into the SNES version would be nice, could play it without the worse sound/graphics of the GBA version.

>>3860113
So 3 is tactics ogre and 5 is fft.

>>3860121
>Now that it's been 25 + years, FFV is much better than VI.
VI is better in my opinion. It's close though, V is amazing.

>>3860130
>Japanese source
>Famitsu or some other e-clone like that
Just because some website lists it 1 rank ahead of it doesn't mean that its better. Everyone objectively seems to prefer V after they have tried both myself included.
>FFVI post cataclysm world is kinda shit and I lose interest several times and stop playing for many weeks
>FFV had 0 moments like this, the whole game keeps its momentum, the only "lull" is in the pyramid of Moore when you have 3 members as it drags as a dungeon and environment.

>>3860132
>Everyone objectively seems to prefer V after they have tried both myself included.
Nah, VI is still the more popular choice for top FF overall. I myself just told you I prefer it over V, so it's not everyone. V has tighter balance and the job system is sweet, but almost everything else about VI I enjoy more.
>FFVI post cataclysm world is kinda shit and I lose interest several times and stop playing for many weeks
That's one thing about VI, it seems like people have very split opinions on whether the first or second half is better. Guess that's unavoidable when they're so different.

>>3860136
don't care, opinion discarded. famitsu is only 4 guys rating the games, it doesn't dictate what is or isn't good. Taste is subjective, and from what I gather FFV is better, again I don't care, don't try to change my mind. VI will forever be inferior to V in terms of gameplay.

>>3860101
Always wondered what happened to you

>>3860132
>Just because some website lists it 1 rank ahead of it doesn't mean that its better.
Of course, was just being cheeky posting that. I did think it was interesting though, because people online always repeated that V was more loved in Japan and VI wasn't very popular. But if you look at Famitsu and other Japanese rankings the relative placement of FFs shifts around a lot. They tend to rate both V and VI highly.
>>3860137
>famitsu is only 4 guys rating the games, it doesn't dictate what is or isn't good.
Agree 100%. To be fair though, the top 100 list wasn't decided by four guys. It was some sort of vote. Which also doesn't dictate what is or isn't good.

>>3860140
>FFVI is too eas-

>>3860127
Basically yeah

>>3860145
SE really did invent jobs then. What would the next step of evolution be?
Class>job>???

>class
Lifelong training or calling, not interchangeable.
>job
>changeable on the whim or at certain places, determines tactics used currently
>???

>>3860150
>What would the next step of evolution be?
Materia system.
Instead of characters learning jobs that they can set, and where groups of abilities are bundled with thematic "jobs," the abilities are "learned" by crystals that anyone can equip. And, the abilities are split into smaller components that can be equipped individually, rather than being bundled into thematic classes.

I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that progression on the job system is an improvement or not. (But, it undeniably accomplishes the desire to have a job-like system without having ability-learning tied to individual characters, so you are free to swap characters in and out without having to re-learn all the various abilities you need)

>>3860154
>I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that progression on the job system is an improvement or not
It certainly is not, the system is like 40 years old and hasn't undergone any meaningful transformation, yet. However
>accomplishes the desire to have a job-like system without having ability-learning tied to individual characters
Is a thing. Job systems have a very unique charm to it.
Give me an example, how do you envision the materia system? The crystals are filled with xp and then can be interchange between characters?

>>3860156
>Give me an example, how do you envision the materia system
Are you fucking serious right now?

>>3860167
>didn't read any of the thread

>>3860162
In a tactics game with jobs and or classes. Having gear or their slots tied with learnable abilities in a tactics game, that's it?

>>3860167
If not fft or 9, just go

Jobs were awful.
There's no commitment, no personalized character expression through mechanics, just tabula rasa dress up dolls. This tendency of universalized customization continued down, to a greater or lesser extent, through subsequent FF games to their detriment.
Class change was always better.

>>3860167
Many ff fags still havent come to terms with this reality

>>3860192
If you can change classes on a whim, you can view this as job system

>>3860198
No, I mean class change like in FF1 and FF4, where you are permanently upgraded.

>>3860167
>>3860197
The reason the modern world is going to shit is because people are not learning apply reason with discipline and detachment in pursuit of absolute truth.

>>3860205
Like mana 2? That's great, too. Usually classes granted by crystals.

>>3860197
ehh, I grew up with FFIV and FFVI (2 & 3) in the 90's but I still prefer V because its clearly superior despite playing it like 15 years after it came out. So again, your assumption isn't right for everyone.

>>3859552 (OP)
Me neither... It's edgy.

>>3859552 (OP)
I dunno I always thought it was kind of boring. I feel like a lot of people like VI because they're mad VII blew it and everything else out of the water so hard it made the genre one westerners wanted to play.

Happy birthday to her though!

>>3860192
Ever since X-2, I've just been calling any game with job classes "Pretty Pretty Princess Dress-Up."

>>3859720
You forgot things like
- It had a story that weaved the gameplay and narrative together, where Magic is the most OP shit ever, even if you don't actually need Magic to beat the game
- Music/OST
- Each of the characters is part of the discussion of "love"
- good mix of very serious moments that actually teach the player something and moments of silly humor
>>3859752
No, Kefka was the antithesis of love. He's very much the villain of the game, and a perfect contrast to the party. Gestalt was generic "I wanna rule the world" emperor. Kefka was willing to rip the world apart, to achieve his goals of destroying love.

>>3859552 (OP)
I was always confused why the empire decided to extract magic from espers when they had clear examples in Madonna, Maduin, & Terra that fucking espers (or at least human women being fucked by male espers) was even more viable and potent.

Imagine no Kefka, each male esper calm & content with a harem, maybe a few human men using ice resisting armor to nut inside Shiva (but more likely just using the female espers to breed more pure espers for future generations). The entire ruling class & elite military would be half esper in a generation. Then when they discover magicite, they get even more powerful.

The empire would then have complete military dominance, trade relations with the sealed cave espers once they hear of the free pussy, and they could export magically augmented arms & armor.

Only downside would be the sacking of other cities. It would be an entirely different game. Game would start with several espers & half espers rescuing the frozen esper in Narshe.

>>3861133
Forgot to say but you could get a lot more useful info from the espers by cooperating with & bribing them than by imprisoning & torturing them.

>>3861129
>No, Kefka was the antithesis of love. He's very much the villain of the game, and a perfect contrast to the party.
Kefka is just a psychotic henchman that turned on his master. There's nothing to him, it's just generic hungry ghost who commandeered godlike power. Boring.

>>3860294
"Absolutely truth" is not just whatever hot take hill you've decided to die on, anon. You are not a magical super genius robot of unfeeling and infallibly perfect logic.
And both history and literature are positively glutted with examples thoroughly examining and destroying the suggestion that humans ought to try to be like that.
You need to shut your little boy mouth until you grow up some more. And even then you should be quiet.

>>3861133
Because it was strongly implied that Terra was born "of love". Rape isn't love, retard. Further supported by the War Of The Magi castle that you get to go to in the World Of Ruin, where you upgrade Odin through her love's eternal expression.
I'm constantly amazed on how little of these games that people actually understood.
>>3861143
Sorry that you didn't understand the game, brainlet. I literally spelled it out for you, and you still don't understand it.

>>3860132
Everyone.
Objectively.
Everyone just objectively agrees with you.
Like, right the fuck now. Specifically you.

>>3860098
"Balance" isn't just a magic word you can invoke to make yourself seem smart.
The proposed changes you're talking about are specifically to improve the balance of the game which is known to be lacking in those particular mechanics.
If you're worried about a boss suddenly being invincible, that's dumb, and it betrays your ignorance about the game's mechanics. And even if you did believe those changes have some completely wild unknown mathematical behavior (they don't), it'd be trivial to simply calculate what the correct number should be since the player's level range in a given area is tightly constrained. But furthermore, the formulas are known, the stats of the creatures are known, none of this is gonna have any kind of unpredictable effect. At all. That just isn't how game design fucking works.

The game's combat / encounter designs just are not that delicate. The intended gameplay is definitely that the player should be leveling and training more if they encounter an area where they feel weak. It's an open-world game during most of the plot.

>>3861145
>Sorry that you didn't understand the game
I literally get exactly what you're saying and it's not impressive at all. Kefka isn't driven by vision or will, he's just a tool, a shell of a person reacting to the collapse of his mind and vainly attempting to bring everyone down to his level of nihilism. There's nothing interesting to this. He's exactly as boring as Seymour in FFX.

>>3861133
You're extremely familiar with the trashiest low-budget eroge on the internet. You don't have to respond, it wasn't a question.

>>3861145
This guy...

>>3861149
I see you are a gentleman and a scholar.

>>3860967
Basically barbie for gamers.

>>3861149
The scenario he described is from soft porn?

>>3861147
>If you're worried about a boss suddenly being invincible, that's dumb, and it betrays your ignorance about the game's mechanics. And even if you did believe those changes have some completely wild unknown mathematical behavior (they don't), it'd be trivial to simply calculate what the correct number should be since the player's level range in a given area is tightly constrained. But furthermore, the formulas are known, the stats of the creatures are known, none of this is gonna have any kind of unpredictable effect. At all. That just isn't how game design fucking works.
>The game's combat / encounter designs just are not that delicate.
I'm talking about the interpreting the original product of FF6 with respect to hypothetical problems they may have encountered during the development process. You seem utterly oblivious to this point and it's very clear you have never designed and implemented a real game in your life.

>>3861143
Doesn't mean he's not a villain and primary antagonist.

>>3861469
The villain and primary antagonist of FF6 is Gestahl.

>>3861495
Wrong.
The main functional antagonist starts as Gestahl, but Kefka takes over. Kefka's goal was ultimate power for himself, Gestahl's goal was ruling the world. Until this conflict comes to head on the floating continent, they work together. Kefka gets a lot more screen time as the agent in the field. Kefka is the one trying to recapture Terra. He's involved in the Doma encounter.

Kefka doesn't have much of an active role in part 2, aloof in his tower, but from the moment he usurp's Gestahl he is the undisputed primary antagonist in the game.

>>3861573
Wrong.
>Kefka's goal was ultimate power for himself
Kefka's goal was to destroy hope.
Everything that Kefka does and all the power he has is under the grace of Gestahl until he turns on him, and after that he's just reacting to his own madness which was created by Gestahl. Gestahl dies to his own arrogance at keeping a mad dog around, that's his arc.
Kefka isn't a person, he's like Cujo, he isn't making conscious decisions, he's just a vehicle for madness. Anything that can be attributed to Kefka in the story must instead be attributed to Gestahl.

>>3860091
I do not appreciate VI's balance whatsoever. It's awful and makes the game not fun at all.

>>3861584
Irrelevant. You do not understand how to analyze conflict in a narrative. He is functionally the antagonist. His goals oppose the protagonist (whether you want to nitpick Kefka's motives isn't relevant, the point in bringing them up was only to emphasize that he is not in conflict with Gestahl until the floating continent. )

>>3861649
>Irrelevant
No.
>You do not understand how to analyze conflict in a narrative.
I don't care about your lopsided standards of critique.
>He is functionally the antagonist.
He's functionally a laughable mid-boss until the ole switcheroo happens.
>His goals oppose the protagonist
So do those of Ultros. I'm okay saying he's "an" antagonist, but the villain of the story is Gestahl.

>>3861659
Retard confirmed.

>>3861668
I accept your concession.

>>3861647
I disagree, the game is very fun.

>>3861673
Hello "I accept your concession" anon.
Your opinion will always be invalid.

>>3861741
>concedes in perpetuity
Accepted.

Every /vrpg/ thread tries so hard to be the worst

>>3861756
I wonder if I should make a Chrono Cross thread.

>>3861467
I don't care about your hypotheticals. Next.

>>3861756
This board really went from a better alternative to being indistinguishable from
/v/. Sad.

>>3861830
Which esper do you think has the most animalistic penis?

>>3862212
>esper
Gayest word ever.

>>3862213
Okay, and?

>>3862216
That is all.

On a slightly different note, I like every FF game but the older I get the less I tolerate wacky ass dogshit in games where a battle stops inbetween for some dumb slop dialogue being forced upon me as a player. I want bals-to-the-wall gameplay back. Like FF1 but even harder and unforgiving as fuck. Admittingly though something like old school Wizardry is too fucking hard but something a bit more engaging than baseline FF difficulty would keep me going. Square-Enix always seemed to have a problem with difficulty settings. Reminds me of FF15 not having any and it felt like shit. Less story wanking and more assbeating would make it better.

>>3861143
There's an old mod of VI that actually tried explaining his backstory as some failed soldier kinda like Hojo and Cloud

>>3863858
There's one random npc in Vector who tells you that in the original too, but it's just a line or two.

>>3861143
>Kefka is just a psychotic henchman that turned on his master
>it's just generic hungry ghost who commandeered godlike power
That's all it needs to be.
>Boring
Only to mindbroken fedora-tipping redditors who need to to identify with the villain.

>>3863991
Can you retards make a single post disagreeing with someone without crying about reddit? No wonder you like boring shit.

>>3863993
Welcome to nu-chan.

>>3863993
Yes I can, and do all the time.
Cry more. Calling Kefka boring is an embarrassing position to espouse.

>>3864003
I can't cry any more than you are, anon, and there's absolutely nothing embarrassing about any opinion of a fucking children's video game. You had a visceral reaction to someone mocking your childhood love of a shallow character, I get it.

Gestahl is the villain of FF6. It's not that Kefka is a "chaotic evil" or whatever "reddit" sensibility, by which I take you most probably mean relativistic instead, that you are ascribing to me that makes him boring, it's that he's just a product of circumstance, which relativists love anyway.

Now, try to not respond in some trite manner.

>>3864008
Your post is trite and wrong. There is no non-trite way to respond appropriately.

The setting is probably one of the best in all of FF. It's like a mix of fantasy with the industrial revolution. The world being destroyed halfway through is like creating an entirely new land to explore. its kind of like getting to see what happens after the end of a story, and in this case, the villain won. you see everyone at their lowest point and making a triumphant return. the random battles are not nearly as annoying as other FF games because there is so many cool things your characters learn over time, and tons of little secrets and things to collect. its literally the perfect story and gameplay.

>>3861143
I think how effective a videogame villain is comes down almost entirely to presentation. They don't need to be sympathetic or to have a complex back story, and in a lot of cases I think focusing too much on a villain's motives harms the pacing.

7 moved more toward the passive watching movie game. For example 6's big scene is the opera but you are still an active participant.
6 has the best music.
6 has likeable characters.
6 has better exploration.
6 has better equipment. 7 just has materia which in theory is great but in practice you don't get the cool combinations until the game is over.
7 has a bunch of minigames but those were only cool at the time. Now you could just play SSX instead of the shitty snowboarding.

The older I get and the more I've replayed them all, the more I think XII is the best. You can skip all the story shit, it has the best exploration and ability to take advantage of player knowledge. Games all fucking hate having any kind of cool shit to find because 'someone will look it up', one of the worst dev practices to happen to gaming. Lots of optional areas and bosses to test yourself against. The graphics are also in that perfect spot where they look great but are still low enough it is clear what is a path and what is interactable. It's unfortunate it got shittier re-releases.
Gambits should have become the standard for any uncontrollable party member.

>>3859593
Square cancelled all their small projects to quintuple down on their retardation. They have made garbage for decades.

>>3859909
Balance is one of the things that ruined gaming. Making every command do the same damage is down syndrome tier. Fight should do less damage than specialized commands in all scenarios. It is balanced against wasting time and effort.

>>3862238
Play Enchant Farm if you haven't.

>>3864579
>Almost entirely to presentation
Yes, Kefka is presented as a henchman. A lame fop.
>They don't need to be sympathetic or to have a complex back story
I agree, what a villain needs to be compelling is will and power and charisma, it's exactly the same as a hero. For a foppish sadistic villain I like, I'll point to Tim Roth's character in Rob Roy.

>>3864607
>Balance is one of the things that ruined gaming.
No, the problem is not balance per se. The problem is proliferation of generic, low-effort solutions to balancing that devs mindlessly follow in ways that kill inspiration and experimentation. That doesn't mean balance isn't still a reasonable and admirable goal in game design. With respect to FF6, ALL of its similar peer games during the same era have superior balance (FF4, FF5, FF7 and Chrono Trigger). And in this thread, I haven't even gotten to the ridiculousness of FF6's itemization in the World of Ruin.

>Fight should do less damage than specialized commands in all scenarios.
This is a retarded thing to say without considering the downsides of using a specialized command.
If there are no downsides, and the special command is always strictly superior to the fight command, for a physical class, it's a sign the designers don't understand their own system very well. In FF6, the tradeoff to Blitz is the need to enter a pattern on the controller, and inability to select a target. The tradeoff to Cyan's Dispatch is literally nothing other than inability to select a target. Tools have no tradeoff at all.

>>3864602
>7 moved more toward the passive watching movie game. For example 6's big scene is the opera but you are still an active participant.
From what I remember they had the same levels of interactivity, trying to include some sort of gameplay in the scenes. Like Tifa's execution, escape, slap fight.

10 is the shift to "movie games". I don't mind it. Getting to push buttons or awkwardly "dance" during the opera scenario didn't make it better.

>>3859552 (OP)
>but how does it even come close to anything on the psx or ps2?
7 and 8 were meh, 9 was good but no 6.

fucking 4 was the best though. i can have played that for 1k's of hours.

all that said ive played 6 on snes, ds, switch, pc and i think gba but not sure cant find the cart. its very good, the story is timeless. i want to marry celes

>>3864821
Ff4 is the final fantasiest final fantasy. Can't say why, it's just like that. Everything feels 130% ff. Best bods theme, too.

>>3864602
>>3864814
FF7 was the pivot, the turning point. FF7 had the best of both worlds. FF6, despite having elaborate cutscenes, was still firmly within the same style as previous games. FF7 kept the formula and did right by it when it came to the combat and the exporation gameplay, but the storytelling was undeniably on a new level. The cutscenes were far more elaborate and detailed, and consumed a great deal more of typical playing time than they had during prior eras. By FF9, the classic gameplay formula was really obviously becoming overwhelmed by the storytelling. FF9 technically still had all the elements: an overworld map, ATB combat and so on, but everything took a back seat to the story. FF10 was just the natural continuation of the direction FF9 had already been going.

>>3865048
I'd hazard a guess at a few things:
1. The original ATB game in its purest form.
2. Paladin is THE classic fantasy hero straight from the Medieval Chivalric Romances that inspired the genre. FF4 has lots of genre cliches played straight: hot blonde girlfriend, stoic monk, pansy bard, cocky ninja, ball-busting engineer, jealous friend
3. Straight up character classes. No job system gimmicks, no stat growth BS or weird spell-learning mechanics.
4. Fleshed out combat system without the crazy shit that came later. No chain-casting 7 Ultimas using Gem Box and Quick. No Genji Glove + Offering with ValiantKnife or Fixed Dice. No Knights of the Round or crazy shit with counter/added cut/etc materia.
5. More symbolic than anything, but relevant I think: The most prominent and effective use of the "Final Fantasy Theme" in the series. (aka "Prologue" aka "Opening" aka "Cornelia Bridge-crossing theme"). It's used perfectly in the introduction as Cecil and Kain leave the castle on the journey. Then it's used again to set up the final battle. After FF4, the main theme started being relegated to the End Credits as an easter egg (for fairly obvious creative reasons).

>>3865125
Imo, the only thing it’s missing is the ability to customize your party composition.

>>3864607
Retarded post on every level.

>>3859552 (OP)
>but how does it even come close to anything on the psx or ps2?

The only competitor, in my opinion, is FF7.

FFVI just have a good story flow, good characters and all around good gameplay. It start as a traditional railroaded JRPG and turn into an open world in the second part where the world went post-apocalyptic, so you dont really save the world per say, you fight for hope and a a new beginning. You get to see the postapoc version of everything you saw in the first part and you are free to roam the world building back the team and finding new members.
The main cast is interesting, heroes and villain included as they were nice and evocative variation of the main theme - love and meaning. The main vilain kefka was both a nihilist and a narcissist.

Just a general good game.

Now if you compare with any post FF7 game, they all severly lack in an area or another. FF8 in general storytelling. FF9 in gameplay. FF10 starts strong but falters early in most respect. FFXI expansions actually had very interesting sotylines but its an MMO. FF12 is the ''what could have been'' game. By FF13 and after they werent trying anymore nor did they had any ideas of what to do with the serie.

So FFVI is highly regarded because its both a good game in and of itself but also because it doesnt have much to compare to after FF7.

The wiki says that the silhouette is Terra, but how? It looks like Kefka to me

>>3865137
>>3865048
>>3864821
By the way, just to elaborate for anyone who really loves FF4, I think it's worth your time to check out Final Fantasy IV Free Enterprise. It does a really great job realizing the untapped potential of the original game.

Picrel is from a seed I generated last night. I started with Rydia and Edward. Rydia got the flame whip right away. I went to check the Mist Dragon boss first to take pictures for this thread, and got the "Fabul Gauntlet variant", which creates a random sequence using the nearby encounter sets. With Rydia's flame whip, most of the battles were pretty trivial but picrel was potentially threatening as the Needle counter-attack would one-shot either character. Rydia was out of mana for magic and if you wait long enough, they might use Needle anyway unprovoked. So I used Edward's Songs to crowd control, he landed one sleep and one charm. The charmed rat killed one other and suicided itself, while Rydia OHK'd the rest with her whip.

When do you ever have a reason to use Edward's songs in the OG game in a situation where it actually might make a difference? Fucking never. But Free Enterprise deals up unusual situations like this all the time.

Just to post a picture of a real boss-swap, this is Valvalis appearing at the Antlion position. Her stats are scaled to Antlion's level, but she retains her standard abilities and attack script (along with any weaknesses and resistances).

Final Fantasy VI has Worlds Collide, which is pretty cool and seems inspired by Free Enterprise. Like Free Enterprise you can start with the airship. You can also freely switch between world of ruin and world of balance from the beginning.

Personally I found Worlds Collide to be slightly less elegant than Free Enterprise, but still a solid way to mess around with FF6 after you've finished the original.

>>3865998
>Worlds Collide
?

>>3866264
https://ff6worldscollide.com/

>>3866279
Interesting. Are there story elements? Like how are they triggered, if they are available? Level scaling or not?

>>3867103
The story is mostly removed. Cutscenes are stripped-down to have minimum dialog. It's not really supposed to make sense (you can switch between the World of Balance and World of Ruin at will). It's just supposed to be a fun (and fast) way to engage with the gameplay.
> Level scaling or not?
There are dozens of settings and tweaks, I admit I haven't played it enough to know them all. I just rolled a few seeds without much randomization so I could play the game without having to slog through all the random battles and cutscenes.

>>3867365
I will play it, sounds good. Unfortunately we lost the tech to create a game like ff6. The graphics are impossible to recreate.

>>3859552 (OP)
I played IX, VII, VI, X and VIII in that order between the ages of 12-15. It was the right age for FF and in that mindset, VI just resonated the most. It's not that deep.

However, if you're an actual adult playing these games, you should really consider why you're doing this.