Final Fantasy VI
| Final Fantasy VI | |
|---|---|
| Final Fantasy VI logo. Released in North America as Final Fantasy III | |
| Developer(s) | Square Co., Ltd. |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Platform(s) | Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Sony PlayStation |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing game |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
Final Fantasy VI is a computer role-playing game developed and published by Square Co., Ltd. in 1994. Originally for Nintendo's Super Famicom (known as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES, internationally). Final Fantasy VI was re-released for the Sony PlayStation in 1999. This version is fundamentally identical to the original SNES version, save for the inclusion of three full motion video sequences, and a handful of extras in the Omake mode, including an art gallery and monster database; a difference is also noticeable in the music because the porting omitted certain instruments. Final Fantasy VI was the last Final Fantasy title to be released on the Super Famicom video game console, and the first title in the series not directed by series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, who instead took on the role of producer.
Because Final Fantasy VI was only the third game in the Final Fantasy series to be released in North America (following the original Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy IV games each dubbed Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II), the English localization of the game was marketed in North America under the title Final Fantasy III. When the PlayStation re-release was issued in North America as part of the Final Fantasy Anthology collection, the original Japanese title and numbering scheme was restored. The game did not receive an official European and Australian release until the PlayStation version was issued in both regions in 2002 (as a single game including a playable demo of Final Fantasy X), but the original SNES cartridge was popular in European and Australian imported game stores during the mid-1990s.
Game play
Final Fantasy VI used the Active Time Battle system featuring a four-character party fighting monsters to earn themselves experience points. The game is primarily single-player since game play enables using only a single party at a time outside of battles, but the party could be controlled by multiple people in battle by assigning each of the four characters to an individual controller. Final Fantasy VI abandoned the Job System of Final Fantasy V in favor of a more-defined and less-flexible character class system like that of Final Fantasy IV, in which each character has a special ability (sometimes more than one).
New to the game were 'desperation attacks', a precursor to the Limit Breaks of Final Fantasy VII. When a character was reduced to critically low hit points, there was a chance they would use a special, extremely powerful technique in place of their normal physical attack, however, the chance is so slim that one could go through the game without noticing this. The game also featured a simpler version of the customization skills of Final Fantasy V, as well as a precursor to the Materia system of Final Fantasy VII, in the form of Magicite. Magicite would enable the use of specific magic spells if equipped; though only two characters start the game with the ability to cast magic spells, almost every character can learn to do so. Each Magicite would impart various statistic bonuses on level-up. Finally, the Magicite were also the game's version of summon spells; any character who was equipped with a Magicite could, once per battle, summon its associated summon monster for various different effects, typically damaging all enemies.
Story
Template:Spoiler The game is set 1,000 years after the ancient, fictional War of the Magi, in which humans and magical beings known as Espers (who are the game's version of summons) fought over the power of magic. The war is settled with the world reduced to ashes and Humans and Espers living separately. Although the power of magic has been forgotten, the Empire that now rules much of the world who has entered it's industrial age, has developed a strange force known as Magitek (a mixture of magic and machinery as well as genetic engineering in human beings) and is on the verge of rediscovering the full potential of magic. An unknown woman whose name is Terra and two soldiers from the empire, all in their Magitek armor, are sent to the town of Narshe to investigate a frozen esper that has been found there. After finding it, the soldiers are (presumably) disintegrated by the Esper, and Terra is released from the "slave crown" used to control her. After meeting with a thief named Locke Cole, Terra makes her escape from the forces of the empire and joins the Returners, a rebel group that is trying to bring an end to the Empire's tyranny. Together, they embark on a long journey to stop the Empire from gaining the power of magic and prevent the potential apocalypse that it would bring about.
Characters
Template:Spoiler Final Fantasy VI features fourteen permanent playable characters, the largest number of any game in the series. Each character has a unique special ability.
- Terra Branford (ティナ Tina) — A half-human, half-Esper girl, a former slave to Gestahl's Empire. Terra's special ability is Morph, which allows her to transform into a creature of pure magic for a brief period, giving her a boost in magical power.
- Locke Cole (ロック Lock) — A thief who frequently works on the behalf of the Returners. Locke's special ability is Steal, which allows him to steal items from enemy monsters. With the relic "Thief Glove," Steal is transformed into Capture, which allows Locke to deal a small amount of physical damage to the enemy while stealing from them.
- Edgar Roni Figaro (エドガー Edgar) — The young king of Figaro, Edgar has forged an alliance with the Empire while secretly supplying aid to the Returners. Edgar's special ability is Tools, which allows him to attack his enemies with a variety of special weapons that he finds throughout the course of the game.
- Sabin Rene Figaro (マッシュ Matthew) — Edgar's younger brother, Sabin left the royal court of Figaro to train in martial arts. Sabin's special ability is Blitz, which allows him to use a variety of martial arts abilities activated through complex controller combos.
- Shadow (シャドウ Shadow) — A ninja mercenary, Shadow's services are available to the highest bidder. He is always accompanied by his dog, Interceptor. Shadow's special ability is Throw, which allows him to throw weapons and special items (such as shuriken) at his foes.
- Celes Chere (セリス Celes) — A former general of the Empire, imprisoned for questioning imperial policies. Celes's special ability is Runic, which allows her to absorb any magic spell cast during battle, restoring a small amount of her own magic points in the process.
- Cyan Garamonde (カイエン Cayenne) — A retainer of the kingdom of Doma, and the sole survivor of the Empire's poisoning of Doma's water supply. Cyan's special ability SwdTech (an abbreviation of Sword Technique), which allows him to perform a variety of powerful techniques with his sword, though it takes time to do so.
- Gau (ガウ Gau) — A feral child abandoned as an infant in the harsh wilderness known as the Veldt. Gau's special abilities are Rage and Leap. While on the Veldt, he can learn the abilities of a monster by using Leap on it, and use those abilities afterwards with Rage.
- Setzer Gabbiani (セッツァー Setzer) — A gambler and womanizer, Setzer travels the world in his airship searching for his lost love, Daryl. Setzer's special ability is Slot, which uses a slot machine to activate a variety of special attacks and techniques. With the relic "Coin Toss," Slot is transformed into GP Rain (ぜになげ Zeninage), allowing him to throw GP at all enemies in battle, causing an amount of damage equal to the amount of GP that was tossed.
- Mog (モグ Mog) — A moogle able to speak human languages, and the unofficial mascot of the game. Mog's special ability is Dance, which allows him to use one of a series of eight battle dances related to a specific type of terrain (for example, the "Desert Aria" is learned while fighting in the desert).
- Strago Magus (ストラゴス Stragos) — An elderly blue mage, Strago is a distant descendants of the warriors who fought in the War of the Magi. Strago's special ability is Lore (also known as Blue Magic), which allows him to learn certain enemy attacks and cast them as he would any magic spell.
- Relm Arrowny (レルム Relm) — The ten year old granddaughter of Strago, Relm is an expert artist who is not afraid to talk back to her elders. Relm's special ability is Sketch, which allows her to create a duplicate of a specific enemy that will perform one of that enemy's attacks. With the relic "Fake Moustache," Sketch is transformed into Control, which allows Relm to take control of an enemy and use its own attacks.
- Gogo (ゴゴ Gogo) — A mysterious, fully shrouded individual found within the belly of a giant monster known as the Zone Eater, Gogo is a master of mimicry, and can duplicate almost any technique he witnesses. Gogo's special ability is Mimic, which allows him to copy the last command carried out by his teammates in battle.
- Umaro (ウーマロ Umaro) — A yeti (or sasquatch) living in the caves of Narshe. Umaro cannot be controlled directly in battle: he is in a constant berserker rage. He can, however, be equipped with a variety of relics that will alter his repertoire of attacks.
In addition to the fourteen main characters, Final Fantasy VI features a number of significant supporting characters, most notably the leaders of the Empire. Emperor Gestahl rules the Empire from the imperial capital of Vector, relying strongly on the power of his two most important generals, Kefka Palazzo and Leo Cristophe. While Leo is respected even amongst the rebel Returners as a powerful but just warrior, Kefka is dangerous loose cannon, whose brutality and insanity make him one of the most feared people in the world. Much of the Empire's advanced technology is the product of its chief scientist, Cid del Norte Marguez, whose study of Espers led to the development of Imperial MagiTek Armor. The leader of the Returners, the most prominent anti-imperial resistance movement in the world, is Banon, a former priest and skilled strategist.
Localization and censorship
The North American SNES game is not a straight translation but contains some localization changes.
The biggest, first seen change, is the title, which was changed to Final Fantasy III. The original Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, and Final Fantasy V had not yet been released in America, so Squaresoft (the North American subsidiary of Square) decided to alter the numbering scheme in the North American releases to hide the fact that some games in the series were not released in North America. Thus, Final Fantasy IV became Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy VI became Final Fantasy III. Starting with Final Fantasy VII (with the switch from Nintendo to Sony), the decision was made to realign the series with its Japanese numbering, leading to an apparent "jump" of 3 games. This continues to cause confusion, with some American players referring to the games by the American-release numbering and others by the Japanese-release numbering. One method to keep things straight is to refer to the American versions as Final Fantasy 2 and 3 (FF2 and FF3), while reserving the Roman numeral designation for the Japanese games (such as FFIV and FFVI). Others add a minuscule j to denote the Japanese chronology: FF2j, FF3j etc.
Unlike the localization of Final Fantasy IV, there were no major game play changes. Certain editorial changes, however, were instituted in the English script, in large part due to the content guidelines imposed by Nintendo of America.
Well, there's a level of playfulness and – dare I say – sexuality in Japanese games that just doesn't exist here [in the USA], basically because of Nintendo of America's rules and guidelines. And this includes little characters that take their clothes off, or show their bottoms or chests – that Nintendo won't allow over here.
"RPG special" (January, 1995). Super POWER, p. 18.
Translation from Swedish courtesy of Neil West [1]
In general, Ted Woolsey took many artistic liberties when translating dialogue, often making characters seem more enthusiastic,
taking out entire speeches, and "over-simplifying" the lines. The Japanese version of Final Fantasy VI is seen as a "literary" work, with long, drawn-out explanations and character lines that might even bore some players (Tim Rogers, "The Japanese text is rather flat, actually; it reads like an essay on linguistics."[2])
Some of the most notable changes include:
- Some minor instances of nudity, appearing on some monsters, were covered up.
- All profane language was removed. The most notable example is during a scene in which Kefka is attacked by Celes and tells her, "I hate you," repeating the word "hate" over a dozen times. In the Japanese release, Kefka actually repeats something akin to the word "fuck" over a dozen times. Relm was also a swearing character from whom speech was censored.
- Many spell and monster names were changed. Some changes were necessitated by technical length restrictions: the "Leafy Rabbit" creature became simply a "Leafer" in the English release. Other changes were made to meet Nintendo of America's content guidelines, such as changing the name of the spell "Holy" to "Pearl". The same spell had been renamed "FADE" in Final Fantasy and "White" in Final Fantasy IV.
- Many bugs identified in the original Japanese version were corrected, or worked around. For example, the Opera House rat glitch, the mosaic effect glitch, the 256th item equip glitch, and the Merit Award + Atma Weapon on Gau glitch. Interestingly, the mosaic effect glitch occurs in the PlayStation re-release in America, even though it did not in the original SNES release.
- One major bug, unfortunately, was added in the American release. If Relm's Sketch command fails, an uninitialised pointer in the game's programming could cause many damaging effects, such as the loss of all saved games. Later Final Fantasy III SNES cartridges corrected this, as did the PlayStation re-release.
Note that many of the changes to playable character names are simply reasonable approximations of the original names within the 6-character limits imposed by the game engine. However, some changes, such as Tina/Terra may have been intentionally instituted by the translator because of cultural differences. In Japanese Tina sounds exotic and intriguing because of its rare "Ti" sound, whereas in America, it is a common name. Interestingly, three characters from this game appeared in Final Fantasy VII, but English players were not aware of this due to the name changes. They are Cait Sith (called Stray in US release), Midgar Zolom (a snake swimming on the world map of Final Fantasy VII called Terrato in the US release), and Chupon, an ally of Ultros who appears as a summon in Final Fantasy VII under the name Typhoon.
Similarly, another such change involves the minor characters Biggs and Wedge, clearly named in reference to Biggs Darklighter and Wedge Antilles from Star Wars, who were translated as Vicks and Wedge. Chrono Trigger repeated this mistake, having been also translated by Ted Woolsey. However, in future Final Fantasy titles, as well as the PlayStation re-releases of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, this was corrected.
The PlayStation re-release (issued as part of Final Fantasy Anthology in North America) utilizes Ted Woolsey's original translation, with only a few minor edits (such as the aforementioned "Biggs" → "Vicks" correction, and changing the name of the item "Fenix Down" to "Phoenix Down"). This localization was also used when the game was released for the PlayStation in Europe in 2002.
Graphic censorship
The biggest graphic change is for the title screen which hasn't got Terra riding a Magitek in the American version and the change of logo from Final Fantasy VI to Final Fantasy III looking more like the American versions that were already available. Some graphics in the American version of the game were covered up to hide nudity primarily on female monsters and Espers, while smoke was removed from smoking women encountered in battles. Even the local pubs were renamed to Cafe because alcohol use or reference was not allowed following Nintendo of America's policies. All graphic censorship was removed for the PlayStation re-releases of Final Fantasy VI. Below is the graphic comparison between the American and Japanese version as well as the monsters and Espers name change.
Note that the Dahling's sprite is reused in other battles simply using a palette swap to represent a different being.
| 120px center | 120px center |
Musical score
Long time series contributor Nobuo Uematsu returns once again to provide the soundtrack for Final Fantasy VI. In Japan, the original score was released on three compact discs as Final Fantasy VI Original Sound Version. A version of this album was later released in North America under the title Final Fantasy III: Kefka's Domain, available exclusively through mail order from Squaresoft. Additionally, two special arranged albums of selected tracks from the game were released: Final Fantasy VI Piano Collections featuring thirteen tracks from the game, arranged and performed for piano by Reiko Nomura, and Final Fantasy VI Grand Finale, featuring eleven tracks from the game arranged by Shiro Sagisu and Tsuneyoshi Saito, and performed by the Ensemble Archi Della Scala and Orchestra Synfonica di Milano.
Production credits
Original Super Famicom/SNES version
- Producer — Hironobu Sakaguchi
- Directors — Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Itou
- Main Programmers — Ken Narita and Kiyoshi Yoshii
- Graphic Directors — Tetsuya Takahashi, Kasuko Shibuya (as Kazuko Shibuya), Hideo Minaba and Tetsuya Nomura
- Music — Nobuo Uematsu
- Image Designer — Yoshitaka Amano
- Battle Planners — Yasuyuki Hasebe and Akiyoshi Oota
- Field Planners — Yoshihiko Maekawa, Keita Etoh, Satoru Tsuji and Hidetoshi Kezuka
- Event Planners — Tsukasa Fujita and Keisuke Matsuhara
- Effect Programmers — Hiroshi Harata and Satoshi Ogata
- Battle Programmer — Akihiro Yamaguchi
- Sound Programmer — Minoru Akao
- Effect Graphic Designer — Hirokatsu Sasaki
- Field Graphic Designers — Takaharu Matsuo, Yusuke Naora, Nobuyuki Ikeda, Tomoe Inazawa, Kaori Tanaka, Takamichi Shibuya, Shinichiro Hamasaka (as Shinichirou Hamasaka) and Akiyoshi Masuda
- Monster Graphic Designer — Hitoshi Sasaki
- Object Graphic Designer — Kazuhiro Ohkawa
- Sound Engineer — Eiji Nakamura
- Technical engineers — Masahiro Nakajima, Mitsuo Ogura and Yasunori Orikasa
- Remake Planners — Weimin Li and Aiko Ito
- Translator — Ted Woolsey
PlayStation remake
- Director — Katsuyoshi Kawahara
- Producer — Yusuke Hirata
- Publicity — Masako Hozawa, Yuuki Kitayama and Testuya Tanaka
- Coordinators — Rei Komatsu, Terutaka Komorizono, Kiyomi Nakamura and Kiyomi Tanikawa
- Quality Managers — Hiromi Matsuda and Nishiki Sugi
- Executive Producer — Tomoyuki Takechi
- Localization Director — Kazuyoshi Tashiro
- Programmer — Yoshinori Uenishi
- Assistants — Mai Morofushi and Tomoko Sekii
- Porting — Tose Co., Ltd.
- Special thanks — Minoru Akao, Rie Nishi, Chizuko Ono, Hiroki Nakai, Hiroyuki Miura, Ikuyo Kitagawa, Siho Sasaki, Miki Akakura and Hiromichi Dribble
Quality Assurance team
- QA producer — Akihito Shoji
- QA director — Kenichi Miyake
- QA coordinator — Hironori Akiyama
- QA staff — Kumiko Yoshikoshi, Yosuke Okamoto, Ringo Wachi and Motomi Sawada
International administration department
- Localization director — Kazuyoshi Tashiro
- Programmer — Yoshinori Uenishi
- Assistants — Tomoko Sekii, Mai Morofushi
Square Europe Ltd.
- Managing director — Yuji Shibata
- Deputy managing director — Tomohiro Yoshikai
- Marketing manager — Takuya Okada
- Assistant managers marketing/PR — Stéphanie Journau and Abbass Hussain
- Chief of QA department — Katrin Darolle
- Assistant manager production/localization — Alison Lau
- Assistant manager IT/technical support — Alex Moresby
Packaging artwork
-
Final Fantasy VI
Super Famicom
Japan, 1994 -
Final Fantasy III
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
North America, 1994 -
Final Fantasy VI
Sony PlayStation
Japan, 1999 -
Final Fantasy VI
Sony PlayStation
Europe, 2002
See also
- List of Final Fantasy VI locations
- List of Final Fantasy characters
- Aria di Mezzo Carattere
- World of Balance
- World of Ruin
References
- Template:Web reference author
- ^ Template:Web reference author
- RPG Special (January, 1995). Super POWER, p. 18.
- ^ Template:Web reference author (aforementioned magazine interview translated from Swedish to English)
External links
- Official website
- GameFAQs entry for Final Fantasy VI
- GameFAQs entry for Final Fantasy Anthology
- Caves of Narshe Final Fantasy VI
- Final Fantasy VI Shrine
- Final Fantasy VI at IMDb
- Speed Demos Archive - Speed Runs
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