Transcript

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to season eight of the Gaming Backlog book club. We just wrapped up season seven recently, a few weeks ago about Fallout 4 and even started up a side quest season about Hades with less of a time constraint and more flexibility in the meantime, which is fun so far. But after our couple week break we’re back to begin one of our normal week to week seasons.

This season we will be playing Final Fantasy 6.

But first Alex, what have you been playing since finishing Fallout 4? And a bit of Hades.

[00:00:32] Speaker B: I finished Final Fantasy 10 and I loved it so I’m excited actually.

So I’m still in the Final Fantasy mine, so I’m excited to start up six here. But yeah I finished Final Fantasy 10 and I really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it. So that was one of my personal backlog games that I’ve never gotten to.

[00:00:53] Speaker A: So 10 is a good one.

Yeah 10 is definitely a good one.

Moments and some good characters.

[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah I really like all the characters.

[00:01:05] Speaker A: I similarly felt that I should probably wrap up the JRPG that I was playing before starting another JRPG. So I many many hours into Persona 5 Royal and it was great. Definitely what you’d expect or what you’d hope for out of a modern jrpg. Obviously the school day to day life elements are a bit polarizing, but I enjoyed it enough and the combat is intriguing. The art style I think is what really got me going. And the music, the acid jazz music in that is fantastic. But hey Final Fantasy. This really kind of brings me back to middle school before middle school. One of my first kind of primary gaming genres I suppose. So for background, if you aren’t yet familiar with the Final Fantasy franchise or the setup of Final Fantasy 6 Specifically, Final Fantasy is an anthology series of video games where with a few exceptions every numbered entry in a series is completely separate from the rest of them story wise. But there are some shared elements with certain job or character classes almost always available, like black and white mages for attacking magic and healing magic. There are a lot of other classes in that sense, certain creatures and enemies always showing up in some kind of format. Like the chocobos which are giant yellow rideable emu sized animals, cactuars which are anthropomorphic cacti, moogles which are kind of like half teddy bear, half pixie, things with wings and antenna, and many more. They’re out there in terms of design but definitely fun. You can also summon gigantic assist attacks that do crushing damage, usually an option in most of the Final Fantasy games. And a lot of the summons look different but have the same name. There’s a lot of repeating and well, they have the same name with the actual summit itself, but the whatever the summons are called is usually different in between each game. And while the settings can vary wildly from high fantasy to dark fantasy to medieval era to steampunk era to futuristic technology era, a lot of the same themes run throughout this series has been around since 1987, originally releasing with Final Fantasy 1 on the NES and continues on to this day. What was it a couple years ago Final Fantasy 16 came out?

[00:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a few.

[00:03:26] Speaker A: Yeah, a year or two ago.

It is one of the very first JRPGs that hit it massively worldwide to really good success and people are still major fans to this day and as am I. I haven’t touched one of the more modern ones lately, but hoping to eventually.

Now Final Fantasy 6 itself was released in 1994 for the Super Nintendo. Developed and published by Square. It was the last Final Fantasy game to use 2D sprite graphics before 7 jumped into 3D polygons.

FF6 received amazing reviews and so much praise when it released and continues to receive it to this day for for its graphics, story setting, music and well written characters.

The story setup of Final Fantasy 6 switches it up from many of the prior Medieval Fantasy settings and places you in a more industrialized mechanical world where machines and magic are used in tandem with a bit of a renaissance in terms of the arts becoming an important part of society.

We control a party of up to 14 characters that grows as we go on as part of a rebellion against a military dictatorship.

Meanwhile, a magical arms race is going on and plenty of other darker themes that make this game much more mature than the previous entries.

The gameplay is traditional JRPG style where you explore an overworld map, towns and Dungeons From a 2D top down perspective to an extent. When you’re on the overworld map, you can get around by walking, riding a chocobo, or flying an airship while you’re on the overworld and in dungeons.

With the exception of, I think some boss encounters where they come out of a conversation, most fights are random encounters, so every X random steps the screen will flash and bring up the battle screen. The fights are turn based so no two characters or enemies will take an action at the exact same time and your actions are chosen in menus which you see play out so you don’t hit square and then attack. Everyone’s speed stat dictates how quickly your active time battle or ATB meter refills and therefore how quickly that character can take their next action.

You can have up to four people in your party at a time. When you win a battle, you’ll gain experience that scales automatically in predetermined stats to level up your character, rather than you assigning stats yourself, kind of like we just did with Fallout.

You also get money and sometimes items for your victory while you’re out of battle. You can pull up a menu to equip weapons and armor to your character, swap out party members and use items as well as healing or status curing magic. You can also interact with people in towns who may just have something to say, but also may own shops with various items and equipment, places to sleep to heal, things like that.

I guess I’ll jump in first though. I’ve started Final Fantasy 6 a number of times. Actually all of these times when I was in middle school. First using an emulator on my computer with Z, SNES and ARAM, and then in the Final Fantasy Anthology two pack for PS1 that included Final Fantasy 5 and 6 on two discs. This was after playing through 9 and loving it.

Playing through 8. 3/4 of the way and loving it. 7, 3/4 of the way and loving it. Not sure why I didn’t finish either of those back then, but I have since played replayed seven and planned to replay eight all the way at some point. I also played all the way through 10 at the time and gave six a shot for whatever reason. Didn’t, didn’t finish. But 10 was one of my all time favorites along with nine. So I’m glad that you finally got to that recently.

[00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah, loved it.

[00:07:03] Speaker A: So have you played six before at all or know much about it?

[00:07:08] Speaker B: No, to be honest. I mean I’ll say. As I said, I say this for a lot of the games. When you ask me like, do you know much about it? I don’t know much about it. And that’s the reason why they’re on my backlog too is I also try and not see spoilers. Like I don’t want to spoil. Like these games are on my backlog for a reason and I’m not trying.

[00:07:25] Speaker A: To find spoilers out.

[00:07:26] Speaker B: What I know about Final Fantasy 6 is it has what people call like an iconic like intro scene with the mechs coming in, I think through like snow.

I know Terra is one of the main characters, if not the main character for the whole for the game and I really just found that out recently because more of for the Final Fantasy Magic crossover she was one of the Commander decks.

So on the bottom of the cards, it says, like, what Final Fantasy they were from. So I was like, oh, okay. So she was from six. I was like, okay, well. And I knew that we were gonna have that as a thing down the road, so I was like, okay, well, I’m excited to play with Terra Branford here when we get to six.

[00:08:10] Speaker A: Didn’t know the last.

[00:08:11] Speaker B: Other than that.

Yeah, other than that. I also heard that the soundtrack is phenomenal. The soundtrack.

I mean, most Final Fantasy games, the soundtrack is great. But I’ve heard for this one that it’s really good, so. Yeah, but they don’t know much of the story.

[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:29] Speaker B: And I don’t. Yeah. And I didn’t want to spoil it, so.

[00:08:33] Speaker A: It’S a good call. Yeah. I mean, outside of. Right. I think over the years, of course, had. Because I had that Final Fantasy Anthology two pack, and I also had a Final Fantasy Chronicles, I think it was called two pack for PS1, which was chrono Trigger on one disc and Final Fantasy 4 on another.

[00:08:52] Speaker B: Yep, I had those as well, actually. I still have them.

[00:08:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, so do I, actually. For whatever reason, I catch a bunch of PS1 games and not later generations, but I know, right? So one of the weird things about Final Fantasy in North America that I found out about when I first played a bit of Final Fantasy 6 is that 6 was released as Final Fantasy 3 in North America because only 1, 4 and 6 had been released here at the time.

Eventually, once 2, 3 and 5 arrived, then every future release of Final Fantasy 6 in North America was titles Final Fantasy 6. So it’s a bit confusing, you know, even has different cover art where it’s more of a. As we were just talking about a moogle floating in the dark background. And that’s really it.

[00:09:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s not nearly as cool as the Japanese.

[00:09:44] Speaker A: It’s not as cool as the Japanese original cover art, which was the COVID art on the Final Fantasy Anthology jewel case back in the day.

And it’s the most iconic art image of the game. It is obviously still regarded as one of the best Final Fantasy games ever, if not the best.

Seven, supposedly in the Zeitgeist, gives it the run for his money, but a lot of people still prefer 6. I know about the main villain named Kafka or Kefka, who I think is a clown or a jester of some sort, supposedly is a psycho.

I just know that and nothing else about it. But he, as a character is consistently rated as one of the best game villains ever, even after all these years. And I really just can’t wait to finally go all the way through.

[00:10:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m very excited to play this all the way through. Well, I’ve never even started, so I’m just excited to get in it, learn the whole story, see again, I’ve seen that the title screen, but excited to just see the title screen again, listen to the fantastic soundtrack and work my way through Final Fantasy 6 here and enjoy this whole story.

[00:10:51] Speaker A: Yeah, and I’ve been wanting to go back and replay 8 to finally finish it.

Curious about 15 that was free with PlayStation plus collection. 16 looks interesting enough. And then 7 Remake and 7 Rebirth have come out in the last few years. But 6 takes priority in my backlog of Final Fantasy games. So, you know, here we are. The nice thing with a game this old is that there are a lot of different ways to play it. Are you going to be playing the Pixel Remaster version?

[00:11:18] Speaker B: Since today I have multiple ways that I could play this. I actually, I have the Final Fantasy. I guess it would be the Final Fantasy 3 or the original cartridge for Super Nintendo, which I could play on my analog super nt.

But then I also have the Super Nintendo Classic Edition that they. That Nintendo came out with however many years ago that I think has. That has Final Fantasy 6 on it. And then yes, I also have the Pixel Remaster Edition on a Switch that has. What does it have?

[00:11:53] Speaker A: It’s all.

[00:11:53] Speaker B: Is it 1 through 6?

[00:11:55] Speaker A: For the. It has 1 through 6. Yeah, it’s all the 2D.

[00:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:11:58] Speaker A: All the original 2D numbered games, which.

[00:12:01] Speaker B: I’m really happy to have because I want to play like all of. At some point I want to play all the Final Fantasy games. And I’m really happy that they did that collection so I can go through and do all the stories.

And that’s probably where I’m leaning to play is probably using the Pixel Remaster on Switch.

[00:12:17] Speaker A: Well, so the nice thing about the Pixel Remaster version is that it has a lot of quality of life improvements because obviously these games are old and they wanted to pad out their time with certain things. You know, if it’s anything like the Final Fantasy VII remaster, not the remake, the remaster of it that I played on Switch.

And similar to most PS1 era RPGs that have had remasters in the last 10 to 15 years, I think it will have a way to speed up experience earned so you can level up faster. A way to speed up battles in general, a way to turn off random encounter battles in the Overworld. If you’re not Looking to grind and just want to get to the next place. And even a way to make you literally invincible in all battles, which I highly suggest you don’t try unless you’ve already finished it.

[00:13:04] Speaker B: I would not be. No, no. I’ll be trying to play as the most genuine that I can. Yeah, yeah.

[00:13:10] Speaker A: When I was playing that seven remaster, it was convenient on a couple occasions where I just wanted, like, I only had 40 minutes to play and I wanted to just get to the next area and not have to be constantly stopped. But yeah, it’s. It’s best to use those things sparingly. I think it might have save states, which is useful if you don’t want to book it all the way to the next save point, which is a thing from back then. So that’s kind of useful.

[00:13:33] Speaker B: That’s probably the thing I’ll use the most. That’s probably one of the main reasons I want to do probably the Pixel remaster is I can do those save states because again, there are times where just from 10, I played 10 and I don’t think I had save states. So it couldn’t just save whatever. But you have to get to each sphere to save.

And there are some where it’s like you have to do an hour plus before you reach the next one. And if I don’t have the time, like, I’m not going to replay the whole thing.

[00:13:57] Speaker A: So that is definitely, I would say the biggest great convenience that’s ever been added to gaming is the ability to save wherever you are and just pick it back up. Because saving at a save point is, while intended game design is. Can be quite annoying if you don’t have the time to actually find the next one.

[00:14:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I had more time as a. As a kid than I do now.

[00:14:16] Speaker A: To get to that. As do we all. As did we all. So, yeah, I mean, I think I’m leaning towards actually playing it on the SNES Classic, using the original Super Nintendo controller and sitting uncomfortably close to the TV because the cords on those controllers are way too short.

Should be a bit of a fun blast from the past, though. I have already played on the Super Nintendo Classic, Earthbound, super metroid, Super Castlevania 4 on it, as well as Donkey Kong country and Super Mario Kart that I play with my wife. And it’s a lot of fun.

I will eventually probably play Super Mario RPG and Super Mario World on it, I think. But I’m not huge on Mario games, so they’ll be in the backlog a little bit longer. I Think I’m leaning towards it there. I have the Pixel remaster of 6 as well, so the convenience might end up winning out, but we’ll see. I think just playing on that old gamepad seems fun.

[00:15:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say you might have just.

I might do it on the Classic just to get the nostalgia of playing with the Super Nintendo controller again.

[00:15:17] Speaker A: I will, at minimum play on the Classic to start and then see what time allows with real life getting in the way if I switch over and restart it on Pixel Remaster, so.

[00:15:30] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:15:30] Speaker A: Should be fun either way.

[00:15:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it’s. It’s gonna be fun either way. No matter which way we’re gonna play. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

[00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And Final Fantasy VI apparently has a bit of an intro or a prologue, and then it splits at some point into three scenarios that you choose from, and you have to do all three of them before you can continue the main story, but you can do them in any order that you want. So it basically splits the party in three groups. We’ll be tackling all three of these scenarios before our next episode anyway, so don’t need to worry about that, but do them in whatever order you wish. And we’ll still be dividing this podcast season into as close to equal length chunks of gameplay as we can. It was a bit harder to find information on how long each section of thing was, you know, and who knows if there’s an ideal order to the three scenarios, but let’s just go with it and enjoy the ride. So for next time, play through the prologue bits and then once you can select a party, play through all three other scenarios, go until you’ve completed all three of them and the party reunites, and then save and quit and wait for next time.

[00:16:29] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:16:30] Speaker A: And, yeah, you know, let us know on Discord what your expectations are.

[00:16:34] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. We’re both very excited to start this up and play fully through it, and we hope you’re excited to join us on this journey as well.

[00:16:43] Speaker A: Through.

[00:16:44] Speaker B: Through Final Fantasy 6. If you’ve never played it before, or if you have and you’ve really been itching to get back into it, I mean, Final Fantasy is such a. Yeah, now’s the time. Final Fantasy is such a big world. So it’s. It’s. There’s so much, so much to do in all the games, and if you just had any itch at all to play any Final Fantasy, if you have time right now, play six with us. So we’re very excited.

So, yeah, thank you all for listening.

[00:17:08] Speaker A: Your thoughts, let us know.

[00:17:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we definitely are. So yeah. So thanks for listening and looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts on the game. Following us along. Thanks.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of Nave games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram under the same name. Thanks.