In Defense of the Opinion

by Aaron Nickel 

A few weeks ago, I read a lovely little editorial called "The Opinion Not Taken." Bravo. I like to see this kind of thing: questioning a staple in the RPGenre. He hated Final Fantasy VI. Bravo.

Then I see that RPGamer posted two dissenting opinions. Well, I can't let this guy stand alone. It's not his fault he made the 'mistake' of hating a mediocre game.

First of all, as I have said a million times before, Final Fantasy IV is my favorite game. Period. Always have, always will. Lunar almost convinced me otherwise-- almost.

I cannot for the life of me say that Final Fantasy VI is great. I can say it is decent, that's all. I have been explaining to people for years why I say this, and my argument is sound. In fact, if you, good reader, want to argue with me, please do! I need something to keep me busy between games of Phantasy Star Online.

The graphics are good. I love sprite-based games. It's my bread and butter! I will live and die in the 16 bit-era (I think I would like to shamelessly plug the Game Boy Advance.)

The opening sequence is one of the best in all of videogame history. I absolutely love it. Two soldiers and one unknown traverse the frozen fields around Narshe, surrounded by an absolutely lovely musical score. Then, the mysterious girl surprisingly links with a frozen creature of legend. She then becomes a wanted outlaw. Sounds like the making for a great story.

That's just it. That's my biggest problem with Final Fantasy VI. The story is bad. It starts off good and then goes waaaaaaay south. It is worse than having the whole story be bad, because you get excited, then you realize you wasted your time. Where do I begin? Oh yeah, the main character, Terra. She isn't the main character. She is my favorite character in the game and one of my favorite characters of RPGs, almost out of pity. What they could have done with her boggles the mind. Why in gods name did they put so much emphasis on the weakly described romance between Locke and Celes? Why? Yeah, it's important, but neither of them are the main character.

A strong central character is important, but almost as important is the supporting cast. First of all, Celes and Locke are not good supporting cast. The supporting cast should not be made to steal the show. Celes and Lock wanted to be secondary, but Square forced them into the limelight. Second of all, the supporting cast should not be made to take up space. Mog is a glaring example. Why was he a character? He helped Terra once, at the beginning. He has no other purpose. Strago, Relm and Gau also serve little purpose, other than the story at their initial appearance. These characters have no reason to travel with you.

That is the beauty of Final Fantasy IV. We all know Cecil is the main character, and everyone elses life is important, but only when it pertains to Cecil and the greater task. We feel for them, but it is Cecil's story. For that matter, Final Fantasy VII works the same way. It is Cloud's story. Final Fantasy IX is Zidane's story. But whos story is Final Fantasy VI? It should be Terra's. But half way through the game, she's dropped like a bad habit.

Final Fantasy IV has the perfect characters. They all serve a purpose, and not one of them is 'filler.' The closest thing to filler is Edward, but he is essential to Tellah's story. Each of the characters is woven together, and they make the story impossible to run without them. If Mog disappeared, would anyone care?

This brings up the beloved opera scene. Sure, it's memorable. Sure, it illustrates the love story between Celes and Locke. But it wasn't used nearly as well as it could have been. Only the music ever pops up again. And I suppose Celes' suicide dive in the World of Ruin could be symbolic of this. But look at Final Fantasy XI and the play "I Want to be your Canary." The play IS the game. Zidane is a 'dirt magnet' and Garnet is the forbidden love. But the opera scene didn't have anything to do with the game. It was just an interesting sidenote about love someone else's love. There is no imposing force separating Celes and Locke like Maria and Draco, or Garnet and Zidane. God is not out to spite either one, which sucks a lot of the power out of their love. It certainly is not Romeo and Juliet. Nor is it Lunar 1 or 2. Romance rules, but this one didn't.

In fact, the game is nearly devoid of emotion. Locke and Celes have what some people might call a 'romance.' There is the massacre at Doma. There's the opera scene. There's Maduin and Madonna. And lastly, the most emotional part of the game, there's Celes jumping off of the cliff at the beginning of the World of Ruin. Once again, this game messes up big. That part should always be there! You only see it if Cid dies! It's a crying shame. But that is it, no more emotion. Nothing compares to Aeris' death in Final Fantasy VII. She was innocent. She was nice. She always helped others. She sticks in your mind. Then Sephiroth kills her, and some beautiful cinematography ensues. And I'm not talking about graphical quality, I'm talking about what it is we see: the gem dropping and Cloud carrying Aeris to that lake. Powerful images, absolutely powerful.

The second half of the game is just garbage. There is no story here. There is no reason that you should get all the characters back together. You are required three, but there is no reason for having them, other than the game forces you to have them! Not only that, but you don't even need Terra to finish the game! Why? She is the one the game should revolve around. She has a deep story. She is the one who was a half-breed. You watch her birth. You feel her parents' struggle for a 'normal' life. She has internal struggle. She doesn't know about love. She can take on a form she does not understand and doesn't necessarily want. She is so deep, so complex that it is a crying shame that she doesn't get what she deserves, and that is an equally spellbinding game. That is the single greatest crime of the game, and one of the greatest tragedies of RPG history.

Then there's Kefka. People make fun of Kuja being feminine (I thought he looked darn evil), but come on. Kefka's a freaking mime! Who in god's name would take him seriously? He just laughs a lot and flings power around like candy at the Fourth of July Parade. How the heck can he take down the Espers so easily? Magic is basically unknown in that world, so how could he possibly use magic better than the Espers?

The Espers! Yes, a great idea gone terribly, horribly wrong. The Espers are a great hook for a story, and that is exactly what they do. They single-handedly drive the story, since none of the characters seem to be able to. However, what they give you is so utterly ridiculous, it destroys the gameplay. It makes every single character a clone of every single other character. Hey look, we all have the same spells!

Cheapening magic is THE ABSOLUTE WORST thing you can do with fantasy. It is even worse than the Dungeons and Dragons movie. What makes it special if everyone has it? Absolutely nothing. Sure, each character makes a pathetic attempt at being different by having one other special ability, but these really don't matter when they have every spell. And then, after kicking the game into submission with ridiculous amounts of magic, you make it squeal in terror with the relic system. Can we give all four characters Gem Boxes and Economizers? Yes we can! Not only can we cast any spell we want, we can cast any spell we want TWICE for the grand total of TWO MP! Omigod! Can we make the game any more pointless?

Why yes we can! Lets make Kefka a complete wuss! Yeah! Lets give him an attack that knocks everyone down to one HP and then give everyone a year and a half to heal back to full! And then, lets not give him any other scary attacks!

Please! Spare me this mockery of a boss! In Final Fantasy IV, Zeromus could take each one of your characters to the wood chipper. And, in the Japanese hard version, if you don't have absolutely over 5000 HP, you are absolutely dead! In fact, one of my friends put a "no exp" code into Final Fantasy VI with a game genie, and beat the game at level 21, because of the broken magic system.

The key to a good game is replay value. When this game came out, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. But every successive time I beat it, I lost a little interest, until I sold it. Then I saw the Final Fantasy Anthology was coming out and I thought, I'll buy it for Final Fantasy IV, but then they cut it. Square then tried to say "I'm sorry" with the absolute worst music CD ever. Thanks. It doesn't do the score of Final Fantasy VI justice. The music, just like Terra, needed a better game to accompany it.

But I bought it anyway. I played Final Fantasy VI first because I remembered it as a pretty good game. I got to about Strago's house before I quit and I haven't touched the game since. I think I went back and played Final Fantasy VII again. At least Materia isn't as game breaking. The story is a lot better. Sephiroth makes Kefka look even sillier. Then, when I play Final Fantasy IX (or as I call it, the way Final Fantasy VI should have been if Terra was not in it), I laugh. The next time I try to beat Final Fantasy IV in under ten hours (which I do a lot) I laugh more. And when Colin Otto says that people who think Final Fantasy VII's story makes VI look like trash make him want to hurl, I'll hand him a couple barf bags, point him to the nearest restroom, and start laughing hysterically. Then I will return to my undying duty of 'harming' the RPG with my 'dangerous' anti-VI views.

By the way, the next time someone decides to "SPEAK FOR RPG FANS EVERYWERE," like Colin Otto did, please leave me out of it. I don't like to be told I know nothing just because I like Final Fantasy VII better than VI. Final Fantasy VI is the reason I turned in my 'old school' badge.

-Questions, comments, smart remarks?
Contact Aaron Nickel aka Darkwyvern, the god of all that is FFIV at anickel@gac.edu