Yes, as always I'm late with this, but here it is! Hope all is well with
you.
So for this challenge, pondering what our favorite games would be like if
done by a different developer, there was never any doubt mine would be
about Final Fantasy VI. That game is far and away my all time favorite. Who
to make it though? Bethesda perhaps? Nah, too buggy. Idea Factory? Nah, too
fan servicey. BioWare? Yes, that's the one!
So how to make this a BioWare game? For starters, we'll have a main
character created by the player. This brings up an instant issue. Who to
use as the main character? Final Fantasy VI is pretty unique among the
series in that it often changes perspective, and despite Terra being the
main character for the first half of the game, switches to Celes as the
lead for the start of the second half. In BioWare's version, we're going to
stick to "Terra" as the main character, except she'll be the character
created by the player, and can be male.
Gaijin
It could also be argued that Locke was the main character for a good stretch of the first half of the game. Still, good choice for a player-created option. Terra has the fewest entanglements of the three, mainly because she lacked any sort of real romantic subplot. That would make her role more easily malleable, I'd think.
This will require some story changes, but for the most part it will be the
same, with some minor choices being made available to the player. Certain
characters will have the possibility of not making it to the world of ruin,
but the overall narrative will remain the same. During the world of ruin
half in the original game, Terra takes on the task of protecting a village
full of children before leaving with Celes. This will be the viewpoint of
the player for the start of the world of ruin, with perhaps some new party
members being added to the game as some of the older children Terra is
protecting.
Gaijin
FF6 already had the possibility of Shadow not surviving into the World of Ruin, so that's not too big a stretch. I did think that Celes's experiences at the start of Part Two were quite poignant, though, and I'd be sad to see them go. Flashback material, perhaps?
Now, I said minor choice will be added to the game, but there would also
be one brand new huge choice added to the game, that being with the
inclusion of three different second halves to the game. The first would be
the traditional story, that being Kefka killing the Emperor and bringing
ruin to the world. The second would be a difficult one to obtain, but if
the player manages to stop Kefka on the floating continent, they could
restore the statues to their original place and avert the disaster. The
Emperor and Kefka will both perish, and the remainder of the game would
feel more like a Suikoden game, organizing a resistance against the
remaining power of the Empire. The final alternate half of the game, would
be if the player defeats Kefka, and chooses to take the power of the
statues for their own. In this, the player would be met with many different
choices of how to use this power for good, and depending on what they do
the game would either end with a battle against an Empire remnant army led
by Kefka (who survives the floating continent in this scenario), or a
stunning betrayal by the Returners, deposing the player for mis-using
power.
Gaijin
That would definitely be fun, and that would definitely not be something Square Enix would ever entertain putting into one of their flagship titles, unfortunately.
Now that the story changes are out of the way, let's talk about gameplay.
Being an older game, I'd just say the Infinity engine would be used here.
Each character would have a Dungeons and Dragons type class created to
match their abilities, and we'd throw in a unique twist to match the usage
of Espers. Any character, upon leveling (after obtaining Espers) can choose
to level in a Magic class from an Esper instead of their normal class.
These classes would be mapped out to learn spells based on the number of
levels put into them, so it would still be difficult to gain spells like
Ultima. Terra and Celes in this version would not need Espers, and would
continue to learn magic as they level up their base class. The one Wrinkle
to the infinity engine combat would be the addition of summoning Espers,
which would serve as temporary companions when summoned.
Gaijin
The major characters already fit into discrete classes anyway, so that works pretty well. The Magic classes would also help the player to avoid having all party members being identical in usefulness by the end of the game.
That's about it! Hope you enjoyed this.
-Wheels
p.s. How are Bioware games received in Japan?
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