At long last, I’ve got all my party members together, and it’s time to take on Joker the Evil Clown!
But wait! Since a major portion of this game is devoted to rounding up and then re-rounding up a cast of fourteen, let’s get some sound bites from our assembled war band! I’ll be slipping in some wrap-up game commentary and character analysis; I hope I don’t bore you.
Whew! I got bogged down rounding up all my scattered party members — seriously, we just lived through the end of the world and everything, but did they have to be difficult and run off and join weird cults and get themselves lost on mountaintops, in the depths of monster-infested catacombs and so on? — so this playthrough is once again tardy.
Hey, it wasn’t that long since my last post.
So, last time in my Let’s Play Final Fantasy VI, the world went to Hades in a haversack. Miraculously, the crustal ruptures we saw in that exciting end-of-the-world cutscene did not result in Siberia-sized lava outpourings, a planetwide blanket of sulfuric acid fog/rain, or other Permian-Extinction-style armageddon. (Geology porn… bookmark for later!)
Instead, as this is Final Fantasy, Celes awakens in a blasted world that’s creepy and sad and fragmented. FFXIII-2 riffed on this trope again 17 years later, and the music from its Dying World fits nicely:
Yeap, it really is that bad.
Last time on “Let’s Play Final Fantasy VI,” Emperor Gestahl, baby snatcher, ravager of towns, enslaver of Espers, told us that, “After all I have put them [the Espers] through, it is up to me to set things right. That is why… I need to borrow Terra’s power.” So he’s asked us to take him to the Espers to apologize.
This screencap is boring, apart from the unusual combination of lobster and sushi rolls and roast turkey, but I just want to stress that he said we.
Because…well, you’ll see shortly.
And we’re off! We head to the southern continent (map) to infiltrate the Magitek Research Facility in Vector, capital of the must-be-evil-since-it-has-no-name Empire.
Our goal is to rescue the Espers who are being drained of their power as fuel for Magitek.
I love seeing how Final Fantasy rings changes on its ever-accruing mythology from game to game. The draining-Espers idea evolved from Cid’s innocent mistake in FFV, in which the machines he created to amplify and collect power from the Four Crystals of Light inadvertently damaged them. FFVI fuses the concept of crystals, which existed right from the start of Final Fantasy, with the separate FF concept of summons, originally a job class ability like geomancy. We’ll see beings turning to crystal again in FFXIII’s L’Cie, while ShinraCorp, Odine Enterprises and Draklor are all spiritual successors of FFVI’s Esper-juicing factory.
Before I jump in with the next segment of the walkthrough, I need to back up and reiterate something that commenter inked_compass observed about the last scene, when our scattered party reunites in Narshe: “More of the Returners talking about Terra rather than to her. Good job guys.”
It’s also true of Celes. Locke bursts in to report that Celes told him there’s an Imperial army marching on Narshe. Celes doesn’t say a word then or when Locke, Cyan and Edgar argue over whether she’s an Imperial spy:
The ex-general’s silence raises an intriguing question: Has she joined the Returners? All she’s said in-game is that she is, or was, General Celes, now “nothing but a traitor.” Those could be the words of a loyal soldier smitten with shame or sorrow at having been cast out. And Locke strikes me as the sort to assume the best of people.
Whatever Celes is thinking, I hope to see her and Terra speak up for themselves and display more autonomy soon.
Before I launch into the next leg of my Let’s Play Final Fantasy VI playthrough, I’d just like to note that FFVI’s washed-out chocobo design is redeemed by its music of pure techno awesome:
I defy you not to bob your head while listening to that with headphones. Or, to quote a couple commenters on the above video:
question: What is it about riding giant chickens that restricts random battles? ~ The Zeldaniac
Picture this, if you’re an enemy and you hear this song, are you going to interrupt it by attacking the guy riding the chicken, or are you just going to dance? ~ hoodedbro1001
Now back to our regularly-scheduled playthrough.
So, in our opening FFVI sonata, our heroes Edgar, Locke, Sabin and Terra had reached the rebel hideout of the Returners. We had just imbibed our first Backstory Dump courtesy of Banon, the rebel leader, when news arrived that the town of S. Figaro was under attack and that imperial forces were headed our way.
I’m laaaate starting my FFVI gameblog, although I started it at the beginning of the month.
Opening FMV analysis time!
When I first started playing Final Fantasy in the VII-VIII-X era, I was mildly bemused by a series whose releases seemed at first to have almost nothing in common but their titles and big yellow birds. As I’ve worked my way backwards, I’ve enjoyed that “click” of recognition whenever I spot recurring elements: FFXII’s glossair ring airships, the trains of FFVII and VIII, the Evil Empire (“empire bad, kingdom good,” as we first learned all the way back in FFII), and the tragic/unearthly damsel. FFVI’s mechs, however, are almost a first for the series (I say almost, since Doctor Lugae, the Hojo lookalike in FFIV, drove one in his boss battle).
It’s interesting to see how the old FF character classes of white mage, black mage, fighter, thief, ranger, ninja, summoner, monk and berserker are submerged yet remain visible beneath the surface. (Coming to the franchise so late, I was puzzled about fans calling Tifa a monk, or Cid a dragoon, or why Kimahri was blue. Now I understand!)
Like any good opening FMV of the mature FF years, this one raises all sorts of questions about who-what-where-why that will only become intelligible on a replay.
I pause to listen to a orchestral performance of Terra’s theme, since my emulator makes it sound less than the perfect bit of music it is. Then, onward.
I’m a little torn here, as I’ve fallen a month behind Moogle University’s 2013 Final Fantasy Marathon thanks to that dreaded problem, Real Life. Should I start Final Fantasy VII along with Sev and Rina? Or stick to Final Fantasy VI so I can recap in order? After much waffling, I’m going to stay the course and stick to FFVI.
It feels so decadent plugging a PS3 controller into a Mac’s USB port. Gosh, it works!
FFVI is the last non-MMO of the Final Fantasy numbered sequence of games that I haven’t finished yet, because I got bogged down after the party scattered, and lost myself in Sidequests Before Saving the World. So I know most of the game, but there are still some discoveries I haven’t yet made. (Note to self: do not be a completist. I often lose my fun in trying to achieve every last sidequest.)
As so often, I have mixed feelings about the games that fandom loves most, and love the games that much of fandom despises. FFVI is one of those that hasn’t yet sunk into my bones like X, V, and to some extent XII, XIII and VIII.
I don’t know. I remember loving parts of this game; I purchased Terra’s theme as one of Uematsu’s finest pieces, and I quite like some of the characters. But I feel like FFVI is my friends’ fandom playground, much like those fandoms such as Sherlock and Avengers in which I don’t participate, but many of my friends do. Hopefully, on this playthrough, I’ll be able to immerse myself more fully.
For purposes of screencapping, I’m going to be sacrificing sound quality a bit and playing FFVI on my Mac via PCSX-R. (See the video info on that link for how I did it).
In-game sound is fairly good, but the FMV sound goes crackle-pop. Nevertheless, I’m really quite delighted to be playing this game on my Mac. The very first FFs I ever played (VIII and VII) were on my Mac, thanks to an emulator that friends gave me eons ago, so I’ve come full circle.
All right. Back into the melancholy world of angst and mecha!
Holy Chocobo! We’re in the home stretch of FFV! Let’s pause a moment to ogle the closing FMV from the PS1 version.
It’s a fine recap of some exciting moments in the game: pyromaniac Exdeath setting the Moogle forest on fire around the Guardian Tree, Galuf’s attack on Castle Exdeath thwarted by the barrier and his friends showing up to spoil everything, Krile on her trusty dragon seeking the perpetually lost party, Faris losing her beloved Syldra the Sea Dragon all the way back on Disc One, the shade (?) of King Tycoon playing hide-and-seek with us, the Lonka/Ronka ruins flying up into the sky, and a couple endgame battles we still have to look forward to (or flee, if we have any sense).
Symbolism ahoy! I’ve totally lost track of which crystal / element / attribute goes with what in this FF installment, and I don’t know why I care, but I’m puzzling over them, particularly hope = fertility? I also marvel at how quickly graphics look dated, and how awesome Faris and Lenna look in trenchcoat and court attire with matching katanas.
All right! Sidequests before saving the world.
Welp! Back in the “Let’s Play Final Fantasy” saddle after a real life “ack, the ‘rents are visiting!” hiatus.
(This chunk will be a bit short. You don’t mind, do you?)
As per Galuf’s last wishes, it’s time for us to launch his long-delayed assault on Castle ExDeath. I would pretend that this is the endgame, except that I’ve played FFV before, and cannot help but be aware that this is really the “Let’s go to Zanarkand / City of the Ancients / Lunatic Pandora / OOPS there’s more plot” dungeon. Still, here we are.
Krile, why are you standing in quicksand?
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