I like it a lot so far (just got Celes), but does the gameplay get better? The game is almost entirely driven by the plot, presentation and new characters. There's little to no exploration, barely any depth, combat has no tactics and largely boils down to spamming autocrossbow / fire on all, with blitz being stupidly strong. I know this is a story-focused FF, but I've never played an RPG that cared this little about gameplay. I want to be wrong though and hope it just needs time.
 |
 |
|
is this your first time playing an rpg from japan
I've played SMRPG, CT, and FF7. All three had more going on for gameplay. Even FF7 gave you materia to toy around from the start and continued introducing cool materia / equipment along the way.
you haven't played very many so i wont go into specifics. certain design in this sub genre are not very moment-to-moment gameplay heavy. do not expect it. ff6 is actually on the higher side as it becomes an ulltima-like exploration hunt in the second half. battles will not progress beyond simplification.
>you haven't played very many so i wont go into specifics.
well I as comparing to 16 bit RPGs. I played Phantasy Star 2 & 4 too. pretty sure DQ5 has gameplay too. I haven't played any PS1 RPGs beside FF7 and Vagrant Story though. maybe that's where "plot >>> gameplay" was really showing.
i see. if you are looking for more combat intricacies and builds i may recommend ff5, panzer dragoon saga, lunar 1/2 and star ocean 2. saga series also has a fair amount of complexity.
This game has a pretty breakneck speed to it for a while, so enjoy it while it lasts because it's a fun ride. After a particular story beat the game goes into a second phase where everything is harder and your team gets split up. There also seems like quite a bit of really hard optional content in the second half.
But yeah the low difficulty threw me off the first time I played it. Now I kind of look at it like a high level DnD campaign. Your party is really strong and it's not for a while that common enemies can keep up with you.
>After a particular story beat the game goes into a second phase where everything is harder and your team gets split up.
do you at least get a bit more exploration / freedom? and does the game get some layer of depth to it? so far all I can think of is relics and they don't seem to do that much.
Now I could be remembering wrong, I've been playing through like every other FF game since I last played 6, but I want to say the second half is all about exploring and finding your team. There's also something with the Espers that changes I think later on. They allow you to start building characters a bit more specifically.
ok that's good to hear, thanks. I was starting to think I should've picked FFV instead.
FFV is more focused on the gameplay so you may like that one more. It has a story, but it's not really a focus. The game is more centered around the job system and constant boss battles testing your party composition. That's the one I'm playing now. Not too far into it, but if you're not enjoying 6's story/rollercoaster ride you might put it down for now and give V a shot.
>do you at least get a bit more exploration / freedom?
Yes, there is a lot of freedom in the second half. You can do a lot of things in a different order and there is so much freedom most of the second half is in fact "optional" as you can go to the final dungeon early on if you want to.
Relics and espers male things a little deeper. The game is no more shallow than CT or Mario rpg tho.
OK. too bad so far I have no espers. the relics so far are also a mixed bag. one makes you run, which should've been default speed really. Then Banon gave me a relic saying it's very strong, but it just makes you hold a weapon with 2 hands and it hardly feels worth losing a shield.
>Then Banon gave me a relic saying it's very strong, but it just makes you hold a weapon with 2 hands and it hardly feels worth losing a shield.
That would be the Gauntlet, and yes it kinda sucks. It seems you're playing the game blind, so I don't expect you to have known to do this, but what you want to do in that sequence is say no to Banon three times, at which point the subsequent scene will change slightly, and you'll get a Genji Glove instead, which allows you to hold your choice of two weapons, which is much better (though only Locke really benefits from it at this point). Yes, you still lose the shield, but you effectively double your damage, whereas the Gauntlet only increases it by 75%, and doesn't scale anywhere near as well later in the game.
Also evasion is bugged anyway so shields are borderline useless.
Incorrect. Shields still give you plenty of defense, and not having one on can hurt in the early game, especially if your character is in the front row, which you kinda have to be if you're using physicals unless they're ranged.
I wouldn't fret too much. Again, only Locke truly benefits from it, and even without it there's ways for him to do alright damage. You'll get at least two more from chests, one of which will be in the first half, but you gotta be thorough with your treasure hunting or you'll miss it. You can also steal it from a powerful enemy late into the first half, and from a certain boss in the second half.
>espers make things a little deeper
by letting everyone run haste + ultima without any drawbacks?
>the game is no more shallow than CT or Mario rpg
i disagree
chrono trigger has a larger focus on team composition and mario rpg has timed hits, the only thing VI has going for it is the story, which is not all that great and is mostly remembered thanks to the butchered woolsey translation anyway
Final Fantasy VI basically lets you play the game however you want. There's like a dozen different game breaking strategies and anyone with a decent degree of RPG experience will discover a few of those on their own.
Another note about stats and leveling in this game that I did not realize until DECADES after release - the only base stats that increase on level up is HP and MP. To increase your other states, characters have to be holding an esper which increases those stats on level up. You can do just fine without really paying attention to this though...
>To increase your other states, characters have to be holding an esper which increases those stats on level up.
Doesnt' Relm run the risk of overflow and looping right back around to tiny damage calculations since the game never figured her status as "best mage" would be boosted even further with Espers?
>combat has no tactics and largely boils down to spamming autocrossbow / fire on all, with blitz being stupidly strong
Yeah for some bizarre reason FF6 just decided "let's give every character some big defense ignoring attack that doesn't cost MP also they start with this" for like 90% of the cast. The game is beloved for everything but the combat.
>Yeah for some bizarre reason FF6 just decided "let's give every character some big defense ignoring attack that doesn't cost MP also they start with this" for like 90% of the cast.
It's fitting, given your entire party is made up of individuals who fight against empire soldiers and win. If they were just average people who struggled to defeat a soldier one on one, then the resistance would be stomped out in a single battle. It also fits that your party is super-powerful, given they are the ones who survive every dangerous area, and defeat legendary monsters that terrorize everyone else.
It also makes the difficulty jump on entering the World of Ruin fit in lore-wise as well. The World of Balance was dangerous to the average person, the World of Ruin is so dangerous even the powerful people on your team struggle to survive.
The only defense-ignoring attacks you get early in the game are Sabin's Pummel and Suplex, and they are both usually inferior to Aura Bolt due to the latter's high magic power and Suplex inexplicably doing half damage when there's two or more enemies on screen (also, it doesn't work on most bosses). Cyan has Dispatch, but it's really not that great. The first actually good defense-ignoring attacks you get are Edgar's Drill and Chainsaw, which do become his go-to attacks pretty much all the way up until the WoR.
it's not the most difficult game but there is quite a bit of extra content, sidequests, hidden stuff etc. Especially in the 2nd half of the game you pretty much get to explore the whole map without freely without much handholding. I suggest hanging in there.
But yeah, if you gameplay depth and customizability are more important to you than narrative go with FF5 instead as some anon above suggested.
>it's not the most difficult game but there is quite a bit of extra content, sidequests, hidden stuff etc.
ok then I definitely will keep playing. I wanted something exactly like this. it certainly starts like the opposite of that though, extremely linear.
Yeah the second half of the game has a massive tonal and gameplay shift. It was a legit shock at the time.
Yeah, the first part of the game is pretty braindead as far as combat tactics are concerned. Almost every character has a go-to spammable attack that you want to use over and over, and there's little stopping you from doing so. It does get a bit better once you start getting Magic, but not by much.
Same with equipment: with few exceptions, you just get whatever gets your numbers up higher, and that's that. Later on, you get more interesting Relics and equipment options that actually let you customize your characters to a somewhat appreciable degree, but nothing like what you see in FF5 or even FF7, and even then there are some setups that are unequivocally the best because they outright break the game (see: 128 MBlock setups).
As for exploration, there is some once you get the airship, though you won't find a whole lot to do. But once you get to the game's second half, it becomes VERY open-ended, and you can do just about everything there is to do in whatever order you want to do it in (though there's a couple spots you may want to leave for last).
Now, if you want to make the game more interesting, you can look into curbing your levels. It'll force you to look into tactics and equipment options a bit more. Eventually you'll get a Relic that'll allow you to avoid all random battles altogether, which is nice as well, but it's up to you if you want to go that route.
Now, if you REALLY want a version of the game that actually forces you to figure shit out and use tactics beyond spamming your best attacks to defeat enemies and bosses, my recommendation would be T-Edition, but only after you beat the regular game, and that's only if you end up liking it enough to replay it again.
ok, thanks, that's a nice writeup.
>say no to Banon three times, at which point the subsequent scene will change slightly, and you'll get a Genji Glove instead
FRICK
I hope I get another one later …right?…
You'll get some more here and there in the second half.
>Remembering when Nintendo Power had a player challenge to collect as many Genji Gloves as possible in one playthrough.
>spamming autocrossbow
> not spamming Noiseblaster
ngmi
Look, being more powerful than some of the monsters you encounter is normal and even "part" of the story. Your partly members should be a little OP compared to some scrub monster, right. It's supposed to give you confidence that you can reach your goal. But let me assure you, you will eventually encounter some kind of boss that will absolutely b***hSLAP you.
OP I hate to break it to you but you sound like me when I played this game recently. It does not play like a regular RPG and you don't get to go exploring and grinding. It feels like an on-rails game with a lot of cut scenes.
If you prefer the traditional freedom of exploration and figuring things out on your own, you will really like the second half of the game when it opens up and ramps up the difficulty. My only complaint in the second half is that you need to balance your characters and not just use the same 4 members. The final dungeon has them splitting into groups so try not to frick yourself.
The intro scene for this game is probably the best on the SNES and had me hyped to the moon. Overall I was dissappointed and wouldn't play it again.
I hate the fricking opera scene, worst part of the game. I also hate how the storyline for the Espars doesn't really go anywhere.
>My only complaint in the second half is that you need to balance your characters and not just use the same 4 members. The final dungeon has them splitting into groups so try not to frick yourself.
Lies. You are split into three teams of 4, but this means each team can have one of your super-leveled 4, and one team will get two. Now lets look at the characters available.
Edgar has Drill and Flash, allowing him to solo just about anything as long as he has three warm bodies capable of throwing Phoenix Downs and potions. Even if he wasn't one of your 4, you could put him on a team with Umaro, Gau without any rages, and anyone else and still easily tackle any of the three routes.
Terra, Celes, and Locke can all equip both the Atma Weapon and Illumina with a Genji glove, meaning any one of them can be expected to reliably do 9999+ damage in a single turn, or more if someone casts Quick on them. Even if none of them were one of your 4, whichever one you pick to carry the swords can solo a route and carry three others.
Give Mog his Moogle Charm, and his team will only have to deal with bosses. Throw Gogo on his team and give him Tools, and bosses should be a walk in the park. This works just fine even if Mog and Gogo weren't one of your 4.
That's three teams with no problems beating the Tower, and none involve having been part of your main party up to this point. If none of them were your chosen 4, then distribute them among these three teams, and you'll smash through Kefka's with ease.
>t. played through 95% of the game with Edgar, Setzer, Cyan, and Shadow and was caught with pants down by Kefka's but still had no problems beating it
What this anon said, and those aren't even the actually broken setups. Kefka's Tower really isn't very hard once you've gotten all the good shit from all the sidequests. You'd have to be tackling it with basic b***h store-bought equipment to have a tough time there. When you properly kit out your characters, nothing can stop you even at low levels. Terra alone can solo the entire final battle all by herself at comically low levels if you know what you're doing.
Come to think of it, that would make an interesting challenge. Much of what makes it possible to trivialize FF6 comes down to the absolutely broken late-game equipment combos. Perhaps a run where you're not allowed to get or use anything that you don't get from mandatory boss fights outside of store-bought items and gear. Or if you really wanna go crazy, no store-bought shit either, and no stealing. That would be wild. Couple it with Natural Magic, and it might be pretty insane.
Oh, and I should mention, I almost soft-locked myself twice by maining those four.
First time was shortly after arrival in the World of Ruin, in the first battle against Punababa or whatever his name was. Celes and Sabin were not really strong enough to take him out. I ended up having to buy some Superballs to deal enough damage fast enough.
The second time was in the basement of Figaro Castle against the tentacles. Celes and Sabin were still pretty weak, and Edgar was the only one doing decent damage. I finally managed to barely win after 40 or more attempts.
The lesson I learned in my first playthrough is to give Celes and Sabin some extra attention in the World of Balance to make the beginning of the World of Ruin a bit less hellish.
>I also hate how the storyline for the Espars doesn't really go anywhere.
They literally all died or were turned into magicite, where would it go from there? They are extinct, that's usually the end of any species's story.
As a side note this reminds me of when I first emulated the game in zsnes some 23-25 years ago and just like OP it was my third or fourth JRPG (after Pokémon, FF8 and FF4 in my case, in that order)
It's nice to see the legacy of this game continuing, relatively untouched (shitty ports and remasters non-withstanding, actually who am I kidding, OP is probably playing the mobile or PR versions)
I wasn't super into the game at first either, but now it's one of my favorites. But yeah the game starts off slow and is a bit easy, with a lack of meaty gameplay like FFV. But once you start approaching the end of the first half, it starts to really open up with items and builds and stuff. Then the 2nd half is basically open world for the most part and you'll come across many different things that will ko your ass. Save often.
Never thought of it before, but it is kinda strange how FF6 is a schizophrenic RPG. WoB is a regimented, story-directed RPG similar to Earthbound, WoR is an open world RPG with places to find and challenges to beat similar to DQ3.
At the same time, it also fits the plot with how the WoB gets changed into the WoR, in having the game design change along with the rest of the world.
There isn't really anything schizophrenic about it, what FF6 does in its structure isn't any different than most JRPG and that type of structure has been set since Dragon Quest 2 and 3: at first progression is gated but later on the player gains freedom of exploration and can go to several places at onces, usually when the player finds a mean of transportation like the boat in DQ2 and 3.
In FF6 it may look like they got a step beyond but it's only due to two factors, the sheer volume of places to visit in WoR, and two the fact that the difficulty bar is set really low. By that I mean that most places you go to you should be able to survive and clear them in any order, even though some places clearly have higher difficulty than others and are "meant" to be cleared later on, the difficulty is so low overall they can be cleared anyway even on a first play. The only real exception is the tower of the magi or whatever it was called; and even then the character you can unlock out of it is at the entrance, not at the top....
>what FF6 does in its structure isn't any different than most JRPG
Stopped right there. If you can't get this much right I see no reason to read the rest.
The World of Ruin is what makes FF6 good, it's the best part of the game and elevates FF6 beyond other games in the series
100% agreed.
yup
I meant unlike FFV woops