Started playing Final Fantasy VI for the first time

[Alistair]

Specifically the GBA version, since that was the most convenient for me. I just want to know the Forest's opinions and advice on the game (though preferably with minimal spoilers since I'm going in basically unaware of anything). All I really know about it is that it has an entertaining English localization and that there have been long and heated debates over whether this one or FF7 is the best one in the series (for the record, I have not played FF7).

[Punished Dayni]

16 minutes ago, Alistair said:

Specifically the GBA version, since that was the most convenient for me. I just want to know the Forest's opinions and advice on the game (though preferably with minimal spoilers since I'm going in basically unaware of anything). All I really know about it is that it has an entertaining English localization and that there have been long and heated debates over whether this one or FF7 is the best one in the series (for the record, I have not played FF7).

There's not too much to worry about early on, seeing as everyone has a pretty defined skillset and magic is limited to a few. Be careful about running into too much combat with the unit who you pay to recruit (There's more with that guy, but that'd dive into deep spoilers). Remember to check the castle in the sand for items and the shops (Definitely the shops), you won't be able to go back to it for a bit afterwards. Something interesting is that chests change items later on in the game, though this only affects some chests.

[RexBolt]

So doing it without spoilers:

- There's an early party member thar receives a discount in the shops on the desert castle, also theirs special attacks must be bouth at least once there. Figure who it is.

- The one you pay to recruit is a small chance to leave the party after each battle before you enter the "dungeon" be careful.

- Trust werewolfs.

- There's a party member who's special is like a fighting game's, you must input the commands like a combo. You must do it during the scripted boss battle they show up on or you can't defeat the dude. This may seem a little spoilery, but it super unintuitive in the game and i know a lot of people (like myself) who got stuck on it, so watch out, if memory serves it's Left-Right-Left-A.

[Shadow Mir]

Without spoiling anything:

One of your party members has to go to.a special area on the map to learn his skills. On said area, he can use Leap to leave and gain skills from whatever you were fighting when you used it and when he returns. That said, you need Dried Meat from the town nearby to get him (once he shows up after defeating a monster pack, you have to use it on him). This is also good reason to kill everything you come across. Though a certain encounter in an optional area will prove rather troublesome in that regard...

Confused by the fighting game-like inputs a certain character has? Diagonal inputs actually will accept either directional input (ergo, you can use Down, Left, Left or Down, Down, Left for one of his skills).

[Interdimensional Observer]

When a countdown comes and you ponder the fate of the darkness, at salvation's very edge wait, do not go to it, for ebony shall be cast upon you once more. ...Figure out what I poetically mean, which won't come for a long time, and you'll do something rather significant and permanently missable.

 

Another poetic tip: Hope is burden one can bear with two hands together, those who repeatedly despair throw their hands aside and apart. Yet being apart is strength, a strength that is not necessary, nor found alone when contemplating hope (as in it isn't permanently missable, you still can get other copies), but it is in the end stronger than hands together.

 

At a ball? Make as many friends as one can, and answer questions carefully. Your host will bestow party favors at the end depending on your performance, trinkets one and all, but you might as well try to do well.

For another little bauble (and not anything more), in a town where wings has the post, pay for all a man's letters to she he loves the most.

 

Dancing sub-aqua is a tricky thing, if you return not to wherefore you swam before having found the dancer (should you choose them at all at the time you can first acquire them), then whence the water place is gone, then only when, optionally but unmissably (as in it never goes away the chance), meeting the lord of the sea will you ever have a the opportunity once more to learn the steps of seawater. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Alistair said:

All I really know about it is that it has an entertaining English localization

Are you familiar at all with Legends of Localization? If not, I'd recommend when you're done here heading to it. The guy has been gradually comparing translations of FFVI with the original Japanese text, about halfway through he is now. Quite fascinating to me.

https://legendsoflocalization.com/final-fantasy-vi/

[Johann]

Great game, and while I haven't played it with the GBA translation, the original SNES translation is extremely memorable. I wouldn't worry about missing stuff. There are plenty of ways to make the enemies easier if you're struggling. There are a few gameplay choices that can change how some scenes play out, but I think it's a compelling tale regardless of what happens in those little branches.

The current time? Why, it's 6:10 and 50 seconds.

[Shadow Mir]

Fleeing with a blonde female in tow? Try going through that which you might think impassable, and you might find the secret to status immunity (you cannot see the chest with it though). Also, clocks = elixirs.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Shadow Mir

[Reality]

I'm pretty pro FF7 and anti FF6...

Pretty much the first half of the game is all about using attack all "abilities" that don't have MP costs. Then the second half of the game is about spamming magic, since by then your total MP will be so high that you can use it almost non stop.

Both healing spells and attack spells in this game can be toggled between single target and attack all versions (including when using heal spells from the start menu out of combat) which is a huge time save once you notice the applications. 

Physical damage in this game is actually good if you want to take the time to pick up treasure chests for the relics to boost it, but doesn't  benefit from weaknesses as easily as magic... especially as there is a pretty easy to obtain "weakness changer" ability later on that absolutely nothing is immune to, including things that natively have no weaknesses at all.

Certain status conditions have very wonky and useful mechanics - invisible not only last multiple turns, and is carried over into other battles if you finish before it times out, reflect lets you target yourself to attack enemies and will bypass THEIR reflect when done that way (you can kind of pick this up by watching bosses use this tactic against you), and a few others.

The game expects you to revisit certain areas and has a chrono-trigger esque "chest upgrade" system which increases the quality of the items of chests in these areas depending on which part of the story you enter the area in (which are permenentaly missed if you 100% it the first time through). 

Game difficulty is pretty low, so you should just have fun and not worried about missing anything or limiting yourself to the "best" party compositions. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

FF6 is a favourite of mine, I've played it too many times to count. It shows its age in a few ways but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

1 hour ago, RexBolt said:

- Trust werewolfs.

Wait, really? If you're referring to what I think you are, you miss something permanently if you do this, so I don't recommend this at all.

Anyway, the biggest piece of advice I'd give you is that there's a certain earlygame spell which is shockingly OP (spoilers in case you'd rather find out for yourself)

Spoiler

Osmose, the MP drain spell, pretty much ALWAYS gives you back all your missing MP unless you're fighting undead, which pretty much frees you up to spam high-cost magic as much as you'd like.

Also status is really useful in this game. Most of it always hits unless the enemy is immune. If a particular enemy is giving you problems, chances are several status attacks can ruin it entirely, and most bosses have several status holes too if you feel like experimenting.

[RexBolt]

50 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

FF6 is a favourite of mine, I've played it too many times to count. It shows its age in a few ways but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Wait, really? If you're referring to what I think you are, you miss something permanently if you do this, so I don't recommend this at all.

I mean, you have to trust during the first time, at Figaro Castle, is the only way to not miss it. The second time isn't a matter of trusting, more of choosing. And pretty obvious too.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Hmm, I thought the Figaro encounter was unrelated to the events that happened later. Checking a guide I trust seems to back me up, but I'm admittedly not 100% confident.

[Interdimensional Observer]

7 minutes ago, RexBolt said:

I mean, you have to trust during the first time, at Figaro Castle, is the only way to not miss it. The second time isn't a matter of trusting, more of choosing. And pretty obvious too.

I've never done that myself I think, and yet I got the latter choice.

[smgrinus]

FF VI is my favourite out of all of them but VII and IX come very close. Definitely check those out next. SNES era was definitely a golden age for Square Soft before they became Square Enix and started stumbling on interesting characters and storylines.

[Garlyle]

6 hours ago, Alistair said:

Specifically the GBA version, since that was the most convenient for me. I just want to know the Forest's opinions and advice on the game (though preferably with minimal spoilers since I'm going in basically unaware of anything). All I really know about it is that it has an entertaining English localization and that there have been long and heated debates over whether this one or FF7 is the best one in the series (for the record, I have not played FF7).

Both FF6 and FF7 are entertaining game on their own, and while battle system is very similar, with the other gameplay elements it makes them entirely different. FF10 would be great too, but the cutscenes cannot be skipped.

FF6 is long. I think they found the difficulty just right for this game. For a long time it's best to follow the story while doing some exploration, then in the 2nd part of the game, it's going to be all about exploration - which can be challenging, but also a lot of fun. Try to give a spin for every character, they are all unique with their skills, and you might want to use them, even when you have a team which is already built up. Avoid gamefaqs character build guides, they are bad.

Also it has one of the most annoying villains. (helps me want to get rid of him for good)

FF7 is good and has a huge fandom, no wonder they are doing a remake of it. If it could use something, it's better graphics. However if they change the battle system to this action rpg crap, I'll skip and go back to the PC/PSX version(if I'm in the mood).

[Karimlan]

10 hours ago, Johann said:

The current time? Why, it's 6:10 and 50 seconds.

There are oodles of cryptic clues here in this thread, all of them with varying degrees of subtlety, but there's only one you can use in a hive of scum and villainy.

[Jhedin]

Goodness, enjoy yourself.  FF6 is my all-time favorite game, I think, having played it when it came out and no other game at the time being so big and so epic.

It's the bar all other RPGs have measured themselves against since.  It's an icon, a legend.

As others have mentioned, the difficulty overall is fairly low, although it bumps up here and there.

The second half of the game is surprisingly open-world, so be prepared for that - losing the linear structure is a bit of a shock and the game is not super obvious about where you should be going next.

Also, for future reference, you can manipulate character levels a fair bit by grinding Terra a bunch before she meets Locke - at that point in the game, each character you gain will be +1 level from your highest level character.  I usually grind Terra until the levels where she has 136 or 160 HP, and all of your subsequent characters will get those gains for free.  This matters, since xp is divided in a full party (i.e. Terra gets 42 xp for 2 vaporites, but Terra + Locke would get 21 xp).  This technique ends up lowering the difficulty even more since the gains you get will continue to pay forward through the first half of the game.  

But really, just enjoy yourself.  It's an amazing game, with tons and tons of story, and lots of minor character bits that are off the beaten path.  For example, when you get into the second half of the game (you'll know), you can learn more about a certain masked character's background through his dreams by sleeping at every inn with him in your group.

I'm really hoping I get my kids to love older games like FF6 and appreciate them :)

[Shadow Mir]

One of the best weapons is in an area that becomes inaccessible later, so search carefully. The only other way to get said weapon is to steal it during the multi-part last battle.

Second half of the game stuff:

Do NOT go flying around with a party with everyone's levels ending in 5 or 0, or else you might regret it... Anyways, after you run into the aerial menace, it'll run off after a few turns. Any damage it took will remain after such, meaning that if you keep finding it, you'll kill it eventually.

Look out for dragons on the field. They'll hand you your butt if you don't know what you're doing. Especially the wind dragon, which is likely the first such dragon you see.

The last dungeon requires three parties, so training up most of your party is advised. One of the bosses has a Lore that you cannot get from anything else, so think carefully about who you send where...

Cloudy Heaven is bad news. Very. Bad. News.

A certain dungeon in the second half of the game limits you to exclusive use of magic. Beware Level 20 Magics - they have an instant death spell that targets the entire party, meaning you're likely starting a Game Over in the face if you don't have instant death protection.

Edited August 31, 2018 by Shadow Mir