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»Final Fantasy VI Advance
"The last great GBA game? Probably."
Final Fantasy VI, or III as it was known in America, first hit the
states back in 1994. It was the end of an area of the FF series in two
ways, serving as both the last of the 2D Final Fantasies in the
official number series, as well as the last of the series to appear on
a Nintendo cartridge. Square parted ways with Nintendo a few years
later, and the Final Fantasy series was never the same again. But even
when compared to the other early Final Fantasy games, VI was different.
The cast was larger and more open, the story less linear than any
before, and the artwork and visuals more stunning. Though many may say
it was not the best of the earlier Final Fantasies, it was certainly
one of the better ones.
Nearly a full thirteen years later, Final Fantasy VI has seen a new
re-release, this time to the Game Boy Advance. This is the third
incarnation of the game, the second being a release for the Playstation
in 1999. And though some may say that the 3D rpg is king, this title
still shows that the 2D role-playing game is a force to be reckoned
with. New espers and dungeons have been added, the sound has been
refined, and the translation has been tweaked, changed, and in some
places, entirely rewritten. But do these changes help or hurt one of
the Super Nintendo's biggest games, and one of the titles that helped
Square reach its place as leader of the RPG world?
First, we should discuss the music. Why? Because the music is the first
thing that actively hits the player. All game audio is handled in midi
files, but the quality is nothing short of amazing. The Final Fantasy
series has long been known for its music, but this game truly shines
with excellence. Each musical track is a new experience, sometimes
causing the player to fight frantically, sometimes wrenching the heart
and bringing tears to our eyes. The music is varied, ranging from
industrial to opera, with each character's theme both adding and
defining who they are as people. In all honesty, just listening to
Celes' theme brings tears to my eyes. The revisions to the music have
made it more epic, more enthralling. Often times during play, I find
myself sitting still, just listening to the music of a particular area.
I find I look forward to each new area's music just as much as the area
itself or the continuation of the storyline. The track that seems the
most changed, however, would definitely be the Opera. Square added
voices, or at least as close to a voice as a midi file can produce.
Bottom line: there's a reason why this game has had multiple soundtrack
releases, including several orchestral and piano scores.
Does that necessarily mean it's all completely perfect? No, the only
problem I have found with the sound would be the normal battle music.
While it sticks to its guns as an upbeat, almost-metal sounding track,
it seems to falter at several points. There are a few notes that seem
to lag to long, and when I was first fighting random encounters, I
actually though the game was lagging. Nope, just the sound, but
unfortunately it's the most common music in the game. Eventually you do
get used to it, but it bothered me for the first few hours of gameplay.
Graphically, the game excels above and beyond that of other 2
dimensional role playing games. Yoshitaka Amano, well known and
respected artist, designed concept art for all the imagery. His art was
then changed into sprites for the game, and his influence is very
heavily felt. Every character portrait, monster, and summoned esper is
proof of his artistic capability. Of course, some changes were made,
such as hair colors or costume designs, but Final Fantasy VI virtually
stayed his work, and FFVI Advance kept true to this style. In fact, the
graphics are much improved by the small screen size, as pixilation is
greatly reduced. To add to it, Amano's character portraits are now used
in the dialogue boxes to show who's speaking, as opposed to the old
days, when a character's name would simply appear before a sentence.
The world map also retains its faux 3D feel. While it's fortunate that
the re-release has stayed true to the original, this feature is
unfortunately where the game shows its age. Water on the world map
flows, but looks more like blue squares moving than it does water. And
when the player flies about in the airship, the ground looks bland and
boring in contrast. It's a shame this couldn't have been improved upon,
but then again, a major change may have caused further problems. Still,
it would have been nice to see something more than poor water design.
Also, results vary from scene to scene. The beginning, where three cast
members are making their way to Narshe in magitek armor, is quite
gorgeous. Much later, however, there's a tram ride through the magitek
facility that's nothing short of hideous.
Battles have their own issues. Visually, spells and attacks still look
incredible. Again, the small screen size benefits these in many ways.
However, there is a rare issue with slowdown occurring during a fight,
mostly during attacks that are very visual intensive. This isn't always
the case, however, as sometimes a simple attack will cause momentary
slowdown, or a very extensive attack will cause slow down a few dozen
times, then not at all for dozens more battles. It's a strange problem,
noticeable when it happens, and several times I've been worried about
it. Factor in the problem with the battle music, and it becomes a bit
of a bother.
And then there's the story. Love, betrayal, suicide, teenage pregnancy,
abandonment, murder, this storyline has it all, and always has. Every
character received equal treatment for storyline segments in the past,
and they all still get their time to shine. And the new translation
changes add even more depth to an already incredibly complex cast of
characters. Edgar is more flirtatious, Celes more militaristic, and
Cyan more honorable and much less hoaky sounding. On the Super
Nintendo, they talked like game characters. Now, they act like people.
This translation is also much closer to the original Japanese, though
some changes have stayed, such as Terra's name being Terra instead of
Tina. Many spell and monster names that were changed in the past are
now back to what they meant to be, and the spells have changed from the
2D system of "Fire 1", "Fire 2", "Fire 3", to "Fire", "Fira", "Firaga."
Adding to the mix are four new espers, a quicksave feature to save on
the fly, new dungeons, a bestiary system, and an unlockable music
player make this game well worth sinking the 20+ hours into it. Why do
I say only 20? Because over half the game is sidequests, there to
enrich the experience, but not hinder the player. Also, many of the
game's menus have been redesigned, and one of the game's little-known
features has been removed. On the cartridge version, there was an
option for 2-player battles, so that random encounters became
multiplayer. From what I can tell, this is no longer the case. Still,
there's plenty to come back to. I made a point to play through the SNES
version at least once a year, maxing out the clock each time as I
leveled every character, made them learn every spell, and did
everything in the game. There's a lot to do here, more now than before,
and this title will definitely keep fans coming back for more.
Article by: Ack
Posted on: Feb. 13th, 2007 |
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Review Recap |
| Gameplay |
| Still stunning after all these years, the game is wonderful, the storyline rich, and the additions make this game more enthralling than it ever has been. |
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Graphics |
| Stunningly beautiful from the 2D perspective, the faux 3D ranges from excellent to bad. Also, minor graphical slowdown occurs in the battles from time to time, not enough to be a problem, but enough to notice.
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Sound |
| Compelling, amazing, nothing short of excellence, the only problem being the normal battle music. Even then, it's not a real problem, but it gives the impression of one. |
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Replay Value |
| New dungeons, summons, storyline quirks, a bestiary to fill out...there was a ton of things to do before all the new additions, but now there's even more. With this much in the game, players should keep coming back, even if it's only to listen to the music player once they've beaten the game. |
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Comments |
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February 15, 2007 |
Symphony1125 |
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Final Fantasy VI has always been my favorite RPG of all time (second to Chrono Trigger). Hell this was the RPG that got me sold on RPG's in the first place. It's emotionally grasping storyline, forever memorable characters, superb soundtrack, and many hours of enjoyable gameplay. The only negative thing that I can say about this port to the GBA is the censorship... Why would they do that, its one of the aspects that made the game so captivating. It's actually dissapointing to see that they've censored some things... most notably the treatment that Celes is given while being held by guards. In the original she was beaten as you played the role of Locke desperately trying to rescue her. I give huge kudos to Square for bringing this back... after all I do bitch about bringing back the classics... but please next time, keep the story in tact. Sure it was cool that they retranslated the game to give better understanding to it, and they added in a lot of new stuff, but please don't alter key scenes. I just hope that they kept the opera scene exactly the same... That was awesome!
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February 19, 2007 |
Ack |
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True, they did censor the scene, but they apparently altered it in the Japanese version as well. Most of the censorship that occurs in the American version were first done on the SNES cart. The Celes scene is apparently the only really new censorship.
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July 2, 2007 |
Chibibo |
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FYI, there's no such thing as MIDI files on the SNES.
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