I've truly been without words for the last couple of hours. Few and far between are the times that I've considered a gaming moment to be truly legendary. Final Fantasy VI has gifted me that and oh I am so thankful. I will now give myself the titanic task of attempting to convey some of my feelings about this great adventure.

I say feelings because most of the time that is what videogames give me. Whether it's wonder, some flavor of boredom, rage or anything in between; I believe that they all can be cherishable moments that serve as a reflection of what the PIECE OF ART (in this case) is trying to say.

That's also the style of reviews I like to write - kind of. They are more like a reaction rather than an objective summary of what happens in the game etc.

One of the first things I noticed after booting the game for the first time is the amount of polish it has compared to its predecessors - and I mean polish everywhere. There are more and more fluid animations, sprites look beautiful, the bestiary is large and thicc and it even feels like it's the biggest and most varied OST of any FF so far - and oh man, the writing and dialogue.

As I've mentioned before i think, the thing that makes me dislike a game more is weak plot and writing. It's not that a game has to have a serious plot or serious grown up writing about real life things, after all, we are playing videogames. What I look for and what I like the most is when the words are inspiring. When they aren't lazy. I love when I see wit and personality. I like when writers are brave enough to make their characters imperfect and human-like. I love that they all have their quirks. I love how they all exist in a tragic world and have very tragic things happen to them that make them what they are - and it's all told in such a smart and tactful way.

I love how Edgar is always a hopeless romantic and how he's always saying cheesy one liners to women. I love how Sabin is this tunnel visioned knuckle head that lightly mocks Celes when she suggests he might have been hurt after the world ends. I love how one of the characters is a moogle that can communicate with humans. I love the most that these traits aren't their whole personality. It shocks me and it's almost eerie how they managed to create so many playable characters (14!) that feel this developed. I mean, I have seen movies and read novels that have characters that are way more one-dimensional than the FF6 cast. This game might have even given me the first instance where I actually do remember the names of some of the characters i spent almost 50 hours with.

There are so many memorable moments in the game - tragic, wholesome and funny. It honestly surprised me how it just kept going and going. There's a section where you fight the undead and suplex a train. There's another where you find an abandoned kid raised by wolves and you adopt him into your party (a salute to Gau). I did feel sometimes that events were sometimes not connected in the most fluid way. Sometimes it did feel kind of forced and most of the time I felt kind of lost in what the game wanted me to do.

That takes me to the plot. I felt it somewhat similar to FFII in that it's this epic story of the empire vs the resistance. The Gestahlian Empire vs the Returners in this case. Magic is gone from this world because the empire has taken all of it because of some mystical beings that possess it (or create it?) and they were friends with humans, but there was a huge battle eons ago that left their friendship in shambles and eh, you should definitely go play it to understand it better - but it's definitely convoluted and a slow burn at first. You're introduced to characters relatively slowly, but many things happen quickly and when your party eventually starts getting large you get split and you get tasked with scheming schemes and thinking of ways to mess up the empire's plans. It's always a classic underdog story and our main villain is one hateable ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Which is good! Because it really drives the story. There is a fully voiced (sung?) opera, river poisoning, samurai dreams, a mercenary that becomes your friend and a little brush stroke of incelhood - and of course in a very FF style, it ends with you taking out a good amount of gods and celestial beings. A great story in my opinion.

This is all such a silly and wonderful experience that I highly recommend. It celebrates absurdity and storytelling and the beauty that is to understand that we all suffer as humans in very similar ways. The games in the pixel remaster series have all so many quality of life upgrades that the grinding time for many of the games sections can be reduced to your liking, making this a very appealing experience to have nowadays.

Anyway:

5 double casted ultima spells out of 5 🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿 (with an entry to my personal hall of fame)

As some of you may know, this concludes my journey of going through the first 6 Final Fantasy entries. Thank you for the ones that have read my reviews so far. I'll be back for FF7 and beyond!