FFVI - Part 80: Light the Way Out

Summary: My final thoughts on Final Fantasy VI.

I hadn't put these up before, because I hadn't written them. This was difficult. It's hard for me to even summarize how deeply this game impacted me.

It ended up being more personal than I intended, and I apologize for rambling.

TW: suicide, depression






Protagonists

Much more comparable to FFIV (especially The After Years) than FFV. Great main characters, but spread out. However, while most characters in FFIV were on the sidelines a lot of the time, the attention was spread very evenly here between most of this ensemble.

I’m hard-pressed to say which characters were my favorite, but Celes and Relm have to be near the top. Probably two of my favorite characters in the series I’d have to say, but definitely my favorite female characters.

(Quick FFIV:TAY plug: it was a bit tedious at times, but some FANTASTIC characters, including Ursula and teen Porom.)

The brotherly relationship between Sabin and Edgar was unique as well. Usually those things are strewn with forced angst, but despite all that wen ton between them, they were never really rivals. Friendly teasing, yes, but not “DAD ALWAYS LIKED YOU BEST I HATE YOU” stuff.

Oh, and one more thing (I could probably talk about these characters for hours). This was the first time in the game where the main character felt like it switched midway through. I know, there wasn’t a main character, but it started off from Terra’s perspective. She was fine, though not the most interesting character to me. And then in the World of Ruin, CELES CELES CELES. Such an interesting change in dynamic.

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Villains

Best villain in the series. Bar none. Kefka is the first villain in the series who didn’t start out super powerful while we tried to get strong enough to beat him. Instead, we started out more powerful, and he grew and grew in power.

The impact of Kefka’s rise to power is hard to understate. I was so sure that Gestahl was gonna be the big bad, with Kefka in the common role of second-in-command. Others in this role: the Dark Knight (FFII), a guy whose name I can’t remember (FFIII), Golbez (FFIV), the Maenads/Mysterious Girl (FFIV: The After Years), and… well, Exdeath was kind of always the Big Bad in FFV.

Hell, Kefka may have even been on track to be the wacky lieutenant, like Gilgamesh! But no. He stood there, this unique blend of murderous sadism and silly humor, to the point where I was never sure whether to laugh at or fear him.

Only negative was how little we saw of him in the World of Ruin. His threat was everywhere, but he himself was pretty absent.

Not that Gestahl was nothing. He was a more typical evil tyrant, but just because he wasn’t too originally designed, doesn’t mean he wasn’t an awful piece of shit. Fuck Gestahl.

And then there’s Ultros. He kept getting goofier and goofier, from the river to the opera to the FRIGGING SKY TO WORKING AS A CLERK LOLOL. Best character arc ever y/y?

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Gameplay

Great combination of base character abilities such as Bushido and Blitz, with customization built into the esper mechanic. I don’t think I enjoyed it quite as much as Final Fantasy V’s jobs, but they’re different enough that one’s not clearly better or worse, the way that FFV was clearly better than FFIII. This was a good mashup of the linear FFIV and the open FFV.

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Music

FFI through FFV had lots of great and memorable music. Whether it’s the FFI “Sunken Shrine,” FFII “Magician’s Tower,” FFIV “Prologue,” FFV “Clash on the Big Bridge”/”The Evil Lord Exdeath,” this series has stuck with me and founds its way onto my brain and my playlists.

And yet… I don’t know that any game has been as consistently memorable as FFVI. I just sat down the other day and listened to the soundtrack straight through, all 3+ hours, and was so often taken back to different moments of the game. And not just taken back, but emotionally moved!

I won’t give a top 10 or whatever, because it just depends on my mood which affects me most at a given time, but some that stick to me as I scan through the playlist:

“Kefka”
“Shadow’s Theme”
“Under Martial Law”/”Kids Run Through the City,” depending on whether the day I walk through the town with this in my head is sunny or bleak
“Magitek Factory”
“TERRA’S THEME”
“SEARCHING FOR FRIENDS!!!” I just put this on as I typed that song out, and got chills immediately.
“DANCING MAD DANCING MAD DANCING MAD” – I loved the Zeromus theme and even moreso “The Evil Lord Exdeath,” but it’s no question in my mind how much more complex and powerful this was for a final boss theme.

Fadjklsfhadjklsadjklsvnadjklsvn SO GOOOOD

Ok. Chill, Coldrun.

Yeah. I liked this music.

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Art

The art itself wasn’t notably better than the already great FFIV/FFV, but I will say I liked the aesthetic. This was the first FF to move into a more fully technological world. Whether it’s the first of many I don’t know, but I already started FFVII and even the first few minutes make it seem I see that it took that theme and ran with it.

A nice change from the more typical high fantasy preceding it.

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Length

Similar length to other games in this series. About 48 hours playtime, and that was with me wandering around a lot.

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Replayability

Probably high. I don’t have the urge to replay it immediately the way I did with FFV, simply because the experience of playing through FFV with different jobs would have felt so fresh, but with the espers and the open nature of the World of Ruin, and the different party combos to try, this has the next most replayability in the series for me.

Plus, it’s story was far stronger than FFV in my opinion, so replaying that will become more appealing with time. 

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Story/Theme

The dynamics of the story itself and the plot were amazing, but I already touched on that a bit in the protagonists and villains section. Kefka’s development, the ensemble cast… And I loved the feint about the Empire versus the Returners! I was certain that the whole game would be about that conflict, but then Kefka took power and blew the Empire AND the Returners away. Like the factions and politics of the first half were elaborate sandcastles before the tidal wave of Kefka wiped the slate clean.

But that’s not what will stick with me.

This was a game that didn’t fuck around. It wasn’t just about a rebellion, or about magic, or battle. To crib Kefka (of all people), it was about the nature of life, dreams, hope. About despair. About loneliness.

I hope you’ll forgive me if I get a bit personal.

I never had many friends. I like the people I work with, and I had a couple of friends in high school and college, but lost touch with them. Even my family I keep in touch with, but I moved away about six years ago halfway across the country to set out on my own. It felt romantic.

But hard. I’m not naturally social. I don’t really have friends, and haven’t put down roots in my new Minnesota home. I work, I read, I game. I don’t connect. It’s not natural to me, and to the extent that it’s a skill I had built, it’s atrophied. It’s not a bad life. I have a home, freedom, a job I enjoy, hobbies… and so few connections to people.

Something is missing in my life. Major. I don’t think I really noticed it until I played FFVI. I mean, I knew I was on my own a lot, but what was so wrong with this flitted just out of view, in the periphery of my vision.

The first half of the game set up a basic story. Rebels and empire, espers, magic and technology. Fine. And then came the breaking of the world. The World of Ruin.

This was a world where humanity was shattered. All their alliances were broken, and the world itself was dying. It didn’t just kill its in habitants; it induced their suicide. They thought they were alone, and as Celes watched her only remaining ties to the world fall, she too sought that path. She jumped.

She was in an awful place. A lonely place, without hope of growth or love or joy. She could have survived. No mention of her worrying about starvation. But she was staring down a life without any kind of meaning attached to it. Just bare subsistence.

The World of Ruin carried this theme through. People all over were giving up despair. They had lost their family, loved ones, friends. Even plant life was dying. Strago joined the Cult of Kefka because he thought he lost Relm. Strago gave up because he lost his wings. Everyone lost meaning.

The story of the World of Ruin is the story of finding hope. And hope through a very specific place: connection. People. Terra finds a new family. Gau finds friends. Edgar finds his people, and Sabin finds Edgar. On and on and on. Setzer finds an airship, but even that is about rediscovering his connection to Daril, and the person he was with her.

Musically, no moment defines this connection better for me than the opening moments of “Searching for Friends.”

The find meaning in community. They find themselves in others. They amplify each other, and become their best selves through these connections. The characters very explicitly state this meaning before the final fight with Kefka, and show these connections implicitly in their escape from the tower after defeating Kefka.

While our protagonists find joy and friendship and connection, Kefka did not. He did not see their value. Hell, I don’t think he COULD see their value. The magitek experiments seem to have removed parts of him that most humans possess. He broke in a fundamental way. He lacked meaning, and the capacity for meaning.

This is really hard to admit, but I see some of myself in Kefka. I see the lives of coworkers, of old friends, of internet friends. I see how they build networks and friends and close relationships, and how easy it can be. (I think if anyone would know this, it's the stalwart Erin Lynn Jeffreys Hodges.) I see it, and I’m terrified that I don’t have those parts.

And yet, there’s hope that maybe I’m really just like early World of Ruin Celes. Maybe part of me can connect with other people, can build friendship still. Can need people and be needed in turn. It wasn’t easy for Celes. It wasn’t natural. But she was able to set sail from that island and build a life. She didn’t do it alone, and her life was all the stronger for that.

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I expected a lot from this game. Cool characters, new mechanics, fun.

I didn’t expect a reflection of honest despair and loneliness. I didn’t expect it to give me a taste of hope, to show me what it looks like to get better.

I don’t want to give into Ruin. I don’t want to become like Kefka. I don’t know exactly how, and am kind of terrified at the whole overwhelming prospect, but for the first time a long time, I believe it’s possible to leave that island.

I have work to do.