Final Fantasy III

aka: FF6, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VI Advance, Zui Zhong Huanxiang 6
Moby ID: 5202
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Description official descriptions

A thousand years ago, the War of the Magi occurred. People remember it as one of the most horrible tragedies in history. Since the War of the Magi, magic has been all but forgotten, technology began to grow, and people returned to seemingly normal lives. The only true worry people have is the Empire, whose leaders are looking to revive the great force once known as "magic".

The Empire had heard word of the remains of a mystical being, known as "Esper", being found in the mining town of Narshe. Quickly, three soldiers were dispatched to find this Esper and bring it to the Emperor. One of the soldiers, a young girl, triggers a power in the Esper that initiates a dangerous series of events. The only ones who can help her are a rag-tag band of rebels and heroes, who offer their very hearts and souls to save the world from the mad plans of the Empire.

The sixth entry in the Final Fantasy series was dubbed Final Fantasy III in the West because three out of the five previous installments of the series had not been released there at the time. Similar to its predecessors, this is a role-playing game where the player controls a party of characters, traveling between various locales in the world, fighting randomly appearing regular enemies and bosses, and making the characters stronger by improving their skills and getting better equipment for them. The game maintains the ATB (active time battle) system of the two previous installments in the series, spicing traditional turn-based combat engine with a real-time element.

In battle, every character can fight using weaponry and items, and each has a special combat skill as well. It is also possible for nearly every character to learn magic spells. By finding various Espers and equipping them on characters, the player can improve their parameters in different ways and choose the magic spells the characters should learn.

Unlike most other Japanese RPGs, the game does not have a single main character. Rather, the player-controlled party can be considered the game's collective protagonist. The first part of the game develops linearly, with one of the characters playing a central role; however, during the second part, the player is associated with a different character initially, exploring the game world, recruiting characters, and completing sub-quests in a non-linear fashion.

PlayStation re-release of the game includes new FMV cutscenes, bestiary, and artwork galleries. Game Boy Advance version and later Android, iOS, and PC releases remove FMVs but instead include two new bonus dungeons (the Dragons' Den and the Soul Shrine), new bosses, espers, weapons, and gear, as well as many other minor additions and changes.

Spellings

  • ファイナルファンタジーVI - Japanese spelling
  • 最终幻想6 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (SNES version)

64 People (48 developers, 16 thanks) · View all

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Field Planner
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 89% (based on 70 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 412 ratings with 8 reviews)

Personally my favourite RPG of all time

The Good
- excellent soundtrack by the one and only Nobuo Uematsu. The music adds plenty of atmosphere and emotion to the game. Terra's theme is truly inspirational (heard in the intro and on the world map of the world of balance and some other places throughout the game). - brilliant plot with many twist (one brilliant twist in particular, but can't give spoilers so you will just have to find out for yourself). - characters all have unique abilities. All of them have personality helping the player to become more engaged into the story. There are characters you can care for like Terra and characters you hate such as the epic villain, Kefka. - Many, many side-quests to uncover character backgrounds and extra items, etc to go with the 20 - 70 hours of fun you can get playing through the game depending on the amount of secrets, level building, etc you can be bothered with - a generally all round classic RPG with great story, great characters, great music, and has to go down as one of the best games of all time.

The Bad
However the game isn't faultless: - too many random encounters - the story pretty much fades away after the world of balance (near the end of the game anyway though, which is pretty much all side-quests, so not that bad) - leveling up system automatically levels up characters not in your party, and your characters gain more attributes when they have espers equipped making those levels gained without espers equipped semi-useless. - maybe too many characters (i think about 14 or so including secret characters). Some of the characters you get too late on and don't develop much, e.g mog.

The Bottom Line
Snes version is better that playstation. The playstation one has extras such as fmv's but there are annoying loading times. A MUST play for all Japanese RPG and final fantasy fans. However some people find it hard to play 2-d RPGs in this day and age of 3-d brilliant graphics but they will only miss out on one of the best games in existence, some people even believe that all the newer final fantasy's have threw away all the good plots in exchange for graphics (except maybe FF7, of course). If you are like that then you should try Final Fantasy 7 - also a classic for playstation.

SNES · by Alan Yeung (3) · 2004

A sometimes-cutesy, sometimes-macabre follow-up to Final Fantasy II

The Good
Final Fantasy III was a nice little game back in its day. The visuals were fancied-up from its predecessor (Final Fantasy II for North American gamers), the music was infused with some techno beats, and the storyline is just completely nutsoid in comparison to the elegant and compelling plot line that followed Cecil, Kain, and Golbez.

As close as I can figure, the ultimate baddie of this game, Kefka, is a hideous, unfunny clown with a penchant for wild and imaginative behavior, none of which makes a whit of sense to me.

FF3 does, however, sport a wealth of tertiary characters that join sides with our amnesiac green-haired protagonist, Terra.

For example, Celes is an ice queen with tremendous magical prowess and a woeful history of being used by 'The Empire', Kefka's organization. Cyan is a compelling dark-haired lord whose family has been slain, but who is not acting out of vengeance, but altruism. And Shadow is a ninja with a companion wolfhound and a black sense of humor. Some of the other characters are a little half-baked, a few are very wild, and in sum total there's much more variety in combat than in Final Fantasy II -- though I still prefer the latter for its elegant simplicity.

The score of FF3 is perhaps its strongest feature, and was composed by the inimitable Nobuo Uemetsu, whose work arguably declined in quality after this title. The key events in the story are all accompanied by a compelling musical piece, while battles and overworld travel are invigorated with one of many lively tunes.

My personal favorite is a rollicking jungle beat, which plays as your party travels across the Veldt, a savannah region populated by a variety of tame-able beasts. I can still remember just letting the game run, not doing anything, to listen to the track for a few minutes -- it's just that good.

The Bad
There's no flaw at all in Final Fantasy III, except that it's not as well thought-out as Final Fantasy II. It's still a great game, but the overall plot concept does not leave the player in a sublime state of satisfaction as its predecessor does. Simply put, Kefka is no Golbez. Also, needs more Crystals.

But... perhaps not. FF2 is FF2, and FF3 is FF3. It's just that the first features a far more sensible, interesting plot, while the second strays into some pretty zany territory. For example: a ghost train, an end-of-the-world cataclysm, mech suits, human experimentation and mind-control... and a few dinosaurs thrown in for good measure. It's an eclectic mix to be generous, and haphazard to be critical.

The Bottom Line
Hands down, Final Fantasy III is the finest RPG from the mid-90s, superior to anything else on the Super Nintendo, the PC, or the Genesis -- from the 1994-1997 period. 1993 gave us Betrayal at Krondor on the PC, a vastly deeper, richer game, and 1998 saw the release of one of my personal favorites, Baldur's Gate. FF3 did a great job of holding me over between these stellar releases for the PC.

So -- play it on an emulator today? Mmmm if you have a strong nostalgic hankering for one of the four finest RPGs on the SNES. I'll stick with Team Fortress 2 for now, personally.

And yes, the other three are FF2, Secret of Mana, and Chrono Trigger.

SNES · by Chris Wright (85) · 2010

An ever-so-slightly flawed update

The Good
Continuing their trend of remaking past hits for the current generations of handheld consoles, Square Enix have now moved onto the sixth of the increasingly inaccurately named Final Fantasy series, seeing fit to release it on the Game Boy Advance. Indeed, this is one of the last big releases for Nintendo's somewhat neglected handheld.

Final Fantasy VI - But On The Game Boy Advance (or as Square Enix have dubbed it, Final Fantasy VI Advance) is a significant rerelease of the classic Super Nintendo RPG, originally released in 1994, but how significant this is depends on whereabouts in the world you buy your videogames from. Yes, it's the old chestnut of regions, one which Nintendo themselves pioneered back in the murky world of the mid-80's.

Let's take a tangent from reviewing the game itself to explore quite why, as a PAL gamer, this version of the game has me writhing about on the floor in giddy joy.

While North American gamers were somewhat neglected by SquareSoft until the mid-90's, here in Europe we didn't see so much as a whiff of a Final Fantasy game until Square and Sony decided it would be a good idea to have a crack at the PAL market, releasing Final Fantasy VII to acclaim and large sacks of money in 1997. This meant that while North American gamers at least saw three games in the series, here in the UK we didn't so much see even one of the spin-offs, such as Mystic Quest.

To make matters worse, one couldn't simply buy a cartridge from an NTSC region and expect the game to work. Thanks to Nintendo's ingenious combination of hardware region detections and physically different cartridges, getting an import copy to work became an interesting process of either modifying a PAL console or buying an NTSC one and convincing it to work with our power supply and televisions. (While most TVs these days understand PAL, SECAM, and NTSC, these were rarer beasts as little as 10 years ago.)

Final Fantasy VI finally saw a release in Europe on the PlayStation in 2002, and sold like reasonably warm cakes - not at all hindered by the fact that Square bundled a PS2 demo of Final Fantasy X with it. This was a frankly ghastly port - a few additional FMVs, a bestiary, and slightly prettier menus were grossly offset by load times long enough to make you slip gradually into a coma, where at least you wouldn't care that your save games hadn't been mysteriously corrupted.

But I'm going off-message here. This is not a rant about the PlayStation port, but a celebration of the GBA version. Pleasantly, I can do just that and only be slightly bitter.

The entire SNES original is here, presented with the original graphics and a reasonable approximation of the sound. Due to the nature of the GBA sound hardware, the music sounds different; but that's a necessary trade-off, and the music still sounds remarkably close to the original. I could sing the praises of the game's soundtrack for the rest of this review, but I'll leave it with the simple statement that it's still one of the best of any game, ever. Other sounds are fine, and Kefka's trademark laugh is reproduced exactly. Once the game has been completed once, a music player becomes available should you wish to replay any of the game tracks. Well, it's cheaper than hunting down the OST.

The design is preserved from the original, an epic tale of swords and sorcery mixed with steampunk technology and Victorian aesthetics. Remarkably, it all works. The mix of fantasy and near-present day themes has been repeated elsewhere, but FF6 sticks out as one of the pioneers and it's impressive to see how well it appears even today. The graphics are beautiful and still look good compared to other GBA titles.

The story is essentially unchanged, save for the translation - more on that later. Again, it feels remarkably mature, and the sheer wealth of characters available makes the game seem so much deeper than later titles in the series. There's arguably no one central character, and in addition, the game should be praised for its strong female characters and refusal to pander to simple stereotypes. The sheer number of characters to choose from, including those optional two, should ensure you can replay the game with significantly different parties, especially in the latter half of the game.

To bring this into enhanced remake territory, Square Enix have added the ability to explore the world after you've beaten the final boss, including a brand new dungeon in the form of the Dragon's Den. Harder than the original, this includes some treasures which didn't exist in the original and so are must-haves for the completists. In addition, new Espers (Summon monsters, with extras) have been implemented.

I could stop here. A portable port of my favourite Final Fantasy game. What's not to love?

The Bad
Sadly, there are a few flaws in the plan. This is not a perfect port, if it could even be called a port at all. Most glaring is the slowdown evident during the more intensive magic attacks; this wasn't present on the SNES version, and despite the arguably limited hardware of the GBA, there must be ways of making simple sprite manipulation smoother than this. While it doesn't affect the gameplay, it's simply jarring.

Secondly, the game remains entirely too easy compared to other RPGs. While perhaps challenging for a newcomer to the genre, to anyone well-versed in Japanese RPGs, the game won't pose any particular challenges. Even the removal of some of the more exploitable bugs (the infamous Vanish trick, for instance) does little to increase the difficulty. But then, it does remove some of the pressing need to power-level your way through the game.

The music, while excellent, isn't the original, and some tracks just feel (hnng...) wrong in subtle ways. This is getting into nit-picking territory, and really shouldn't bother me. It never prevents the game from being anything other than enjoyable.

The cardinal sin, however, will only really touch upon those who hold the original so close to their heart. The original English translation was by none other than the legendary Ted Woolsey himself - a man responsible for Final Fantasy IV's "spoony bard" quip, among others. While he has been much maligned for some of his translations, I always found the SNES English translation to be charming in its way, not least because of the characterisation of everybody's favourite insane clown Kefka. Many lines have been re-written, and some of Kefka's best comments have vanished. Alas.

The Bottom Line
Despite those points I simply can't bring it upon myself to feel bad about Final Fantasy VI - But On The Game Boy Advance (That's Final Fantasy VI Advance - Ed). It's still an exceptionally good game, now portable. It's the same FF6 I fell in love with when I played a ROM through a SNES emulator during my GCSEs - well, sort of - and for that I can't be harsh upon it. A worthy update to the classic, and well worth hunting down while you still can.

Game Boy Advance · by Vulpine (247) · 2009

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Named wrong? te_lanus (523) Oct 7, 2018
M A G I C Simoneer (29) Oct 1, 2010
Holy crap. (another game music post) J. P. Gray (115) Jun 22, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Final Fantasy VI appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Characters

The names of some of the player-controlled characters were changed from their original Japanese counterparts: * Tina (ティナ) Branford became Terra Mash (マッシュ) Rene Figaro became Sabin Cayenne (カイエン) Garamonde became Cyan**

Development

Development of the game was rushed and several superbosses are included in the game's code but were not actually used. There are also several glitches in the game, possibly a result of the rushed development.

Extras

The European PlayStation release also contains the Final Fantasy X demo disc.

Manual

The game manual in the PlayStation version contains a major spoiler, by casually mentioning a major plot twist while listing the bonus content available after completion of the game.

Multiplayer

In the configuration menu of the original SNES release, characters can be set to either Controller 1 or Controller 2, making this in effect a two-player game. However, this control to the second player only works in battle and not on the overhead view maps or levels.

References

  • In the SNES version (it is unknown if this applies to the PSX remake), the two soldiers that escort Terra at the beginning of the game are named Vicks and Wedge. This is a mistranslation, and a reference to Star Wars, where there are two pilots named Biggs and Wedge.
  • Larry, Curly, and Moe are named after the slapstick comedy threesome The Three Stooges.

Sequel

Sometime in the mid-1990s, Square released several models showing off their new 3-D system. Much of what they used were characters and images from Final Fantasy VI, modeled into new 3-D. For this reason many people were expecting a sequel using these same characters or some kind of spin-off game. Much speculation was around Project Reality (the Nintendo 64) which promised to be a console system built around rendering 3-D graphics. In the end, nothing developed from these rumors about Final Fantasy VI and Square's following game in the series, Final Fantasy VII became the first to use 3-D modeling techniques.

Setzer

One of the main characters in this game is an avid gambler named "Setzer" (he even has a casino build on his airship). Supposedly, this was meant to be the German equivalent of "one who places a bet" or "placer". While it technically means this in German, it is never used that way; "Setzer" is rather used for "typesetter" (well, not that typesetters are common nowadays anyway). Yet another example of Japanese usage of German "names".

Soundtrack

The entire 25-minute opera sequence is available on CD as played by a full orchestra with singers. It's on the album Orchestral Game Concert #4, (translated, CD is Japanese) which is, itself, hard to find.

There have been multiple albums released with the game's soundtrack, all of them in 1994: a three-CD set with the original music, two CDs with orchestral and piano arrangements of certain tracks, and a CD with unused or remixed tracks. More details are to be found at Wikipedia.

Translation

It is a popular rumor that the lead translator for the English version, Ted Woolsey, apparently lacked professional translating experience. The discrepancies in translations have been attributed to this fact for several years. As with many translations, name changes and dialogue 'corrections' are left entirely up to the staff, but there are many who believe that these erroneous changes are due entirely to the fact that Ted did not have the knowledge to translate the text fully.

Version differences

There were two SNES releases of Final Fantasy III, the later release contains minor hardware revisions, as well as tweaks to the game itself such as the disappearance and renaming of certain items (Hero Ring, etc).

In the original SNES release of the game, Relm's "Sketch" ability is very buggy. Using it consistently against certain enemies can cause all sorts of interesting problems such as graphical distortions, random status effects and/or inability to use party members, a hacked inventory full of items/spells that are not even possible to get, large amounts of various items/spells and sometimes even a wipe of all the game's saved battery data.

Awards

  • Electronic Gaming Monthly
    • October 1994 (Issue 63) - Game of the Month
    • 1995 Buyer's Guide - Best RPG
    • 1995 Buyer's Guide - Best Music (Cartridge Format)
    • 1995 Buyer's Guide - Best RPG (Japanese)
    • November 1997 (Issue 100) - ranked #7 (Readers' Top 10 Games of All Time)
    • November 1997 (Issue 100) - ranked #9 (Best 100 Games of All Time)
  • FLUX
    • Issue #4 - #28 in the "Top 100 Video Games of All-Time" list
  • GameFan
    • 1994 (Vol.3, Iss.1) - Overall RPG Game of the Year
    • 1994 (Vol.3, Iss.1) - Best SNES RPG Game of the Year
    • 1994 (Vol.3, Iss.1) - Best SNES Music
  • Game Informer
    • August 2001 (Issue #100) - #7 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll
  • Game Players
    • January 1995 - Best SNES RPG Game in 1994
  • GameSpy
    • 2007 – #4 Handheld Game of the Year
    • 2007 – GBA Game of the Year
    • 2007 – GBA RPG of the Year
  • VideoGames
    • March 1995 - Best Role-Playing Game of the Year

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Related Sites +

  • FF-Fan
    A fansite that offers all kinds of information on the entire Final Fantasy franchise, including walkthroughs, game media, discussion boards and fan art.
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  • Wikipedia: Final Fantasy VI
    Information about Final Fantasy VI at Wikipedia

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  • MobyGames ID: 5202
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Contribute

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Satoshi Kunsai.

Android added by Fred VT. Windows, PS Vita added by GTramp. Wii U added by Michael Cassidy. iPad, iPhone added by firefang9212. Fire OS added by Sciere. Wii added by Joshua J. Slone. Game Boy Advance added by Unicorn Lynx. PSP, PlayStation 3 added by MAT.

Additional contributors: Roedie, Unicorn Lynx, SAGA_, Alaka, Mobygamesisreanimated, Bregalad, Havoc Crow, DarkDante, Big John WV, DreinIX, —-, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, 64er.

Game added October 22, 2001. Last modified March 4, 2024.