Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 100: Final Fantasy VI

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We have reached 100 topics in this series! Todays game is Final Fantasy VI. How would you rate the story on a scale from 1-10?

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Previous Results:
Planescape: Torment - 9.83 (12 votes)
Omori - 9.67 (6 votes)
Outer Wilds - 9.6 (21 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 9.18 (34 votes)
The House in Fata Morgana - 9.14 (7 votes)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - 9.1 (14 votes)
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 9 (8 votes)
Steins;Gate - 8.94 (9 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - 8.91 (30 votes)
Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward - 8.89 (19 votes)
Grim Fandango - 8.88 (13 votes)
Return of the Obra Dinn - 8.85 (10 votes)
Silent Hill 4: The Room - 8.83 (6 votes)
Umineko When They Cry - 8.82 (11 votes)
Persona 3 - 8.82 (20 votes)
Xenogears - 8.71 (23 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.67 (31 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.67 (27 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics - 8.65 (23 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask - 8.56 (27 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.56 (16 votes)
Undertale - 8.45 (42 votes)
Chrono Trigger - 8.41 (39 votes)
What Remains of Edith Finch - 8.41 (19 votes)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - 8.4 (5 votes)
Mass Effect 2 - 8.38 (28 votes)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 8.37 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.35 (55 votes)
Final Fantasy VII - 8.28 (37 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 8.17 (18 votes)
The Walking Dead Season 1 - 8.17 (21 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.15 (40 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.13 (35 votes)
Horizon: Zero Dawn - 8.06 (18 votes)
The Wolf Among Us - 8.04 (14 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles - 7.94 (27 votes)
Spec Ops: The Line - 7.9 (17 votes)
Bloodborne - 7.88 (20 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.85 (31 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.81 (25 votes)
Bioshock - 7.64 (23 votes)
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - 7.7 (30 votes)
The Sexy Brutale - 7.7 (5 votes)
Celeste - 7.62 (25 votes)
Skies of Arcadia - 7.62 (13 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.47 (29 votes)
The Last Story - 7.47 (6 votes)
Mortal Kombat (2011) - 7.46 (13 votes)
Tales of Symphonia - 7.36 (27 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.35 (28 votes)
Earthbound - 7.33 (19 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.26 (29 votes)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - 7.25 (12 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.24 (28 votes)
Red Dead Redemption - 7.23 (11 votes)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (24 votes)
Mass Effect 3 - 7.16 (21 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - 7.11 (23 votes)
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 7.1 (30 votes)
To the Moon - 7.07 (7 votes)
Super Paper Mario - 7.05 (22 votes)
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - 7 (5 votes)
Hollow Knight - 6.98 (21 votes)
INSIDE - 6.93 (15 votes)
Gone Home - 6.91 (17 votes)
Bioshock Infinite - 6.87 (19 votes)
Death Stranding - 6.73 (13 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All - 6.67 (31 votes)
Firewatch - 6.65 (10 votes)
Dark Souls - 6.62 (20 votes)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - 6.61 (28 votes)
Chrono Cross - 6.56 (17 votes)
Valkyria Chronicles - 6.5 (16 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - 6.5 (13 votes)
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard - 6.38 (12 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 6.31 (35 votes)
Professor Layton and the Curious Village - 6.16 (14 votes)
DOOM (2016) - 6.15 (13 votes)
Star Fox 64 - 5.8 (25 votes)
Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception - 5.8 (24 votes)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - 5.72 (9 votes)
Final Fantasy IV - 5.78 (30 votes)
Metroid Prime - 5.67 (24 votes)
Kingdom Hearts - 5.59 (30 votes)
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - 5.26 (28 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright - 4.83 (12 votes)
Final Fantasy XIII - 4.79 (29 votes)
Final Fantasy X-2 - 4.79 (19 votes)
Fallout 3 - 4.76 (17 votes)
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty - 4.72 (9 votes)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 4.64 (40 votes)
Fallout 4 - 4.43 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy - 4.24 (19 votes)
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops - 3.89 (9 votes)
Resident Evil 6 - 3.74 (17 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - 3.69 (13 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - 3.46 (15 votes)
Starcraft II (overall) - 3.4 (5 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates (overall) - 3.32 (11 votes)
Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void - 2.83 (6 votes)
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) - 2.66 (16 votes)
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm - 2.57 (7 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation - 2.33 (9 votes)
Tales of Zestiria - 2.14 (7 votes)

You can still rate previous days games if you missed them, just write <game name><rating>. If you want to change your rating you can just specify that you are changing your rating. Nominations for future days are also welcome, nominate as many games as you like and I will get to all of them.

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10
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8/10. Its pretty damn solid for the most part, but I feel like some of the writing suffers for the lamer/forgettable characters and everything with Terra is dreadfully boring. Theres some good stuff in there otherwise though.

8

Hard to think of a game with a more ambitious story at this point in time. Really effective at both halves of its two styles too. I think I actually prefer Ruin's nonlinear vignette structure and the atmospheric storytelling there, though the games early pacing is pretty unmatched until the party gets together.

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Easy, easy, EASY 10

Ensemble cast with 5-6 main characters/high end secondaries
Kefka pulling off the shit he pulled
A swift storytelling style that always takes characters to new places, new plot twists, and focused presentation
The Opera Scene!
Searching For Friends!

This game never lets up, and is my favorite Final Fantasy for so many reasons. I always go back to re-experience the story. So much goodness in a game.

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7

Everything involving Terra Blandford drags it down.

e: except for Terra's theme which is actually a delight

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8.5/10

Having Kefka destroy the world with half the game still to go is still an amazingly bold plot twist. I think the second half suffers a bit with the open-ended nature basically making a lot of the characters interchangeable, but FFVI did a lot to change the way the series does its stories for the better.

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4.5/10

Not memorable or bad. But slightly under mediocre.

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TomNook posted...

Not memorable

FFVI is a lot of things but unmemorable is not one of them.

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9.5

What a cast

FFVI is forgettable and unmemorable
5/10

8.5

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5

I respect what it did with the plot twist, but the game never managed to grab me.

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9

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7.5

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9.5/10

Better than FF4's story by far

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9/10

I have nothing special to say about it right now, I just felt like it would be a sensible choice for day 100

FL81 posted...

9.5/10

Better than FF4's story by far

Not exactly a high bar there lol

6

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9/10

monumental for its time period, but almost immediately surmounted by Square's next game (Chrono Trigger).

absolutely brilliant in the expertise it shows in two different types of storytelling, from the first half's relatively guided narrative that establishes characterization and major plot beats to the second half's pioneering open gameplay, which promotes experimentation and exploration.

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6.5

World of Ruin brings it down, IMO. It kind of loses its momentum there.


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7.5

It works and was great for its time. Some characters are really boring though
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10

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9.5

2/10

On both of my playthroughs, I found the first half of the story to be a slog. Too many characters, too many storylines, and the plot-hopping killed it for me. It felt like the writers were trying to tell a JRPG-version of Stephen King's The Stand, but they reached too far beyond their grasp.

For me the most frustrating part was the ensemble cast. Some characters are likable and well characterized, but whenever I started getting invested in someone like Locke or the Figaro brothers, I'd get thrown into another snoozer plotline with Cyan or Terra. The constant disruptions prevented me from building any meaningful attachments, and as a result the entire playable cast feels like a dozen Kimahris to me--passable, but who cares.

Kefka was a solid villain and the only real bright spot of the story. His backstory is excellent, and it's the only thing that stopped me from handing out a 1 here.

I'll refrain from beating up on the World of Ruin. Even the game's biggest fans admit that the story takes a nosedive here, and I have nothing to add to that. FF6 is a half of a story, and that first half never impressed me.


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plasmabeam posted...

I'll refrain from beating up on the World of Ruin. Even the game's biggest fans admit that the story takes a nosedive here, and I have nothing to add to that.

what a thing to say despite some people preferring WoR in this very topic
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plasmabeam posted...

Even the game's biggest fans admit that the story takes a nosedive here

nah this is not true, a lot of people love WoR

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9.5

9

Played it for the first time a few years ago and was blown away. Compelling cast, memorable moments, just a joy through and through that absolutely stood the test of time.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

what a thing to say despite some people preferring WoR in this very topic

LeonhartFour posted...

nah this is not true, a lot of people love WoR

Fair points. I posted my rating before looking at the responses.

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World of Ruin was amazing. I think people just hate the fact that most of the stuff including getting all your party members back is optional, that and Phoenix Cave being an obnoxious party split dungeon.

I love how WoR portrays Celes as the main character and how she rallys all the others who have lost hope and given in to despair to stand up against Kefka.

Story is truly exceptional for it's time. Still the best overall 2D RPG if Suikoden II didn't exist.

6.5/10

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9

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8.5

It does a lot right, tells a very solid story and you can't fault its ambition. But as others have said, it does kinda drop once you get the airship in WoR. Several character arcs feel unfinished or rushed, there's very little interaction between the gang at that point, and I just don't really care about Kefka. But there's still some terrific beats in that last half (Celes' suicide attempt best scene in the game), and at least 8 of the 14 playable characters are people I actively like.

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8.5

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10

Another one of the best the medium has to offer.

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Axl_Rose_85 posted...

being an obnoxious party split dungeon.

hot take...I like the party split dungeons. Feels epic, love using more or all of my characters, it forces you to really divvy up equipment and shit (or just a lot of switching load outs, but that's boring!)

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Also bump my score up to a 9, it should really only be a point off the best.

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10

Split party dungeons aren't that bad in FFVI because of the Moogle Charm.

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10

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pjbasis posted...

hot take...I like the party split dungeons. Feels epic, love using more or all of my characters, it forces you to really divvy up equipment and shit (or just a lot of switching load outs, but that's boring!)

I also liked the party split dungeons! I love having a reason to use most of the team, they all play so differently I hate having to bench 3/4 of them most of the time. Didn't use the charm either, no need!

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8.5

Damn it Terra

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9

What FFVI fails to do at keeping consistently interesting characters (I think Terra and Edgar especially fall off a cliff of 'interesting' after their backstory's done being explored), it makes up for in how strong the game is thematically. The idea of politics and alliances and grand, epic, swashbuckling adventure dying because the world is crap and one selfish clown just wants to see it burn, and the entirety of World of Ruin being the monumental task of proving him wrong. Kefka is a brilliant villain that every single member of the party opposes ideologically (even Gogo from the simple perspective of "wow your story sounds cool, seems better than being in a worm, let's go" ) which makes every action in World of Ruin feel like a fight against him. Adding in the optional backstory with characters like Shadow that Chrono Trigger would eventually go nuts with, and it's a tremendously ambitious package that actively works best as a video game beyond any other medium the story could've been told in. Plus I'm a sucker for all the literary analogues that Cyan gets thrown into.

Does have some pacing issues, though. Game takes its sweet time setting itself up and doesn't really hit any sort of momentum until Doma gets poisoned, though a lot of that is the mindlessness of the early game combat being at odds with the story being told. Really, it's more gameplay limitations holding back the story at times than anything the plot itself does wrong. And yeah, Terra's less than the sum of her parts.

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A solid 8.

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9

The beginning of Square's golden era, where almost every game they released was some kind of milestone in video game storytelling. Aside from the mid-game twist, the other major highlight is the final boss fight, where each stage of the battle (and the music) metaphorically describes a different part of Kefka's character.

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8

Nothing much to be said that hasn't been said already. Great story but I agree that the pacing and execution suffers during the WoR, even though I love the concept it just felt like a slog.

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8.

Also sorry guys I thought I could get todays topic on time but I will have to put the series on a short hiatus until Wednesday as Im out of tiwn again.

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9

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