1. One of the greatest openings of all time: Final Fantasy 3/6

 For the sake of simplicity, I'll be referring to this game as Final Fantasy 6 in this blog, despite the protestations of the title screen

This game has always been one of those fabled "greatest games of all time" that I've never really had a convenient or affordable way to play. In my youth I (correctly) chose the SEGA Megadrive over the Super Nintendo. After that point though, I caught the Nintendo brain-rot, and didn't have a system that could play it until the Playstation Vita, however, upon looking into it I was warned off this version due to the long load times. I could have conceivably played it on GameBoy Advance, but copies of that were rare here in Australia, and the second hand market was instantly absurd.

When I found a Super Nintendo Mini listed on Facebook marketplace, I was actually most interested in Super Mario RPG (which famously was never released in Australia due to Nintendo and Square having a very messy breakup in the 90s). It wasn't until after I had already agreed to buy it that I realised the "Final Fantasy 3" listed was indeed, the fabled "Final Fantasy 6".

I must admit I was slightly hesitant to play this game in this context. 1 hour is not exactly a long time to get into even the most brisk of RPGs, and while I didn't know much in advance of this trial, I'd heard enough from context clues to know it's an epic that contains: opera, robots, magic, a train you can suplex, a murderous clown, and the ending of rebuilding of the world. When a game like this is so beloved and so old, a lot of it just creeps out into general knowledge, even for someone not actively playing or looking into it.

And so with all this said, I began my first playthrough.

This game makes one heck of a first impression. I can't think of many games that with the limited tools available in the fourth generation of consoles set such a grim tone. And yet, within my hour, the game was quite playful, despite it's grim setting of a rebellion fighting back against a powerful fascist regime. Square were clearly not chosing to be subtle about this either, with an early game flashback depicting the Emperor Gestahl and his soldiers doing a, uh.... one armed salute.

Something that impressed me a lot in this short playthrough was how smartly the game introduces the various battle mechanics in smart ways that are completely supported by the story. Initially, you are in an incredibly powerful mech suit, so early fights are incredibly easy as you are completely overpowered compared to early game enemies. This teaches the basic mechanics without any chance of hitting a game over. The first real threat, shortly after a save point, is after you'll have learned enough of the systems that they can already add the first twist in, in this case, that the boss should not be attacked when it is withdrawn into it's shell. With this complete, after some advances to the story, you are stripped of your mech suit and need to approach battles more carefully, but with what you have learned safely. It isn't too long after this that the battle formula is mixed up again, with random battles swapped out for battles with enemies approaching down various tracks in a maze, clashing with your characters who you place to intercept them. I would not be surprised to find out that there are further twists on battle mechanics throughout the game, but unfortunately my short time with it ended before I could find out.

However, battles aren't just treated as something done between story moments, as would have been traditional at this point (and still mostly is). They're used to add to the storytelling, like this hilarious moment when Terra's team mates first see her use magic and loose their minds, breaking formation to yell enthusiastically.

The characters themselves, at least in the early points that I played, certainly seemed to be unique enough to stand out. Locke's goofiness was already a lot of fun, as was Edgar overestimating his charm. But Terra, of course, because videogames, has amnesia, which very much limits much insight into her character. I presume this is to keep a big secret concealed until later in the game, but even back at this point, main character amnesia was already a contrivance that was frustratingly common. I hope that this does not continue too much further into the story, but given she has "mysterious powers", it will all hinge on how important keeping the origin of those hidden from the player are.

I ended my playthrough quite impressed, which is probably by no means a surprise. In just an hour, the game had several plot twists (starting off working for the villains must have been quite shocking for the time) and a thrilling escape sequence from a burning castle (that then buried itself underground because it was a high-tech castle). It showcased a delightful sense of humour and playfulness, with weirdly bizarre enemies like the "repo-man" who can be fought as a random enemy and throws wrenches as an attack. The music and graphics are both clearly pushing the Super Nintendo to the limit, using pretty much all the technical tricks it is capable of, but crucially, without be obnoxious about it (some games on the system implemented mode 7 in some truly unnecessary ways that contributed nothing).

I will definitely continue Final Fantasy 6 in the future, and am quite happy that this was the first game in my weird experiment. Unfortunately, the second game in this is the infamous Balan Wonderwold.