➤ Final Fantasy VI, review 🎮

When it comes to the best JRPGs of the 16-bit era, one must remember the masterpieces that Square baked for SNES, and what comes to mind - often even before Chrono Trigger - is Final Fantasy VI. It is no coincidence that many fans of the famous brand also consider it the highest point reached by the genre, as well as the best Final Fantasy ever today. Over the years (and Final Fantasy VI has twenty-two!) We have played various conversions, and it was only a matter of time before Square Enix decided to bring the much talked about release originally developed for mobile systems to PC. Here, then, that Final Fantasy VI arrives on Steam in a version that does not do any justice to the importance of the phenomenal JRPG released in 1994.

The PC version of Final Fantasy VI, one of the best JRPGs ever, leaves a lot to be desired

Better a Chocobo today ...

The introduction of Final Fantasy VI made history and perfectly sets the "mood" of the game: unlike its five prequels, the sixth Final Fantasy is set in a world halfway between fantasy and steampunk, devastated by wars and conflicts.

Abandon the colorful and carefree atmospheres, so to speak, of the heroes in search of crystals, the story of Final Fantasy VI follows the vicissitudes of a heterogeneous cast of characters, jumping from one to another until they reunite them in a carousel of micro-stories linked by a common thread: Kefka Palazzo. He is one of the most evil villains ever conceived, stuff to give Sephiroth nightmares, and the worst thing is that at one point he even wins. On the other side of the fence we have historical heroes like Terra, half Esper, or Locke, the gentleman thief, not to mention other iconic figures like the enigmatic ninja Shadow, the mysterious Setzer, the Figaro brothers, the hard-fought Celes .. In short, it is impossible not to fall in love with at least one of these extraordinary characters, and it is they, all in all, who make the simple storyline of Final Fantasy VI an unforgettable adventure. In this sense, the Square Enix work has not lost even a shred of its original magic, but the conversion unleashed a crawl space due to the graphic restyle that replaced the original pixel art with rounded and colorful sprites that seem to have come out of the last one. version of RPG Maker. Mind you, this is not a catastrophic change; indeed, to be honest, the sprites in question, both of the monsters and of the characters, are detailed, animated more than discreetly and even pleasant. Nostalgia is rogue, though, and Final Fantasy VI, at the time of the Super Nintendo release, was certainly one of the most visually complex and elaborate titles on the market. It has remained so for years, and I'm sorry that Square Enix has decided to sacrifice its retro beauty in favor of a more modern, but also much more anonymous graphic style. From a technical point of view, among other things, the contrast between the new sprites and the "remastered" 2D backgrounds sometimes appears a bit blurry, almost messed up. Fortunately, Square Enix hasn't touched up Nobuo Uematsu's original soundtrack which, on the contrary, seemed a bit fitter than the previous conversions for the Game Boy Advance and PlayStation, and remains one of the best ever composed by the famous Japanese musician.

... what a bug tomorrow

Now that we have put behind what is generally considered the biggest problem of the new edition of Final Fantasy VI, namely the graphic restyle, we can take care of much more important matters. For instance, we could argue that this PC conversion uses the same, identical interface as the mobile versions of the game, with all the consequences of the case. We could underline that the game diary, which summarizes the storyline and is updated with each new progress, does not take into account the choices made when it is possible to alter the course of events, generating a lot of confusion. We could highlight the inconvenience of having to change the settings from the launcher, since it is not possible to do this once the game has started, and suggest that configuring a possible joypad is not only irritating, but also harmful since the software, from time to time, tends to crash. only for this. And while we're at it, we could infer, remembering that until a few weeks ago you could not play in offline mode, and that cloud saves went crazy regularly, erasing the progress of the players as a member of the bloodhound. But why dwell on all these examples, when it is enough just to point out that the port, class 2015, does not exceed the maximum resolution of 1360x768 pixels, and occasionally sports a great tearing effect? Not only. This version of Final Fantasy VI continues to give trouble in the same, identical moments it did on Android and iOS, overwhelming demonstration that the code has remained essentially the same. It's a great shame, because between one bug and another there is an incredible JRPG that is absolutely worth playing, but for how it was proposed it was worth authorizing the emulation of the ROM for Super Nintendo and many greetings.

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Digital Delivery Steam Price 14,49 € Resources4Gaming.com

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6.4

Your vote

Final Fantasy VI will always remain an extraordinary JRPG. The new sprites can like it or not, the new interface can give some annoyance, but these are not the real problems of the conversion for PC. It is a lazy adaptation, full of technical problems and solutions that, at the dawn of 2016, appear frankly embarrassing. In short, how can anyone who chooses the free emulation path be blamed, when a 1994 masterpiece is offered in these conditions for almost 15 euros? This is not done, Square Enix.