Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy VI was the last Final Fantasy game for the SNES & Super Famicom. It also marked the last Final Fantasy game to be on a Nintendo console until Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was released on the GameCube. It was known as Final Fantasy III outside of Japan until its PlayStation re-release. The game has a long story, with many memorable characters that you will meet, and play as, throughout the adventure. The game was released again as Final Fantasy Anthology in North America in 1999, and 2002 in Europe, with added computer-generated cut-scenes. An enhanced port for the Game Boy Advance, known as Final Fantasy VI Advance, was released in Japan. Both ports were developed by TOSE.

Final Fantasy VI was the first game in the series to be directed by someone other than producer and series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi; the role was filled instead by Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Itō. Originally released to significant critical acclaim, it is still regarded as a landmark of the series and of the role-playing genre. It had a significantly greater number of battle customization options than its predecessors and the largest playable cast in the Final Fantasy series to date, excluding spin-off titles. It remains widely praised for its storyline, characters and non-linear style of play.

Plot
This RPG follows a 'save the world' plot that can be found in many other role-playing games. As the game starts, the player controls Terra and two soldiers from the Empire (with the names Biggs and Wedge). The game moves rapidly in its story progression from this point, and the player soon learns of the Empire's plans to take over the world by using magic, which has not been known to exist for over a thousand years. The game follows the struggle of an underground resistance group, known as The Returners, who attempt to battle the power that the Empire wields.

Gameplay
Other than battling, you will be travelling from town to town in the overworld controlling one sprite to represent your current party of four. In standard RPG fare, in towns you talk to villagers, buy items, restore your HP at Inns, advancing the story, and more. Towns are just resting breaks until you get to dungeons, which is where battles take place.

Final Fantasy VI features random battles. In battle, it used a turn-based battle system similar to Chrono Trigger. Each character attacks after a bar under their name fills up. The speed this fills up depends on the character and their stats. Some fast characters will be able to attack twice in the time it takes for another character to do one attack. Other attacks, such as spells, take longer. The character will go into a "casting" animation before the attack is done.

Each character has specific skills. Instead of just different moves to select like other RPG games, using their unique attacks require different ways of triggering them. For example, Sabin has players inputting different button commands like a fighting game to execute a number of different "Blitz" moves. Meanwhile, Cyan Garamonde has a bar that slowly loads from 1 to 8, which you stop by pressing a button. Each number represents a different attack, and the longest one at 8 is the strongest. Then there's Setzer, whose attacks make players play a slot machine.

Then there's magic. To learn magic, you equip characters with Magicite, which will slowly teach your characters a set of spells as they gain magic points (from battles). This means that you'll be cycling Magicite in and out as you try and build a useful portfolio of spells. Additionally, the Magicite you currently have equipped can be used once per battle to summon an Esper. These spells range from weak elemental attacks to status effects, to healing moves.

Trivia

 * Biggs was originally known as Vicks (in North America) due to a translation error.
 * Palazzo, Kefka's family name, means Palace in Italian.