Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Before we get into the inevitable firestorm today's column will bring, let me talk a bit about where I'm coming from vis-a-vis FFVI.

I started college in fall of 1994. (Hang on, this is going somewhere, promise.) Because I had an academic scholarship I didn't want to screw up, I didn't bring a TV or my SNES with me, thinking this would help me study more. It didn't, because that semester was my lowest GPA ever and I just ended up mooching of my roommate's TV and his Sega CD. But the punchline is that I was denied FFVI when it came out, and didn't get a chance to play it until the semester ended.

So I missed the joy of opening up FFVI right off the presses, and instead played it 3 months after everyone else had beaten it. I also had to rush through the game in a week in order to finish it before I went back to Austin. Therefore, no time to explore at leisure. I did get just about every character but Shadow my first time through, and fought most of the dragons, but it was like being force fed steak - really good, but too much of a good thing. I appreciated the high points of the game, and enjoyed it at the time, but it didn't rock my world.

In comparison, I had my SNES at college when Chrono Trigger came out and was able to take that game in small, easily digested bite-sized chunks. Same as with FFIV and Secret of Mana, playing the game was something I got to do when I managed to get a free hour, and was thus something I looked forward to a lot. Whereas in FFVI even the Opera scene tended to lose some flavor when played at the tail end of a 6 hour gaming binge.

I'm not saying this somehow excuses my perceptions - if anything, I feel I'm more objective because of it. I didn't get caught up in the hype, or in the community of people going through the game at mostly the same time. Certainly there was nothing like the GIA back then, that I knew of. So I didn't enjoy FFVI as much as I might have, which is my loss, but it also lets me see what's really there, unencumbered by nostalgic memories of the time. As to how accurate you find my perceptions... well, let's take a look.

Onward.

I actually don't have a lot to argue with here. There's no doubt that I felt things were running smoothly prior to the World of Ruin - as Zen says, each character was introduced in a way that fit in with the story, did their piece, and things moved on. Several of the game's most interesting features, like the tactical moogle battles and the 3 way story split also happened in the first half of the game. I don't know that the details you mention were necessarily cut (although Cyan did have a machine phobia subplot that didn't make it over here completely intact, I think) but I can except the basic argument that it was only in the World of Ruin that things fell apart. 

A game consisting mostly of brilliant unique moments might work for some people, and come to think on it, that's not a bad description of FF6. But it doesn't work for me - without a concrete subtext in which to place characters and events, even the best moments lose their power.

Going back to Zen's letter, it's worth pointing out that many of the games best moments are placed in such a backdrop - the Opera scene, Terra and Locke's escape from Narshe, the raid on Vector. For me, it's the individual moments of character exposition in the second part of the game that fail, for the most part. Only a relative few, like Cyan's dream in Doma, really stand out, and that may be because of the reliance on existing backstory as much as anything.

As I've said before, I don't find most MIDI music that interesting, which includes FFVI's soundtrack. But I'm perfectly willing to admit I'm the freak on this issue.

Hmm. We seem to be tracking some sort of a pattern here. Gonna have to find a pro-Ruin letter next.

At any rate, let me just take a moment out to note that despite getting an enormous amount of letters (a record number, in fact) there were very few flames, which surprised me and a few other GIA staffers greatly. In fact, even though the majority of letters I received were strongly in VI's favor, many were moderate, admitting the game's faults while praising its virtues and making well reasoned arguments as to why the whole package deserved recognition. I don't know if the column's just attracting smart people these days or what, but you guys really impressed me with this topic. Good job.

On the other hand, if you're a cynical bastard you're probably already thinking that I did, in fact, get repeatedly flamed to my component atoms. Thus the above paragraph is a blatant attempt to suck up to the readers and get them on my good side once more. But I wouldn't be that underhanded and manipulative, would I? Of course not.

I think all of the above are equally valid reasons for the praise FFVI receives. As one of the relatively few people who played FFIV at its release, I've always felt that people are as liable to become attached to a game because it's their first, clearest memory of the genre. Since many more people played FF6 than 4 in the US, it's 6 that gets the lion's share of the praise, regardless of the actual technical merits of the two. But while I've gotten several letters in support of this theory, I've also gotten several against it, so it can't be the whole story.

The revisionist history angle is also quite strong. Even if you believe that FF6 was always seen as the last refuge for great 16 bit RPGs (although I agree there was a remarkable rise in opinion about the game once FFVII came out) it's interesting to see how the selling points of the game have changed over time. Not so long ago, FFVI was praised for being one of the first "adult" RPGs, since it dealt with topics such as teenage pregnancy and suicide, tangentially in the US edition, and somewhat more bluntly in the original Japanese. Some historians still make note of this fact, but very few people mentioned it in their letters today, which I find understandable. After all, nothing in VI appears particularly extreme after you've seen FFT, Xenogears, or Parasite Eve. Instead, most people actually prefer VI to later Final Fantasies because it was "simpler" - there are no half-crazed faulty clones, no brooding teenagers with social disorders, just some relatively straightforward heroes out to save the world from a certifiable wacko.

I suppose I am lucky that I found both Cloud and Squall to be compelling protagonists in their respective stories - I can't imagine how I'd feel about the games if I hadn't. And I can definitely see how you might have embraced the idea of a flexible party if you had hated Cloud or Squall. But at the same time I still say the character vignettes in the World of Ruin were insufficient motivation to continue caring about the story's players. My favorite party members (Celes, Locke, Sabin, Terra) were poorly served by their chapters in the WoR, I felt, since few of their motivations seemed to carry over from one world into the next. (Locke seemed to care deeply for Celes, protective of Terra, and was strongly against the Empire, but after the divide his primary motivation is saving Rachel, who barely registers early in the game.) As I said, I can accept the idea that individual plot nuggets might be desirable for some, but it doesn't work for me personally.

As for your continuation theory, there's no doubt that FFVII is a continuation of the series in many ways. To put it in OO terminology, VII is a completely legitimate instantiation of the Final Fantasy class. But at the same time, most people feel that FFVII was something of an experimental prototype, and as such didn't completely fulfill their expectations. The bleeding edge of software is rarely as good as the final product. I don't have any problems with FMV replacing in-game cutscenes either, but I think a lot of people had trouble adjusting to the changeover between the two. And in their defense, I also found it pretty jarring at first to switch from the relatively low polycount of the in-game renders to the cinematic quality videos.

I gotta admit she sounds cute, if true, and I am a bit jealous. On the other hand, I bet she doesn't dress like Callo.

But if she does, tell me, how often does she get arrested for soliciting?

Being a smug, egotistical bastard is one of the fun parts of this job, so if the AA fix on the PS2 is legit, it gives me great pleasure to say "I told you so!" I'd very much like this to be the case, not just so PS2 games will look better but so that the PS2 and Dolphin will be on roughly equal footing and a strong competitive market will develop.

Likewise I also think it's great that we're developing into a more argumentative community, because it shows how healthy the genre's gotten. Not so many years ago, I'd have bought LoD and found something to like about it, regardless of how crummy it was, because that's all that would have been available. Now there's so much available that you can buy it or not, depending on your tastes, and have a wide array of opinions, not just the GIA, to tell you what it's like.

Not a whole lot to say about this, except I thought it captured the nostalgia angle beautifully. I might not be nostalgic about FFVI myself, but I'm nostalgic about other games and I think it's a completely legitimate reason for liking a game. Hell, the reason I started visiting sites like the UnOfficial SquareSoft Page long ago, and the reason I'm contributing to that site's descendant now is because of nostalgia, out of the hope lightning will strike twice and I'll get that pure gaming rush once more. Graphics, FMV, music, even character and plot are ultimately insignificant compared to the pure joy of a great game, and it's the ability of games to produce that joy more than any critical, objective argument that makes me believe games are a genuine art form.

Anyway... I too remember Nintendo Power, although I stopped getting it long before FF3. Hell, I remember Howard and Nester comics, the FFI strategy guide, the first issue of NP with Mario 2 on the cover, and the Nintendo Fun Club Newsletter, issue #6, with a preview of Zelda II more than a year before that game would be released. Damn, I guess you just can't escape nostalgia.

After a bit of consideration, I too became puzzled as to how I was able to get this job despite my inflammatory stance on one of the classics. So I forwarded this letter to my superiors and was answered with two short, simple sentences:

"Because you didn't like Final Fantasy VI. We're anti-establishment around here."

Go figure.

Once more, I'm left without a leg to stand on. Here the reason for appreciating the game isn't nostalgia, but it's still highly subjective, and that's ok. Maybe you played the game with a long lost friend in grade school, or maybe it was the first game you ever bought for yourself with money saved from mowing lawns and raking leaves. Maybe certain scenes just resonated with you for personal reasons, and that's one of the best reasons of all to like a game.

I still tend to argue that art can be evaluated objectively; there are certain characteristics that make a work more interesting from a historical point of view, or superior from a technical standpoint. Thus I still argue that FFVI may not be the greatest RPG ever. But art's effect on people is entirely subjective, and because of that there's really no point to getting emotionally involved in an argument like this. Whatever I or anyone else says, it's not gonna change your opinion, so just let it be. 

Closing Comments:

Well, that was fun. Great submissions, folks, sorry I wasn't able to get to them all, but keep writing.

For tomorrow, I'd like to get your feedback on our latest experiment here at the GIA: the Wiretap column. I personally think Ed really nailed the subject, and hit on every vital piece of information about the Dolphin launch short of breaking into Nintendo headquarters and stealing a development system. Overall response also seems quite good, with words of praise coming in from the darndest of places. But it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, so let us know how accurate you found the piece, if the reasoning seemed dead on to you or if there are glaring holes we're just too dumb to see. Catch you later.

-Chris Jones, managed to fight off the mob with only minimal damage to the lawn