Surprised to see FFVI mentioned here in HN. That said, I HIGHLY recommend playing thru the recently released FFVI-T edition that's recently become available thanks to an incredible translation effort by Tomato. It corrects a number of mistranslations and adds a TON of content and scales up the difficulty. I thoroughly enjoyed the replay.
Mato's brilliant. If you haven't seen his Legends of Localization website, where he discusses various issues related to translation, and even does simultaneous playthroughs of games with different translations (including machine translation!) and compares and contrasts them with the original...you're in for a treat.
The Mother 3 English translation is unbelievably good, it kinda makes Mother 2's localization look like a hack job by comparison. Now I've almost got a reason to go back and give FFVI another pass...
You'll need a copy of the rom to patch. Also I'm pretty sure you can play it on an actual GBA if you have a flash cart. If you play it on an emulator make sure frame skipping is off because the rhythm aspect of combat is almost impossible otherwise.
would you recommend this for someone new to the game? In addition to this, OP's version there also appear to be new remastered versions of the older games.
The FFVI T edition rom hack is the original game with a proper translation, higher difficulty and additional content like tavern quests, new weapons, etc. It also contains some quality of life improvements (sprint shoes no longer need to be equipped, for example) and corrects some calculations. For reference I made it about 60 hours and still have much to do. My only gripe was that battles were stuck on force wait, so you had to wait for things to execute before your ATB gauge would refill. That may or may not have changed as the patch has been updated a bit since I experienced it.
If you're up for the challenge I'd recommend it. As I understand it, the pixel remaster, although interesting looking, lacks some of the bonus content added to other versions of the game. This has that, and much more. It felt polished to me. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hope this helps
I'm generally a Woolsey apologist, but the GBA localization of FF VI is pretty much definitive. Censorship aside, there are a lot of little details that were mistranslated or omitted in the SNES version, and the plot is less clear than it could be as a result. The GBA localization fixes a lot of errors and IMO retains a lot of flavor, even keeping or adapting some of Woolsey's jokes ("son of a submariner" -> "son of a sandworm").
This is a situation unlike FF IV, where there really is no "perfect" localization (the SNES translation is pretty rough, the PS and GBA translations have some inaccuracies and out-of-place jokes, and the DS translation is high quality but very stylized, plus the game is fundamentally different). It's also unlike Chrono Trigger, where the Woolsey translation is similarly riddled with inaccuracies, but the accurate DS translation is pretty boring.
Fans should also check out the Brave New World mod for the game (excellent changes to combat and gameplay, plus tons of minor tweaks and improvements) and the T edition (massive Japanese expansion that was recently released in English).
Yeah, randomizers are awesome. There's also Super Metroid Redesign, which changes the feel of the game substantially, with an entirely different map, different feel to the exploration, and different challenges. I'd recommend that one as well.
I'm a big Chrono Trigger fan but I haven't tried any mods. Are there any others that are recommended? I know there are some that function more as sequels, but I don't know how good they are.
As a fellow Chrono Trigger fan, I strongly recommend Crimson Echoes. It's a sequel, astonishingly well written, fun, and decently challenging. Clearly a project that was put together with love and attention.
It never occurred to me to look for modded versions of these games (though I'm aware that there are a ton of Pokemon mods). Thanks for sharing those specific ones, at some point I'll get the itch to play FF6 again and try one of those.
I bought ff6 when it was released for the snes and I've played through it many dozens of times over the years. My last two playthroughs were with the Brave New World mod, and it's truly fantastic. It's become my favorite way to play the game, and I don't plan on going back to the vanilla game anytime soon.
what in the world, I like FF6’s impact the most: truly sinister and relentless villian and coherent storyline, something 7 franchise lacks despite being so entertaining and interesting in other ways
but how many people are in this romhacking variant community?
I wanted to enjoy FF6 again, and am enticed by a better even more coherent story and stuff, but I know I dont have the patience for that turn based
format anymore. when i played it originally - on emulator 20 years ago - I still held the fast forward key most of the time, but now I can only do action RPG. The Mana series and Tales series is fine though.
I just spent a couple of hours with it (first time replaying since childhood) and decided it's not for me, will be trying the OP instead.
While the gameplay changes are overall interesting, fun and welcome (save for not being able to steal from animals), the script is not for me (purely subjective but IMO too much fourth-wall-breaking and lame meme references, and the vibe is more of a loose having-fun-fanslation with lack of depth). While I'm fairly picky with tone and dialogue I still have some nostalgia for the TW translation.
Still, I'm super impressed with the work and care that's gone into it overall, which is immediately apparent just from reading the readme. I think it's more targeted for those who have already played through the original at least once fairly recently, not for properly experiencing the original story in isolation.
Reading about the T edition it seems it's also something best experienced after having completed vanilla first.
I haven't played T edition (but know a lot about it from a Facebook group I'm in). I'm eager to play it, but the changes are vast and varied. BNW I have played through twice. It mostly stays true to the original but makes significant changes to combat and character building that I think make the game far more challenging and engaging.
I don't really have much to say here besides "play FFVI", so I'll just sing it's praises: it's one of the most underrated JRPGs ever made, even though it's still pretty well-known. Despite being overshadowed by it's successor, FFVI has always sat in my heart as having one of the most fascinating stories, best music and greatest characters of any SNES RPG, or SNES game in general. I hold it in higher regards than I do Mother 2/Earthbound, Chrono Trigger and all the previous Final Fantasy games. If you're snowed in this weekend, I highly recommend booting it up, or at least listening to it's musical motifs. Kefka's theme and Dancing Mad makes One-Winged Angel sound like a toothlessly sane track in comparison.
I don't know if this is a generational thing (I'm nearing my mid-30s) or what, but to hear FFVI described as "underrated" or just "pretty well-known" is so weird to me. In my circles it's always been considered the best Final Fantasy and the best 16-bit JPRG (or maybe second-best behind Chrono Trigger), maybe the best JPRG ever. Even though it's definitely exceptional, if I'm being honest I've always thought of it as a little overrated!
The story and characters are phenomenal, but random battles are cancer. That's where Chrono Trigger wins IMO. Sticking with random battles was an absurd decision which I never understood, and the momentum lasted way, way too long at square.
There is nothing wrong with turn based combat, but structured encounters with meaning always beat infuriating RNG encounters that are there just to run out the clock so they can claim a "40h experience".
I'm of the same generation, and though I agree that in some circles it's widely praised as the best Final Fantasy in the mainstream it's extremely overshadowed by VII. It makes sense, VII sold about six times more copies than VI in the US
I am in the same generation and have been replaying a lot of the SNES classics, but I have to say - random encounters are absolutely infuriating sometimes. Chrono Trigger has really become my favorite for never having those.
Its such a great game, I think the story might be my favorite of all the final fantasy games, I like chrono trigger overall more but the story of FFVI cannot be beat.
There's finally a good official release of it on Steam. Every time they release it they mess something up - last time it was amateurish new graphics, this time it's "just" the English font is bad, but I think you can patch that.
Final Fantasy VI is my all time favourite Final Fantasy game. There's something so ... spiritual about it that modern games have really struggled to capture. I wonder if that partly is because voice acting in some ways often takes away from the experience- less often is more. Along with the wonderful story and script, it allows you to fill in a lot of gaps.
If it were remade I just don't think the new one would have the same feeling. In the same way that both 'Secret of Mana' and 'Final Fantasy' remakes again fall short of their originals. As pretty and polished as they are, they have lost the deepness to them - or perhaps they were just not daring enough.
To your point I've always felt the low fidelity/pixel-art of JRPGs in the 16-bit days allowed your imagination to fill the gaps to create a special impression. It allowed your mind's eye to create something special - between the graphics and accompanying artwork - that was lost as the series advanced visually. While FF7 was a special entry in the series, the shift to a more traditional anime style was completely inconsistent with the visual themes & aesthetic I'd built in my mind with all the previous entries, and it just went downhill from there. Even as a pretty die-hard JRPG fan at the time, I couldn't get through FFX.
The answer has been becoming clear to more users in the past few years: shaders. With a bright, high resolution OLED that has black frame insertion plus a good shader you can do a pretty decent approximation of the look and feel of a CRT. The de facto standard is CRT Royale but others have done good work in recent years.
This game is fantastic, I was fortunate to go to the 25th Anniversary concert in Chicago. It's reportedly Nobuo Uematsu's favorite game as well.
Also, FFVI is the only game (to my knowledge) officially released on 8 different platforms across four console generations: SNES, Playstation, Wii Virtual Console, GameBoy Advance, iOS, Android, Steam, and SNES Classic Edition.
The story is so good, I've thought they should make a movie or TV series from it (though such FF movies have had a bad track record).
I went down a rabbit hole trying to determine the most officially re-released game. While FFVI does have quite a few, I think the consensus was it's either Doom, Street Fighter II, or Sonic the Hedgehog.
Quite surprised that Sonic the Hedgehog wold be more than Super Mario Brothers (or Tetris, depending on where you draw the line between new game or not).
One of his recent projects is finding the original instrument samples that Nobuo Uematsu used before they were compressed into the game and using those to make high-def "restored" versions of the songs. It sounds easy but there's quite a lot of work behind it and the result is fantastic.
Yes, but some of the remixes and things creators have done since then are...astounding in how well they capture the original's emotional intent and deepen it, even given modern technology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfjLTYJ8Z2o for instance.
It'll be interesting to see how this compares to the FF VI Pixel Remaster which is scheduled to come out sometime this month. The previous Pixel Remasters have been very good, especially the music which has been absolutely phenomenal
I found some (very mild) examples of censorship mentioned elsewhere [1], but I also don't understand the hype here:
>In the original North American SNES version the spell Holy was renamed "Pearl", the summon "Jihad" was renamed to "Crusader", and Hell's Rider to "Rider". Many sprites were also censored. Overly revealing sprites, such as Siren, Lakshmi (Starlet), Alluring Rider (Critic), Chadarnook (woman), Goddess, Power (Hit), Magic, Lady (Girl), and another untargettable part on the final boss, were censored. The smoke for Misty and her palette-swaps was removed. Pub signs were changed to cafe signs.
>During the scene where Locke sees Celes imprisoned in South Figaro, she is no longer being beaten by the guards in the GBA version, and they merely taunt her. The censoring of Celes's beating isn't from the localization; this is also present in the Japanese GBA version. The scene where Celes is being tortured by the Gestahlian Empire was removed because the original Final Fantasy VI was created before the Japanese ratings board, CERO, existed.
>The conversation between Edgar and Relm during their first meeting in Thamasa was changed. In the Japanese version, after Edgar learned about Relm's age (10), he said to himself: "I need to get a hold of myself... or it's going to be a crime". In the English versions, Edgar says: "Not even a lady yet. Here's hoping you're still around in eight years, kid". In the Japanese versions, Relm used harsh language, especially for someone her age. The overseas versions toned down the dialogue so that, while still biting, her words are overall clean.
>When climbing the Tower of Kefka, in the original version, members of the cult of Kefka are said to be "praying" to him. In the SNES version, this was changed to "thinking" about him.
Gamers are obsessed with censorship and think that anything changed from the original region release is oppression, even if the original creators approved of it. Japan of course does censor some things too.
This isn't enough to stop it from happening, because when you don't do it your entire release gets banned in other countries (UK and Australia are known for this.)
Allow creators to express themselves as they see fit, and to quote the late great Paul Mooney, "It offends people, but good... they should be offended."
When you rewrite a joke because it's not funny in a different language, and the original writers approve, that's not actually censorship but they complain anyway.
More to the point, when you rewrite a romance game for women because what Japanese people think is sexy reads like being molested to Americans it does serve the creators' desires, which is for people to actually buy their products.
(The games getting blocked entirely are censoring the original creators, but also the original creators are pedophiles, so that's their problem.)
> When you rewrite a joke because it's not funny in a different language, and the original writers approve, that's not actually censorship but they complain anyway.
humor can be legitimately difficult to translate. I don't complain about them and I don't expect them left as literal translations + editor's notes to explain them in games (although that's a great option for other mediums). The goal should always be to stay as true to the original as possible.
> it does serve the creators' desires, which is for people to actually buy their products.
That might be one of the most cynical views of art I've read in a good while. I think most creative people want their works to be seen and understood and are doing it for much more than just a paycheck. Ultimately, everyone does hope their games are successful and they want to be able to make a living, but I don't think many writers and artists would put money as their top priority. If all you want is to be rich, there are a million better career choices.
A romance novel isn't pure self-expression, it has mechanical parts that have to work - like porn (actually, it is a kind of porn.) If it's not romantic, it's not a romance novel, and it doesn't matter what the author meant.
> The overseas versions toned down the dialogue so that, while still biting, her words are overall clean.
This is a tricky one. If you translate it literally, it's really not that harsh at all as Japanese doesn't really use curse words in a similar way as English. The words are overall clean. So a translator always has to make a judgement call of "in which sense is this supposed to be true to the original" and how much of the language-associated-culture to bring into it.
For whatever strange reason, people in this field call all sorts of minor changes in the text and images to better fit regional tastes and cultural norms 'censorship'. That's not to say some of these changes aren't ill-conceived or silly but the term makes it sound like something far more sinister than what it is.
> changes aren't ill-conceived or silly but the term makes it sound like something far more sinister than what it is.
I don't think any of it is sinister, but I remember finding out about changes that watered down the game and being sad about them. It's neat that people are trying to fuse together what most people consider the good translation with more of the original intent.
Some bits of it are a bummer: Relm used a tone of speaking that was not appropriate for kids in Japan. Choosing to "clean up" her language too much alters the story.
> Relm used a tone of speaking that was not appropriate for kids in Japan. Choosing to "clean up" her language too much alters the story.
If you play the fan translation of Mother 3, there's similar effort that goes into preserving Kumatora's crass vocabulary that I really appreciated. She swears somewhat infrequently and makes a number of offhand comments that don't necessarily feel unnatural, but certainly wouldn't get approved in a first-party North American release. It's a great little touch of flavor that helps contrast her character more from the more timid Lucas and duty-bound Duster, plus a generally enjoyable curveball for a game that's earlier hours are dominated with less personable, stoic villagers.
Perhaps the people in this field would like to experience the tastes and norms of a different culture, so they don't appreciate this Bowdlerization. Would you edit Faust or the Illiad to "better fit regional tastes and cultural norms"? How about the Godfather?
Final Fantasy VI is not a game about Japanese culture. Turning onigiri into donuts is one thing, but good localization needs to help the new audience understand the story as it was interpreted by its original audience.
That said, most of the censorship in this game had little to do with "cultural norms" and a lot to do with Nintendo of America applying extremely strict standards to games, which itself had as much to do with politics and market maneuvering as it did American culture:
> Senator Lieberman: So, people actually complain that they can’t have the more violent game on the Nintendo system?
> Howard Lincoln: That’s correct. Letters and phone calls say, “Leave in the violence! You’re censoring!”
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything I wrote but Faust and the Iliad are among the most retold, re-adapted, re-interpreted stories out there. That's a good thing, as is re-translating, re-editing, re-modding and re-everything-ing old games.
But this was not a re-adaption or a re-interpretation, this was the only version available in the US, and marketed as the same game, only translated.
I honestly don't see how one could in good faith mistake a translation for a re-interpretation. What's next - because translation is somewhat subjective, that means anything goes?
Faust and the Iliad are works in the public domain with many dozens of translations, most of them trying hard to be "faithful" or "accurate" in one sense or another. When they're retold, adapted, reinterpreted, they're not usually billed as the original work, but rather a retelling or what have you. Joyce didn't stick Homer's name on Ulysses and bill it as an English version of the Odyssey (just set in Dublin to better fit regional tastes and cultural norms). Retellings, adaptations, reinterpretations aren't relevant here at all - I'm not sure why you brought them up in order to defend acts of (poor) translation.
It's almost hard to draw an analogy to other art forms, because they're considered legitimate and no one tries to do this to them. When Cien años de soledad became 100 Years of Solitude, its depiction of sexuality and themes of incest weren't excised to appeal to more conservative anglo sensibilities. When Parasite caused a sensation in the west a couple of years ago, the
version we saw didn't somehow try to pretend it was set in New York or rename Kim Ki-taek to Fred Jones or something. Even genre fiction usually gets treated better than this - something like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo lost its somewhat unwieldy original Swedish title (Män som hatar kvinnor, "Men Who Hate Women") but otherwise remained defiantly Scandinavian.
Now, I agree that nothing in FFVI specifically is all that bad (the translation has plenty of other issues though), and I agree that some people get unnecessarily bent out of shape about it; changing "pubs" to "cafes", or covering up nude statues or whatever is stupid but doesn't fundamentally change the game. But it's still stupid, and disrespectful to the original work.
I didn't bring up Faust or the Iliad, works that don't actually have anything resembling an 'original'. Still not sure what, specifically, this is a response to.
Of course the Iliad has an original. It's a poem written by Homer [1]. Feel free to read the original yourself [2] if you don't believe me.
I suppose you might interpret "Faust" as possibly referring to the general legend of Faust, but OP was almost certainly referring to Goethe's Faust, "considered by many to be...the greatest work of German literature" [3]. Likewise, as proof by existence, here's the original (in two parts) [4], [5].
Again, I did not bring Faust or the Iliad into this conversation. I don't even know what the conversation is about and how it relates to my original comment! Let's wrap this up here because at this point I'm being lectured on the classics by one person who can't spell 'Iliad' and another who thinks it was 'written by Homer' and neither can actually tell me why.
Oh for god’s sake - they were clearly brought up simply as examples of great works of literature that are often translated, and translated loyally when they are, because when translators translate great works of literature they generally try to respect the originals instead of deliberately mutilating them for the sensibilities of their audience. And I’m being scolded for saying that the Iliad was “written by Homer” instead of, what, “was composed by Homer”? “Is generally attributed to Homer”, as Wikipedia puts it? By someone who - either owning to pedantry, bad faith, or extreme ignorance - denies that “the Iliad” as an original work even exists!
This conversation is about whether it's "sinister" or not, as you put it, to make "all sorts of minor changes in the text and images to better fit regional tastes and cultural norms", and whether to call those changes "censorship". jevoten believed that these changes were, in fact, sinister, and explained why - arguing by analogy that making similar changes to works in other artforms to satisfy prudish sensibilities would be viewed as heretical. You then, seemingly, played inexplicably ignorant and focused on the fact that the particular works that they chose as examples were based on mythologies that have inspired other, independent works. The only way your confusion here makes any sense whatsoever would be if you were literally unaware of the specific works they were referring to, particularly when you said that there was "nothing resembling" an original Iliad or Faust, so, taking you at face value, I demonstrated their existence.
As for the question of what constitutes "censorship" - maybe that's what you perceived as the significant part of your comment? I suppose that'd help explain some of your frustration, not that it'd justify your bad faith argumentation or personal slights. Censorship doesn't need to be handed down by official government censors or something - it can be self-imposed, or imposed by copyright holders against the wishes of the original creator, due to political, social, or economic pressure, which is clearly the case here.
>Kefka's line when the party flees from him on chocobos was changed. In the Japanese version he says "ヒーーーー くっそ！ このかりは必ず返しますよ！", literally translated to "Arggg.... you scums! I will definitely pay you back for this!". In the overseas release, depending on the version, he either says "Son of a submariner! They'll pay for this..." (SNES/PSX version) or "Son of a sandworm! You'll pay for this..." (GBA/PC/iOS).
Wow, yeah. I don't care about that level of "censorship," especially from a "news" point of view.
The uncensored images are pretty tame, too, as in a woman in a sheet having her hips and butt partially uncovered vs. covered.
So, I'm glad people put in the effort to clean up little things like this. I'm still confused why this got upvoted.
It's probably best to think of it as a kind of domain-specific term of art. Same goes for the 'news' in HN's title - the site has about the same relationship to 'news' as USENET newsgroups, the city of Newport News or the word 'sinews'.
I'm not sure that example is censorship so much as "You spoony bard" tier creative license with the translation. It added color to the game.
One of my favorites from the same game... When Figaro Castle is set on fire, one of the imperial guards says "Fire! Fire! Heh heh heh..." implying that he is Beavis.
Changes the feel way too much, ruins the point of it being a Japanese game if it’s all just being filtered through the humor of one American who didn’t have the talent to create something that grand anyway.
Intent of the original writers should take priority over the translator wanting to put their attempts at jokes in.
That's a valid perspective, and there is legitimate difference of opinion on this -- but it's adaptation, not censorship. They changed the line but they didn't tone it down to appease people who might be offended.
Nintendo of America was way more strict about content, so a lot of RPGs would heavily self-censor just so they didn't fail approval and have to go through the long approval process again.
IMO this hack is only partly about censorship, and largely about fixing mistakes and limitations.
I love Woolsey's localizations and would rather have his than a fully accurate translation that loses its charm. But the FF6 translation was also done by a single person with limited information about the game, so there's a fair number of errors. So, I like the approach they took there where they fixed mistakes without losing the flavor.
On top of that, they fixed limitations in string length, allowing for more accurate names for spells, items, enemies, etc.
It's not so much a controversy as just going back to produce a version of the game as close to as was released in its native market. Nintendo in the 80s and 90s had a strict policy of not publishing games with explicit violence or gore (Mortal Kombat on SNES famously has no red blood like the Genesis version), or overt religious references (Castlevania games had some crosses removed).
Back when Final Fantasy VI (Final Fantasy III US) was released the game was heavily toned down, censoring graphics and the like. When it was re-released for the Playstation, the graphics were uncensored but toned down script remained. Then came Final Fantasy VI Advance with a newer (though some consider drier) translation, but the color palette and music were altered for the handheld console. Others have made re-translations, such as the great work by RPGOne, Lina Darkstar, and Kwhazit.
Now this is Final Fantasy VI: Ted Woolsey Uncensored Edition. The goal was to make the SNES version uncut and to clean up the script but keep the nuance used by Woolsey in the original game’s release. Using the original Woolsey script as a basis to analyze, the entire game was looked through, line by line, using FFVI Advance, RPGOne, and Lina Darkstar to accomplish this. Recently, the game’s script was also heavily analyzed by Kwhazit and Mato (Legends of Localization). With these newer and more heavily detailed looks into the game, the script was again updated to provide a much more accurate version while still remaining true to the original game’s release.
I read that and looked at the screenshots, but I still don't get it.
I'd guess the censoring didn't materially impact the story, so while an excellent enhancement, it doesn't feel important enough to make it so high on HN.
Title seems slightly misleading. It's not like we found some sort of "first draft" script of Ted Woolsey's translation that was expurgated. It's a bunch of guys attempting to do a retranslation in Woolsey's style. And there are other "retranslation" attempts already out.[0] So it feels like they're just hanging Woolsey's name on it for authority.
If you're on Linux you will need three things - a copy of the FFVI ROM file (it's left up to the reader to find a copy); a patching program that supports IPS patches, which almost all general web or desktop patchers will; and a SNES emulator. There are several for Linux, but I personally recommend bsnes. It is a very accurate emulator with some nice features, such as displaying Mode7 graphics in higher fidelity (which this game utilizes).
I can second bsnes. At least for me, snes9x has annoying audio stutters I couldn’t seem to get away from. bsnes also has (IMO) nicer looking upscaling ootb.
I learned to read using this game, along with Chrono Trigger and a smattering of PC games.
I was an extremely advanced reader for my age, thanks to obsessively playing these games growing up. They had me re-take the standardized tests because of it.
My relative is pretty much the number one reader in his year (reading at near adult level when he was 10, reading 2 million words in a year when he was older...), and it was completely because of his obsession with Minecraft. It got him devouring strategy guides, then reading Minecraft related novels, and from there pretty much anything he could get his hands on.
Before that he was pretty apathetic about reading.
You might have good luck reaching out to companies that produce reproduction carts. They'll often flash modded ROMs. I have a physical cartridge for FF6: Brave New World myself.
Look at an everdrive. I'm not sure about compatibility. I have a very old NES everdrive and some hacked games work while some don't. I would ask on the support forums for someone to try it out for you before buying.
I'm guessing it's going to depend on whether or not the original cart had any expansion chips? E.g. I don't see mention of the SuperFX chip that Starfox requires.
I don't know if the -a and -aga spell names are more canon or not, but I hate them. Fire 1, Fire 2, and Fire 3 are much more intuitive and better looking than Fire, Fira, Firaga. When I'm quickly scanning through my spell list looking for something during a pitched battle, the numbers make finding what I'm looking for much easier/quicker.
It's incredibly petty, but I wouldn't play this translation for this single reason alone.
I've played a bunch of them, but never actually got to try FFVI... From what I hear it's quite a few people's favourite though, so I'm probably missing out. This looks like a nice ROM.
If you look at some of the other major FF franchises, its a combination of brooding angsty teen guy and an incoherent story that seems like a committee couldn’t figure out how to wrap up. Entertaining in their own right because usually something in their story has profound impact anyway, but FF6 stands out in this regard because its a well crafted and impactful story without the angst and strangeness.
I see. Yeah, I've played plenty of JRPGs and have noticed similar patterns in them overall. I wonder if there isn't a connection between their storytelling, fanbase and a phenomena called "Chuunibyo", literally "second year middle school sickness" (which can apply to anyone of any age) where someone does tons of ruminating, brooding, angsting on things like some young teens. It's a condition I've been accused of having! My suspicion is there's a real important connection to that and the coming of age story in the society that produces these games.
Oh definitely, they are totally pandering to their “nobody gets me” audience. FF6 has different tropes that you might have seen elsewhere plenty of times, but its really hard not to say anything.
But you should really play it, I mean just that intro act alone! On a Super Nintendo!? Peak Squaresoft. There was a time when they really pushed hardware and did it really well as a cohesive score, this is one of them.
It’s one of the best 2D RPGs made at arguably the peak of Squaresofts reign. It holds up very well because no such high budget and high talent team has built a 2D RPG since. Closest is of course their own Chrono Trigger
The original release: http://tomato.fobby.net/ff6-t-edition/
Which now directs interested folks to: http://ngplus.net/index.php?/forums/topic/1249-matos-transla...