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Final Fantasy 3 in North America is regarded as one of the greatest Super Nintendo RPG's of all time, right up there with games like Chrono Trigger. In Japan, the name Final Fantasy 3 is referring to a totally different game on a different system, the NES. So which one is the real Final Fantasy 3? It's the Japanese NES tittle. The Final Fantasy 3 that North American gamers got, was actually Final Fantasy 6 in Japan, renamed for its North American release due to the fact the, up to that point, nearly half of the Final Fantasy games were Japanese only. However, that was 1994. At the time of Final Fantasy VI Advance's release, every Final Fantasy, except for the original Final Fantasy 3, had been named correctly and released in North America, FF6 had seen its second North American release, the first time with its true name, on the Playstation. And now for the third time, North American gamers are getting another go at this epic RPG, this time on the Gameboy Advance.
The story starts by telling the player about the War of the Magi, and then shifting the spotlight to three soldiers from the Gestahl Empire just outside the city of Narshe. Their goal: to seize an Esper, which are powerful beings that make up much of the back story of Tera, the main character who's mind is being controlled by the empire and is one of the three soldiers, and serve as the game's summons. Your party of three moves through the city until you come across the first boss, but once you succeed in beating it, the boss turns around and kills your two party members leaving you alive. A member from the Returners, an underground rebel group aimed at putting a stop to the empire, takes you into his house. When you wake up, you name your character, who's default name is Terra. And then you go on your way. Eventually, Terra joins the Returners and helps stop the empire, which is your main goal for the first half or 3/4's of the game. I was very satisfied with the story, it had many plot twists which I will not spoil. Every character is well developed, each of them having their own back stories and journeys that led them to become part of your ranks.
The Gameplay is standard Final Fantasy. The Active Time Battle System, where enemies can attack you while you are going through for menus, like items or magic for example, can be changed to the Wait Battle System, where enemies can't attack you while going through menus. For those who have never played a Final Fantasy before, I recommend watching our video review, as you will understand the battling easier, but I will try to explain it anyways. When a regular battle starts, you must wait for a meter (one meter for each of your four characters) to fill up. Once it does, you can use that specific character to do an attack, use an item, or do nothing. There are multiple types of attacks, you can do a regular attack or a magic attack. Regular attacks are just using your equipped weapons on an enemy, magic attacks involve casting a spell, like Fire for example, on an enemy. You can learn spells from having an Esper equipped, some teach spells faster or slower than others. Other Espers can teach you an upgraded spell, keeping Fire as the example, an upgraded spell would be Fira. There are three levels to some spells, and even more, non environmental spells, to learn. Needless to say, it would take dedication to get every spell in the game. Items you can use involve things like health items, called Potions. The difficultly level is mainly easy or medium throughout the game, however there is an occasion hard boss that will take some serious level grinding to beat. As with most RPG's, character customization is an important part. You can change things like Relics, which are equipable abilities that let you hold a sword with two hands to do extra damage, for example. You can buy these at one of the many item shops or find one in the world in a dungeon as a nice prize! As I said before, you can equip characters with Espers which teach them magic. You can give each character their own weapons, armor, Espers, and Relics. Overall, the gameplay is classic Final Fantasy, but if you didn't like any of the previous Final Fantasy's, there is nothing here to change your mind.
I would like to divide level design into three separate sections - World Map, Towns, and Dungeons. The World Map, while big, is linear until you are able to use an airship to get around. This is due to the fact that, for the beginning of the game, you are enclosed in area, separated from the rest of the world by either water or mountains. Once you get an airship, the entire world - each town, dungeon and desert are at your fingertips. Each town, while different in object placement, has the same things, item shops, Relic shops, armor shops and a local Inn you can stay at to replenish your party's health and magic. Some towns have a harbor, where you can be taxied to another location by boat. But once you have an airship there is no need for this. The Dungeons in Final Fantasy VI Advance are sometimes designed to be particularly tricky, with traps and buttons that need to be pushed. Others, involve walking from point A to B and fight a boss. Overall, the game's level design is different for each of the areas, but I say that it is still pretty good. The graphic design is pure 16-Bit greatness. The character models are just a few pixels in size, but each character can easily convey how they feel about a specific event. Backgrounds look pretty good, there isn't much to say about them though. Overall, the game's graphics are great for a 16-Bit game.
There are no voice over in Final Fantasy VI (no, Kefka's laugh is not a voice over in my book). All dialogue is in the form of text boxes with a picture of the character who is talking next to it. There seem to be no typo's or mistranslations, so it is all good. The background music is where the sound shines! Each battle is fought to a great tune, every boss battle has a superb battle theme and important events has a score that matches. Once you finish the game, Square gave fans a gift with the edition of a Music Player where you can listen to each and every track in the game. Final Fantasy has always been known for powerful music and the sixth installment is no exception.
Once you finish the main quest, there are still some side quests that I recommend doing. However, it is more rewarding to do these before you finish the game. The Cultist's Tower is a tower where you can only use magic, no physical attacks. Once you reach the top, you will get a new Relic but will need to fight a boss to escape with it. There are also several dragons that you can face, once you beat them you can unlock a dungeon called the Dragon's Den, where you must face all of them again, except this time they're much harder. Returning to Doma Castle with Cyan in your party and sleeping in the castle will cause Cyan's Dream. This is a bizarre dungeon-like event, where you go through three different stages and eventually fight a boss. Square also added new Espers into this version of the game that you must defeat in order to acquire them. There are three extra characters including a Moogle and a Yeti. So there is a lot to come back to, but for me at least, these seem like the kind of things that you would do on a road trip.
Overall, Final Fantasy VI Advance is a truly memorable RPG. It has everything one would want in a Final Fantasy game. But which version should you get if you own two or more of the consoles this game appeared on? I would try and go straight to the GBA version, and because the Nintendo DS Lite has a GBA Slot, you won't have any problems playing on you Nintendo DS and I would actually recommend playing it on the DS over GBA due to the back light and because the game feels better on that handheld, but it's still great on Gameboy if you have no other choice. Sorry DSi owners, you are not able to play this because the DSi doesn't have a GBA Slot. If you do not own a Gameboy Advance or Nintendo DS Lite, Playstation is the way to go. I would only recommend the Super NES version to those hard core Final Fantasy fans or those who have no other means of playing this game. But again, if you are not a fan of Final Fantasy, I would not recommend this to you, as there is nothing to change your mind on it. In short: it is everything Final Fantasy fans would want from the sixth game's remake.-Brandon
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