How in 1994 ‘Final Fantasy VI’ Paved the Way For Modern JRPGs

Or Final Fantasy III for those who played the SNES version.

In 1994, the Final Fantasy franchise was going through a golden era in Japan, though it steadily was the second best JRPG behind Dragon Quest. In the West, on the other hand, Final Fantasy only had two entries out, with a third on the way.

This meant that English speaking regions missed out on three Final Fantasy games for a long time. While it might seem shortsighted in retrospect, one great thing that Squaresoft America did right was to localise the latest entry in the franchise, Final Fantasy VI, though it was renamed as Final Fantasy III.

Nonetheless, the contents of Final Fantasy VI was intact, showing off a major evolution for the JRPG genre as a whole that modern games are still influenced by today.

Expansive Cast


One cool thing about Final Fantasy VI is that it stars an ensemble cast, with no central protagonist throughout the game’s story. While this is common among literary works like The Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire, video games at this point of time was used to having a central character for players to follow and act as their avatar in the world.

Altogether, Final Fantasy VI has 14 playable characters for the player to recruit, all with their own episodic character arcs, as well as their own strengths and weaknesses. From the airship-flying gambler Setzer, to the proto-Cloud Strife characters of Terra Branford and Celes Shere, these characters are all lovable and memorable from start to finish.


This decentralised take on storytelling also extends to the gameplay, where throughout the story, the party is split up, with each team experiencing their own story before converging later on. Because of that, the player’s tactics and party composition is always changing, and it gives everyone time to get to know the characters.

Character Customisation


Final Fantasy has always been interested in letting players customise their party members and their individual skills as much as possible. The first three games provided a lot of experimentation on the developers part, each bringing their own extremities in customising. While the fourth entry was pretty rigid, Final Fantasy V allowed for the mixing and matching of character classes on the fly.

Final Fantasy VI was a great fusion of Final Fantasy IV’s rigid class-based characters with Final Fantasy V’s open-ended customisation through the Magicite system. This allowed for all characters to learn magic spells and summon monsters, on top of their individual job class prowesses.


Some examples include the brothers Edgar and Sabin, where the former is a machinist who can use tools and machinery, while the latter is a monk with mystical powers. Even without magicite, these two are powerhouses in their own right, but equipped with the right Magicite, these two can be overpowered throughout the game.

Tonal Shift


Final Fantasy VI probably embodies the ‘final’ and ‘fantasy’ aspects of the franchise’s name. The game has a foreboding sense to it all, especially since the apocalypse actually gets unleashed midway through the game. It also was very light on its fantasy elements, going for a more steampunk aesthetic.

It was a massive shift for the franchise, and in a way, you can see that every five games in the franchise will bring about a massive tonal shift. For the first five games, you can see Squaresoft being experimental with the ways they can tell a fantasy story and the way turn-based battles could be improved.


Final Fantasy VI to X brought a refinement of this turn-based structure, while moving beyond the confines of the fantasy genre, shifting to more grandiose and realistic settings. Final Fantasy XI and XV brought the series back to the experimentation phase, from action RPG battle systems to MMORPGs being thrown into the mix.

Final Fantasy XVI might just be ushering a whole new phase in the franchise, and from what we can see, it seems to be bringing back the focus on fantasy and sticking purely to action RPG battle mechanics. Only time will tell if Final Fantasy XVI will be as influential as VI, and we’re hoping that it does bring about a whole new golden era for the series.

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