Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster: an exciting laboratory far from having revealed all its secrets

We very recently had the opportunity and the chance to talk to Charles De Clercq, the author of the ” Legends of Xenogears and Xenosaga “. Beyond his attraction for these licenses, he has particularly distinguished himself for his exploits and discoveries related to Final Fantasy VI. So he plunged avidly into Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster to check what flaws had been corrected, and what possibilities were now available to speed-runners of all persuasions to circumvent the limits of the game. An exciting post that we share with you here. Nice reading!

You can find the author’s analyzes on his account Twitter by clicking here.

Fruit of the experiments carried out by Square since the first episodes of its flagship series, the combat systems of Final Fantasy VI and his younger brother Final Fantasy VII appear as an outcome. Although still very mechanical, rooted in their past, they offer enough possibilities to have seen the birth of many unexpected techniques over the course of the players’ adventures. Improbable combinations of materials, synergies of sophisticated magic, Final Fantasy VI and VII are thus the episodes of the saga which offer the most devastating bugs and techniques that the developers had not even imagined.

Newly available, Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster turns into a real laboratory for game experts, happy to contemplate the techniques that remain there of course, but above all eager to develop new ones. Unsurprisingly the Vanish-Doom, a historic technique from the Super Nintendo version of the game allowing you to dispose of almost all your bosses in one turn (the developers having unfortunately let the “invisible” state override the immunities of the enemies!) is not back for this new version. The same is of course true for the Sketch Glitchone of the most destructive bugs in the game which had already been corrected during its last pressings on its original medium (failing to be able to produce patches for the games, the time wanted them to be modified on the fly, even after they are on sale).

Closely linked to the bowels of the Super Nintendo, the 52 dead bug, the most powerful in the game, of course no longer seems to be part of it. Another subject of primary importance, because it can radically change the experience of players, is that of MBlock% : indeed in the original version, following an unfortunate error in the heart of a formula, the dodge statistic had no influence on the fights. Worse, all enemy attacks could be parried by the single magic dodge, so a character with a stat of MBlock% greater than 128 became purely invulnerable, trivializing combat! Fortunately, the error has been corrected here and the Cyan character can resume his superb, his rediscovered dodging abilities.

KadMony’s more detailed expertise from his Twitter thread Free debug report of FFVI Pixel Remaster. To sum up, today is probably the best version and the best way to play or discover Final Fantasy VIeven if many elements remain improvable. [Au niveau Graphique] Very beautiful flights at times with effects and lights (for example at the floating continent) but also superfluous moments (like at Zozo). The sprites of the enemies are directly ripped from the SNES, those of the characters are sorely lacking in contrast. In addition, the combat transitions are passable, while the boss death animations are very disappointing. FFVI Pixel Remaster also forcefully exposes an equation that seems insoluble: preserving the original interface in 16/9 format forced to keep the windows up and down, the characters have no verticality with regard to the sets, which gives rise to many absurdities of perspective, arenas that evoke the grounds of Captain Tsubasa. Despite these flaws, the game remains shimmering. [Musiques] Again, difficult balance to re-orchestrate such emblematic melodies without plunging into the all-symphonic. There is everything here, sublime new versions (final medley, among others), disasters (Magitek Factory) and also several pieces of music that may seem a bit sluggish at first but wake up later (Searching For Friendsetc). Decisive Battle Disappointed me. The opera in French is particularly successful, a very beautiful moment despite the thrill we had when discovering the English version. [Ergonomie] There is a lot to say: the font of the game is of course horrible but we can remove it, no need to dwell on it. There are many improvements from this point of view: – the addition of minimaps is welcome and a success. They are superb, there are very useful additions in the menu, in particular the possibility of seeing and changing the equipment of all the characters, even outside the team. On the other hand, there are some incomprehensible choices, which should not have passed the QA: certain mappings are counter-intuitive, for example the fact of placing a magic on “all” requires two different buttons depending on the orientation of the attack . – the management of the “memory” cursor is not optimal. We don’t see its place in the “magic” menu at the opening for some reason that I don’t know as soon as we remove a character or move forward a little, the characters are constantly front row automatically, so I had to constantly put them back in back row by hand, painful. – the display of the % of learning magic is misleading and I took it several times for the cost in MP, before realizing in combat that I did not have the magic. [Confort de jeu] Many great things:- the author and the end of runningshoes is a pleasure – pleasant to walk diagonally, but it poses some problems with the visibility of the paths in certain places, where the box by box was more obvious. – the autosave is a notable addition and it is optimal. [Combats] Some profound changes in the scaling it seems, but new players won’t notice it. – the escape is very painful, and its animation is ugly. – it seems there is an AI bug when the team is freeze, unless now it disables enemies to make it easier. – lots and lots of micro display bugs, damage to dead or fleeing characters, mishandling of multi-target bosses. [Autres] It seems that the flags preventing escape from many difficult fights (ninjas on the floating continent, behemots in the last dungeon) have been removed. Being able to flee in these dungeons makes them a lot easier, and that’s kind of a good thing I think. – yuck the huge bubbles with “!” » as soon as you approach a point of interest (hmmm a conveyor belt…) – the phases with timer (banquet/opera) are much easier, that’s good. The autobattle is absolutely excellent, versatile and useful at the same time, top. – we discovered during the run-a major bug in the game which I think will soon be fixed (crash shortly before recovering Gogo). That’s still a lot of details and things to say but despite its flaws, it’s the best version of the game at the moment, a real pleasure, recommended.

In recent years reigns within the community of Japanese experts in Final Fantasy VI such effervescence that, not without humour, it has become customary to talk about the FF6 Society“the academy of sciences of FFVI“. The arrival of Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster brings many balances to the fights, inaugurates new bugs like the one I discovered in scouting, as soon as the game was released. Nearing its end, stuck on a black screen, we were thus prevented from recruiting Gogo; an unenviable situation that other players have been able to reproduce, despite themselves.

It is a daily pleasure to enjoy so much passion from Japan, to serve for the FF6 Society of patch. This very morning (Editor’s note: March 17, 2022) a Japanese player announced that it would be possible if a fight alone brought a character an indecent number of experience points (2147483648, to be precise) to bring him back to the level 1, and so to theoretically break the limits imposed on the statistics of the characters, to build a perfect team. Nothing less was needed to set in motion the FF6 Societywhich now runs after the development of a setup allowing to obtain an infinite combat which can carry out this prodigy. Will we soon be able to manipulate Setzer’s Slots and thus obtain as we see fit a 7-7-7 synonymous with instant death? What new vulnerabilities can we exploit? Apart from some major bugs but certainly fixed in a future patch, Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster is like the open book that dresses its end cutscene: scrutinized from all sides, but far from having revealed all its secrets.