If you’re reading this on October 11th 2024, then 30 years ago today Final Fantasy 3 (aka VI) was released in North America. A lot of memorable games (Super Metroid, DKC, Earthworm Jim, Ridge Racer, and Doom II, to name a few) turn 30 this year, but Final Fantasy VI stands out to me because I was privileged to play and beat it a couple of months before its official release.
And, no, I didn’t simply import and play the Japanese version that had been released six months prior. In the summer of 1994, as a fresh-faced, 16-year-old kid, I played to completion an official, pre-release build of the English version.
In honour of this amazing game’s pearl anniversary, I want to share my experience.
The Olden Days
First, a little background for those who didn’t live in the pre-internet age.
Back in ye olden days communication was limited to landline phones, paper letters, faxes, and face-to-face conversations. Shopping meant going to physical stores or ordering from catalogues and waiting six to eight weeks to receive your order in the mail. Yes, weeks. Newspapers, magazines, and TV news were our primary sources of semi-realtime information. News travelled slowly, and there was little public discourse outside of simply talking with someone else.
During those dark days, video game developers had limited options for getting feedback on their work. They had to hope that what they were making would connect with their audience because after a game launched, that was that. There were no patches or DLC to improve it. Barring cartridge revisions with very minor tweaks or fixes, the day-one release was all that consumers would ever see.
Hearing from gamers ahead of release was nearly impossible. There was no Early Access, no online betas, and no Nintendo Directs. Instead, companies relied on in-house playtesting and feedback from their friends and colleagues. They also conducted focus groups and in-person beta tests. Everything was in-person and in small numbers.
In other words, the world was drastically different back then.
I Played it First
My first experience with Final Fantasy VI was at one of those in-person beta tests. There were about 10 or 12 kids in the group. I was one of the oldest, and my three younger brothers (ages 14, 11, and 9) also joined me.
I’d like to think that I was the first non-Square employee to finish the game in the United States
This wasn’t our first rodeo. My brothers and I had made numerous visits to Nintendo of America’s HQ for playtesting and focus groups. Mario is Missing, Blues Brothers, Faceball 2000, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Wings 2, and Wave Race for the Game Boy are a few of the games we remember playing during those short 30-60 minute sessions.
The Final Fantasy VI playtest was a different experience. We were onsite at Squaresoft of America’s office all day, every day, for a full week! Not only was it my first playthrough of a pre-released RPG, but it was also my initiation into the 40-hour workweek in an office cubicle. Somehow, the 1,300+ weeks I’ve spent as a professional desk jockey since then haven’t quite measured up to that first one.
What Was it Like?
The experience was highly structured. We had to stay in our cubicle except during breaks and we weren’t allowed to help one another or even talk to each other while playing. During breaks we could talk about anything except for the game we were all playing. Square clearly wanted our individual thoughts. They wanted to learn from our individual experiences with the game.
The playtest was supervised by James Gillis who has credits on several Squaresoft games from that era.
My brother Kevin was the youngest attendee. He was only nine and needed a little extra help. James was probably breaking his own rules when he wrote out a few notes for Kevin, including a list of relics, items, and “teammates”. No list of Espers, I’m afraid.
Shadow dropped
Unfortunately, I don’t remember a lot of specifics (it was 30 years ago, guys!) but two things I remember clearly: losing Shadow on the floating continent, and never discovering that I could target all enemies with a magic spell.
As much as I loved the game, I was ecstatic to see the credits roll on Friday morning. Another kid beat the game on that last day, but I was first
I entirely avoided Shadow on the floating continent because I was underpowered and near death when I arrived. His unconscious sprite looked too menacing to interact with, so I passed by him like the priest and the Levite. Apparently I’m no Good Samaritan.
James was surprised that I never figured out that I could target all enemies using the 'L' button. I was an FFIV veteran, and multi-targeting wasn’t possible in that game, so the idea was foreign to me. Who knows, maybe my experience convinced the team at Square to add some dialogue in Narshe’s Adventuring School to better explain this feature.
It was a long but fun week of gameplay. As much as I loved the game, I was ecstatic to see the credits roll on Friday morning. Another kid beat the game on that last day, but I was first. In fact, I’d like to think that I was the first non-Square employee to finish the game in the United States. I don't have official confirmation, but it’s one of those assumptions that I’d love to keep as-is. I was first. Deal with it y’all!
Playtesting with Power
I walked away from the playtest with an ego boost, but each participant was given a copy of their choice of Squaresoft game. Having three brothers meant that we left with almost every Super NES game that Square had published to that point - Final Fantasy II (IV), Secret of Mana, Breath of Fire, and the promise of a copy of FFVI once it was released. No Mystic Quest, I’m afraid. Come to think of it, I’m glad that I was locked in a room with FFVI for a full week instead of Mystic Quest. That might have caused some unresolved trauma that I’d still be carrying around.
In my humble opinion, Final Fantasy VI remains a seminal video game. I think it’s still the measuring stick for all turn-based, random-battle JRPGs. Its innovative gameplay and battle mechanics, compelling story, outstanding soundtrack, and memorable characters are as impressive today as they were 30 years ago. Earlier this year I picked up the FFVI Pixel Remaster. It took me longer than a week to finish the game this time around, but it was every bit as good as the first time.
Do yourself a favour and play it in whatever way you can. Suplex that train, enjoy the Opera, wait for Shadow, save Cid, and beat that villainous Clown! At the very least, please join me in wishing Final Fantasy VI a very happy birthday.
Comments 57
If you want to play something mobile nowadays, i do really recommend Mystic Quest XP
In the End, it is Final Fantasy Core Mechanics, you can easily jump in and out, grind some Battles while in the Bus/Train.
You don't get lost after having lost interest for some Months and lose Interest at all.
Thanks for sharing this experience of yours (and your brothers' ) Nathan, it was a great read and now I'm even more excited than I already was to finally play Final Fantasy VI - I recently managed to get a slightly discounted physical copy of the Pixel Remaster collection thanks to its finally wider retail release so it's just a matter of me finding the time for it!
It bothered me a lot that FFV got cancelled in the US. It was supposed to be FFIII and introduce me to the job system but it didn’t come til years later
Excellent story! Made me recall playing FFVI back in the 90’s and what a mind blowing experience it was!
You know, Nathan (@niner), you have a similar chin to Hugo Weaving.
You just need to put a wig on and I really would believe you were there 30 years ago.
I did a double take as I read the headline as Push Square HQ hahaha
I’m envious of the author’s mint copy of FF 6 SNES version. The box of the copy I got second hand is pretty worn. I miss the SNES era where Square releases include thick instruction manual with artwork and foldout maps.
Ah FFIII. I am not sure from reading your piece if playing it was a life changing experience. It certainly was for me.
When I was a kid, there was a store in a village not far from the city where I lived, which sold imported games. The woman who ran it was such a nice person. This is where I was introduced to FFIII, a game which would never release in Europe in its SNES form.
I also bought Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG there. Maybe some more I am forgetting right now. It was a magnificent place.
I was also introduced to a Japanese N64 with Mario 64 on it, way before it would be released, and I will gladly tell you the embarrassing truth, I did NOT understand that controller, trying to reach the middle stick while holding it like a regular joystick, instead of holding it middle to right.
Anyhoo, I played FFIII for about an hour there after an event she had hosted for that unicycle game, forgot the name. I am so glad I took it home. It probably wasn't my first RPG, though it might have been, but it was definitely the one with the absolute most impact on me.
The woman there was also somewhat impressed by my grasp of English. I remember her saying that to my folks. In those days, it was apparently pretty unique for a kid my age to be that good at English...
I love this game dearly!
Thank you for sharing your story, Nathan! Sounds like you were a lucky kid with all that playtesting!
Seems so strange to me that this was even a thing for Squaresoft/FF games in the US 30 years ago. We wouldn't get our first Final Fantasy until FF7 in 1997 in the UK!
Very cool, I would've loved to do this as a kid.
@Don i can't remember if it was in box or maybe could mail something in but there was a poster as well, hung on my brother's wall for years. Doubt we'd go out of our way to get it at that age but my memory is fuzzy
@Kienda LOL, I'm glad you picked up on the reference. I was actually watching the LotR EE while writing this post so I couldn't resist quoting Elrond. I had never noticed the physical resemblance, but I think you just picked out this year's Halloween costume for me. Cheers!
Is that subtitle an Elrond reference?
Very interesting story! You never hear about these kinds of experiences and it sounds like a fantastic opportunity.
Great story! With that said, you absolutely can multi target magic in FFIV too!
Wings II? I got the Japanese version, Sky Mission, when I was picking up random super-cheap games a few years ago, and thought it was odd that even the Japanese version was in English. You'd think that for a flight sim, understanding the instructions would be kind of important.
Sounds like a great experience. I played it a while ago and when I fought the train I thought to myself, that everyone must be suplexing it.
@niner Oddly enough, I think some of those names like Sarrah and Dude do exist in the character names list in the ROM data.
Though to be fair, if this was a prerelease they could have been going through decisions on the final localized names.
I do recall Ted Woolsey said they did want some familiarity with the names, but not too common since these games did allow players to rename their characters. It would be natural to expect players to insert their friends' names into the game and they didn't want players too likely to encounter duplicates. There's a chance some IRL Terra has played this game.
I was pretty sure multi-targeting in FF4 was possible by moving the cursor past the edge of the screen. (as the Famicom FF3, though that game allowed targeting just a group by moving the cursor Up, though FF4 didn't).
Though FF4 also introduced a lot of unique enemy AI scripting that often punished attacking too many enemies at once.
FFVI is still to this day one of my favourite games. I first laid eyes on the game when my cousin was playing it at my grandparents' house. I had never seen anything like it in a video game before! The character portraits in the menu were so beautiful, the overworld song (Terra's theme) was gorgeous, and I couldn't stop watching because I wanted to see what happened next. I was entranced by the opera. At the time, it really was mind blowing, although admittedly I hadn't played FFIV or any other RPG before.
It still holds up today, although a lot of the things that were made it special are common in video games now. I think FFVI pushed the limits of what a video game could be.
@Buizel FF7 was certainly a big enough game that Sunsoft eyed some of that money and made a deal to reprint the four Game Boy "Final Fantasy" games (none of them actual FF games) in the US shortly after FF7's release. (though FF Adventure got a European release as "Mystic Quest", I hear the Legend series didn't get an official release outside Japan and North America until the Switch collection)
Though Sunsoft's prints of the Game Boy games omitted extra printed material beyond the instruction manual. I was so shocked as a kid when the FFA manual told me to refer to the enclosed map for more details on items. There was definitely no map with that release. Child me had wondered if someone at Target had opened my game and swiped the map and then resealed it before selling it to me.
Literally the best game in the series.. I remember playing on release and being in awe
You wouldn't be the son of a submariner, would you?
I was actually considering playing it today though I didn't know it was the 30th anniversary. That settles it then.
@CammyUnofficial The game came with a poster, just about A4 sized, of Mog, same as the box art. I had it too.
@niner You owe us a picture of your Halloween costume in a few weeks.
Just pretend like you are talking about a LotR game, and throw in a pic. We won't tell!
FF3/6 was life changing to me as a young teenager. It was all I thought about for years. To this day it is still my favorite game of all time. A masterpiece on all aspects.
It honestly took me years to playthrough Final Fantasy 6. First time I tried playing I dropped it since I was burnt out after beating FF 7 prior to playing 6. Then years later when COVID hit I decided it was time to beat this game on my SNES Classic Mini. After beating it I finally understood why people love it and it's my favourite in the series.
@Daniel36 yes that's the one! Wow in box, what a treat for everyone
A great game combined with a great company in its peak.
Hey, @niner. Made an account just to follow up on this great post. Re: that list of names, is this a list of temp names that Square was using before the final version of the game? And which names correspond to which characters?
@KingMike I’m googling around trying to find this and am only getting hits for this article. Is this a thing? Do you know of any resources online talking about this?
Still my favorite game ever, thirty years later. Can’t count how many times I’ve played it front to back, and yet continue to drink from that well. So many dear memories, wouldn’t even know where to start. I’ll be making more of them for another thirty years to come, I hope.
Oh my god, my company used to be in that business park! I had no idea Square was there! That's wild!
@spacepope4u I wish I knew! I believe these were the names in the build that we played but I don't have any proof beyond these hand drawn notes. One thing that I distinctly remember is changing Terra/Sarrah's name to Megan since that was the name of my crush at the time. 😊
I tried, but was unsuccessful, in tracking down James to ask more details about the playtest. Hopefully @KingMike has more details.
Loved the article! Thanks for sharing your story with us, Nathan!
I really love FF6, and these kinds of "side-content" is always so fun to hear
Happy Anniversary to the last and greatest Final Fantasy game. After VI the series just went downhill and is now just soulless games.
Going to be playing it for sure this weekend.
Yes! Suplex the train! Good times.
Bruh! IV does have multi target magic. Press left past the furthest enemy.
Ok, ok. I went back to see whether multii-targeting is possible in IV and sure enough it is. I forgot how long the intro is for that game! I had to play quite a while before I had a black magic spell that I could multi-target with. Thanks to @RushDawg, @KingMike, and @Deusfaux for the fact check.
Gawd. I was desperate to play test games as a kid. I didn’t know it actually existed though. Square was my favorite.
@niner I was wondering if I was crazy, because I remembered multi targeting in IV, and also remembered it being a struggle to figure out how to do it in VI!
@Tasuki 7-10 aren’t bad! But 6 is best. And the rest after ten aren’t even final fantasy.
@Jhena as I kid I never even questioned the logic of suplexing a train. You’d think I’d seen it done before!
Neat article.
Happy birthday, FF3! Still the king of RPGs.
@niner one wonders if you're aware of all the weapons that can be 'used' as items during battle for free spell casts.
especially all the rods - several of which do unique spells not otherwise learnable
@Daniel36 Uniracers?
@jesse_dylan
Yeah, this is the magic of being a young kid, combined with the magic of pixel games in full force.
@RunninBlue Yes, that one.
And to everyone here, sit down before I tell you about another hidden feature of FFIII.
Are you siting down?
It has multiplayer!
Yeah, y'all have gone real quiet since I dropped that bombshell.
This is a very interesting piece! As the only Final Fantasy title I've played and finished as of this writing (Yes, yes....More are backlogged), I can't say I have any nostalgia. But I do recognize that Final Fantasy VI is a quality RPG that deserves to be listed as among the best from the 90s. I played it on the SNES Classic and enjoyed it. I might revisit it through the Pixel Remaster sometime.
@niner TCRF does have information.
DUDE isn't one of the mysterious extraneous dummy character names programmed in the ROM, but SERA is.
https://tcrf.net/Final_Fantasy_VI
Fantastic article, I could feel the nostalgia you have for the game, and it felt like I was right there with you. Happy 30th, FF6!
When I was in the 7th or 8th grade. I joined a focus group with my buddy to earn some cash to pay for the game. I believe it was $80 msrp. We each got $50 for the group and combined our earnings to purchase it. We would then take turns every week playing while the other would watch in bliss. Such fond memories. Now every few years I complete the game for pure nostalgia
I missed this article back in October, so I’m glad to see it on the 2024 recap.
FF3 on the Super Nintendo is also one of my all-time favorite video games. At the time I was not quite old enough to drive, so my older brother drove us to Best Buy. This was the era when the video games were locked behind glass, lined up in categories. I clearly remember how my favorite games (RPGs) were always in short supply, and $75-$90 per title. That was all of my birthday money and allowance saved up!
We just happened to walk into the store when the sole copy of Final Fantasy III was in the case. I didn’t even realize that the game was released yet. I still remember the anticipation waiting to get home, reading the manual while my brother drove, jamming to Counting Crows: August and Everything After.
Good times.
Not gonna lie when he made the comment about being first non square employee to finish ff6 in America. My first thought was someone in the comments is gonna claim to have done it before him.
@Azuris What mobile platform is that on? Am I misunderstanding what you are saying?
@tseliot
On any that supports a Super Nintendo Emulator
To not get scammed, Retroarch has them all.
I didn't know there was 6 of them until I saw my uncle play 3 on super famicom and it was different than mine. He was stationed in Japan and thought I was nuts calling 6 what he knew to be 3 and no clue about 6. He could speak and read fluent Japanese so it was nothing for him. I miss that man.
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