History YMMV / FinalFantasyVI

* TierInducedScrappy: Players have widely-varying opinions on which characters are the best, but several are in the running for the worst.
** Gau has two problems going for him. It takes a lot of work to build him up into a powerful player as compared to others because of the [[MagikarpPower time-consuming nature of fighting on the Veldt to learn his Rages]]. Secondly, when Gau uses a Rage, it turns him into a Berserker who'll only use a physical attack and a specific ability dictated by the rage. And good luck figuring out which Rages do what, because no version of the game will tell you. You're either going to have to look through a guide or just memorize a few. Gau can [[CrutchCharacter be a powerful character for players who know which rages do what through most of the game]], but he gets overshadowed in the endgame by characters who are just as powerful but not as unpredictable. Many players don't bother building him up and only use him on those very few occasions when the game forces him into the party.
** Cyan has the lowest Magic score, one of the lowest Agility scores, and his Bushido techniques require you to sit and wait several seconds while you charge up the meter. During that time, the fight is still ongoing and the rest of your party can't enter commands. While some Bushido moves deal decent-to-strong damage, most are various status effects and a low-power Life Drain, which are only moderately useful in general and worthless against bosses. There are a few specific strategies that make him useful, but these are situational at best. The problems with Bushido are somewhat fixed in the mobile and Pixel Remaster versions, which allow you to just select the Bushido you want from a menu. But even with the ability being given a much-needed change, few players bother due to Cyan being so slow and magically-inept.
** Gogo can't equip Espers. This means he can't get the stat bonuses on level up granted by Espers. His stat growth will [[CantCatchUp fall further and further behind the rest of the party as their levels increase]]. Although this doesn't bother casual players, many of whom enjoy Gogo for his versatility, players interested in optimizing stats [[MasterOfNone tend to hate him]].
** Umaro's strategy is AttackAttackAttack! Since he's in a permanent Berserk status, Umaro randomly selects one of three standard attacks with varying damage output, or uses an ice attack that hits all enemies. He can't learn magic, can't change his equipment except for Relics, and his two better attacks are each unlocked only if he equips a specific relic in one of his two Relic slots. However, even Umaro has his uses - he can still be useful in the Cultists' Tower as the only character who can physically attack, and some players like to use him in the Phoenix Cave, since a lot of enemies are weak to Ice in there. Many players also like using Umaro in the Colosseum since the AIRoulette that can be negative against all the other characters doesn't apply to him. The Pixel Remaster version makes his relics absorb a few elements and greatly increase his stats, but it's really not worth the trouble; other characters can be just as powerful but far more predictable.

** One of the moogles you can fight with when Locke rescues Terra at the beginning of the game is name [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Cosmog]].

** [[AFatherToHisMen General Leo]], for being [[AntiVillain one of the only decent citizens of the Empire]] and a FourStarBadass to boot. His unwillingness to be fused with Magitek power, along with [[BadassNormal proof that he is more than capable of holding his own without it]], definitely helps. Before there was Aerith, there were rumors of ways to revive Leo and recruit him as a permanent party member, simply because fans liked him that much, and because [[GuestStarPartyMember the biref moments that you get to control him]] showcase just how good he is.

* TrueArtIsAngsty: Previous installments were not without their tragic and dark moments, especially ''II'' and ''IV''. However, ''VI'' was the game that really piled on the angst, drama, and CharacterDevelopment, with the central theme being death and despair versus life and hope, not to mention Terra's very metaphysical "oh goodness, what ''am'' I?" character arc. For it, ''VI'' became one of the most critically acclaimed games of its time, a staple title for old-school Super NES gamers, and is regularly pointed to as one of the best ''Final Fantasy'' titles.

** The mobile/PC port has awful graphics. It looks like someone just upscaled the original SNES graphics without concern for how the final product looked, resulting in many scenery objects that have visible seams between tiles, characters sprites that have highly stylized and cartoonish designs, and a lack of artistic consistency between scenery, character sprites, and enemy sprites. For some reason, the PC port also runs the entire game through a blur filter, resulting in things simultaneously looking highly pixilated ''and'' very blurry. The graphics are so hated that the fanbase pretty much immediately got to work with mods to redo the graphics in various ways. The port was eventually delisted in favor of the 2022 Pixel Remaster version, which was met with much better reception.

** The 2022 Pixel Remaster version did this for the entire PC port, which was otherwise thought of as a PortingDisaster. The original PC release had visible texture seams, cartoony sprites, lack of consistency in artstyle, and a general lack of polish. The Pixel Remaster version reworked everything in the graphics from the ground up, and it looks ''much'' better.

** It was oiginally a twist that Kefka was the BigBad. While Emperor Gestahl fit the mold of previous villains which tended to be TinTyrant EvilOverlord types, Kefka had more in common with [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyV Gilgamesh]] or [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyII Borghen]], just one of the Emperor's more eccentric and wacky flunkies who keeps popping up. Then comes the Floating Continent, where Kefka proves too insane to control, overthrows Gestahl, and takes power for himself. These days, the one thing most everyone is likely to learn about this game at a glance is that Kefka is the villain.

** "There's SAND on my boots!" [[labelnote:explanation]]After trudging through Figaro Desert, Kefka snaps at his bodyguards to clean the sand from his boots, bossing them around just because he can. This is one of his first lines of dialogue players here, to boot.[[/labelnote]]

* FanPreferredCouple:
** A fairly significant portion of the fanbase {{ship|ping}}s Terra/Locke, despite the fact that Locke/Celes is the OfficialCouple. Celes/Edgar and Terra/Edgar is also a fairly common ship, and the Japanese fanbase for Terra/Sabin is quite significant.
** Setzer: Setzer reacts with interest when Terra's name is first mentioned, and Terra is the only person to ask Setzer a personal question during the whole World of Balance; when the world is destroyed, it's Setzer who grabs Terra from the split deck of the Blackjack. Setzer will save Celes in the ending instead of Locke if Locke is not present. Celes will also encourage Setzer to fight Kefka and to recover his friends' airship, snapping him out of despair.
** Special mention for the [[FoeYayShipping Kefka/Terra]] (Japanese) fanbase. There is definitely a good bit of fanart for them.
** Some fans also ship [[LesYay Terra and Celes]]. Celes in the ending is frightened that Terra would disappear, and shows grave concern for her fate. After they escape the tower, it is Celes that looks for Terra, finding her unconscious on the airship's engine and pulls her off. Celes is shown standing behind Terra when she takes off her headband in freedom. This suggests that Celes should be in the party whenever they are in Mobliz for Terra's recruitment.
** [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyV Bartz]]/[[CrossoverShip Terra]] is popular among certain circles. The fact that neither of them have an official love interest helps.

** There's no backstory on how Celes rose to the rank of General. Even what she did to get herself imprisoned or her motives for betrayal aren't explored, although she implies that she learned about Kefka's plans for the people of Doma and refused to let him commit mass murdr. We know she was fond of Cid even before the start of the World of Ruin, and she seems to find Kefka's methods distasteful from the start. But anything beyond that is left out. For such a big part of the character's motivation, it seems odd that the game would omit what Celes did to get branded a traitor in the first place.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The iOS/Steam version was delisted in favor of a new version in the Pixel Remaster series. Not only does the Pixel Remaster feature sprite work much closer to the SNES original, it also added many quality-of-life improvements.
** Many characters in the Pixel Remaster have new sprites that more closely resemble their concept artwork and how they've been depicted in spin-off games, with the most prominent examples being Gogo and Kefka. Even for characters who weren't radically redesigned, the removal of palette and sprite size restrictions means that they resemble their art more -- Gau has green hair, Edgar has blue and gold armor, Setzer's coat has its gold trim and he has the ruffle on his shirt, etc. Then there's General Leo, who was AmbiguouslyBrown in his concept art and portrait but had the same skin tone as everyone else in his sprite; now, his sprite has a darker skin tone that more closely matches his art.
** Mechanically, Cyan's Bushido skill gets a well-needed buff in that you select the skill tier you want to use, and then it charges while letting you move on to your other characters, meaning you don't have to sit around doing nothing while the Bushido gauge charges. This was one of the biggest gripes about Cyan in the original game, so it's a welcome change.
** Sabin's Blitz attacks were strong, but the fact that you couldn't check your inputs meant a lot more fumbles than necessary. In the Pixel Remaster, selecting a Blitz now shows you the inputs you need to make, and a misinupt now just makes you do it over rather than wasting Sabin's turn. Inputting the commands still lets enemies attack, so it's also relatively balanced.
** Originally, when Mog first joined after being saved from Lone Wolf, he'd be five levels above the party average, the highest of ''any'' character; this had a tendency to screw players out of Esper bonuses for Mog. This was removed in the Pixel Remaster, and he's now much closer in level to everyone else when he joins.
** The translation touched up Tom Slattery's script to remove several troublesome lines -- notably, Edgar no longer implies TheJailbaitWait when he meets Relm.
** The Opera scene has been given a far more cinematic treatment, with changing camera angles, vocal performances, and Celes' movement has been replaced with an easy [[PressXToNotDie Quick Time Event]] so that the player can focus on simply memorizing the lines.
** One of the most frustrating restrictions on Espers and equipment was that you couldn't swap anything if the character wasn't in your party. If you really needed a piece of equipment or an Esper to teach a spell for a certain situation, you were out of luck. You could talk to some [=NPCs=] on the airships to remove equipment and Espers that weren't in your active party, but it was small comfort when you couldn't use that option when you really needed it. The Pixel Remaster version removed this restriction; you can now swap equipment and Espers with anyone at any time, even if they're not in the active party.

* ThatOneAchievement: The ''Master Gambler'' achievement on the ''Pixel Remaster'' version (formerly ''Wandering Gambler'' on the discontinued Steam version). It requires you to get all the possible combinations with Setzer's Slot ability, ''including'' the "bad" Joker's Death, which immediately kills your party in spite of any immunities instead of enemies. You can at least still get the achievement using auto-battle, which randomizes the results of the Slot ability, but even then it's likely to be an hours-long slog unless you're lucky.

* ThatOneAchievement: The ''Master Gambler'' achievement on the ''Pixel Remaster'' version (formerly ''Wandering Gambler'' on the discontinued Steam version). It requires you to get all the possible combinations with Setzer's Slot ability, ''including'' the "bad" Joker's Death, which immediately kills your party in spite of any immunities instead of enemies like in the good version. You can at least still get the achievement using auto-battle, which randomizes the results of the Slot ability, but even then it's likely to be an hours-long slog unless you're lucky.

* IdiotPlot: The first few hours of the game where various leaders proclaim astonishment that the ObviouslyEvil Empire would consider attacking them despite their "neutrality". This, despite the fact that you're told at the start of the game that the Empire has taken over the three towns next to it, attacked the Kingdoms of Doma and Figaro (the latter of which is ostensibly the Empire's "ally"), and the city of Narshe. This last one is especially the most mind-boggling because the very beginning of the game is the Empire leading a group of soldiers to raid Narshe for its Esper and killing all in their way, yet their leader later is hesitant to join the forces trying to defend against the Empire's aggression because they're supposed to be neutral.

%%* WhatAnIdiot: Sabin, Shadow, and Cyan get stuck on the Phantom Train leading to the afterlife because Sabin deliberately ignores Cyan SHOUTING at him to get off all because he's curious.

** The age old question of what to do with Ragnarok -- turn it into a sword and bet in the Colosseum to obtain the Lightbringer, the InfinityPlusOneSword; or take the Magicite, which teaches Ultima, and its summon ability can transform enemies into items, letting you farm Megalixirs, Miracle Shoes, Safety Bits, Ribbons, and Experience Eggs. There's no consensus on which is the better choice. Two major factors are if you're willing to put in the time to uncurse the Cursed Shield (since the Paladin Shield is the only other way to learn Ultima), or if you're willing to put in the effort to find out which enemies can be transformed into those rare items to farm. The GBA version and subsequent ports cooled this a bit since the Ragnarok sword can be stolen from part of the FinalBoss, and the game can be saved afterward to keep it. But that still means not getting the Lightbringer until [[BraggingRightsReward after you could have really used it]].

** Two of the three monsters in the Collapsing House. You're on a six minute time limit to get in, grab the kid, and get out; however, the place is loaded with some crazy powerful items you'll want to snag. However, several of the chests are Chest Monsters, the Scorpions come in groups of three and inflict Doom/Condemned status, and Zokkas/Hermit Crabs can inflict Petrify with their final attack — which wouldn't be so bad except that since Celes is likely to be the only member of the party at the time, getting petrified is an instant game over.

** Sabin became one thanks to the train-ssuplexing incident that turned him into a MemeticBadass, but also thanks to getting some of the most amusing lines in the game.

** Rizopas, the boss of Baren Falls. Every other turn it has a 1-in-3 chance to use El Niño, an extremely powerful water attack. On his other turns he takes two actions, the first one has a 33% chance to be Mega Volt and the second has a 66% chance to be Blizzard; Mega Volt isn't too bad, but if Blizzard is single-target it can one-shot a character. The Rizopas has a fairly piddling 775 HP, so Sabin and Cyan can kill it in just a few turns, but the Rizopas is capable of doing the exact same thing back to them.

** There's no backstory on how Celes rose to the rank of General. Even what she did to get herself imprisoned or her motives for betrayal aren't explored. We know she was fond of Cid even before the start of the World of Ruin, and she seems to find Kefka's methods distasteful from the start. But anything beyond that is left out. For such a big part of the character's motivation, it seems odd that the game would omit what Celes did to get branded a traitor in the first place.

** Biggs and Wedge. weren't the subject of quite as many HesJustHiding rumours as General Leo, but there were rumours that Biggs and Wedge had survived and could be encountered, having renounced their ways. Nope; their main purpose was just to be ThoseTwoGuys that [[TheWorfEffect die when they encounter the first Esper]], and that's it.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation/FinalFantasy Here.]]

* SacredCow: In spite of the BrokenBase surrounding different versions and certain gameplay and story elements, the reception of ''Final Fantasy VI'' as one of the greatest entries in the series-- if not ''the'' greatest-- is a nearly universal one. Any claims of it being overrated being sure to draw huge amounts of fandom ire. It helps that its more contentious aspects are nowhere near as overshadowing as those of later games (especially ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', which is either the greatest or most overrated video game of all time, depending on who you talk to). Even though a lot of its innovations on the JRPG formula have since been [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny done to death]] by later games, they still hold up well to those used to the comparatively tame and by-the-book nature of most other SNES-era [=RPGs=] (barring only [[VideoGame/EarthBound a small]] [[VideoGame/ChronoTrigger handful of]] [[VideoGame/TrialsOfMana other SNES titles]]).

* GrowingTheBeard: ''Final Fantasy VI'' wasn't the first plot-driven game in the series, nor was it the first character-driven one. But it's the one that married the concepts together to raise the bar and produce the standard that the [=JRPG=] genre would be recognized for to this day. It also took the production standards up through the stratosphere to a level few but Square themselves could match on the same hardware. It says a lot that there's still many fans that hold ''VI'' as the [[MagnumOpus peak of the entire franchise]].

** The Opera scene has been given a far more cinematic treatment, with changing camera angles, vocal performances, and Celes' movement has been replaced with an easy QuickTimeEvent so that the player can focus on simply memorizing the lines.

** Which is the best version of the game to play? The SNES version is a nostalgic classic, but its translation didn't properly represent certain characters and plot points, and it is riddled with bugs that can either [[GameBreakingBug crash the game]] or [[GoodBadBugs can be exploited to make the party overpowered]]. The GBA version fixed many of those bugs, has a script more faithful to the original Japanese, and has additional bonus content; but it has awful sound quality, noticeable lag for many attack animations, and while the translation is TruerToTheText, it lacks the charm of the SNES script. The mobile/PC port fixed the sound and lag problems and retained the bonus features and translation (for better or worse); but the new graphics were highly lacking with many sloppy environment features and character sprites that were too bright and stylized compared to the darker and detailed environments. The ''Pixel Remaster'' port returns to the SNES-style graphics with touched-up environments, has quality of life improvements to improve the gameplay, and runs much smoother than the GBA or previous mobile/PC port; but it lacks the bonus features from past ports, has its own slew of bugs and oversights (though they're slowly being patched), and while the sprites look better than the mobile/PC port, some feel that they're still too bright and stick out from the environments which use a darker palette. This is part of the reason the game has such an active ROM hacking community, to try to create an optimal experience combining the best features of each port. The most well-regarded of these is ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIBraveNewWorld'', which [[CastSpeciation rebalances the Esper system]], retranslates some dialogue and even supports the base game's optional MSU-1 patch for a fully vocalized opera.

** Which is the best version of the game to play? The SNES version is a nostalgic classic, but its translation didn't properly represent certain characters and plot points, and it is riddled with bugs that can either [[GameBreakingBug crash the game]] or [[GoodBadBugs can be exploited to make the party overpowered]]. The GBA version fixed many of those bugs, has a script more faithful to the original Japanese, and has additional bonus content; but it has awful sound quality, noticeable lag for many attack animations, and while the translation is TruerToTheText, it lacks the charm of the SNES script. The mobile/PC port fixed the sound and lag problems and retained the bonus features and translation (for better or worse); but the new graphics were highly lacking with many sloppy environment features and character sprites that were too bright and stylized compared to the darker and detailed environments. The ''Pixel Remaster'' port returns to the SNES-style graphics with touched-up environments, has quality of life improvements to improve the gameplay, and runs much smoother than the GBA or previous mobile/PC port; but it lacks the bonus features from past ports, has its own slew of bugs and oversights (though they're slowly being patched), and while the sprites look better than the mobile/PC port, some feel that they're still too bright and stick out from the environments which use a darker palette. This is part of the reason the game has such an active modding community, to try to create an optimal experience combining the best features of each port.

** Which is the best version of the game to play? The SNES version is a nostalgic classic, but its translation didn't properly represent certain characters and plot points, and it is riddled with bugs that can either [[GameBreakingBug crash the game]] or [[GoodBadBugs can be exploited to make the party overpowered]]. The GBA version fixes many of those bugs and has a script more faithful to the original Japanese, and has additional bonus content; but it has awful sound quality, noticeable lag for many attack animations, and while the translation is TruerToTheText, it lacks the charm of the SNES. The mobile/PC port fixes the sound and lag problems and retains the bonus features and translation (for better or worse), but the new graphics are highly lacking with many sloppy environment features and character sprites that are too bright and stylized compared to the darker and detailed environments. The ''Pixel Remaster'' port returns to the SNES-style graphics with touched-up environments, has quality of life improvements to streamline the gameplay, and runs much smoother than the GBA or previous mobile/PC port, but it lacks the bonus features of those titles and some feel that the sprites, while better than the mobile/PC port, are still too bright and stick out against the darker palettes used for the environments.

** The fight in Narshe to defend the Esper against Kefka and his minions. It's the second combat in the game to use three separate partied to protect choke points against incoming enemy groups. Unlike the first fight, you only have seven characters to divide among the three groups. There are also more waves of foes. To cap things off, once you complete a fight, the enemy troops keep marching as you're in menus. You thus have situations where you should have time to heal up between fights, but can't because the next set of enemies has reached one of your parties. Defeated PC groups will appear back at the save point, but that party will no longer be protecting one of the passageways to Banon and the Esper, which is an instant game over if an enemy reaches him. Finally, the boss fight against Kefka is naturally going to be a pain, since you'll almost certainly be facing him with a smaller party.

** Which is the best version of the game to play? The SNES version is a nostalgic classic, but its translation didn't properly represent certain characters and plot points, and it is riddled with bugs that can either [[GameBreakingBug crash the game]] or [[GoodBadBugs can be exploited to make the party overpowered]]. The GBA version fixes many of those bugs and has a script more faithful to the original Japanese, and has additional bonus content; but it has awful sound quality, noticeable lag for many attack animations, and while the translation is TruerToTheText, it lacks the charm of the SNES. The mobile/PC port fixes the sound and lag problems and retains the bonus features and translation (for better or worse), but the new graphics are highly lacking with many sloppy environment features and character sprites that are too bright and stylized compared to the darker and detailed environments.

** The infamous Relm Sketch glitch for the 1.0 SNES version of the game, which is both this ''and'' a GameBreakingBug. Sketch is coded so badly that using it runs the risk of deleting your save games, freezing the game, or even bricking the game entirely. Pull it off right, and it'll glitch up your inventory, filling it with hundreds of thousands of new items, some of which are otherwise supposed to be one-of-a-kind. The Soul of Thamasa, the Lightbringer, the Celestriad, all in multiple copies, not to mention tens of thousands of Daggers and hundreds of other VendorTrash items that you can sell for an obscene amount of gil. This trick was removed in later versions of the game, and it also fixed the issue that caused the Game-Breaking Bug.

* AntiClimaxBoss: The Eight Dragons are legendary beasts that people warn you about early in the World of Ruin and form an ongoing sidequest. And most of them have a WeaksauceWeakness to a status ailment that renders them much easier than many other {{Bonus Boss}}es. The Ice Dragon and Holy Dragon are vulnerable to Silence, the Red Dragon can be Confused, the Skull Dragon can be Rasped to death, the Gold Dragon can be Berserked, and the Storm Dragon can be Blinded.
** Blue Dragon falls into this in both its normal encounter and the Dragons' Den. The Blue Dragon's stats are so low that it's not much of a challenge when it's first fought if you're even at a decent level. The rest of the Eight Dragons all have nasty new gimmicks to trip you up in the Dragons' Den, as well as higher stats and stronger attacks. Blue Dragon, however, retains his old gimmick of using Rippler to steal status buffs. He'll never use Rippler if the party isn't under Haste, Protect, or Shell, so just foregoing those buffs means he'll never use Rippler. On the other hand, the Blue Dragon is vulnerable to Blind, Slow, Sap, and Poison. If you could beat Blue Dragon earlier, you'll have no trouble beating him the second time.

** Special mention for the [[FoeYay Kefka/Terra]] (Japanese) fanbase. There is definitely a good bit of fanart for them.

* FoeYay: Kefka takes delight in Terra's destructive magical abilities, but it's not hard to interpret his delight as sexual attraction. In Terra's flashback, Kefka gleefully announces "You're all mine!" when he places the Slave Crown on her head. In ''Dissidia'', Kefka's line to Terra -- "Time to come home to Papa!" -- could also be interpreted as a sign of his attraction to her. Fan art depicting Kefka and Terra together is easy to find.