Category Archives: Video Games

13. Breaking Celes Out

A trend I’ve noticed with my entries so far is that I can’t help but compare Final Fantasy VI to previous games in the genre. But today, it’s in a good way. Dragon Warrior was the first I played, and you went the quest alone. You never faced more than one enemy per battle, and that eventually got stale. But Dragon Warrior II improved upon this, only having you start the game alone, forcing you to find allies. Sometimes you did run into multiple enemies, and the increase in strategy was welcome. Dragon Warrior IV played around with this as well, sometimes having you fight alone, sometimes with groups of 2, 3, or 4.

Final Fantasy VI plays around with this constantly, which is one of the reason the game doesn’t get stale for a long time. You begin the game with just a couple of people in your party, and it steadily grows. But there are several times where your group is forced to split up. The first time is after you go to the Returner’s Hideout. When I learned I’d be going to South Figaro alone with Locke, I was excited.

While there’s no battles you have to fight while alone, you certainly can. And you will almost certainly lose. The best strategy is to pull an Indiana Jones and find an enemy to help you blend in.

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6. Stop! Hammer Time

Once you get the hang of things in Super Mario Bros. the game becomes pretty easy. Enemies have predictable patterns, and with a little patience, there’s little in the way of challenge outside of timing your mad dash for every Bowser visit. But there’s one area of the game that never gets easy and to this day still makes me nervous.

Oh, and there’s bullets.

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