Writing a review of Final Fantasy VI feels a little intimidating. This is a game that’s regularly listed among the greatest JRPGs of all time, if not one of the greatest video games of all time. NPR, Den of Geek, and Push Square have all ranked Final Fantasy VI as the very best entry in the series. It comes up anytime anyone asks what the best Final Fantasy game is, usually right alongside Final Fantasy VII and X.
My own experience with Final Fantasy VI is limited. I never played it on the SNES when I was a kid, I took a short run at it on an emulator on my phone nearly a decade ago, but I didn’t get very far on that attempt. This time, though, I’ve seen the credits roll, and I get it now. It’s good. Great, even. I have my complaints, sure, but overall it was a rich, memorable experience.
I’ll have more to say on how it compares to its SNES siblings in a separate post about the trilogy as a whole. For now, let’s talk about Final Fantasy VI, what it does well, where it stumbles, and why it still holds up all these years later.
The Story Begins…
Final Fantasy VI opens with 3 characters in Magitech suits of armour stomping across a barren, snow covered plain, a town nestled in the mountains slowly rising on the horizon. Those mechs stomp through the town of Narshe, and walk right up to an Esper, frozen in ice. Terra, feels pulled to it, and she and the Esper react to each other, giving off a blinding light.
Terra wakes up in a bed in a nearby home. An old man reveals that he pulled a mind control unit off of her head, returning her control to her body. Unfortunately, she can’t remember anything. Almost immediately, soldiers of the Empire bang on the door, and demand they turn Terra over to them. Terra flees out the back of the home into a nearby mine, where she is trapped and falls into a pit.
The old man sends Locke, a thief treasure hunter, after her, as Locke is a member of the Returners, a resistance group fighting against the growing Empire. Locke finds her, swears to protect her, and decides to head to Figaro to speak with the king. King Edgar, technically has an alliance with the Empire, but Locke reports that this is a ruse. Edgar is a high ranking member of the Returners, and is waiting for the right opportunity to turn on the Empire.
Enter Kefka, a general from the Empire, who shows up at Castile Figaro, and demands that Edgar turn over the girl. Edgar plays dumb, so Kefka does the most logical thing. Set the whole castle on fire. Edgar reveals that the castle can actually submerge under the sands, and it does to evade Kefka’s wrath.
Edgar, Locke, and Terra meet up with Edgars brother, Sabin, and then eventually with Bannon, leader of the Returners as well. As the group are deciding their next course of action, the Empire appears on their doorstep once again. The party escapes out the back, leaps onto a raft, and after a fast ride down the river, the party is split into three different groups.
The World of Balance
Unlike past Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy VI is not set in a purely high fantasy setting. During the opening cutscene, it’s revealed that magic has actually waned over the last century, and the humans have developed technology to make their lives easier (technology like a whole-ass castle that can submerge under the sands). The characters still wield swords, and Terra uses the familiar Fire magic, but much of the world is clad in metal. There’s a bit of a grungy steampunk aesthetic to the world, that is a welcome change from the classical fantasy themes the past 5 games have treated us to.
Returning to the gameplay style of Final Fantasy IV, each character has a specific archetype they generally fit into, which also limits what characters can equip specific gear. Edgar can wield swords and spears, while Locke can handle swords and knives. There’s lots of overlap, but also some characters have weapons only they can use. Each character has their own skill as well, like Locke’s Steal ability, where he can swipe items from monsters, or Sabin’s Blitz commands, which require the player to enter a button combo a la street fighter to execute a command. These skills are specific to each character, no swapping skills here. It’s a bit of a jarring return to form, considering Final Fantasy V was all about letting you mix and match your abilities to create some really fun combinations. But in the end, I think this system allows the developers and designers to create a much more narratively cohesive character.
When in doubt, suplex a train.
Some of the character skills feel outright broken. Sabin, for example, got an attack called Rising Phoenix, that hit all the enemies on the field, often KOing most of them. Edgar similarly, has an auto-crossbow, that hits all enemies without any damage penalty. Neither of these skills have a cool-down or MP cost, which means I pretty much spammed them for most battles. It was rare that I chose the default attack option over their skills in any situation.
Rise of the Mad Clown Kefka
The story of Final Fantasy VI doesn’t necessarily have a main character. Terra, is an obvious player surrogate, considering she has amnesia, and gives other characters the perfect excuse to dump expository dialogue. The story does seem to revolve around her for a while, at the very least. While there could be arguments made for either Terra, Locke, or Edgar to be the main character, but really, Final FantasyVI has an ensemble cast. 14 characters in total join your party. Shadow, the mysterious sell-sword comes and goes, while Cyan joins up with Sabin after Kefka poisons the water of Castle Domo, killing everyone inside, including empire prisoners, Domo soldiers, and Cyan’s king, along with his wife and child. Celes, and ex-general of the Empire, joins Locke when he finds her chained in a dungeon with her execution scheduled for the next day. he vows to protect her, and scuttles her to safety.
Most of the 14 characters have their own place in the story, and you will be rewarded with extra cutscenes if you have those characters in your party when you visit certain locations. Like witnessing Edgar and Sabin’s flashback to when Sabin renounced the crown, leaving his brother to take on the role of governing the kingdom after their father died, or Shadows dreams if he’s in the party when you rest at an inn. Most of the characters feel fully realized and complex. Others, however, are one note. Mog is a Moogle who just wants to help. Gau is a child, raised by monsters, who follows you around after you throw some meat his way.
The party eventually make their way back to Narshe, and Terra confronts the Esper again. She transforms into a pink creature and flies away. After finding her, they learn from Ramuh that Terra is half human and half Esper. The empire has been experimenting on Espers to draw their magical abilities out, and infuse their soldiers with these powers, hence why Celes is able to use Blizzard. Ramuh reveals that Espers can turn themselves into Magicite, and lend their powers to the party. By holding a magicite, the characters both learn how to use magic, and can call upon the summon once per battle.
The party embarks on a mission to storm the Empire, and free the trapped Espers within. Celes stands in at an opera to trick Setzer so the party can make use of his airship. The party manages to break into the Magitech research facility and finds more Espers, which sense Ramuh’s power within yours, so they turn to Magicite too. Cid, the researcher who has been heading the Esper project, sees the magicite and is awed by its power. Turns out, the empire didn’t know about Magicite until now. And now Kefka and the Emperor Gestahl are in on the secret too.
After a flashback revealing the history of Gestahl breaking into the Esper realm and dragging some denizens back to this world, The group decide to open the sealed gate to ask the remaining Espers to help them stop the Empire once and for all. When they do so, Kefka and Gestahl appear right behind them. The Espers rush out and lay waste to the surrounding areas. Their raw power apparently sapping Gestahl’s thirst for conquest.
Gestahl imprisons Kefka and asks the party to team up. He needs an envoy to meet with the Espers and convince them to live peacefully together. Obviously, the empire can’t do it, so you’ll need to be the ones to broker peace. Terra and the team meet up with the Espers, and agree to live in harmony. The moment hands are shaken, Kefka bursts in again, and kills the Espers, forcing them to turn into Magicite, claiming their power for himself. With dozens of Magicite in hand, Kefka revels in his God-like power, and literally raises a continent from the ground into the sky. The party chase after them, and confront Gestahl and Kefka on the Floating Continent. Kefka tries to akwaken the warring Triad, the trio of Gods who turned themselves to stone to end the War of the Magi centuries ago. Gestahl, knowing awakening the Triad would bring about the end of the world, tries to stop Kefka, who kills Gestahl and flings his body from the Floating Continent. The party barely manage to escape the Floating Continent via the airship with their lives, but Kefka’s meddling with the Warring Traid destabilizes the planet, causing huge rifts in the geography to form, and for the airship to be torn asunder. The party is scattered to the winds, and the screen fades to black. Kefka has won.
World of Ruin
A year passes. Celes wakes up in a cabin on a small island. Cid, has been taking care of her for a year. He says he doesn’t know if anyone else is alive. The others who were on the planet with them have flung themselves from the cliffs in dispair. Cid himself, is sick, and doesn’t have much time left. Celete tries to save him, but when she fails, she climbs the mountain herself, and gives into her dispair.
I assume it’s her magic-enhanced body that saves her, but she awakens on the beach, washed ashore. There, she sees a seagull with a bandana wrapped around one wing. The same kind of Bandana that Locke wore. Perhaps the others survived after all. Celes returns to the cabin, reads the letter Cid left her before he succumbed to his illness, and finds a raft in the basement. She pushes herself off to sea to find her companions.
The second half of the game is Celes bringing the gang back together. Terra is found in a village taking care of half a dozen children who call her “Mama”. Edgar is found as the leader of a gang of thieves, as he leads a pillaging expedition to Castle Figaro. Shadow is found face down in a cave with a Behometh bearing down on him. Cyan is a hermit on a mountain, exchaning flowery letters with a girl in the village below.
You don’t have to collect everyone before taking on Kefka again. Once you have an airship and at least 3 party members, you can land on Kefka’s tower at anytime to begin the final assault. Each of the characters side quests will reward you with excellent gear, more magicite, and even some new party members who weren’t available in the World of Balance half of the game. Doing these sidequests give more flavour to each character, and are worth seeking out.
Once you embark on the assault, you split into 3 groups. Each group winds their way through the tower, pushing buttons to make paths for the other groups. All 12 characters you brought along convene for the final confrentation. God-Kefka laughs at your futilitiy. “Life? Hopes? Dreams? Where do they come from? And where are they headed? these things… I am going to destroy!” His nihistic nature is directly opposed by Terra and Locke, who have found hope and love, even in a ruined world. It’s an intense and emotional confrontation.
Once slain, the characters escape the tower, and the credits roll. Everyone lives happily ever after.
My Thoughts and Experiences
My thoughts on Final Fantasy VI are a bit conflicted, but overall, I quite enjoyed the game. The ensamble cast idea is good in theory, I like the freedom of being able to choose my team and uncover the characters stories as I adventure with them in the world. But not all characters are created equal. Some, like Gau, Relm, Mog, and Gogo are just flat and one note. As far as I can tell, there’s no motovations to these characters, nor do they react emotionally to the context of the story. Thankfully, the others pick up the slack. From discovering Locke’s fallen love, and his obsessive pursuit of finding a relic that can bring her back from the dead, to Cyan’s journey of losing his family and kingdom, I grew attached to many of these characters.
The first half of the game is a triumph of storytelling. You travel the world, picking up companions, create alliances and get betrayed, and eventually bring the fight to Kefka. Once the World of Ruin half of the game starts, the party is scattered, and the whole second half of the game is just, finding the same characters again. On one hand, this fusturates me. I already assembled the team, why do I have to do it again? On the other hand, this section of the game is non-linear. You can pick up almost any of the characters in any order. In addition to being non-linear, it’s also mostly optional. Once you have Edgar and Setzer, you can start the assult on Kefka’s tower to end the game. As far as pacing goes, the story comes to a screeching halt. The overarching narrative points you to Kefka’s tower, but you’ll spend 10 hours chasing down each characters side stories and vignettes. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, I really enjoy character development, but it’s a drastic shift from the first half.
By the time you’ve collected all your companions, and chased down any side missions you feel like doing, such as gathering more powerful Espers, or finding some of the best equipment, you’ll have likely settled on a party that you particularly like. Another fusturating moment for me showed up when I started the assult of Kefka’s tower. You split all the characters you’ve acquired into 3 parties, but most will likely be in the low to mid 30’s, with your core team in the mid to high 40’s. All the benched characters also completly lack magic, unless you’ve been going out of your way to swap characters in and out so they have a chance acquire the powerful skills. To me, this means you either need to grind a bit with all the characters to boost their level and magic ability, or, break up your main party amongst the teams and hope they can carry the load.
On that note, I did not find Final Fantasy VI very difficult. Between Sabin and Edgar spamming their skills, they easily carried me through the first half of the game. In the World of Ruin, Cyan got dual weild and a Masters Scroll, enabling him to attack 4 times with 2 weapons, unleashing more than 9999 damage for every one of his turns. I didn’t seek out Gau’s rages, or Strago’s Lores, or Mog’s dances. They weren’t in my main party, so I didn’t bother chasing down those rabbits. Some of the bosses had really intresting quirks or tricks that made me need to adjust my strategy, but aside from Leviathan obliterating my party until I leveled up a bunch, nothing felt like it was unbeatable after a bit of creativity.
All of this said, I really enjoyed Final Fantasy VI. The world was intresting, the characters were emotional and memorable, the music was amazing. The character sprites were expressive and fun, the landscape art was beautiful. The Magicite system lets everyone use magic, so one character isn’t just shoved into the role of White Mage, and mixing the relics let me customize the archtypes of each character just enough to keep me engaged. That being said, because magic is tied to magicite, it was a pain to have to swap magicite between characters so often. Ensuring everyone had some basic healing skills was one thing, but when it got to making sure all the elemental bases were covered on all four characters, it got really tedious having to go into the menus between every couple battles.
This tedium was exacerbated by the final dungeon, which has you create 3 teams of 4 characters. With 12 characters, all needing to share the best relics and magicite, it was a downright slog swapping items between characters. While I really like the concept of having to build out different teams, because it happened so infrequently, at least 2 characters on each team were almost completly devoid of any magic, and their equipment and relics were the bare dregs that I happened to have in my inventory.
I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about Kefka specifically. Much in the vein of the Joker from the Batman series, Kefka is just pure evil. He starts the game demanding his subordinates clean the sand from his boots as they trudge through the desert, complaining about the mission the emperor has given him. As the story progresses, every time he shows up, chaos and death follow. He has an iconic laugh, indicating that he revels in the war. He poisons the water supply of a castle under seige, killing everyone inside. Opposing solders, solders from his side that were taken captive, civilians, everyone. Later on in the game, it’s revealed that Kefka underwent experimentation much like Celes to imbue him with magic, but it broke his mind. Beyond that, Kefka never offers a reason for his evil. I was shocked when Kefka just straight up kills other players, his complete disregard for life laid bare. It was particularly prevelent when the party faces Kefka and the Emperor on the floating continent, and Kefka murders his Emperor. Kicks his lifeless body, then flings it off the platform to plummet to the Earth below. Kefka is a wild Villain. Unredeemable, and easy to hate. He is the chaotic evil Villain that is so easy to hate, because they are the anthisis of the values we all hold in our normal day to day life. The chaos he represents makes him an antoginist that I’ll remember for a long time to come.
Honestly, I could go on and on about Final Fantasy VI. There’s a ton to unpack in this game, and plenty of words have already been written covering this entry. I can see why Final Fantasy VI is considered a masterpiece, from it’s rich and emotional story, to it’s wide cast of unique characters, flexible magic system, and striking visuals, it was a profoundly enjoyable experience. Honestly, after completing the game, I felt a little let down. I was sad it was over, despite all my complaints I outlined above. And as the days have passed since finishing it, my thoughts and memories of Final Fantasy VI have only grown fonder.
Final Fantasy VI remains an excellent experience, even 25 years after it’s release. If you’ve never played Final Fantasy VI before, I implore you to give it a try. I don’t think it’s the best entry point for someone new to Final Fantasy games, or JRPGs in general. I may have come to Final Fantasy VI late, but the experience has left a mark on my heart all the same.
“Coffee.” Is it dark roast? milky tan? Burnt countertop? If it’s black to dark brown, which exact shade of dark brown is coffee?
Hues and Cues is a game that lives entirely in the disconnect between your brain and your eyeballs. A party game where you try to lead your friends to a single specific shade among an impressive gradient of 480 tiny squares using one word clues. That’s it. That’s the whole game.
Okay, a bit more detail. The active player draws a card, secretly picks one of four colours listed, then gives the group a single word clue. Then everyone guesses. Then they get a second word. Then, they guess again. Then the active player drops a frame around the specific shade they were trying to lead their friends to, and points are awarded based on how close everyone is to that frame. Then the next person becomes the clue-giver, and play continues until everyone’s had a turn (or until the mood sours, and you all decide to pack it in).
At its best, Hues and Cues delivers joy when you manage to lead people to the perfect shade of steely-blue with an off the wall clue like “Shark”. It’s great a facilitating fun conversations like “Are we talking Dutch Delft blue or Portuguese tile blue?” or “Blue-spruce green, or dark pine tree green?”. It’s especially great for larger groups, when you need something quick, casual, and low-commitment. If you don’t care about the score, players can drop in and out. There’s no setup. No fiddly rules. It’s as simple as pointing at a square and arguing about what shade of red Mario’s cap really is.
But while the concept is novel and clever, the experience can wear thin, fast.
In small groups, the game feels more like an exercise in tedium than entertainment. By the time everyone has given one clue, you’ve pretty much seen all the game has to offer. Sure, the board is massive, but so many of the colours are so similar that distinguishing F14 from F15 feels pointless and hopeless. And heaven help you if you’re even mildly colorblind, it’s actually unplayable at that point. It’s actually a bit ironic that a game about visual nuance has a big problem where the colours on the cards don’t really match the ones on the board. It’s a reminder why Pantone sells colour guides and swatches, so you can be sure that the colour you’re thinking of is properly replicated amonst all aspects of your production.
The clue-giving, while conceptually fun, is often harder than it should be. I spent more time agonizing over my second word clue than the rest of the table spent guessing. My first clue was already perfect, how can I improve on the last clue? I can’t think of anything any more light purple than lilac! It’s a frustration that sometimes just leads to awkward silence while one player is trying to think of anything helpful, while everyone else sits around and watches them think.
Hues and Cues is a fun idea, but it lacks staying power. The most fun you’ll have is probably the first time, when everyone’s discovering just how we all see “grape” as a different shade of purple (and one person chooses green). It’s really hard to recommend it, when other party games are so much more replayable and fun. Games like Dixit come to mind.
If you’re looking for a simple, social filler to throw down on a table during a family reunion, Hues and Cues might spark a weird debate about what the colour of kalamata olives are, or what shade of teal Bulbasaur really is. Just don’t expect much more than that.
Cooperative games can be a bit tricky for my group. Otter, absolutely loves them. He specifically loves the discussion and collaboration that comes from working together to solve a problem. He wants to analyze every possibility to arrive at the correct conclusion that will lead the team to victory. Unfortunately, this also means that it takes 4 hours to play Pandemic.
It doesn’t actually take 4 hours, but it sure feels like it sometimes. I’ve already mentally decided what I think the best course of action is, but he wants to talk through every possibility to be sure. And to his credit, sometimes we find a plan that is more efficient or just plain better than the one I had in mind. I should also point out that Otter wins at more games than I do.
Regardless, it was his desire to play Paleo when we met at our local board game café. I was a little hesitant to spend our evening with a cooperative game when we could be playing any of the new and exciting games that were in the library, but I’m nothing if not adaptable.
Paleo, as mentioned, is a cooperative game for 1 to 4 players. Designed by Peter Rustemeyer, with art by Dominik Mayer, Ingram Schell and Franz-Georg Stämmele, and published by Hans im Gluck in 2020. In Paleo, each player controls a group of pre-historic humans in their quest to create art. Kind of, the victory condition is to acquire 5 cave painting tiles, while the loss conditions is accruing 5 skulls. Each player is given a deck of cards, and each turn, each player draws 3 cards face down in front of them. The card backs depict a scene from nature, such as a babbling brook, a snow-capped mountain, or a dense forest. These backgrounds give you clues as to what is likely on the other side. There isn’t much wood on the mountain top, but there is meat and rocks up there.
Each player picks one card to attempt, and returns the others to their deck, then, everyone reveals their card simultaneously. Most cards will give you a couple challenges you can attempt to earn some resources, or give you the opportunity to help others complete their quests. Many of the cards will have you discarding cards off the top of your deck in return for resources, or asking you to acquire the correct number of tags amongst your tribe and tools to triumph over a challenge. When your deck runs you, you ‘go to sleep’, and when everyone’s decks are depleted, you move to the night phase. In the night phase, each tribe member requires a food, and there are a couple of end of day challenges that must be met. Falling short in any of those objectives will earn you one of those game losing skulls.
Earning the victory point mural pieces are no small feat, but they can be found in a variety of places. Some appear in the crafting deck, others appear after a particularly difficult battle, and so on. Either way, once you gather 5, you win the game. Paleo offers several scenarios, which has you adding some extra secret cards, different nighttime objectives, special crafting recipes, and adding a couple scenario specific cards to the main deck. The first scenario is focused around hunting mammoths, so most of the cards you add will have you hunting down those oversized dust bunnies.
Paleo rose to prominence when it won the 2021 Kennerspiel des Jahres, one of the most prestigious awards in cardboard, edging out fellow nominees Fantasy Realms and Lost Ruins of Arnak. While I personally don’t put a lot of stock into the Spiel des Jahres, I can’t help but pay attention to the games that get the Spiel nod, and Paleo is no different.
Starting the game with only two members of your tribe, doesn’t afford you a lot of leeway. Because all the game’s objectives are shuffled into a single deck, there is the chance that your first draw will be something that you cannot accomplish, even if everyone at the table pooled together to overcome. I’m talking specifically about the mammoth that requires 8 combat tags that I drew on my very first turn. But we can also blame me for making an ignorant decision.
The tribe members each generally have one tag, and often will come with a one time use benefit. If you can get lucky, you can start to build an engine. Acquire wood and rocks to craft a hand axe, giving you a perpetual combat and craft tag. If you’re unlucky, you’ll spend your one time use tools to overcome a challenge, and then be left weakened for the rest of the day. Do you want to discard your pelt to avoid a wound now, even though you need two pelts to craft the required tent for everyone to sleep in at the end of the day?
Most often, the cards aren’t difficult, but they do evoke a strong theme. The deer and dodo cards offer a large supply of food, but are then completely exiled from the game, as, they no longer exist after you eat them. The berry bush can either supply one food, and be used again next round, or three food and a wood but is then exiled from the game, evoking a little story in your head about your tribe ripping the bush out of the ground for a short term gain, long term loss.
The collaboration is pretty gentle, one player might announce they’re going to try and tackle one of their bramble cards, which will inspire others to choose more friendly cards so they can have the opportunity to help each other out, should the situation require it. Sometimes, you’ll pick a card thinking it’ll be a leisurely stream, but it turns out to be its own hazard, preventing you from helping others. There is a memory element to Paleo. Sometimes you’ll fail a challenge, like if you flip over the mountain card with the mammoth, only to be asked to produce 8 weapon tags. You’ll remember that every time one of the mammoth mountain cards comes up in the deck, and while you might skip past it for a few days in a row, eventually you’ll find yourself in a position to take it on.
Because all the events you’ll undertake are part of the same deck, there is the chance that you’ll just happen to pick the ones meant for the end game and are wildly too expensive for you to overcome at the start of the game. Sure, now you know what you’re working towards, but a string of these in a row will set you up for failure, all with little to no opportunity for players to avoid it. There were more than one rounds where players couldn’t resolve their own events because they were missing the required tags, and none of the other players needed their assistance. It’s not interesting to skip whole turns, thank you very much.
So many interesting decisions…
What I liked most about Paleo is the same thing that fills me with excitement when it comes to playing any Legacy games, and that’s the discovery. I LOVE earning the secret cards or revealing new dreams and crafting recipes, just to discover exactly what this treats the game has in store for us. But I also felt quite frustrated, as it felt like we were embarking on a quest of attrition. We started the game with 5 food, and at the start of each subsequent round, we had less than that. We were never making a surplus, instead, our resources were slowly dwindling as we milled the decks, searching for those victory conditions. I loved the moments when we found them, it was genuinely exciting. But I don’t believe that Paleo holds up to repeat plays. For me, once I’ve discovered the secrets and surprises, I have no motivations to return.
Paleo is a good, fun game, but I don’t see how it’s game of the year. The frustrations of an unlucky start kneecapping your ability to grow makes me hesitant to recommend Paleo in the first place. It certainly provides a unique experience, but I didn’t feel like I was having ‘fun’ in the strictest sense of the word. When we lost, it felt unavoidable, and when we won, it just felt like luck was on our side. There are many scenarios still to explore, but when I have the itch to play a cooperative game, there are so many others that I would rather pull off the shelf. For a thematic experience, Burgle Bros and Burgle Bros 2 are eminent favourites, and for a more puzzly experience, Pandemic: Fall of Rome and Viticulture World are both very strong contenders.
Mountain Goats was pitched to me as a competitor to Can’t Stop. Let me be upfront. It’s not. Can’t Stop has pure tension and excitement in the push your luck mechanism. The moments when you’re rolling and rolling and rolling, crawling towards the top, the table chanting to keep pushing, just two more “5’s” and you’ll hit the summit, only to cheer when bust. Mountain Goats on the other hand, is a more directly cutthroat. It’s more deliberate in its malice, relishing in the pain you inflict on others, rather than revelling in your opponents own bad choices. Let me explain.
In Mountain Goats, you’re sending your climbers up six different mountains, one tied to a different die result from 5 through 10. Just like Can’t Stop, you make combinations from four dice, then move the goats to based on those combinations, and slowly (or quickly) climb the numbered tracks. Once you get to the top, you start scoring. Stay there, and you can keep scoring, so long as you continue to sink die rolls into that goat. But if someone else reaches the summit of a number after you, they boot your goat off back to the start. It’s important to note that the only space that you can boot off and get booted from, is the summit, any number of climbers can bide their time on the penultimate tile. So Mountain Goats becomes less about reaching the top and more about reaching it at the exact right moment. Summit too soon, and you’re a sitting goat. Too late, and someone else has already plundered the number for all the points it offers.
Mountain Goats is a game of gentle aggression. It’s king of the hill with goats and pastel dice and a serene backdrop. You’ll constantly scan the table, trying to gauge how close someone is to the of the 9 mountain? Can I afford to park a goat on the 6 and hope for two quiet rounds before someone rushes up and usurps your spot? Or should I spend my time throwing my own goat at their goat, just to keep them from scoring that last 9-point token? This isn’t really push-your-luck, it’s tactical goat placement with some luck elements.
The dice selection is more forgiving than Can’t Stop. You don’t have to pair the dice off, if you roll low, you can choose to use all 4 dice to move a single goat. Similarly, if you happen to roll four 6’s, you can run that number 6 goat up four spots in a single turn. I do like how simple the rules are. You roll, combine, then move. It’s lean and easy to teach, which makes it perfect for family nights, casual settings, or winding down after something meatier.
That said, Mountain Goats falls short for me, especially when comparing it to the thrill ride that is Can’t Stop. There’s less tension, less holding your breath and waiting for your opponent to bust. There’s more straightforward math. Most turns, you’ll just do the best thing your dice allow, and that’s that. You can make choices, deciding which number combo to pursue, or whether to block or take a slightly less efficient turn to earn SOME victory points, but it rarely feels like the game hinges on a specific turn. It’s more about who rolls the numbers they need, when they need them.
And while there is player interaction, it’s narrow. You only knock players off the top tile. You can’t block progress, you can’t deny paths, except for exhausting a number from all its victory points. I’ve found it plays best at 3. Two-player feels oddly slow and open, while four players is too crowded. But even at its best, this is a game that peaks early. You’ll have fun getting one of your goats to the top, perhaps smirk when you punt someone down who just summited the turn prior, then you’ll wait. You aren’t that invested in other players turns, just waiting to see what they choose to do.
Still, It’s a quick dice game in a small box with some actual player agency, and just enough interaction to keep things lively. Mountain Goats earns its spot on the shelf, if only because it’s easily portable, and especially if you need something you can teach to just about anyone in three minutes.
It’s not Can’t Stop. But I can’t haul that plastic stop sign everywhere I go, so Mountain Goats does have something going for it.
Much like Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy V has been an entry that I have somehow evaded entirely. Going into this title, I knew less than nothing about it. Nothing about the battle system, the characters, anything that makes this entry uniqiue, nothing. And I don’t think I’m alone in that. In fact, the first time I really noticed Final Fantasy V being mentioned was when I was looking up tips for Final Fantasy III, to which most comments said “skip FF3, play FF5. The Job system is much better in that game”
Narrative Recap
Final Fantasy V starts with the nomadic Bartz, riding his steed Chocobo named Boko. A meteor crashes into the Earth, and upon inspecting the damage, he encounters a young noble girl, Lenna, and an amnesic old man named Galuf. The wind has stopped, and Lenna is on her way to the Wind Crystal shrine to investigate. Galuf knows he should accompany her, as he doesn’t remember anything, but he feels in his heart of heart that he should go to the Wind Crystal as well. Bartz, being the hero that he is, says “Good Luck!” and peaces out. Or at least he tries to, when Boko pecks him for abandoning people in obvious need and sends him back to help.
The party tries to commandeer a nearby pirate ship, but quickly get thrown in the brig. Faris, the captain, notices Lenna is wearing a pendant that is the twin to the one they are wearing, and chooses to join them. When the party arrives at the shrine where the crystal of wind sit, it shatters, fragments spraying everywhere. Bartz, Lenna, Galuf, and Faris are deemed the 4 warriors of light, and the shards of the crystal imbue them with a series of jobs to augment their abilities.
From there on, the party goes on an adventure, seeking out the other 3 crystals, all of which shatter and bestow more jobs upon the party. Faris is revealed to be Lenna’s long-lost sister, but spurns the role of princess, more meteors crash into the Earth, and Galuf is revealed to be from another world, transported by the meteors. He came back to Bartz’s world check the seal on the Villain, Exdeath, which has been weakening, perhaps because Cid has invented a machine to utilize the power of the crystal to make the lives of everyone more comfortable and convenient. When the last crystal shatters, Exdeath is released from his seal, defeats the party, and returns to his homeworld.
Galuf’s granddaughter, Krile, arrives via meteor, and Galuf’s memory is completely restored. He and Krile return to their own world to continue chasing down Exdeath, and with little hesitation, the rest of the party follow to Galuf’s world. They are tricked in defeating the guardians of the crystal in Galuf’s world, and Galuf sacrifices himself to defeat Exdeath and save his friends and granddaughter. Krile inherited Galuf’s abilities, and the party chases down Exdeath, defeating him and merging the two worlds. Exdeath, however, returns, and takes control of the Void, destroying whole towns with his new power.
The party finds four tablets, which unlock the 12 legendary weapons. Armed with the weapons of lore, they travel into the Void, defeat all of Exdeath’s minions, then slay Exdeath at the end, once and for all.
Story and Gameplay
Final Fantasy V’s story is full of twists and turns. The game moves from set-piece to set-piece, using cutscenes to deliver the narrative. There is a current of light-hearted humor running through this game, and the sprites are dynamic and excitied, creating a fairly funny game. That said, some of the scenes are heavy, like when Faris’s hydra, Syldra, dies. Faris tries to follow her into the ocean, but Lenna pulls her back, or a flashback revealing that Lenna almost cut out the tongue out of a wind drake to save her mother from illness, but doing so would have doomed the entire species. Final Fantasy V excels at delivering both heavy, emotional moments, and light-hearted laughs.
While the playable party is set almost right from the beginning, Square Enix obviously took a lot of lessons from the past few games in developing this tale. Each of the main characters have their own motivations, their own flaws, their own priorities. Unlike in Final Fantasy IV where a large cast of characters filtered in and out of your party at almost a break neck pace, Final Fantasy V sits you with the same characters almost from start to finish (with the exception of Galuf getting swapped out for Krile). Where FF4′s characters were pre-established in their skills and equipment, FF5 returns the freedom to the player to kit out their party with whatever jobs, skills, and gear they want to use. With over 20 jobs to choose from, You’re given wide options almost right away.
One of my frustrations with Final Fantasy III was the fact that you didn’t unlock a second set of jobs until almost 12 hours into your adventure. Final Fantasy V wastes no time in giving you the first 6 jobs. Then, just when you’ve had a chance to test each one out, more jobs get heaped upon you. The Job system is very remincient of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (which I’m sure I’ll touch on at some point on my Final Fantasy journey), whereas you gain ability points in specific jobs, you ‘learn’ skills. Once skills are learned, you can mix and match them with other jobs. It’s quite nice to see the system that inspired one of my favourite video games of all time.
The skills are separated into innate abilites, and actions. While a character is equipped with a job, all the innate abilities for that job will be active. They have one job action that is preset, and one open slot where they can enter in any skill they’ve learned so far, should it be an innate ability from a different job, or another action ability. I had one character designated as the mage for the party, swapping back and forth from white to black mages, making basically a red mage, but with access to the top tier magic of both types. Another character was a time mage/summoner. Perhaps more interestingly, one character was a knight, who can use the ability two-handed to hold a single sword in both hands for more power. He brought that Knight ability to the Mystic Knight class, who can imbue swords with magics for even more power. This character didn’t hit often, but when he did, and there was a elemental weakness to exploit, he did some massive damage.
This freedom was exciting, as was discovering which jobs worked really well together. In kind of the opposite example from the mystic knight, one character specialized as a ranger, earning the ability Multi-hit, which delivers a blow at 50% the characters normal power, but does so 4 times. Then they swapped into a Ninja, who had double hand. While welding a sword in both hands, that multi-hit was doing 50% damage, 8 times. There were a few bosses that fell after only two rounds of my heavy damage dealers really unleashing upon then.
The job system culminates with the Freelancer position, which is the basic class you have at the start of the game. This job can equip any weapon or gear, and has 2 open ability slots, but what really makes the freelancer the end-game job, is that they inherit all the passive abilities from every job you’ve mastered, plus some associated stat buffs, leaving those two slots available for any two action abilities. There’s also the Mime job, which is similar, but has 3 actions slots, and a lot more restrictions on what they can equip. In general, I found that magic-forward characters benefit from the Mime, while physical characters go freelancer.
It took a long time for anyone to master a job, as for the first 75% of the game, battles only give you one or two AP each. In the final dungeons, however, the AP is boosted to 5 per battle, and in the Phoenix Tower, you encounter a magic jar enemy that you can throw elixirs at, and receive 100 AP from, massively assisting you in mastering any job. Before getting to the Phoenix tower at the very end of the game, however, each character had mastered naught but a single job. The progress felt slow during the game, I wondered how the heck I would ever make a freelancer work, but by the time I had my final encounter with Exdeath, I was quite satisfied with how my party had come together.
Conclusion
While Final Fantasy IV has long been firm in my heart as my favourite Final Fantasy game, with its focus on Cecil’s redemption story and half a dozen well crafted characters that drove a serious narrative, Final Fantasy V captivated me in a completely different way. Through experimentation, customization, and the joy of mechanical discovery. The story, while more playful and looser than its predecessor, still managed to land its emotional beats when it really counted. The real star of Final Fantasy V is the Job system. It’s the kind of game that invites you to poke at its edges, get intreagues, then dive in deep and watch in delight as some ridiculous combo absolutely demolishes a boss just two rounds. I went into this experience knowing absolutely nothing, and came out with a feeling that Final Fantasy V deserves a spot at the table, when discussing the best that Final Fantasy has to offer.
In many ways, Final Fantasy V feels like a celebration of freedom. It takes the ideas crafted in III and hands you the tools right at the start. That spirit of freedom and personalization so prevelent in the first 3 games, mixed with some now experienced story-tellers, makes FInal Fantasy V the most purely fun entrie I’ve played so far.
As I close the book on Final Fantasy V, I’m struck by how well all of these early games are holding up. Not just as historical artifacts, but as compelling, thoughtful experiences in their own right. With Final Fantasy VI next on the horizon, a game that is constantly at the very tip top of “Best Final Fantasy Games” and “Best JRPGs Ever” lists, I’m feeling trepadacious. I’m excited to re-experience FInal Fantasy 6 with the context of all the games that came before it. And it’s been at least a decade since I played it for the first time, anyways. I’m very curious to see what twists they introduce to really differentiate it from FF4 and FF5.
Unless you’re reading The Last March of the Ents, trees are not often associated with violence. In most media, forest scenes are often accompanied by slow woodwind instrumentals, quiet moments of reflection, with gentle, babbling brooks nourishing the woodland animals who happen to be passing by. Nature, however, is far from protective and nurturing. It’s ruthless, amoral, and truly neutral. And yet, if I had a nickel for every cutthroat tree game in my collection, I’d have two nickels. Which is not a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.
Photosynthesis by designer Hjalmar Hach and published by Blue Orange Games in 2017 is deceptively gentle. You’re growing trees. How bad can growing trees be? You earn light points when your trees bask in the sun and spend those light points to cast seeds, grow trees, and eventually “harvest” your most majestic specimens for victory points. It’s the circle of life, in cardboard form.
The central hook of Photosynthesis, the rotating sun, is quite an elegant mechanic. The sun moves along the edge of the forest board, changing the direction the sun is shining down at, so with every turn, the tactical landscape changes. What used to be covered in light is now cast in shadow. The trees that earned you so many light points just a few rounds ago, are now fallow and useless. I don’t know if you picked up on this rule, but trees cast shadows, and any tree sitting in the shade of a bigger or same size tree does not earn light points. So not only are you plotting your trees and their shade patterns to maximize your light point generation, you’ll be purposefully trying to shade your opponent’s trees, to deprive them of the light they need to flourish.
There’s a moment, somewhere around the start of the second revolution, where you look down at the board, past the whimsical canopy of cardboard evergreens, and realize you’ve become the thing you despised: a cutthroat botanical tyrant. You didn’t mean for this to happen. You were drawn in by the colours. Seduced by the promise of a quiet, serene forest, the relaxing energy of trees basking in the sunshine as you sit in their shadows. But then the sun moves, and your opponent’s prize sapling suddenly casts a long, greedy shadow across half the grove, and you feel something twist in your heart. That’s not just shade, that’s purposeful sabotage. And you swear. Out loud. At a cardboard tree.
People generally come to Photosynthesis with one of two minds. They either want to maximize their own light, or, purposefully, try to minimize the light their opponents get. You’ll find yourself stunting enemy trees on purpose, planting your own just to create shade in exactly the right spot. Not because you need the space, but because it’ll choke out a rival’s main income. I’ve ended friendships for smaller things.
Mechanically, Photosynthesis is as sharp as a monkey puzzle tree. It’s totally deterministic, with absolutely no luck involved. It’s all down to planning. It’s the kind of game where misreading the board state two turns ahead will leave you gasping for light while it feels like else is rolling in solar power. The rules themselves are straightforward, the rulebook is only 4 pages long. But the decisions Photosynthesis offers are dense. It’s chess-like at two players, while being crowded and choking at four. It feels like a different game at every player count.
I do want to mention that the process for buying and growing trees feels a little disjointed. You collect sun points on the south end of the board, but the trees on the north end are the ones that grow? You can’t grow trees unless you unlock them from your player board, and when you replace pieces on the main board, the pieces go back into the locked spots on your player board. There are some interesting cadence decisions, as the size of the tree determines how many light points it collects, but only the biggest trees can be harvested for points. You finally finish your 7 turn project just to pay light points to lose your ability to earn more light points. The timing considerations are intense.
And while I admire the no-luck, pure strategy design, There’s always the potential of someone getting the short end of the proverbial stick. Bad starting positions and cutthroat players can kneecap someone’s ability to earn sunlight for most of the rounds. While everyone else is pulling in 7, 8, or 9 sunlight, one person is only bringing in 1 point. When you have no income, you can’t pivot your strategy. The rich get richer in the worst sort of way.
And then there’s the downtime. Especially at higher player counts, because the game is so deterministic, every turn can become a grind of analysis paralysis. The board state shifts constantly, And because turns are solitary, as in, one player takes all their actions for the round, then the next player goes, players can be considering 5 or 6 actions at a time. You’ll spend a lot of time in silence waiting for someone to make their decisions, before you start considering what you can do, based on what they just did.
If it sounds like I’m being down on Photosynthesis, it’s not on purpose. It’s clever, elegant, and unique. The aesthetic is gorgeous. It’s the rare abstract strategy game that has a genuine presence on the table. It looks like a dream and plays like a knife fight in a phone booth. I quite enjoy my plays of it, even if I come away feeling like I fell from a height and hit every branch on the way down.
