[xwdv]

I still feel Final Fantasy 6 was the best JRPG of the retro era. At the time it had heavy themes you wouldn’t expect a child to grapple with: the ideas that the good guys can just straight up lose and having to live with the consequences, characters whose arcs may never truly be redeemed (because they can fucking die), and even complex issues like the passing of loved ones, committing suicide when all hope is lost, gambling addictions, slitting your own mothers throat for some money, rape and genocide, interspecies relationships, racism, speciesism, the rise of fascism and the use of technology to enslave the masses. It should be a required play through for a young child, and a seasoned adult should provoke conversations about events in the game.

[VyseofArcadia]

I genuinely agree, especially for gamers of my particular demographic who knew Final Fantasy VI as "Final Fantasy III".

I would like to point out, though, that there are plenty of games that the English-speaking world didn't get, at least not on their initial release, and there is one in particular that I want to highlight here as I don't see it get the fanfare I think its owed.

That game is Dragon Quest V, which takes a sampling of the mature themes you highlighted from Final Fantasy VI (and then some), but has coated them in a layer of whimsy that gives the whole experience the feeling of an oddly compelling fairy tale. I highly recommend it if you still have the time and patience for JRPGs. (And if you don't, the movie Dragon Quest Your Story is available in English on Netflix and is based on Dragon Quest V, albeit with a bit of a controversial addition towards the end.)

I'd also like to highlight Earthbound as a curiously mature JRPG for the time. I like to cite it as an example of a game that is more about the journey than the destination. It's not about saving the world, it's about painting cows blue and the third strongest mole and bubble monkeys. But it's also about accepting the world as it is, facing things that you might not be ready to face, the impermanence of everything, and making sure to stop and take a coffee break every now and then.

[jstarfish]

> Earthbound as a curiously mature JRPG for the time. I like to cite it as an example of a game that is more about the journey than the destination.

I could never put my finger on what made that game so compelling. The "Yakuza: Like a Dragon" game had a similar vibe. The working title for it might as well have been "Friendship is Magic."

> making sure to stop and take a coffee break every now and then

The lesson you were supposed to take away from it was to stop and call your dad every now and then.

[coolbreezetft22]

Playing FF VI for the first time right now having wanted to play it for past two decade and loving it. Also played Earthbound for the first time earlier this year and agree with this sentiment. The music was also amazing

[hotnfresh]

Chrono Trigger’s easily #1 for me in the 16-bit era, but FF VI is damn good.

[aidenn0]

I love Chrono Trigger; it's also what got me into emulation. I wasn't allowed to have an SNES but my 486 could just manage to run an emulator (esnes I think it was called?) that could do SNES with no sound or translucency (there were keyboard shortcuts to toggle the layers so e.g. you could hide fog that would otherwise make the whole screen gray).

[spinningD20]

Your mentioning of "rape" here sent me on a google journey... I don't remember anything like that happening or even being hinted at in FF6, what are you referring to?

[mjr00]

I assume they mean the first scene with Celes in South Figaro where she's being tortured. Rape isn't mentioned or even implied, in either Japanese or English, though.

[Match451]

I don’t recall anything like that in FF6 either. They even removed part of a scene in a rerelease where Celes is chained up and gets punched by a guard.

There are still plenty of other horrifying things in FF6 though.

[jamie_ca]

On the one hand there's Setzer "Let me swoop in on my airship to kidnap a beautiful opera singer" that was not likely to end in just a coffee date.

On the other hand, no way in hell does someone like Kefka invent something called a Slave Crown and then just use it to force someone to pilot a magic mecha.

[no_wizard]

Celes is tortured, not raped (and its a shame they edited this in subsequent releases to be honest. The empire in the first half of the game loses alot of teeth in these "minor" edits).

I have played through FFVI more than a dozen times, including currently, right now, on my phone, I'm half way through yet another run, and I can't think of anything that invokes rape.

I'm also not really sure where gambling addiction comes in. Yes, Setzer ran a flying gambling airship, but its never really explored in any meaningful way.

This isn't meant to chastise so much as to set expectations aligned with the game.

The rest is true though. It does deal with passing of loved ones, attempted suicide, interspecies relationships (espers, Maduin / Madeline specifically), emotionless killers (Shadow AKA Realms dad, the entire personality of Kefka), abandonment, being able to love after trauma (The Terra story arc), fascism, prejudice (how the Magi are treated), genocide / mass murder for political gain (how the espers are treated), the dark side of technology, free will, the meaning of life, toxic masculinity (Edgar and women...oh boy I see it alot different now) and most importantly, never giving up no matter how hard things are or hopeless they seem.

Honestly, all of that stuff is there, and presented in what is (mostly) a pre-teen / early teen friendly way. If used appropriately, could be a spring board to discuss heavier things in life.

[DontchaKnowit]

Why should a young child grapple with rape, slitting mothers throat for money, suicide, gambling addiction, rape, genicide, etc?

You arent majing a very good pitch for this being a family fruendly game...

[jstarfish]

Bizarrely enough, the framing of these concepts is family-friendly.

These events happen, and kids do need to know about them in order to prepare for them. But there's enough abstraction to make it not be gratuitious or traumatic. It's like having Fred Rogers teach kids about this stuff versus George R.R. Martin.

"Family-friendly" doesn't mean avoiding difficult subjects altogether. Even the Bible freely explores all of these topics. Going to church is literally a family event.

[krapp]

> Why should a young child grapple with rape, slitting mothers throat for money, suicide, gambling addiction, rape, genicide, etc?

Have you read most faerie tales, or Bible stories for that matter? Or watched children's television? Or grown up in a less than perfect household?

These are simply the themes of real life, and only rare privilege allows one to reach adolescence blissfully ignorant of life's sharp edges. Better to have the lessons delivered by a compelling narrative that gives children agency then by real life which offers them none.

[astrange]

I think saying FF6 is just a dark mature adult work does it a disservice; it makes it sound like prestige TV or something.

FF6 is specifically designed like an opera. It's European, fast paced, has a lot of classical music, comic moments, romance, gore, etc. That's not quite the same thing as an art film or Earthbound-inspired indie game about depression.

And the villain is a magical clown.

[dfxm12]

It's a coin flip with Earthbound, IMO. If we're talking specifically about kids playing through a game, Earthbound would be more relatable though. I think this goes even more so for kids in NA considering Earthbound's cheeky localization and western references.

source: played both at ~10-11 years of age.

[mitthrowaway2]

I feel the same way about Chrono Trigger, right down to (almost) all of those complex issues!

[raincole]

I'm pretty sure most parents (nowadays) will reach the exact opposite conclusion after reading your comment: the game should be rated as ESRB 17+ and banned for a young child.

[coolbreezetft22]

This type of comment has become such a cliche.

As a parent to young children I did not reach this conclusion and would love for my son to play this masterpiece. None of the parents I know are like this either.

I actually feel like this mindset was much more prevalent in the 90s than it is nowadays.

[gavinray]

Mmm, I would say Chrono Trigger and Tales of Phantasia were also up there.

[xwdv]

Chrono trigger is a great game, but I don’t think the story actually holds up that well. For one the time travel mechanic is fairly juvenile, and from what I remember the game is missing one of the most important elements of a good time travel story: when you see effects happen before the cause (which presumably is the work of future versions of characters traveling back in time), so you never reach that satisfying loop back where you meet the past version of yourself and realize it was actually yourself that you saw at that point in time. Instead you just do stuff in the past and it results in some changes in the future, but those changes should have actually always been there in the first place if you would have been successful. It employs an alternate timeline type of time travel which is easy to understand but not particularly accurate or mentally stimulating.

[andruc]

You should try the Brave New World mod for FF6, if you ever feel like revisiting it. Vast QoL improvements, among many other welcome and interesting changes.