This makes 5 out of 6 of the characters you can play as blondes so far, BTW (Celes, Locke, Sabin, Edgar, and Banon), which is probably indicative of why they decided Terra needed to not be blonde.
Terra is your main magic user, at least for the first part of the game. She's not tanky, but can use a wide range of equipment. Being the main magic user early in the game allows her to be rather versatile, but watch that MP, even if you do have a fair pool of it to use.
Edgar is relatively tanky and can also use a wide range of armor, but his biggest power early game are his tools. He gets some of his best stuff in a bit, including one that puts a smile on many players' faces - as well as carve one on his enemies, but you'll have to see.
Locke has a more limited range of weaponry, preferring swords and daggers and lighter armor, but is basically the Thief and has a decent HP pool, at least early game. Later on, he can swipe some pretty cool loot. Also, for someone who hates the Empire, he has a weird habit of helping women who served in the Imperial forces. Don't worry, though; it's just Celes and Terra.
Sabin is your beefy tank. Despite having less armor and equipment options (there are quite a few armor types he can't wear, and he can only equip claws or fists), his Blitzes and large HP pool help make up for it.
Celes is your other early-game magic user, and generally your female "knight" allowing her a wide range of equipment and weapons. Like Terra, she can use magic, but her real early-game ability is !Runic. !Runic basically turns her into a magic lightning rod (in the sense of being a lightning rod for magic attacks, rather than being a lightning rod that is magic). Any magic attempted by either side, yours or the enemies', is canceled as Celes absorbs it into her sword and takes the MP for herself. It's a bit tricky to use around Terra, since it means you'd have to time it or Celes will end up canceling any spell Terra uses, but it is a good way to cancel powerful enemy magic attacks. Later, the spell Osmose renders it obsolete, as it allows you to drain MP directly without having to waiting for the enemy to attack first and doesn't stymie your own spellcasters.
Shadow is.. a bit of a spoiler, but he's actually recruitable in a bit. Just prepare for a bit of frustration around him. It's not his game mechanics, though; being a Ninja, he can !Throw items for massive damage, and the dog isn't for show (you'll see).
Sabin's route is next, and let's just say it's an interesting one. Just buy a piece of Dried Meat at the first opportunity, but don't use it as a healing item.
I suppose I could just try leveling him up as quickly as possible so he gets above the Danger Zone and Fireball no longer one-shots him. Or I could have him Defend every turn (but !Pray is really useful). It's a tough situation. Thankfully, the river is also generous with save points - there are two points along the journey where the raft stops, we come out, and we can save, heal up, and go back. So in the end I just brute force it. Reload when we're unlucky and Banon eats a fireball, memorize the right route through the river, and Bob's your uncle.
So, a quirk of the way FFVI introduces characters is that anyone new added to your party will come in at around the average level of all your other characters. Final Fantasy VI is a game that never requires grinding, but in this one case, a tiny bit of grinding before the returner hideout can actually make a big difference once you get Banon out of the one-shot range of the river monsters. This is why this sequence was actually easier for me as a kid, because I was dumb and couldn't find my way directly to the hideout, and this forced some grinding onto myself as a result.
Edit - Also! I almost forgot this part: On the SNES, this river sequence was a place you could grind to level 99 'easily'. The SNES version had a setting that had your cursor over the last command you used every time a menu came up. Sort of a primitive autobattle looking back on it. Anyway, crucially this was any menu, including the one where you pick directions in the river. So, you turn on the cursor memory get to the one spot in the river that loops you around if you click the wrong way and has a guaranteed fight, put a book or something on your control pad to keep the A button pressed down, and do something else for like two days. You come back to level 99 characters!
This is already a mildly comedic scene as it is meant to unfold, but Sabin's sprite glitching the fuck out elevates it to a realm of surreal absurdism. Top tier accidental work, game.
The soldiers, for their part, don't care; they just tell her that she might as well run her mouth while she can, her execution is scheduled for tomorrow. Damn. One of the guards tells the other to keep a close watch on her, and the other boasts that he can stand guard for days without sleep! Immediately after the second guard leaves, Celes collapses, likely from injuries sustained during her capture. Meanwhile, outside, Locke is doing his best ninja impression, sticking to the rafters while the guard leaves the basement, dropping low, and sneaking into the room upon the vigilant guard, who…
So, this is another place where the Pixel Remasters were censored a bit. In the SNES version, the guards actually beat her several times while she's chained up, and that's why she collapses once the other one leaves. Like with the imperial salute, I think they should have left the scene as it was, but it doesn't make a huge difference either way.
It does mean Celes spends the whole fight doing nothing and Locke spamming Attack except when in need of healing, so it's not the most exciting of fights, but hey. It gets the tutorial for the Runic mechanic across.
Someone mentioned the other day how certain treasures will get upgraded if you don't pick them up the first time you see them, right? One of the boxes in the Figaro cave upgrades into a Thunder Rod, which makes defeating the Tunnel Armor trivial given its weakness to lightning (you could probably guess as much since it's a mech). I'm given to understand that this is a staple of low-level challenge runs and speed runs of this section.
Should we tell Omi how to handle the letters mini side quest that's coming up? The game is not intuitive about this at all, I only learned about it by following a walkthrough myself. Presumably we'll keep it vauge, just talk to the guy, do what he says, exit town, rinse and repeat until complete. Something like that.
Calling it a 'minigame' is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. The way it works is simple: the raft drifts on its own along the river, until it comes to a 'crossroads', where it asks you in which direction you want to go. On the way, there are random encounters. Crucially, you don't have any controls while the draft is drifting - you can't pause, can't use items, it's effectively just a fight gauntlet.
Back in the early days of SNES FFVI FAQs, when people didn't really understand how the game mechanics worked and thought levelling also increased your stats like other games, one trick (of the "One Amazing Trick The Developers Didn't Want You To Know!" clickbait variety) the FAQs suggested was to use the Lethe River sequence to powerlevel.
At both decision points, if you don't choose the correct path (left for both), the raft loops around back to the same decision point. So the "trick" involved putting the game cursor on Memory mode (so the player didn't need to keep manually selecting the options), setting Terra and Sabin to Defend (because Sabin couldn't auto-Blitz at the time), Edgar on Autocrossbow, and Banon on Pray, then taping down the Confirm button and leaving the SNES to run for a day or two. The FAQs claimed you'd get to level 99 like this with no difficulty.
And then people actually worked out how the game worked, and as you observed, levelling only increases your HP, MP (for Terra and Celes), and level. Level actually does factor into some damage (and other) calculations, but no other stat increases.
Very few people noticed this at the time, because the majority of stat increases in FFVI comes from gear, and the level calculations means you could brute force your way through the game on basic level 1 stats anyway at a high enough level.
For an example of a non-damage calculation, Locke's Steal chance increases the higher his level is relative to the target. So if you're decently levelled (I managed it at level 13), you could swipe the clothes off the merchant/soldier's back in one try.
Oh. I get it. Ultros is a sweaty nerd creep. You know, has a goofy face and a creepy laugh, talks in a creepy way while leering all over girls, gets really upset by jocks telling him off, is clearly into some kind doujins you shouldn't be read in public… Yeah, this guy is an unflattering caricature of someone.
It's slightly worse: Ultros talks like a sweaty middle-aged creep. The sort whose idea of entertainment is drinking at cheap pubs and hitting on anything remotely female, including thinking that the tentacle jokes are the height of comedy, and always looking for a quick buck.
I feel like this is wrong. Like, I know it's a fantasy name and anything goes, but 'Celes' just doesn't sound right. It feels like it should be either Ceres (actual name of an earth goddess, therefore a direct mirror to Terra as another female magic user) or Celeste (again, actual name, plus Terra/Celeste, Earth/Sky, natural mirroring). But, well, that's partly something I'm projecting based on 'Tina' having been changed to 'Terra', and I'm not going to start changing character names now after going with the ones that are canon (at least to this translation), so… Celes it is, I guess.
Yeah, the way Celes's name was translated into English is probably another Woolsey decision based on the terrible conditions he had to work under. The Japanese (セリス) could also have been transliterated as "Ceres", or "Seris" if they wanted to avoid any references.
And yet, consider that if every character had been named as closely to their Japanese names as possible, Sabin would have been called "Mash". Like, his name in Japanese is "マッシュ", short for "マシアス", which is pronounced "Mashiasu", and could have meant anything from "Matthias" to "Macias".
It was always fun to see sprouts in the Ghimlyt Dark dungeon in FFXIV get absolutely blasted by the Tunnel Armour's beam attacks, so eight games later the Tunnel Armour is still a decent threat.
So, this is another place where the Pixel Remasters were censored a bit. In the SNES version, the guards actually beat her several times while she's chained up, and that's why she collapses once the other one leaves. Like with the imperial salute, I think they should have left the scene as it was, but it doesn't make a huge difference either way.
To emphasize, in the SNES version, Celes was chained up, with her hands bound over her head with visible chains (or possibly grey ropes, but chains are the obvious interpretations).
Honestly it's a change I can understand, because the original scene felt a little gratuitous in my opinion. We didn't need to see the Imperial Soldiers commit brutality on-screen, especially when the scene immediately afterwards is slightly comedic with the dozing guard.
Should we tell Omi how to handle the letters mini side quest that's coming up? The game is not intuitive about this at all, I only learned about it by following a walkthrough myself. Presumably we'll keep it vauge, just talk to the guy, do what he says, exit town, rinse and repeat until complete. Something like that.
Personally I'd say yes, when the time comes. It fits under the "world-building" motivation that we want to see Omicron react to, and the game isn't very intuitive about it as you say. In fact, as far as I know (and it works on my Switch version), you don't actually need to exit town, and speaking to any vendor without buying anything is enough; I assume it's making the game force a world state update. Which is a requirement that's so meta-game that I consider it fair game to be spoiled, because FFVI shouldn't have been stupid like that.
Since we've been there and scouted the basement before, it's a quick affair to get back down there - but what would you know; just as I predicted, the obvious prison room is being used to hold a prisoner!
Fun fact: you can keep the merchant disguise or even backtrack to get the guard outfit before meeting Celes. Doing so changes the cutscene and gives Celes new dialogue. Nothing major, but interesting.
Earring increases magic damage by 25%. A second Earring... also increases magic damage by 25%. They stack for a total of 50% bonus, but don't amplify one another.
Earring increases magic damage by 25%. A second Earring... also increases magic damage by 25%. They stack for a total of 50% bonus, but don't amplify one another.
Yeah, the description is worded badly enough to be misleading. It's not like equipping two Earrings will give you more than twice the combined bonus.
I suspect the description mentions multiple Earrings because the bonus can stack, compared to the equivalent physical option of Gigas Gloves, which do not. (That is, Earrings stack with themselves, Gigas Gloves do not stack with themselves, but both stack with different Relics giving the same type of bonus.)
Honestly it's a change I can understand, because the original scene felt a little gratuitous in my opinion. We didn't need to see the Imperial Soldiers commit brutality on-screen, especially when the scene immediately afterwards is slightly comedic with the dozing guard.
I'm ambivalent, but one could argue though that when considering the other and just as/more darker crap we get to see anyway in the game, censoring the salute and a tackle animation like this feels somewhat silly.
To emphasize, in the SNES version, Celes was chained up, with her hands bound over her head with visible chains (or possibly grey ropes, but chains are the obvious interpretations).
Honestly it's a change I can understand, because the original scene felt a little gratuitous in my opinion. We didn't need to see the Imperial Soldiers commit brutality on-screen, especially when the scene immediately afterwards is slightly comedic with the dozing guard.
I'm ambivalent, but one could argue though that when considering the other and just as/more darker crap we get to see anyway in the game, censoring the salute and a tackle animation like this feels somewhat silly.
And here we have another Star Wars reference - the heroic rebel braves the enemy base to rescue a high ranking woman, who is being tortured by her captors, who he has a clear crush on despite never meeting her before. "Locke" even sounds like "Luke".
I'm just impressed they avoided the temptation for an "Aren't you a little short for a Geshtalian soldier"/"My name is Lock Cole, I'm here to rescue you" exchange.
And here we have another Star Wars reference - the heroic rebel braves the enemy base to rescue a high ranking woman, who is being tortured by her captors, who he has a clear crush on despite never meeting her before. "Locke" even sounds like "Luke".
I'm just impressed they avoided the temptation for an "Aren't you a little short for a Geshtalian soldier"/"My name is Lock Cole, I'm here to rescue you" exchange.
Honestly, Celes is basically... Terra with slightly more physical and slightly less magical stats. Similar equipment sets, also has magic even if she learns slightly different spells naturally... the only big difference here for now is Runic, which is a situational but very powerful ability in the right situations. When activated, then until either Celes takes another action or anyone on the field casts a spell, Celes will automatically draw in and negate the next spell cast, as showcased with the Tunnel Armor. The disadvantage of this is of course if you have another spellcaster like Terra in the party, then you need to time your actions or you risk having Celes eat that spell instead.
Having two mechanically similar characters isn't as much of a bugbear as it might seem at first glance, given the party split. Why, Celes and Terra haven't even had the chance to be on the same battle screen yet - and they shouldn't. Celes's !Runic works on your own party's magic as well, which means that were she and Terra to be in the same party, one of them would be effectively denied a command.
Having two mechanically similar characters isn't as much of a bugbear as it might seem at first glance, given the party split. Why, Celes and Terra haven't even had the chance to be on the same battle screen yet - and they shouldn't. Celes's !Runic works on your own party's magic as well, which means that were she and Terra to be in the same party, one of them would be effectively denied a command.
Oh I'm not saying it's bad or anything, just pointing out that they're the most mechanically similar characters so far, particularly since they not only share the magic command bit also most of their equipment selection. I mean if I tiered the current list of party members Omi has, they would both be right next to each other (with Celes maybe slightly higher on account of having an extra command in Runic), and neither one would be at the bottom of the list since Locke currently doesn't have a lot going for him beyond a high speed stat.
Though you could easily plan around Celes and Terra in the same party, if it comes to that for whatever reason. If you aren't fighting enemies with spells, there's little reason to use Runic in the first place, and if you are then you can just queue up actions so Terra casts just before Celes goes into a Runic stance, or just after Celes absorbs a spell.
Oh, for some reason this actually reminds me: in another bit of SNES version translation weirdness, Woolsey actually calls the guys in green armor 'officers' if memory serves, rather than raw (green eh, get it?) recruits.
Should we tell Omi how to handle the letters mini side quest that's coming up? The game is not intuitive about this at all, I only learned about it by following a walkthrough myself. Presumably we'll keep it vauge, just talk to the guy, do what he says, exit town, rinse and repeat until complete. Something like that.
Personally I'd say yes, when the time comes. It fits under the "world-building" motivation that we want to see Omicron react to, and the game isn't very intuitive about it as you say. In fact, as far as I know (and it works on my Switch version), you don't actually need to exit town, and speaking to any vendor without buying anything is enough; I assume it's making the game force a world state update. Which is a requirement that's so meta-game that I consider it fair game to be spoiled, because FFVI shouldn't have been stupid like that.
That little thing is something he can actually come back to until an obvious point. I'm personally more worried about how we approach
The floating continent escape and Celes and Cid on the island. The fish thing is obtuse enough that Omicron should naturally see the 'better' of the two versions, but waiting for Shadow is something that's pretty easy to miss. I also am scared of saying too much, because I don't want to blunt one of the biggest gut punches in the whole game for him and we're having a hard time getting people to shut the fuck up about specific things he hasn't gotten to yet as it is.
Oh, for some reason this actually reminds me: in another bit of SNES version translation weirdness, Woolsey actually calls the guys in green armor 'officers' if memory serves, rather than raw (green eh, get it?) recruits.
I'unno if that's weirdness, exactly -- it makes a hell of a lot of sense for occupation officers to be weak combatants while still having unusual amounts of access to places, and incompetent backline folks like that being pushovers is a staple of war movies and whatnot for far longer than FF had been around. Even lil'frumple got that implication, heh.
I imagine they changed it to "recruits" because of "being green" and because to rescue Leia, Luke disguised himself as a lowly stormtrooper instead of an officer.
I also am scared of saying too much, because I don't want to blunt one of the biggest gut punches in the whole game for him and we're having a hard time getting people to shut the fuck up about specific things he hasn't gotten to yet as it is.
Keep quiet here, and if any of you are a regular in his streamings, remind him when to save, *then* when he's done route A of something, suggest loading and do route B.
Why I am not even surprised that you picked Locke first ?
By the way, about the change for Célès scene, from the wiki :
The scene where Celes is being tortured by the Empire was removed for the Game Boy Advance release of Final Fantasy VI. This is because the original Final Fantasy VI was created before the Japanese ratings board, CERO, existed. Violence is rated strictly in Japan, and Square wanted a CERO A rating for the Game Boy Advance version, which would have been impossible if a game depicts violence against a restrained human.[10]
Thanks for the feedback, I think we're largely in agreement.
1) Vague directions for the letters is fine. "Next time you reach a town, do XYZ" as I previously outlined ought to do it.
2) My thought was to tell Omi at the appropriate time, "Kefka doesn't look like a waiter, but maybe you should be."
3) And finally, "after you're done with the floating continent, make two save files. You'll want to play through the next segment twice." Although just letting him go through it completely blind if we can manage it would be incredible. I'd err on not saying anything at all.
To avoid further thread bloat, if we're all in agreement, rate this Funny.
Thanks for the feedback, I think we're largely in agreement.
1) Vague directions for the letters is fine. "Next time you reach a town, do XYZ" as I previously outlined ought to do it.
2) My thought was to tell Omi at the appropriate time, "Kefka doesn't look like a waiter, but maybe you should be."
3) And finally, "after you're done with the floating continent, make two save files. You'll want to play through the next segment twice." Although just letting him go through it completely blind if we can manage it would be incredible. I'd err on not saying anything at all.
To avoid further thread bloat, if we're all in agreement, rate this Funny.
Apologies for contributing further to the spoiler posts, but...
I have to say, I kinda feel like that's still giving a bit too much away? Especially #2. It's not the end of the world if Omicron just...gets some bad results, yeah? The whole point of those possibilities being in the game is that they're things that can happen & I think letting Omicron engage with them organically would be interesting.
So, this update had the rapids section of the story. I have strong suspicions that, if that section was made in a 3D scenario, the different points where the river splits would likely be relayed as quick time events (and thus be extremely annoying), instead of a more slow choice, merely on the ground that it'd be "immersion breaking" or some such. This isn't necessarily something that would happen, but it's something I'd expect from a modern remake of the game. I want to leave a note about this here, for reference. Also, point it out as another situation where the game offers what would otherwise be a meaningless choice (go on/turn back) and makes it meaningful in some fashion (this time, by allowing a player to use the rapids to go in a loop to allow for grinding before the boss, which isn't much but it's better than nothing).
Anyway, fighting on the raft is another thing that really speaks of the game being conceived from a 2D standpoint. I can imagine a 3D port that uses turn-based combat on static backgrounds (like, say, Dragon Quest VIII) would be able to render this section of the game adequately, so if that was the direction a 3D remake went, it might handle it decently. But can anybody think of any way to make a 3D version of the fight on the raft in the middle of the rapids against Ultron work in an action-based 3D fighting style? Because I'm very doubtful that could be made to work properly.
Next is Locke's theft of the clothes; this isn't impossible to do in a 3D game, I imagine we'd just have a fade-to-black and then a change of sprites; the fact that it would almost certainly not be something that can be done in battle in the fluid manner (which emphasizes gameplay and story integration) in which it's done in the game's native environment is something worth nothing, but it's still not too hard to adapt. However, much like Edgar's tools, it's something that would be a lot more work and a lot less intuitive with 3D renderings - something that could be adapted, yes, but also something that likely felt natural to a team thinking in 2D but wouldn't to a team thinking in 3D. Which I would like to count as another point in the scoreboard in favor of my "FFVI was designed to take full advantage of being a 2D game in a way that isn't well suited to 3D" overall argument.
Hrrrrum…
I don't like the thrust of this arguement but…
I think if I had to describe it the problem is a distinct lack of people playing around in 3D, and thus someone seeing if they can just get away with 'presto-change-o I am now this sprite!' like Locke does…
I see no reason why you couldn't do something like this in 3-D beyond some vague sense of expectation that it would need to be a proper cutscene. And I suspect part of it being done just so here was technical limitations forcing people to get clever, where once 3-D hits you usually have the resources to go all-in on the cutscene you're effectively aping anyway.
The fustrating thing is this would be an easier case to make if I actually had some examples to work with. And while I've not kept up with 3D RPGs very well I have a bad feeling this sort of 'flex' is something people won't go for nowadays. It's not flashy enough to be worth the 'effort', even if in some ways it could serve as something of a shortcut.
So, this update had the rapids section of the story. I have strong suspicions that, if that section was made in a 3D scenario, the different points where the river splits would likely be relayed as quick time events (and thus be extremely annoying), instead of a more slow choice, merely on the ground that it'd be "immersion breaking" or some such. This isn't necessarily something that would happen, but it's something I'd expect from a modern remake of the game. I want to leave a note about this here, for reference. Also, point it out as another situation where the game offers what would otherwise be a meaningless choice (go on/turn back) and makes it meaningful in some fashion (this time, by allowing a player to use the rapids to go in a loop to allow for grinding before the boss, which isn't much but it's better than nothing).
Anyway, fighting on the rafter is another thing that really speaks of the game being conceived from a 2D standpoint. I can imagine a 3D port that uses turn-based combat on static backgrounds (like, say, Dragon Quest VIII) would be able to render this section of the game adequately, so if that was the direction a 3D remake went, it might handle it decently. But can anybody think of any way to make a 3D version of the fight on the raft in the middle of the rapids against Ultron work in an action-based 3D fighting style? Because I'm very doubtful that could be made to work properly.
Next is Locke's theft of the clothes; this isn't impossible to do in a 3D game, I imagine we'd just have a fade-to-black and then a change of sprites; the fact that it would almost certainly not be something that can be done in battle in the fluid manner (which emphasizes gameplay and story integration) in which it's done in the game's native environment is something worth nothing, but it's still not too hard to adapt. However, much like Edgar's tools, it's something that would be a lot more work and a lot less intuitive with 3D renderings - something that could be adapted, yes, but also something that likely felt natural to a team thinking in 2D but wouldn't to a team thinking in 3D. Which I would like to count as another point in the scoreboard in favor of my "FFVI was designed to take full advantage of being a 2D game in a way that isn't well suited to 3D" overall argument.
I suppose the first bit is a matter of opinion and would really just be dependent on whatever kind of dev was working on the theoretical 3D Remake. Some might try to go full minigame or quick time events, as you say, but others might keep it more loyal to the original and have everything you mention as positives translated just fine to 3D.
As for the raft fight, I mean... I'm not sure why you can't picture it, because it sounds like something easily executed in a 3D action RPG. Just lock your party to a large square space of the raft with the water around it, have enemies pop up out of the water to fight off, maybe invisible walls to keep you from accidentally jumping off the raft (or an HP penalty + respawn for falling off, either or). Then Ultros can just pop up at different sides of the raft to be smackable and have tentacles reach on to also be something you can hit, or might surface at a distance to spit ink and require Terra's magic and Edgar's Crossbow to hit. It wouldn't be the same as a turn based/ATB system fight, obviously, but really it just feels like something Kingdom Hearts was already pulling off in some of its fights twenty years ago.
And Locke's stealing clothes feels like it could be done fairly easily because it's just 3D models in the end, it's probably even easier to have alternate outfits in comparison to sprite work in some cases. I mean I'm not a 3D Modeler, but I assume it's a cost efficient enough thing considering how many games out there make micro transactions and DLC revolving around "pay us for outfits EZ $$$". I can already see the alternate outfits DLC for FFVI3D which includes being able to play as Imperial Soldier/Merchant Locke for the entire game
That's just my two cents on those arguments though. Again, a theoretical 3D Remake of FFVI would be highly dependent on things like the lead developer and whether we're getting a fully loyal game that's basically just "FFVI but directly translated to 3D as closely as possible", or... well, being totally honest in the current climate of Square Enix games, I'd certainly be side-eying a "FFVI 3D Remake" announcement as much as you are.
As for all the spoilery talk above:
I'll note that I'm pretty sure Omi has mentioned rotating save files before, so... for any major missable things, it's probably easiest to just let him play and then point it out afterwards if it's something majorly important (or just mention in passing if it's a very minor easter egg like the Locke outfit lines to Celes in this last update). Personally, I'd prefer to just never say anything until after an event has happened to avoid spoiling, since even hints can place some kind of expectation one way or another. Assuming Omi is still rotating saves after major events (which would obviously include several of the ones discussed), then it really wouldn't be too difficult for him to go back and replay 15 to 20 minutes to get the other scenes.
Clothes change in 3D with minimal effort:
- Camera spin that obscures Locke's model for an instant (behind the enemy model?) and swaps it.
- Big Looney Tunes dust cloud that resolves into the changed characters. (My preferred option).
- Camera pan up to obscure the two figures - with optional sky-spinning to indicate comical passing of time - then back down to reveal the change.
- Fade to black for the change. Cheap but effective.
- Literally just swap the clothes, no transition. Hard swap, no cut, no nothing. Which is if I understand correctly how the 2D does it already?
And that's just off the top of my head.
Like, I have no doubts that FFVI is pushing what's achievable with 2D software, but a lot of the argument is deeply motivated by 'the 2D is unchallengeable' and like, it isn't? And I'm not sure why the argument's being made at all? You could absolutely recreate FFVI shot-for-shot in 3D, due to the whole 'nothing on your screen is actually 3D, it's all 2D with visual illusions applied to make your brain think it's 3D' thing.
And if the argument is 'FFVI was designed for 2D' then, uh, duh? It was made for the SNES and didn't have a choice? You'll note they immediately moved to 3D with VII and never looked back for the mainline games, though, so I don't think it was an artistic decision so much as a technical one.
