Final Fantasy VI Celebrates its 26th Anniversary Today

Square Enix’s classic RPG Final Fantasy VI celebrates its 26th anniversary today. The landmark RPG title first released for the Super Famicom in Japan on April 2, 1994.

Here are six little tidbits on Final Fantasy VI to commemorate the occasion:

• I. Players were able to recruit fourteen permanent party members in Final Fantasy VI. This still remains the largest number of any main-numbered Final Fantasy title.

• II. Final Fantasy VI was the first Final Fantasy game that wasn’t directed by series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, who was the producer of the game. Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Itou were co-directors for the game.

• III. It was also the first Final Fantasy game to feature character designers other than Yoshitaka Amano with Tetsuya Nomura making his character design debut for the series.

• IV. The game features a few Star Wars references. The above is a reference to a line from Princess Leia in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. There’s also Biggs and Wedge, the recurring duo from the series who are named after the Star Wars characters.

• V. The game’s antagonist Kefka Palazzo is not only considered one of the greatest video game villains of all time but his laugh is also considered one of the greatest sound effects in a video game.

• VI. Here’s an old ad from Japan, back when we had commercials instead of trailers.

Final Fantasy VI originally released for the Super Famicom in Japan on April 2, 1994. It is the 7th best-selling Super Famicom game in Japan. The game released as Final Fantasy III in North America in October 1994. Its PlayStation port arrived in 1999 in Japan and North America, with Europe finally getting the game in March of 2002. It also released for Game Boy Advance, iOS, Android, and PC via Steam.