Final Fantasy VI [Model SHVC-F6]

Final Fantasy VI (or FF6 for short) was released on April 2, 1994 (Saturday) in Japan.

It was exported in North America as Final Fantasy III [Model SNS-F6-USA].

Hironobu Sakaguchi was originally the director of the game but could not put all his time and effort into it due to him becoming very busy at the time after becoming vice-president of the company and having a lot of other projects going on. The story was also by Sakaguchi. The event scenes and script of Final Fantasy VI were done by a group of four or five people, among them Yoshinori Kitase, and Sakaguchi was the director and story writer and had control over these aspects as well. Similar to the development of Final Fantasy V, Kitase worked on the event scenes while Sakaguchi directed them. However, Kitase went on to have more control over the event scenes in Final Fantasy VI after Sakaguchi stepped down as director around 70% into the project.

Hiroyuki Ito was the game designer and responsible for all the gameplay aspects such as the battle system and character growth system. He was also responsible for the pacing and flow of the entire game and tried to strike a balance between the gameplay and event scenes so the game did not feel too story-driven. He would again take on this role while directing Final Fantasy IX. Hiroyuki Ito also wrote the back story and character arc of Locke Cole and Celes Chere.

FF6 had 4 graphic directors. Tetsuya Takahashi, the first of the game's four graphic directors, designed the imperial Magitek Armors as they appear in the intro credits. He was also the map director and designed the world map for both the World of Balance and World of Ruin. He also drew the background art for the various battle screens.

Hideo Minaba, the second of the game's four graphic directors, was the art director of the game. He designed the architecture and interior design of all the buildings in the various towns, which he based on Victorian architecture. He also designed all the other locations in the game such as Narshe, the Opera House, the Phantom Train and Vector.

Kazuko Shibuya, the third of the game's four graphic directors, was the character sprite designer. She designed the sprites for all the playable characters and also all the NPCs. Although not immediately obvious, she made the battle sprites slightly more detailed than the map sprites. This was done because the battle sprites needed to do more animations due to the various attacks, spells and abilities possible in the game. Kazuko Shibuya also wrote the back story and character arc of Gau.

Tetsuya Nomura, the fourth of the game's four graphic directors, was the monster designer. He designed the battle sprites for the over 300 monsters you can encounter in the game. His most notable work is his elaborate sprites for the boss monsters, particularly the final bosses. Tetsuya Nomura also wrote the back story and character arc of Setzer Gabbiani and Shadow.

Reviews:
[FR] May 1995 - Consoles + N.32: 93%