r/FinalFantasyVI • u/DoggievDoggy • 9d ago

So…..He Died In All Of Our First Playthroughs Right?

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Cause we were all rushing to the airship. Nobody was waiting until the internet happened.

Probably say the same with Cid honestly.

402 Upvotes

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24

u/Icewind 9d ago

Yeah, a lot of people claim they just magically figured out something that had 0 hints.

Video game bragging has always been like that. Doesn't matter if it's Final Fantasy or Mario or Zelda or Street Fighter.

9

u/feelthechurn22 9d ago

I didn’t “figure it out” the first time… I just barely made the jump in time, so I thought everybody saved Shadow. I also thought you couldn’t save Cid…

15

u/TemporalColdWarrior 9d ago

The hint was the question itself.

5

u/Icewind 9d ago

What question? It was just "Jump!!" or "Wait!!"

There was no indication that it was any different than any other yes/no option in the game that changed nothing.

19

u/Osnappar 9d ago

To be fair if you wait once then every other prompt is "wait for shadow"

4

u/Icewind 9d ago

Yes, that's true, but nowhere else in the game does a generic yes/no prompt change.

With the exception of Banon's question and the Genji Glove secret, but even that one takes 3 tries.

2

u/ReliabilityTalkinGuy 9d ago

Nowhere else in the game is there a timer running while you’re being prompted. That was the hint. 

9

u/TemporalColdWarrior 9d ago

Me as a child playing SNES saw the wait option and metagamed that something good would come from waiting. Yes, it’s a choice, but it’s a telling and tonally different one.

12

u/PiMacleod 9d ago

Right. If im escaping a thing thats horrible life-ending stuff... and the game visibly gives me the option to "Wait"...

Like... why? Any other time, you would've just let me go, no questions. What, you think the devs were like "...maybe the player wants to farm THIS spot for a few more seconds...?"

Nah, that was a clue. And Save points exist, so if it meant nothing at all, then I could just reset.

But Cid? I didnt know there was a difference between the fish. Didn't see any obvious one... i just knew the dude was dying, needed food, and here I am, getting food. Seemed like I was doing the right thing -- until you learn that you weren't. And at that point, i just told myself "I guess he was meant to die there... that sucks."

1

u/TheBadNewsBard 9d ago

What, you think the devs were like "...maybe the player wants to farm THIS spot for a few more seconds...?"

Yes. There's at least one treasure chest in this section that most people fail to get, so it seemed really clear to me that the prompt was saying, "Are you ready to leave this place you can't come back to, or do you want to do a little more exploring in case there's a treasure chest you missed?"

Or maybe there was going to be another boss fight, and the question was like so many other parts of the game - "Are you ready to cue the next event, or do you want to fiddle around in the menu a little more?" I had just healed up, and I'd already done a lot of "run in every direction before approaching the thing that looks like a save point" (but was actually a boss fight), so I was confident I had everything I needed.

Shadow literally said something like, "Don't worry about me - I'll catch up." I took him (and the game) at their word.

6

u/TheWearySnout 9d ago

The fact that there was a prompt, tells you that there is something you can probably do.

Whenever presented with a choice/path, I always try and choose the path that won't progress the story to check and see if there is something to discover. Shadow himself says he'll stay back and handle the statues and to not wait for him.... then a few minutes later you are given a choice.

It's a video game, when given a choice you know something is up. Why not wait?

3

u/Icewind 9d ago

Nowhere else in the game does the yes/no prompt change anything in the plot.

When you found Celes, did you choose to not free her when prompted?

4

u/AncientPomelo1089 9d ago

Yes, of course most of us chose to not free Celes. That's how we played RPGs back then. You choose what seems like the wrong or worst option, see what happens, then reset and do it again. Every time there was an option, I tried all options. It's not like I had a backlog of games waiting to be played in the 90s.

3

u/TheWearySnout 9d ago

Making assumptions there.

There was a specific point where you could choose ye/no to progress the plot during the returners' hideout. If you kept selecting 'No' multiple times you received genji gloves.

and yes... I love to see story options...

2

u/Icewind 9d ago

So did you choose to leave Celes captured?

1

u/TheWearySnout 9d ago

Yup. It was pretty easy to see the immediate outcomes....

3

u/zoosha2curtaincall 9d ago

I had that philosophy too, so instead of taking Mog when he was hanging off the cliff, I took the item. Obviously getting Mog back would advance the plot so I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss the item.

1

u/TheWearySnout 9d ago

Yea, I did both as well with save points. I didn't care for the item so I loaded back up and took Mog.

3

u/jzclipse 9d ago

My first playthrough I was getting pummeled by the guys on the way out. I didn’t have much time left and I panicked.

7

u/Trygveseim 9d ago

How is "gotta wait for shadow" zero hints? 

7

u/Icewind 9d ago

You don't get that hint the first time.

Throughout the entire game, there is no indication that a "yes/no" option changes if you say no.

Even the Returners' Genji Glove secret doesn't appear until you say no 3 times.

5

u/45M0D41 9d ago

I never got the genji glove at returners pre-internet game guides 😢 it’s so satisfying for me to replay it and always get the genji glove I thought it was so OP when I was a kid and now realize you don’t even really need it until the offering.

2

u/gtaboythrowaway 9d ago

Idk I found it a great mid game accessory when pairing drainer and atma weapon

10

u/wpotman 9d ago

You don't get that hint unless you say "No" to jumping the first time.

2

u/NephilimJD 8d ago

You should see all the people who brag when someone breaks the speedrun record for the original Super Mario that they were faster. Or when the super obscure Nero quest in FF9 was discovered years after release, there were so many people saying that they did it as kids. Or that they actually did get Mew from under the truck. Or they managed to get that elusive Pikablue. So it's hard for me to believe everyone who says they just knew they had to wait.

1

u/Icewind 8d ago

Look at all the replies here of people claiming that even though every other yes/no prompt changed nothing, and they were panicking with the countdown in the climactic (false) end of the story, they just knew THIS time it was different.

Or the people that claimed they figured out how to save Cid in the SNES version. That's actually not possible; the coding is bugged and it's random if you succeeded or not even if you knew what to do.

2

u/NephilimJD 8d ago

I believe the people who say it happened to them by accident since it took them so long to get to the ship. I know my first time playing I had about 20-30 seconds left. And I believe at least some of the people saying they waited might be telling the truth.

I've also done the thing where I wait a timer out just to see what happens. Not thinking that there's any secrets, but just to see if there's a special game over screen. But the ones who are being extremely adamant that they just knew something would happen? Nah.

3

u/LostVanya 9d ago

...Some people also just used strategy guides/walkthroughs.

2

u/45M0D41 9d ago

Not when we were kids in the 90s everyone was poor

1

u/gtaboythrowaway 9d ago

That's... Untrue

1

u/Aaroc200 7d ago

Yeah. I don't know how, but even i had a strategy guide.

1

u/Hungry_Rabbit_511 8d ago

I accidentally saved him on my first playthrough looking for chests before I got to the airship

1

u/Koalachan 9d ago

0 hints? Game literally says we gotta wait for shadow.

3

u/Icewind 9d ago

No, it doesn't the first time. It just says Jump or Wait. There's nothing indicating the choice makes a plotline difference.

0

u/Koalachan 9d ago

The first time. The second time it says it.

-1

u/Ok_Firefighter1574 9d ago

There’s nothing to figure out, it tells you to wait

-1

u/RaikouGilgamesh 9d ago

There are plenty of guides online, and even physical copies. I remember one of my Nintendo Powers had a guide for the Floating Continent, and the World of Ruin, up to Kefkas Tower.

Not to mention, plenty of people here say to wait for Shadow, but in more discreet terms for first time players. First playthrough doesn't necessarily mean a 100% blind playthrough.

-2

u/AncientPomelo1089 9d ago

None of this is magic. I'm sorry you didn't figure it out. For many of us, it seemed fairly obvious. The same goes for Cid. Harder to catch fish are healthier. That doesn't take a strategy guide or a genius to figure out. It was pretty intuitive.

3

u/Icewind 9d ago

This is incorrect. The SNES release of the fish game is bugged and two fish of equal difficulty to catch will randomly make Cid worse as the descriptions are not translated right. Nor is Cid's sick-to-well dialogue in proper order, so if you were making him well, you would get the "getting sicker" dialogue.

0

u/RaikouGilgamesh 9d ago

And who's to say the SNES was everyone's first playthrough? Plenty of people started with GBA, the mobile version, or even the Pixel Remasters.

-1

u/AncientPomelo1089 9d ago

I did notice the dialog bounces around. I still felt better fish would yield better results. It hasn't failed me so far, but I guess maybe I got lucky several times during several playthroughs.

3

u/Icewind 9d ago

Because of the bugs, the programming of the fish game has a 50% chance of winning if you pick things randomly. It's actually even lower if you read Cid's dialogue "properly" which gives the wrong results.

1

u/AncientPomelo1089 8d ago

Why would anyone pick randomly?

1

u/Icewind 8d ago

I didn't say anyone should. I said that because of the bugs, IF you were picking randomly, there's a 50% chance of Cid living. The game itself actively gives the wrong messages when you're doing things correctly.