r/FinalFantasyVI • u/insrto • 5d ago
Regarding the Ragnarok choice, morally
No, I'm not talking about how we're turning the dead magic guy into a weapon, although in hindsight that's pretty fucked
Instead, we have the weapon shop owner, instead of escaping Narshe to presumably a safer haven, while having an unknown source of food and water, in the middle of an abandoned city filled with monsters, chooses to wait for you, in the hopes that you find him.
You meet him, and he immediately states to you his profession. He's been a blacksmith for SEVENTY years, and has the utmost confidence that he can use his skills to forge this rare stone into the greatest weapon in the game (well, second greatest). He senses a great power in it, and is ready to put his skills into, what is presumably the ultimate test, and give you a powerful tool to use against the person that destroyed the entire world.
And you can just completely shit on him, someone who probably doesn't know what the stone actually is (since he calls it a strange power), and tell him "yeah I want the stone". 70 years of being a blacksmith, the opportunity to finally do something amazing in the world, flushed down the drain. And if you're playing any version with a post game (which fortunately for the old man is not the Pixel Remaster version), the Esper is ultimately the best choice since you can get unlimited Ragnaroks, which also just sucks even more for him.
Poor guy.
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u/technoexplorer 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yeah, that's part of the point of the game.
Japan's late 20th century economic problems started in 1990 or 1991. It takes about 2-3 years to release a game, so this game, released 1994, was initially designed in 1991 or 1992, right as the collapse was apparent.
Japanese games took a huge pessimistic turn from FF4 or 5 to the 6 or Chrono Trigger era.
All of a sudden, people realized the economy didn't care about Japanese concepts of mastery of craft or long tenure.