Final Fantasy 6's Separate Group Control Feature

Final Fantasy 6 introduced an interesting gameplay feature in the form of occasional sequences during the game’s course in which the player would separate the cast into multiple parties, and control these parties semi-simultaneously to accomplish a task through cooperation.  In some instances, there would be an invading group of enemies on a map, and the player would direct multiple teams of the heroes to intercept the attackers, while other uses of the mechanic involved multiple teams exploring a larger dungeon whose puzzles required cooperation as each team opened up new paths for the other(s).  It was a neat idea, and surprisingly well-executed considering its newness.

But the way the game implemented this feature is really weird, too.  Cuz, like...we can all agree it’s a fairly memorable aspect of Final Fantasy 6, right?  The last dungeon is a cooperative venture between 3 parties, and the battle for Narshe is 1 of the most signature elements of the game as a whole.  This multi-group control feature is definitely 1 of the things you strongly remember as a part of the experience of playing it.  And yet, this distinctive feature of Final Fantasy 6 occurs a mere 4 times in the game’s entire course!  That’s the initial Narshe fight with Locke and his team of deus ex machina moogles defending the sanctity of Terra’s naptime, then the climactic Narshe battle between the reunited heroes and Kefka’s invasion force, then later the cooperative exploration of the Phoenix’s cave, and finally the triple-team tower takedown at the end of the game.  The developers went to all the trouble of inventing, coding, and nearly flawlessly implementing this feature, just to only ever actually use it 4 times.  That’s like once every 10 hours, give or take.

And it’s even more a weird waste than it initially appears from those numbers.  Because that initial Narshe battle is basically just a tutorial for the system, not a sincere iteration of it.  It occurs extremely early in the game, and with the moogles doing all the heavy lifting, it’s hard to screw up so badly you lose.  And story-wise, the scenario would have been accomplished just as well by having Locke, Mog, and a couple backup moogles face down a couple pursuing enemies as a single fighting unit the way the rest of the game is handled.  So this really is just a tutorial session for the multi-group control dynamic.  A tutorial...for the single, solitary instance to follow in the game where you’ll be participating in a multi-group battle.

Which is another oddity of integration of this feature: the climactic multi-team combat aspect of it is only ever used half of the time it comes into play, even though it was this particular focus which the tutorial specifically trains the player for.  And it’s over and done with so early in the game!  The battle for Narshe is, what...30% of the way into Final Fantasy 6?  A third of the way through the game, you get your first real test of cooperative fighting as a group of teams against an enemy force, and it’s also the very last time.  Everything involving this feature past that point is just cooperative dungeon exploration.

And that’s pretty peculiar, too.  Because first of all, the first time it happens is a good, what, 80% of the way through the game?  Potentially more; getting Locke back on the team could very well be the final sidequest the player engages in before heading to Kefka’s tower for the finale.  So that’s a weird time to be dropping the fact that there’s a whole other application of this multi-group control feature which by this point the player has possibly forgotten about altogether.  And while the game would certainly be incomplete without having Locke around to finish the journey, it IS technically completely optional to even go through this cave to begin with, so there’s also every possibility that the joint venture through the final dungeon will actually be the first time the player deals with this avenue of the feature.  Not that the player needs a trial run or anything, the feature’s very simple to figure out, but still, it seems odd.

I mean, it’s not like there couldn’t have been more instances in FF6’s story where this feature was implemented.  The Magitek lab is a large enough dungeon that a little tweaking could’ve made it a good initial foray into the joint dungeon exploration.*  And the Floating Continent’s size, layout, and position in the story (coming into play just as the full team reunites and gains new members, at the most pivotal moment in the plot) is begging for a test-drive of the 3-group dungeon exploration that’s featured at the game’s end.

Meanwhile, a multi-group battle scene in which the team defends a town from an attacking band of monsters would have been a great opportunity to use the mechanic to further underscore the harsh realities of the new world in the game’s latter half.  It could be really cool: Celes arrives in town, the monsters attack, and the player has to direct 2 teams of fighters, populated by only Celes, Sabin (if he’s been recruited), and some woefully underpowered NPCs, to fight off half a dozen or so monster units.  It’d further hammer home the desperation of existence in this world, show how outclassed the survivors are against the beasts running amok, and even give an opportunity for Celes to develop her character; it could’ve reaffirmed her hope and her devotion to the cause of good by showing her that there’s still real, tangible good she could accomplish in this world, and people who needed her to do just that.  Phunbaba’s second attack on Kohlingen would’ve been another good opportunity for this feature; have the jerk bring some buddies, have the player use a couple teams to engage the attacking demons, make a proper epic battle out of it.  He still could’ve blown away the majority of the combatants after the rest of his allies had been beaten, given Terra her chance to shine, but the whole scenario would’ve been kicked up a notch.

The way that FF6 handles its multi-group scenarios just seems odd to me.  There’s so few of them for such a notable feature, and the way they’re paced is truly puzzling.  There were definitely other opportunities over the course of the game for additional instances of multi-group battles and dungeon exploration which would have made sense and been fairly easy to incorporate.  It’s certainly not a negative for the game, of course, but it seems like there was a lot more opportunity for the feature to be a positive than was realized.  In spite of its placement in some key scenarios, this feature winds up only being a fun and interesting novelty in Final Fantasy 6, when it could have been an iconic signature like, say, the army battles of Suikoden, or the ship combat of Skies of Arcadia.













* It would’ve made more sense from a plot perspective, too.  I mean, if you’re gonna invade the Empire’s own home turf, you’d think you’d want your full team on that.  Yeah, protecting the Esper in Narshe is important and all, but with Figaro as a buffer to the southwest and with the Empire’s initial attack force having been demolished with a long and complicated process to build up a new one in South Figaro, if it can manage to at all, Narshe is pretty well protected.  Hell, it’s basically now the heart of Returner territory.  Keeping 2 of the Returners’ best agents behind to protect the Esper at this time doesn’t make sense; it’s like benching 2 of your all-stars during a championship game so they can protect the gatorade cooler.

Also would’ve been more sensible from a gameplay standpoint.  Taking 2 (or more) party members out of the player’s hands for the entire sequence of raiding the Magitek factory is a bad decision to begin with, particularly when they’ve likely already been absent for a while given how inconvenient it is at that point in the game to backtrack and change party members.  And it even would’ve numerically added up basically perfectly - 2 groups with a maximum of 4 characters means a total of 8 spots that can be filled by 6 regular characters to choose from (Celes, Sabin, Edgar, Cyan, Gau, and Locke) and a seventh part timer in Shadow (if you’ve hired him), with the last slot being open for upcoming addition of Setzer.