TGS has come and gone with no new Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary game announcements, but thankfully it's not all a bust. Square Enix has released a second volume of the Record Keeper soundtrack, which might not initially be of interest to most until you hear how great some of the arrangements are in this collection. Not only are there a nice handful of individual mixes, but there are two massive medleys including an eighteen-minute battle theme compilation and a twenty-four-minute anniversary medley featuring a fantastic gathering of pieces from all fifteen main games. So while there have been no exciting new RPGs announced, at least we're not totally empty-handed.

If you want to catch up on my prior pieces, here's a link to Issue 33 from a fortnight ago.

Final Fantasy VI (iOS)

Quite a few months back, I attempted to play the PS1 port of Final Fantasy VI and came away disappointed due to the sluggish load times. Over the past week I was able to check out the iOS version to see if it handled any better than Final Fantasy Dimensions. Sadly, the controls are just as awkward for me, especially having to tap so many different places on the screen to accomplish simple tasks that a few button presses could do much easier. Instead of dwelling on that, I will speak to the parts of the UI that I do like. I enjoy the way that the characters have action bars that slowly lift from the bottom of the screen to signal their turn instead of just watching a bar fill up. It's a neat twist.

So after another false start with FFVI, I find myself still wanting to play it. I'm not sure if it's really these versions turning me off or the fact that I've played the intro so many times that it's hard to get past that. That said, I have a working GBA now, so that's likely the path I'll take, but there is also the hope of getting an SNES Classic to play the original version on. Either way, I won't have to deal with the ugly mobile artwork and can keep dreaming of a real remake of FFVI that uses the Octopath Traveler-style designs. A man can dream, no?