Final Fantasy VI hits Steam today

The latest of the popular Square Enix franchise to be ported to PC is Final Fantasy VI (FFVI), albeit a direct port of the iOS version of the game.

Developer Square Enix announced last week, alongside a short launch trailer, that FFVI would be landing on the Steam store today. The release is not much of a remodel, however, although it uses new sprites from the iOS version, it falls short in many ways.

Lars Doucet, game developer of Defender’s Quest, has written a detailed analysis here on the new Steam release if you want to see more about the graphical features (or downfalls) of the game before buying.

The new version of the 1994 epic, which was the first to introduce the ultima weapons to the franchise, has been re-released a few times over the past 9 years; on the Game Boy Advance, PS3/PSP and, of course, Android and iOS mobile platforms.

For the most part, game play looks to be the same as previous versions, it isn’t an HD remodel and it isn’t anything new. This will appeal to those feeling nostalgic for the older Final Fantasy games, but when Square Enix are releasing mostly HD remodels of more favourable titles, and even a complete remake of FFVII, this is disappointing for those who grew up with this particular title.

Still, FFVI has significance in the series as a whole and is a reasonable price on Steam, but if you too are unsold by the new Steam version, the SNES title is available via virtual console on Wii and WiiU.