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A map of the original World of Balance

Final Fantasy VI takes place in an unnamed fictional world. The world will experience plenty of landscape changes as the game progresses, and access to certain locations will be gained and lost due to plot purposes. Unlike it's predecessors, and most role playing games in general, Final Fantasy VI takes advantage of originality, and splits the way the story unfolds into 2 worlds, so to speak. While the world is the same throughout the course of the whole game, it experiences many changes that affects both the way the story is told and played.

A map of the original World of Ruin

During the first half of the game, the world is separated into two major continents, and you and the party must travel across both in order to advance further into the story. The world is more easily referred to as the World of Balance during this first half, as everything is peaceful and it serves as great foreshadowing of things to come. During the second half of the story, the world's geographical layout is drastically changed due to plot purposes once more, however the changes are permanent at this point. The two continents split into several islands, previous town locations are now changed, and in order to reach previous locations, it is almost necessary to ride an Airship. The new and permanently altered world that you will be re-exploring during the second half of the game is known as the World of Ruin.

The World of Balance

The World of Balance is your basic RPG world map. You have two large continents that are surrounded by open seas on all sides, and in the beginning of the game, the only way to cross from one continent to another is via plot switches, dungeons, or one time location transfers, such as instantly going from one town to another, due to the storyline. The northern part of both continents is surrounded by mountains that can't be crossed until you gain access to an Airship, and surrounds one of the more important towns in Final Fantasy VI, Narshe. A chocobo can be obtained fairly early to make traveling from one point to another a lot faster and random encounter free. The terrain drastically changes about halfway through the game, and the World of Balance is no more.

The World of Ruin

While the World of Balance was composed mainly of land, and reallocating from one town to another seemed fairly easy, and could be done via just walking or with a chocobo, in the World of Ruin, that becomes a bit more difficult. Due to the terrain shapeshifting, massive earthquakes caused the land to split into multiple plates, and transformed various portions of the continents into individual islands. At this point, having access to an Airship becomes more vital than one thinks, while walking and chocobo riding may still be done, it becomes almost pointless. You still have access to all the older locations as you did in the World of Balance, and even some new areas become available, however the mood and tone of the game has completely changed at this point, and the inhabitants of the world become a lot more morbid and eerie.

Some of the rarest and strongest equipment for your party can only be obtained in the World of Ruin, as can some you ally a few of the strongest Espers, due to the fact that the game draws closer and closer to it's ending. There are also certain items that can only be obtained in their respective world, so once you leap into the World of Ruin, some items become unavailable for the rest of the game, if they could only be obtained in the World of Balance.

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