Christmas 1994, and I’m seventeen years old, trying way too hard to act like I don’t care about presents anymore but secretly still excited as hell. Then I unwrapped that SNES cartridge with the big “III” on it – yeah, thanks to Square’s ridiculous numbering confusion back then – and all my teenage coolness just evaporated. I actually whooped loud enough that my parents thought something was wrong. My mom still brings this up whenever we talk about video games, which is… often.
I played that game for what had to be fifteen hours straight. My dad kept walking by shaking his head, making comments about wasting a perfectly good day, but I couldn’t stop. By the time I hit the opera scene around 2 AM – I’d moved the whole setup to my bedroom after everyone went to bed – I knew this wasn’t just another RPG. This was something completely different from anything I’d experienced.
Almost thirty years later, and I still think Final Fantasy VI is the best JRPG ever made. Not just my favorite, though it definitely is that, but genuinely the best example of what the genre can accomplish when everything clicks perfectly.
Here’s what blew my mind right from the start: there’s no main character. I mean, Terra’s your viewpoint character initially, and Celes takes over in the second half, but VI gives you this massive ensemble cast where everyone matters. Fourteen playable characters, each with their own story, their own abilities, their own reasons for being there. Back in 1994, most RPGs gave you Generic Hero Guy and maybe three friends with personalities as deep as “likes magic” or “swings big sword.” VI said screw that, here’s a full cast of actual people.
I remember agonizing over party selection not because of stats – though those mattered too – but because I genuinely cared about all these characters. Shadow the mysterious assassin whose dreams slowly reveal his tragic backstory. Cyan dealing with watching his entire family die from poison. Gau, this wild kid raised by monsters who somehow becomes one of your most loyal friends. Every single one felt like a real person instead of a walking collection of abilities.
The world itself was unlike anything I’d seen in fantasy games. This steampunk-meets-magic thing where the Empire’s got these mechanical suits powered by drained magical creatures, but other places still live like medieval times. That opening with the Magitek armor stomping through Narshe in the snow – immediately you know this isn’t your typical swords and dragons setup. It let them create these incredibly diverse locations, from Figaro Castle that burrows underground to avoid conflict, to that perpetually rainy city Zozo where everyone lies about everything.
But man, that moment halfway through where Kefka actually wins. I still get chills thinking about my first time experiencing that. You’re cruising along thinking you know how this story goes – get stronger, fight the bad guy, save the world – and then the bad guy literally destroys the world while you watch helplessly. Your party gets scattered, everything’s ruined, and suddenly you’re not following a linear story anymore. You’re searching through the wreckage trying to find your friends and figure out if there’s any point in going on.
That transition from World of Balance to World of Ruin wasn’t just narratively bold, it completely changed how the game played. Finding each party member became personal. When I finally tracked down Cyan on that mountain, training endlessly because he couldn’t cope with his guilt, or discovered Celes alone on that island trying to keep Cid alive… these weren’t just gameplay objectives, they were emotional reunions.
And Kefka. Holy crap, what a villain. He starts out seeming like this joke character, right? Court jester making wisecracks and doing the Emperor’s dirty work. But as the game goes on, you realize he’s not funny-crazy, he’s genuinely terrifying-crazy. The guy poisons an entire castle full of innocent people and laughs about it. Burns down a town because he’s bored. His whole philosophy is basically “nothing matters so let’s destroy everything,” and unlike most video game villains, he actually has the power and opportunity to follow through.
When Kefka becomes a god and reshapes the world, it doesn’t feel like some last-minute power-up. It feels inevitable. This is what happens when someone with unlimited power and zero empathy gets exactly what they want.
The gameplay systems hit this perfect sweet spot between simple and deep. The Esper system let you customize characters by equipping magical beings that taught spells and boosted stats. I spent hours planning who should get which Espers when. Should Terra learn every spell since she’s half-Esper herself? Should I focus Celes on ice magic to match her natural abilities? You could play casually and be fine, or dive deep into optimization if that’s your thing.
The Relics added another layer – accessories that changed how characters functioned. Sprint Shoes for faster movement, Genji Glove for dual-wielding, economizer to reduce magic costs. These weren’t just stat boosts, they meaningfully changed how you played. I loved giving Edgar the Thief Glove to boost his Tools while also slapping on that economizer, turning him into this unstoppable mechanical damage dealer.
That opera scene, though. If you’ve played VI, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t… look, I’ve seen big-budget games with Hollywood actors fail to create the emotional impact that this sequence manages with 16-bit sprites and SNES audio. Celes has to impersonate an opera singer while you select her lines, all while knowing Ultros is planning to sabotage everything. The music swells, that single pixel tear runs down her face, and somehow this decades-old game transcends its technical limitations to create genuine art.
Nobuo Uematsu’s soundtrack deserves its reputation as one of gaming’s greatest. Every character has their own theme that perfectly captures who they are. Terra’s haunting, questioning melody. Shadow’s mysterious motif. Kefka’s chaotic carnival music that gets more disturbing the more you hear it. These themes weave throughout the entire game, evolving and combining in ways that support the storytelling. The ending sequence where each character’s theme plays as they escape the collapsing tower still gives me goosebumps.
What really sets VI apart is its willingness to tackle mature themes without flinching. Celes’ suicide attempt on the Solitary Island remains one of gaming’s most powerful moments. If you fail to save Cid through the fishing mini-game – which is easy to do without knowing the trick – Celes climbs a cliff and throws herself into the ocean. The game doesn’t look away or offer easy comfort. She survives by chance, finds hope in a scrap of cloth that suggests her friends might still be alive. This kind of emotional honesty was practically unheard of in mainstream games, especially ones partially marketed to kids.
The pixel art somehow conveys complex emotions despite the SNES’s limitations. These tiny sprites communicate personality and feeling through careful animation and expressive poses. Shadow leaving his dog with the party before a dangerous mission says more about his character in a few simple movements than many modern games manage with full mocap and voice acting.
You can’t talk about VI without mentioning VII, and honestly, both games are masterpieces in different ways. VII’s 3D graphics and focused narrative brought JRPGs mainstream, but VI’s ensemble approach and willingness to take huge narrative risks give it a unique flavor that even its acclaimed successor couldn’t match. VII gave us Cloud’s identity crisis and Aerith’s death, but VI gave us the actual apocalypse and asked what comes after. Both Sephiroth and Kefka are iconic villains, but only one of them actually succeeds in destroying the world.
I replay VI every couple years – it’s become this ritual I can’t break, despite my backlog growing longer every month. Each time I discover new details, hidden interactions, subtle storytelling I missed before. Shadow’s dreams at inns. Special party dialogue in certain locations. Environmental storytelling in places like the Magitek Research Facility. The game respects your intelligence, rewards attention without making exploration mandatory.
My most recent playthrough was with my nephew watching – he’s eight and getting into JRPGs. Seeing him experience the story fresh, asking about character motivations, gasping at the same plot twists that floored me decades ago… it confirmed what I’ve always suspected about truly great games. He didn’t see outdated graphics or clunky mechanics. He saw Terra struggling with her identity, Locke haunted by his failure to save Rachel, Kefka’s descent into godlike madness. When the credits rolled and he immediately wanted to start over to catch things he’d missed, I felt that same Christmas morning excitement all over again.
Some games become classics because they were groundbreaking for their time. Others earn that status because their creative vision was so perfectly executed that age becomes irrelevant. Final Fantasy VI falls firmly in the latter category – a game that understood exactly what it wanted to be and achieved it so completely that thirty years later, it still feels fresh. If you’ve never played it, you’re missing out on one of the medium’s greatest achievements. If you have played it… well, maybe it’s time for another playthrough. Trust me, you’ll find something new.
Samuel’s been gaming since the Atari 2600 and still thinks 16-bit was the golden age. Between accounting gigs and parenting teens, he keeps the CRTs humming in his Minneapolis basement, writing about cartridge quirks, console wars, and why pixel art never stopped being beautiful.
