FF7 gets all the attention, but for my money this earlier entry is the peak of the series and one of the video game GOATs. Terra's Theme is the soundtrack of my dreams.

The espers, the magic learning system, the characters, the drama, the abilities, the gothic/dark elements and world-shattering events.... It all makes Final Fantasy VI such a powerful game and must-play.

I suplexed a ghost train.

a starkly mature experience that feels almost inappropriate as a Final Fantasy game. there is no saving the world, here: only vengeance; everyone fails in their own way. that it's fun to play is a bonus worth mentioning, but the story is genuinely brilliant. I forget who said this first, but Uematsu's score really is like Michaelangelo doing the Sistine Chapel with crayons.

The best FF of all-time. The most characters of any of the games in the franchise and most of them are compelling, and even the ones that aren't either have cool fan stories or are just fun to use. An incredibly dark story which was mind-blowing back in '94; I mean, the bad guys basically win, there's suicide, genocide, etc. Turn-based combat which I like because I grew up with it, visuals still pop today, arguably the best FF OST. Also, the World of Ruin was open-world, how cool is that?

Certainly one of my favorite games of all time. From the chilly mines of Narshe to the majestic sands of Figaro to choosing a scenario to the opera and to the heart of the Empire to the Floating Continent and on into the World of Ruin, the story of this one just pulls me in every time like a great book or film. Amazing music, great JRPG gameplay, a world full of secrets and sidequests and maybe my favorite video game villain of all time in Kefka, all delicious cherries on top.

A steampunk fantasy masterpiece. Elegant writing, lovely graphical design, and a deep, satisfying combat system that pairs perfectly with the grandiose saga. Twists and turns aplenty are cushioned by poignant character moments, which serve to build a cast of heroes you won't want to leave.

There's a bit less character customization than V had, but the breadth of the cast makes up for it by giving you lots of options to play with. All the artwork is more beautiful than ever, soundtrack is great as always, and there are some unforgettable story moments and set pieces. The endgame was pretty easy, but that can happen because there are so very many sidequests near the end, leading to lots of borderline-exploity ways to become overpowered.

Excellent, compelling story. The game play was pretty neat with its variety of subsystems. I prefer the job system games, but this worked too.

Very repetitive, but quite good.

(SNES) The plot and themes are interesting and at times deep, but are hampered by presumably technical limitations making a lot of dialogue stunted and lacking natural flow, leading to these themes not having the impact they could/should. Wide variety of characters makes gameplay fun and varied, though high encounter rates start to get frustrating at points. The open nature of the second part is a great addition, though a bit of a lack of direction could see you miss out on interesting scenes.

It's as good as, or better than, FFVII -- my favorite of all-time -- in almost every way, while just not resonating with me at quite the same level. But it has inarguably the best villain in the franchise, some of the franchise's most intriguing and deep characters, and, you lose. You lose super hard. And then you have to keep playing. Which I think is one of its elements that I love the most. It teaches you the "Rocky" lesson: winning is about how hard you can get hit and keep going. A-plus.

Great soundtrack, memorable villain, and an opera. Still, it's a JRPG, so how good could it be?

I know this is supposed to be one of the better Final Fantasy games, but I just could not get into this one as much as even FFV. Perhaps I need to go back and give it another look, but with the wide variety of fantastic games out there now, when would I ever have time to do that. I'm no longer a preteen.

i recall random encounters being a real fucking drag in this one, which has put me off replaying it as an adult. one day though.

Among my favorite in the FF series. The writing can come off as a bit overly basic at times but the storytelling is among the best in the series and as with most games in the mainline series the setting is interesting as well. The gameplay is fairly basic but every character has a neat and unique mechanic that freshes up the gameplay as it provides you a great sense of progress as you level up. Can be a bit grating to go through so many random battles, but a lot of old JRPGs are plagued by this

VI has amazing moments: the opera, the phantom train, etc. but they are spread thin. the battle system very quickly devolves into mashing attack to slog through hundreds of unavoidable encounters, and the story - come on guys. the "darkness" just means that the villain is even more psychopathically evil than normal, and for all the bad-guys-win pomp midgame, this is still very standard save the world fluff. no politics, no nuance - just an evil person doing evil things for no reason, like usual.

Probably in the top three of best FF's ever. Great characters and story.