Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy VI is one of the best games I have ever played. The plot is so good and the characters are so perfect! It is the best RPG for Super Nintendo, and the second best of all (Zelda 64 is PERFECT). You have got to play this game. Now. Go play it now. Don't read this, go play it!

Disregard other's comments on this masterpiece, for it truly is the greatest game of all time. Final Fantasy VI was the first game to truly realize the potential of games as a storytelling medium. It's characters (particularly Celes and Terra) face true hardship and identity crises. This was also the first game to tackle such issues as teen pregnancy, suicide, and death in the family. It's not a light-hearted romp like 10, or a sweeping love story like 8. It's just the best.

Dark at times, light at others. Sakaguchi balanced the tension of Terra's slow descent into madness and her inevitable rise to destiny with stories of her search for love. Celes and Locke both face pain dead on, with Cid and Rachel both falling before their times. The most powerful moment in the game, in fact, is easily Celes' decision to end it all when the world goes to hell (though the opera scene is truly emotional as well).

This game changed gaming. All the plot twists and grandure of 7-10 could not exist without 6. It's 16-bit graphics often tell more story and emotion than the others can even hope for, and it's got the best villain ever (Kefka is the man). If you haven't played it, do yourself a favor. I just finished my 5th time through, after beating 10 so thoroughly, and I find myself loving it more and more.

I played this game for the first time in 1995 (i was thirteen at the time) and i didn't know much about rpg's except for Zelda which is also a very good game. In the beginning i didn't understand the gameplay and i thought it was boring and almost turned off the snes to never play the game again.

Luckily i continued playing and after a couple hours (when you choose between Sabin, Edgar and Locke groups)i realized that it wasn't just another good game, it was like entering in a parallel magical world which you don't want to comeback. It was so perfect in all the sense of the word, music, story, plot, game play etc etc that i just want to be part of the returners or a soldier of Figaro or something.

This is not only the best video game ever, this is better than any movie, book or anything as well. Now i'm 22 and i still haven't feel this with any other game (including ALL the others final fantasy) and i think i'll never feel it again.

There's a gigantic difference between a very good RPG like Chrono Trigger, FFVII, FFVIII, etc and the mighty FINAL FANTASY VI.

Final Fantasy VI is the only video game ever to capture me so completely with its narrative that I've never forgotten it. And nothing has ever matched it. The story is melodramatic, but somehow so deeply powerful. The characters all have very drawn out histories and personalities. I know them all very well, and I cared for them as characters very much. I was controlling them, but they went far beyond my hand. This may sound like a criticism, but it isn't: the reason that I played the video game was not because it was entertaining to play. I played only because I wanted to find out what happened next to the characters. And some of the plot developments made me weep. The Opera House is perhaps the crowning achievement in video game history. All I have to hear are the first two notes from the "Oh my hero..." song and I choke up. Never has a sequence been better in a video game. And there are 15 or so characters! I was quite disappointed with the 8 or so from Final Fantasy 7. Many people have complained that the great amount of characters detracts from the game's success, but really it adds much needed replay value. A game that takes circa 20 hours to complete, and I've played through it 4 times, each time there were enough differences to make it entirely worthwhile. The character design and the art direction in general is so great. This is a game that they should completely remake (without changing an iota of the actual gameplay) when the technology improves even further.

I don't know how available they are anymore, but if you can, try to find all the different versions of the soundtrack to this game (there is the regular soundtrack, a piano soundtrack (highly, highly recommended), and an orchestral soundtrack. I have even found an mp3 of a 23 minute version of the Opera Performance with real singing! It is godly). If you can't find it to buy, hey, they have no reason to complain about us having mp3s of these tunes. Nobuo Uematsu has to be one of the best composers ever to live! His compositions for this game (and for FF7 to a much, much lesser degree; he actually steals a couple of his own note sequences from his compositions in ffvi, e.g., three sequential notes in Aeris' theme are directly taken from the first three notes of Celes' theme) are on par with Beethoven and Mozart. Seriously. If you heard them on a classical music radio station, you would not realize that they were written for a video game. The score gives the video game an even more operatic and dramatic feel. My God, what a feeling!

I'm a big fan of the Final Fantasy series and this is one of my favorites. Definitely one of the best games on the SNES with its gorgeous visuals, sweeping musical score (courtesy of Nobuo Uematsu), engrossing narrative and a memorable cast of ensemble characters (my favorites include Terra, Edgar, his bro Sabin, and Celes), and one of the most unforgettable villains in video game history: Kefka. From his diabolical laugh, his power, and a feat I won't mention here in case anyone hasn't played it yet, you have to play it to find out, though I will say you'll never forget it. I haven't found all the secrets, but I've come back to this one time and time again. Add this to your VG bucket list if you haven't already done so.