The gameplay is excellent. Granted, the game eventually suffers from the now-standard tendency of Final Fantasy games to make all of your characters jacks of all trades, but overall, the game still does a much better job of maintaining differently useful characters throughout the game. Well, Except for Gau. Gau just sucks. The Magicite system of learning magic is well balanced, and though they become a bit irrelevant toward the end of the game, the character’s individual abilities for the most part remain useful throughout. In terms of RPGs, it’s a just a solid, fun-to-play battle system that holds up well today.

Where the game truly shines is its story. I can’t count the number of top ten whatever lists that include FFVII based on its plot, or, more specifically, the oh-so-overrated murder of Aerith. Yeah, I get it, it was in 3D, it was cinematic, and it was the permanent death of a party member. For all intents and purposes though, the plot of FFVII -- or many of the other games in the series -- isn’t the best. Final Fantasy VI however, for all the cliches it openly draws from, presents a strong, emotionally moving story endowed with a massive and deep cast of characters. There are around a dozen characters in VI and for the most part, most of them are given full back stories. Locke for instance, at the game’s start seems like your typical happy go lucky thief, but as the story progresses we learn that he is actually burdened by a heavy personal tragedy that drive many of his actions throughout the course of the plot. Even your enemies are given more depth than RPGs usually allow. One of the most dramatic moments in the game isn’t the death of an ally but of an enemy.

Perhaps that is what makes Final Fantasy VI such a fantastic game. By far, VI has probably the best villain in the series: Kefka. I was fifteen when I first purchased Final Fantasy VI off of eBay and the guy disturbed me even then. He’s defined by obvious madness, complete disregard for innocent life, and a just plain freaking laugh; whenever Kefka came into the scene you knew some bad stuff was about to go down. One the most brilliant and arguably darkest moments in gaming history is when Kefka wins. Most RPGs, and most certainly, the vast majority of the Final Fantasy games center around beating some ultimate evil before it can destroy the world. Well, in Final Fantasy VI you confront the ultimate evil and lose. The last section of the game follows your second attempt to bring down Kefka in a world utterly ruined by his rise to power. Let me tell you, if you think Aerith getting gutted was brutal, then you haven’t experienced the horror of a bunch of cute 2D sprites getting nuked and plummeting to their deaths as Kefka tears the continents apart.

In short, Final Fantasy VI represents the series at its apex. The Final Fantasy games up until this point had been good and often demonstrated spurts of brilliance, but really it all came together in VI, and arguably the series was never this good again. It combined great graphics, excellent music, a solid combat system, and a deep story to piece together what has remained a consistently strong RPG, rivaled in the minds of many only by the likes of Chrono Trigger. In short, it is a flawless game.