I find it quite difficult to write about this game, for years I've been reading that this is IT the best Final Fantasy game, the best Super Nintendo Game, one of the greatest of all time. After playing the older Final Fantasy games, Dragon Quest games and several JRPGs over the years my expectations just grew enormous, it was this perfect game just waiting to be played.

When I finally started it I was immediately blown away, the mode 7 intro looked great, the music gave me goosebumps and the character sprites had actual proportions(!). But after a few hours the game lost me, I didn't have a clear goal (well I had to somehow defeat the evil empire I guess?) and didn't know where to go.

And that is a big problem for me that just grew bigger and bigger. Around the opera part I had completely lost my motivation to continue (the opera in itself was great, but was Ultros really necessary...?). Getting the airship was a turning point for me and my enjoyment of the game, because it made me realize there was no place I wanted to revisit. The towns felt really lackluster and for someone like me, who just has to talk to every NPC, often frustrating. There was little information from the NPCs, almost no reaction to the events of the world and a lot of repetition. Even places with a connection to a party member offered almost nothing.

It was the second half of the game that turned things around for me, I liked the structure way better (some) party members had their own business to finish and there were finally dungeons that utilized the big cast and gave you an incentive to use more than your four favorite characters. I just wished there was more of that sooner in the game.

Balancing was another issue, there was some grinding necessary and some characters had more development than others and were way more useful in battle. Why bother standing around with Cyan when you can just cast powerful magic instead? At some point in the game magic had basically replaced most of the unique character skills, because it was just that more powerful.

Final Fantasy VI has a great villain, a story that is not(!) confusing, a big cast, it touches some heavy topics and is full of memorable moments but it's a bit lacking in the details.
It is not all gold, there are some lesser metals mixed in and hey that's totally okay, I would've loved it a lot more, if I had played it without any expectations but it's not really possible to play it without them.

the good:

• Kefka
• every party member has unique skills
• Kefka's laugh
• the music
• nice spritework

the bad:

• the towns
• the colloseum
• mean RNG moments (seriously why are they only casting lvl 5 death at the worst times...)