FF1 was my favorite, until I played FFIV, which was my fave until I played FFVI. FFVI was an amazing ride, with more freedom and character choices than any other installment in the series. And most of the characters were likable, memorable, and customizable.
The right to use your preferred party members and to configure them to your liking offered a degree of freedom that hasn’t been matched in the FF canon since. For its day, FFVI offered beautiful graphics, awesome stereo sound, and depth in story and character development all rolled up into one game.
People complain it was easy, but back then it was considered one of the longer RPG’s available, with an above average amount of dungeons and overworld to explore. When it was released I’m guessing most players had not played an RPG that took so long to finish. So forcing people to level up (or, “difficulty”) was probably considered, but not implemented, in order to appeal to non or casual RPG gamers.
I certainly didn’t think it was that easy my first playthrough; I didn’t grind for the sake of grinding, or happen to discover Ultima and the infamous Vanish / X-Zone combo. I found the floating continent difficult, and wiped a few times in the Cult of Kefka tower and the final dungeon.
I loved how the story branched into three parts in the early going (Locke/Celes, Sabin/Shadow/Cyan, Terra/Edgar), and of course how everyone was split up to begin the second half of the game. And speaking of the second half, I thought I was near the ending about the time when Leo died, so it was an incredibly pleasant surprise the title had so much more left to offer - it hadn’t really even started yet!
And there’s the real ending. What an ending! It was just awesome to see the tributes to each of your characters, a farewell, so to speak…I had never seen an ending quite like it. Just awesome. For me, no FF game…or any game for that matter, has come close to matching my experience with VI.