It was way ahead of its time. Even though I played it years later, my jaw still dropped when a sprite came out on a stage, opened his mouth and began to sing.

It was because of events like this (and VI had alot of them) that anyone playing this in the mid '90s would have been seriously impacted by this game. Playing it based on lofty recommendations and previous knowledge of later RPGs can really ruin your experience with it.

Having played RPGs on later consoles beforehand, I felt the story and characters were much more lacking than they actually were; having played certain Genesis as opposed to SNES RPGs during the 16-bit era, the experience felt boring and unrewarding. The question on my mind was "Is this all there is?"

I actually prefer a few older FF's to VI, but it's still grown to be one of my favorite RPGs of all time. When I put Linux on my PS3, FFVI was the first rom I went for.