Why is FFVI such an awesome game?

[Fynn]

This game sucked. You can tell since they scrap the WoB halfway through the game and give you the WoR. Could not do a game right with one map, eh, Squaresoft?

FF III, IV and V say hello.

[Pumpkin]

For serious:

I haven't played the whole game yet (I will, I promise!) but my favorite parts were the characters and the Espers. I always like customizable characters and the Espers let me pick which characters learned what. The cast was good. I didn't dislike any of the characters yet. They hada good variety and good stories.

[Madonna]

This game sucked. You can tell since they scrap the WoB halfway through the game and give you the WoR. Could not do a game right with one map, eh, Squaresoft?

FF III, IV and V say hello.

I did not say this was not part of a chain of cart wrecks.

[Flying Mullet]

Agr'd with Psy. The World of Ruin also had a stunning atmosphere that frankly has been equalled by few other video games I've played. The opening Midgar sequence of FFVII is another example (sadly the rest of the game failed to live up to that high standard). (A few other examples are the Kingdom of Zeal in Chrono Trigger, Pure/Holy Land in Secret of Mana, and the sequence of Marathon 2 from "This Side Toward Enemy" to "Requiem for a Cyborg", with the levels "My Own Private Thermopylae" and "Kill Your Television" standing out as particular highlights).

It also doesn't hurt that this is possibly the finest soundtrack Uematsu ever composed, which is saying a lot.

This.

At the time when this game came out it was MASSIVE. Never had so much exploration been available. Dragon Quest III has some openness to it when you are searching for the orbs, and Secret of Mana opens up when you get Flammie but nothing like Final Fantasy VI. I know that the openness was such a big draw for me.

[Del Murder]

I'm going to give a serious answer. The freeform nature of the World of Ruin where you can do as much or as little as you want in whatever order you want was an absolutely superb piece of gameplay design and one that FF has never managed to come close to yet with the possible exceptions of, rather surprisingly, X-2 and XIII-2. The sheer depth of VI is still unmatched though.

Not only that, but it blends this open-world design with the more linear approach that occurs during the first half of the game. It's the best of both worlds (literally)!

It also has a great soundtrack, great characters, (both PC and NPC ) and a nice blend of unique character abilities and customization.

[Spooniest]

It's also very fast. It has a much shorter Intro than 4 or 5.

Check out the battle intros for the various characters...there's just something so awesome about the way this feature was produced. They really jump around!

[Greatermaximus]

That's why you design things so well. They're worth talking about years after the original release. I'm glad I'm a good player because in terms of story I don't think I can top FFVI. Should one try? My Fiction's Upper Limit Lore topic is floating around here. I don't think you could break many of those ideas without making the story incomprehensible.