What FF4 sought to make with fumbling, whimsical, childish hands, FF6 has mastered in adulthood. There is no story more richly and gorgeously told in the 16-bit era, and the gameplay... well the gameplay mostly just manages to stay out of the way. The ATB system is a hand-me-down, but for now, in this snappy sprite-based environment, it's still a pretty good one.

It's a perfectly paced emotional thrill ride that is gushing with heart, and while its gameplay systems might not soar as high as a few other FF games, (including FFV directly preceding it) those systems represent a good, sturdy effort and are unlikely to menace anyone's good time.

Final Fantasy VI isn't even in my top three Final Fantasies, and it came out in the same year as Super Metroid, Earthbound, and Tokimeki Memorial. 1994 has such a brutal Game of the Year contest that no matter how much I'd like to give that GotY slot to something that ISN'T yet another Final Fantasy game, the only way I could settle the affair was to ask myself which of those games I would most want to replay at any given moment. No matter how I throw the bones, the answer is Final Fantasy VI every time. Super Metroid might be the best Metroid game, and Metroid probably deserves the recognition, but I will not commit such dishonesty for the sake of checking a box. My heart does not belong to Super Metroid. Tokimeki Memorial is later eclipsed so thoroughly by Tokimeki Memorial 2 that I feel no great need to elevate it, and every one of my Earthbound runs ends up bisected by a multi-year hiatus.

My winner for the bloodiest, most vicious GotY brawl in our known history, is Final Fantasy VI, and I will entertain no more relitigation.

EarthBound is love in a bottle, and the idea that people continued to question video games as an artistic medium a decade after its release fills me with disgust.

EarthBound is not a product on purpose. If it were feasible for him to do responsibly, I believe with my whole heart that Itoi would have given it away for free. It is the amorphous experience of a man's life, coagulated into a twisting mass of wonder, joy, terror and the cold, beautiful strength that is maturity. It features all of the childly insight of a Steven King novel and all the friendly comfort of a Dragon Quest. It is, in my opinion, the first true great artistic success of the medium, and I include the then-just-released Final Fantasy VI.

And yet... PLAYING it...

EarthBound, despite its divine importance and unlimited heart, fails to thrill with its more traditional video game trappings. Its dungeons, inventory management and combat are all rote and often frustrating. This helps evoke a nostalgia for the Dragon Quests of yore for those who grew up with them, but gives an unfamiliar or undesiring player little to latch onto. Honestly when I'm bogged down with the "video game" parts rather than exploring the world and its characters, I'm not having fun with EarthBound, and that happens to be a quite sizable percentage of the game. This is why I cannot give this, one of the most important, most beautiful games ever made, a full-throated set of all five stars. It cannot truly deliver on its gameplay fronts... at least not for me, someone who didn't turn to Dragon Quest until their 20's.

The next question I always ask myself whenever I think this about an RPG (and it rarely comes up elsewhere), is one of degrees. To what extent do these inadequacies Get In The Way? A game like Final Fantasy VII is too easy for its own good (from a modern perspective anyway) but its gameplay blazes by so quickly and smoothly that one barely even notices that all they did in that boss fight was spam the attack command. It does not Get In The Way, even if it doesn't maximize its potential. By contrast, in Persona 2: Innocent Sin, battles might be similarly trivial, but they are so incessantly drawn out and so disorientingly frequent that they DO become a damaging annoyance rather than just a missed opportunity. Earthbound, tragically, falls into the latter camp... if only slightly.

I can give full marks to Final Fantasy VI because its underbaked character gimmicks are so harmless that it's seldom even noticed that there's anything wrong with them. Like many Final Fantasy games, it's a smoothie that goes down easy. Conversely, every playthrough I do of Earthbound goes on a year long hiatus shortly after I get through the monkey caves.

I would be lying through my teeth if I said that I was not still constantly tempted to just give Earthbound the full score anyway. It is one of the most important video games ever made. I implicitly trust each of the children of EarthBound with my life... but my desires to play EarthBound never last long, and that has to count for something.

Edit: Nah, screw it. I've let other games get away with worse.

I have struggled far more than most in my attempts to reckon Chrono Trigger. I did not grow up with a Super Nintendo, and I have yet to foster any genuine nostalgia for it. It is a game which I emulated in middle school along with Earthbound and the 16-bit Final Fantasies. I liked it then, and I like it now. It is a beautiful, razor-sharp, meticulously polished video game which hosts a wonderfully memorable adventure full of effective moments and a strong cast of likable characters. However, I could say the same about a lot of games.

At no point in my life has Chrono Trigger enraptured me to the degree that I witness in others. It frequently tops "Best Video Game" lists, and is usually the second RPG spoken of in reverence by the layman after Final Fantasy VII. It is one of the most beloved video games in history, and yet whenever I overhear anyone attempt to explain why, it's usually just a recitation of Cool Stuff That Happens In It.

I try not to give too much overwhelming weight to a game's story when I put on my criticism hat. The stories and themes and storyTELLING of video games are extremely important to me, but they are arguably the most subjective subject on the table. I can't tell you that Final Fantasy IX is the best one simply because it's narrative resonates with ME more than any other game in the series, any more than a game is better than anything else because it has an art style I like. What I CAN tell you is that both of those games have gameplay systems that occasionally contribute to less-than-glorious experiences, and that their designers seemingly did not fully accomplish what they set out to do.

Chrono Trigger has a mediocre battle system. Double and Triple techs are flashy and cool, but are hardly some game-changing innovation that results in strategically riveting battles. Skill animations, especially on lategame enemies, can be insufferably long and they bring the ATB bars to a screeching halt, leaving the player with nothing to do but watch the attack play out for the thirteenth time that battle. In 1995, this was irrelevant. Audiences were so awestruck by the technology-straining visuals and effects that they would never think to admonish the spectacle, but on my third playthrough here in the 2020s, I found myself reaching for the speed button on my emulator for almost every fight of the game's second half. I found myself noticing that at the end of one of it's dungeons, Chrono Trigger asks you to choose between two unmarked doors without even expressing that the player is making a choice. Choosing wrong sends them all the way back to the entrance. On the Blackbird, the only way to progress is to stand on a few random, unmarked pixels out on the wing of the plane, with no indication given of this.

I used to have no problem accepting the notion that Chrono Trigger is "The One Perfect Video Game." This is because when searching for things that are WRONG with Chrono Trigger, the exercise has often felt pedantic and rude. I have however, struggled just as much to come up with something that is so RIGHT about Chrono Trigger that it should be crowned Video Game Emperor Of All Time.

I believe that now, I have finally found answers to each. I've already given you what I believe to be "the problems" with Chrono Trigger, but before I speak my argument in its favor, let me first offer you my most cynical of suspicions.

I believe that Chrono Trigger is so beloved because it was globally released just before Dragon Ball Z appreciation began to take root in America, at the tail end of a popular console's lifecycle, with an extremely accessible story that could be instantly appreciated by all who played it. Its playable characters were an Anime Coolguy, Bulma, a spunky princess, a talking frog knight, a robot, and a hot cavewoman. It came out in the right place (everywhere) at the right time, under all of the right circumstances, and was effortlessly understood by basically anyone. Everyone could be pitched on Chrono Trigger, everybody bought in on Chrono Trigger, and everyone was satisfied.

This is why as soon as I found something to hold against Chrono Trigger, namely its lategame animation bloat, I docked it points, and enshrined my new love, Trials of Mana, on a rhetorical shelf directly above it. This was, however, a bit short-sighted.

My critical equations employ a few unspoken rules. One of these rules is that a game cannot be The Greatest Game of All Time simply because it's pretty and sounds good and has a great story. If you wish, you may consider this the Final Fantasy IX clause.

However Chrono Trigger, I have realized now, is proof that yes, a video game can be one of the greatest ever made by sheer virtue of its pacing and its heart. I do not think that Chrono Trigger is the best game ever made, and I usually do not take much shine to games that I believe to simply be the products of good, traditional work, but every single bar on Chrono Trigger's graph is SO HIGH that Chrono Trigger does not need to break any molds to be included in the pantheon. It does not need any earthshattering gimmick.

Having said all of this, I must confess: I find anyone whose favorite video game is The Last of Us to be among the most boring people alive, and I consider Chrono Trigger to be an older generation's version of that same scenario.

Chrono Trigger is, by every traditional metric of its day, an absolutely exemplary piece of work, and maybe, just maybe, that should simply be enough for me.