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.

Let's keep it short. It's cute. It's charming. The overworld is an exhausting navigational nightmare. There are mandatory doors that open when you throw pots at them, and there are no hints toward this. There are mandatory areas in dungeons as well as optional areas with heart pieces that are behind completely unmarked, unhinted bombable walls that even Zelda 1 would have pointed out. Having like five sentences of text pop up every time the player brushes up against a bombable rock, a pot, or a crystal is excruciating. Sword powerups and defense acorns ruin the music for extended periods of time so I just avoid them both. Dungeons send the player running around in circles because so many areas are only accessible through sidescroller tunnels that aren't on the map.

The Switch remake fixes pretty much all of this, and is the better way to play. Even with that being the case, I would still rather play Seasons, Ages, Link Between Worlds, or Link to the Past.

The job system is much adored and with good reason, but the story is just... it's so dumb. It's so very dumb. At some point though, that stops being a negative. In replaying, I have to give some more credit to these characters, particularly Bartz, as there's a bit more to them than I remember there being, and there's a pretty clear reason why. Much of the necessary "fleshing out" is relegated to optional, easily overlooked scenes that I probably didn't even see the first time. Gameplay is extremely flexible and replayable, which is V's saving grace. It's a fun, whimsical romp that probably won't leave much of a lasting impression on anyone who's touring their way through the franchise. It's meant to be replayed multiple times and in numerous ways, and that's a virtue lost on those who are just visiting on their way to FFVI.

A product of infectious, childlike passion. FFIV implements the somewhat flawed but then-innovative ATB system, and unlike many of its successors actually feels designed around it. Bosses take far more advantage of the system's unique affordances than later games do. Party members and their "gimmicks" are well thought out and decently balanced.

The story feels like it was written by a child, but an exceptionally enthusiastic child with some great ideas. It frequently comes across as hokey, but at its heart carries splinters of meaningful maturity. It is the fertile garden from which FFVI would eventually bloom and supplant its progenitor in just about every way possible.

I always recommend that people play FFIV before FFVI if they have any intention of playing them all, because looking backward renders FFIV sophomoric and prototypical, but when its ideas are new, if not to the world than to the player, one can see how much of a revelation FFIV really was, and how much of the final form was already in this first draft.