Rarely in gaming you'll experience a story this great with such a large and interesting cast of characters.
FFVI's development team includes familiar names associated with making the Final Fantasy series the best series of all time such as the mastermind Sakaguchi who wrote the game's story,and Kitase directed development,Nomura designed monsters in the game and Uematsu composed the music.
Instead of being set in another generic fantasy world,FFVI in set in a steampunk technological age where magic can power powerful weapons and machines such as airships.
The story for the game is amazing and is presented in a way so you care about the characters either by seeing their backstories or by seeing their personality though entertaining dialogue and the story has some big twists and you won't guess some of the epic events that happen but you'll care about them.
The story is about how thousands of years ago,the world suffered a devestating war in which the use of magic lead to much destruction in the world and magic was used to turn many people into espers which are beings with powerful magic but they had no free will.
After the war,people in the world saw how destructive the use of magic was so they stopped using magic and sealed away the espers and the people in the world decided it would be better to use technology instead(even if it meant using older forms of technology such as steampunk age style technology).
Eventually a powerful empire that controls most of the world which is lead by a power hungry emporer and his insane clown- faced general decide to release the espers so they can use the power of magic to power weapons and so they can use the powerful magic of the espers themselves and to create soldiers that can use magic.
There is a rebel army refered to as the Returners whom are fighting agaisnt the empire,and some of them will be your party members but some of your party members are in your party for different reasons such as revenge or they may not be loyal to either the empire and Returners but serve both factions depending on who pays them or they may be secretly trying to help one faction win despite making an allegiance to another.
That's another part of why I care about the story,because like I said the backstories of the characters are either presented in a way that you care about the character or the character has interesting motives as to why they're helping your party.
I guess you could say Terra,Edgar,Locke are the main characters but the story focuses a lot on different characters at different times.Terra is a green-haired girl who has not much memory of the past and cannot feel love but there is reasons for that and she has big secrets to reveal.Locke is a treasure hunter whom thinks it's his duty to protect women and there's a reason for that.Edgar is a king of a nation who made an allegiance to the Empire but is secretly helping the Returners.
There story has a bit of romance and 14 party members plus great villains.
Your party has good diversity in it's party members,such as how one of them is a ninja named Shadow,one of them is a feral kid from the wild,some of them are monsters or moogles and some of your party members are so mysterious and cover up most of their appearance with layers of clothing you don't know their gender or race and some party members were formally with the Empire.
Kefka is the insane clown-general and he's one of the best villains I've ever experienced because he's seriously crazy and cruel but very ambitious and he will do anything to control the world even if it means he has to destroy most of it.
I've mentioned the dialogue is entertaining,I'd also like to say it can be very funny,charming or presents emotional moments very well.
The battle system uses an ATB system and there's a lot of diversity in character abilities and since some of your characters cannot use magic at first you'll need to utilize using certain weapons that can hit multiple enemies if you want to survive waves of enemies or frequent random enemy attacks.You can equip espers that can teach your characters magical abilities and they can summon their esper once per battle for a very powerful attack.The battle system also makes you sometimes use magic-powered mech suits(magitek).Besides carrying a weapon,you can equip a shield and armor for various body parts.
I like how the game has a world make and lets you visit various towns and talk to NPCs.
The cutscenes for the game are lovely and even in 2013 a game released in 1994 has cutscenes that still look breathtaking such as when you're near a cliff face on a high altitude.The character conversations look charming because of the way they're presented.
I like the diversity in the world's climate such as how some towns are in freezing climates and have many mechanical machines and gears everywhere and some towns are in the desert and towns are surrounded by grassy fields and have traditional and charming style cottages and some places you'll visit have castles.
I like how the battle screens might show a lake and trees in the background when you're in a grassy area and near the water or giant sand dunes when you cross desert.
The music is similar to that in other FF games and does well to make battles exciting and the story scenes and world map travelling feel epic.
The GBA version of FFVI improves over the SNES version visually and gives the players more espers to use and has differences in translation.
Overall,FFVI is one of the best 16-Bit games I've played and it has amongst the best stories I've experienced in an RPG(in terms of content and presentation)with a great cast of characters and if you like story-driven RPGs you should play FFVI at least once in your life.