A fantasy role-playing game released in 1994 for the Super NES by Squaresoft (now called Square-Enix).

An evil empire has arisen, looking to take over the world using the very powerful and destructive force known as Magic. Terra, a girl who happens to be the only remaining natural user of Magic, escapes from the empire and is recruited by the rebel group, the Returners, in order to help them stop the empire. Together with the many friends and allies she meets along the way, Terra fights the empire, and also slowly learns of her own mysterious background as a user of Magic. The conflict is also seen from the viewpoints of many other characters, such a a gentlemanly thief troubled by the past death of a loved one, a female empire general whose loyalties are confused between the empire and the rebels, and two royal brothers both reluctant to succeed their father as rulers of a kingdom, among many others.



As a dungeons and dragons-inspired game series, this game plays out with 2D pixel graphics as a battle between the player's party of four on one side, and various monsters on the other, dealing out all sorts of flashy swordplay and fiery colors of doom, the damage registering as white numbers popping out of the one who just got hit.




It's one of the many games I've had the luxury of playing over and over as a kid. What I believe drew me in the most was the story, and its presentation; told on both an event-driven and character-driven level, with playful use of super-deformed sprites to comedic and dramatic effect, as well as a very fitting classical-inspired soundtrack. Before Final Fantasy 7 made RPG's and 3D graphics popular, 6 was the videogame RPG genre at its most refined.




Can't say nay either to a game that has for its main villain an evil clown that laughs like This, or a game that, in a time where blowing stuff up is 99% of videogames, uses OPERA and uses it very effectively. Without 3D graphics.