Very nice thread. I'm on holiday so have limited time for posting, but will certainly weigh in as I go through FF VI Brave New World (In the middle of Sabin's post-raft journey, always one of my favorite parts of the game). Not crazy about the script mods so far, but the combat tweaks are interesting. Definitely requires a more tactical approach, which is welcome after 20 trips through the regular game. I don't think I would have wanted this to be my first trip through though -- I actually liked how easy the game was because i could play w/ whichever characters using whatever setup I felt like (spent a lot of time waiting for Cyan's techs to fill).
VI has been my favorite for ages. I played 1 and 4 at release, but at friends' houses, so never completed. Friends and I rented a SNES and VI when it came out, dumped 30 hours into it over one weekend (playing in shifts, got stuck on the floating continent -- couldn't find the path to proceed as opposed to going back to airship). I was totally hooked. Terra's and Setzer's themes were playing in my head nonstop for months, and I was constantly irritating my (totally not into games) family by nattering on about it.
Eventually bought the cart, and borrowed SNESs from a few friends to play the game over a few months. I lvl 99d everyone in the Dinosaur forest, beat Chupon in the colliseum, turned Odin into Raiden, etc. This was before the internet, and VI was at that sweet spot of size and complexity where it was big, but you realistically COULD find every secret if you were persistent. My parents were not cool w/ my playing video games, so most of this was late at night w/ the sound turned way down in my room, or on rare sick days.
Why did/do I love this game so much? There are lots of things I like about it -- fantastic music, still my favorite Uematsu score, great sprite artwork, an engaging (albeit easy battle system). But the heart of it is the characters and the arc of the plot. Because it's not TOO big, they were able to manage the pace of the game very effectively. You're constantly going somewhere new, meeting someone new, gaining a new (or old) character, getting new interesting relics or weapons, and the whole time the overarching plot keeps humming along. The characters are your window to the weight of the plot. The way it affects them shows you how it affects everyone in the world, even if most of that world is copy-pasted town designs filled with a few sprites. This works because each character is so grounded in the story, with their own arc, history, secrets to discover. This is what I most want in RPGs, character, gameplay, and story to all come together harmoniously and take you on an unpredictable but engaging journey. So few get the balance right I think.
All these years later, I still play each new FF at launch -- it's the only constant in my intermittent gaming history. I've enjoyed all of them, but only 4, 6, 7, 9, and 10 have given me that real feeling of a meaningful journey most or all the way through. The newer games are beautiful and engagingly designed, but there's been too much focus on combat and dungeon exploring, and not enough on core story arc and how it intersects with the characters' place in their world. I'd thought Versus XIII might return us to that, but, as fun as XV is, clearly not. Perhaps VIIR? Since the original was second only to VI in building a big unpredictable journey around meaningfully embedded characters, I have hope. Of course, if they can't deliver that again my hope may begin to fade somewhat.