I love both games but Final Fantasy VI by a landslide here.
Chrono Trigger is the most overall polished RPG that I've ever played and its an easy one to recommend to both genera veterans and newcomers. Its pretty much an A+ in the departments of Sound, Graphics, Story with memorable main cast and an great Villain tied up in a neat uncomplicated time traveling tied bow. The game's pacing is great and its combat system while simple is fun enough to play over and over again. CT is almost the whole package from a dream team of devs working at Square, a company defined by its RPG output. My only problem with Chrono Trigger is that I ultimately didn't care. The only character in the game I had any real reaction to is watching Robo being "Killed" by his fellow robots..that got me a little. Outside of that though I didn't care about Marlene, Chrono, Frog, Ayla, Lucca, or even Magnus in each of their character moments or back story reveals. I really just didn't care. It was a fun adventure to be a part of but ultimately with little to no connections to the characters it felt a little hollow to me. Despite that the numerous endings, side quests and the pure settings presented in each time make this a great game for me and is in my top 5 RPG list.
I prefer Final Fantasy VI because despite the flaws it does have I felt something for almost every character presented in the game. Its amazing with music and sprites with expression can do but I felt something for Cyan on the Doom Train platform waving to his wife and son, Locke past love, hints on the man Shadow used to be, Edgar and Sabin's relationship, and both Terra and Celest's struggles at multiple points through the game and everyone else. Its because of this that Final Fantasy VI is a much more memorable game to me then Chrono Trigger can be. It was no slouch in the technical departments either with great art direction, music, and setting. Walking into this game completely blind it also totally blindsided me with its second act, which was fantastic on how it all fell together. It also has one of my favorite villains in gaming at just how memorably he transforms from a weird underling into a completely insane nihilistic monster over the course of the game..and that synthesized laugh.
Overally between the two its what comes to mind first with each game, right off the top of my head it goes from:
Chrono Trigger: Time Travel, Lavos, Arthurian Frog with sword...Dino/Human war?
Final Fantasy 6: Doomtrain, Narshe, Opera Scene, Espers, Terra, WoR, Kefka, Veldt, damn dungeon with the decayed tower thing!! etc.
This isn't a nostalgia fueled opinion either. I beat both games withing months of each other 4ish years ago. Ultimately FF6 is just more memorable and interesting to me then CT despite how good of a game that is in its own right.
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