I remember the first time I played it, it was the PS1 version, on PAL console to boot. 10 seconds to get into a battle, 3 seconds to open a menu, as much to close it. Everything was slow and lagging, I didn't even know a lick of english back then because obviously it wasn't translated in multi-5. I still loved it to death. The Celes scene at the WoR, it ruined me.
FF6 is notable for me because it used its game system in every way, even turning it on its head. The World of Ruin still remains the most brilliant, smart piece of game design I've encountered. You spend all your time in the World of Balance getting close to the characters and then you're here, all alone and the game just tells you : "you can do whatever you want now...don't you want to get them back ?"
Maybe you don't want to, and as such you only need the three mandatory characters to go into the final dungeon. But maybe you love Cyan, and you want him back, so the whole world is not just a place of exploration, it has more meaning than this, you are searching for your friends. It also solves the issue of JRPGs not giving enough exposure to characters past their introduction. You are doubly rewarded here, you get the character back, and you get a piece of backstory. There is a forward momentum in every step, the characters evolves in a ruined world and shows what they were up to, then they try to make peace with their past, and then they find themselves ready for the fight ahead. It's more development than most JRPGs, and it's a game with 14 characters!
FF6 is the game that solved its open-world, in 1994. They made a world about characters, about people you want to care about, about rewards you'll find at every corner. This is why it's so good, the idea of making designers pitch in a character into the world means that they all deeply cared about their creation and how they're implemented in the game. I remember an interview that I can't find anymore about Soraya Saga just giving a ridiculous amount of details about characters like Edgar & Sabin that you almost never see in the game, but it just made sense. She didn't need to show it for the players to feel it, that's how organic they all were.
A masterpiece. I always enjoy talking about it.