After playing so many Kaga games (The old Fire Emblems, Tear Ring) i see a lot of the similarities in plot and execution. But somehow they keep sucking me in in a way modern FE just doesn't. Even when i found three houses quite decent, it just doesn't have the soul and ways the gameplay is used for story purposes. Still took me ages to do each Three Houses route, where this game i devoured in no time. The product value for this one is a lot lower than the playstation titles, but it doesn't seem to bother me. It even adds to charm. My favorite FE gameplay is having interesting maps and plot events, without all kinds of unnecessary bells and whistles. I might be Kaga a fanboy at this point..
I definitely play the sequel when i find the time, at the very least to support the guy.

This is completely on me, but i don't like revisiting levels for upgrades. I never went out of my way to collect every coin or letter in Donkey/Kong Mario, or the chaos emeralds in sonic. I'm more a " straight from start to end and done with it" kind of platformer player. This is a big issue with Mega Man X, because actual performance stuff like health on your life bar and armor is locked behind exactly those shenanigans. Sigma's fortress seems even balanced around you not going through there with just the dash upgrade (which i unfortunately pretty much did and it was hell). I quite prefer the old Mega Man where you get your whole health bar upfront. It's not better or worse in general, just personally don't like it.

I also didn't find most of the stages that memorable design wise. A lot of repetition, and a bit of waiting here and there, like the marble zone in the original Sonic. I don't know if i feel that way because i played the games in order without any nostalgia or i'm starting to get a slight Mega Man burnout. Might also be because i didn't go out of my way to explore for goodies.The bosses however were challenging but in a fun way.

What the game obviously does very right is the setting and design. The animal like theme of the bosses, the stages are beautiful, the intro stage was unique in both gameplay and looks. Zero's design is the stuff of legends, as is the OST.

The setting at it's core isn't that much different from normal Mega Man, just a little bit edgier and even more futuristic. Zero is just a better looking Protoman with his role in the story. It does a great job mixing the franchise up in a way which was desperately needed at the time.

Certainly a classic. It spawned a whole subseries, and by proxy countless Zero and other titles of the franchise.

The unique gameplay traits the characters have are a lot more creative than in ff4, pretty much a direct upgrade. The
Esper system however seems a step backwards from ff5. It's to easy to give everyone all the spells they need, making everything a lot more unbalanced than the job system of last game. If everyone has ultima and the right relics, the personal combat traits aren't even needed at all. Probably less of an issue back when guides weren't so readily available. I have to admit there is also is something enjoyable about how easy you can acquire powerful stuff, even having zero random encounters whenever you desire.

What i enjoyed most about this game is the designed ways to force players to use a lot of different characters. An assemble cast of 12 characters is crazy for a SNES game, and it's would be a shame if people would just use their four favorites. Having different routes for different characters and sometimes even multiple parties working together is a really smart way let players accomplish variety. Why isn't this used in many other games? Even with a lot of modern RPG's you DO end up with mostly the same characters unless you go out of your way to try other party members. Or they split up and you just follow the main characters that stay (or have to see the other route on newgame +) FF6 shows that it can be done in a single playthrough, and that you don't need a single main character to focus on.

Some people (on reddit) complain that ff16 is to dark for them (not the ff they know). FF6 seems to have very dark subject matter as well. Even monsters from past games have a darker design. The idea of the story itself is not that novel (instead of a new world, let's do changes to the old one), but really effective because of the dark presentation. Wouldn't have fit in the mostly lighter atmosphere of last game.

(slight story spoilers from here)

The desperation and hopelessness after an apocalypse (even the thought of suicide) really comes across with the music and choreography. The subject matter is dealt with in anime like Trigun or Devilman/EVA, but really raw for a SNES game. I'm surprised the suicide stuff got through the Nintendo of America censor police. Even though you don't see much of the villain in the second act of the game, a crazy despot that finally has real power that can cast judgement at any moment is a scary thought. Also shown really great visually on the worldmap (and with cinematics), it pulled all the stops with mode 7 and otherwise. I feel this is around the ceiling with what you can do on the system.

Looking for your party throughout the world, seeing them dealing with the apocalypse, it never was boring for me. They all go trough a personal arc, like Terra finally understanding what love is, or Cyan finally letting go of the past, Locke being able to love another after the love of his life passed away etc.

Like The other Final Fantasy games, the theme is about hope. And i find that theme delivered a lot more effectively in this entry, because here it really is grimdark before it gets better. And even then a lot of scars stay, you just have accept that and live with them. Something most adults in real life (or with a bad hand of cards dealt in life even children) have to eventually come around to. This theme is even more firmly established in personal arc of the main character in Persona 2, but the gameplay there is miles behind.

This game (like 4 and 5) added a whole lot to the Final Fantasy mythos (countless stuff references in ff14), and it still holds up.

P.S: The Backloggd description of this games says "the first story that did not revolve around crystals", but unless i'm remembering this wrong ff2 also didn't revolve around crystals.