The whole thing starts with a dramatic prologue explaining that 1000 years ago (because that's when all the cool stuff happens) there was a war of magic. Magic came into the world because of the three magi, basically goddesses of magic, and by putting magic into the world the effect was to transform humans and animals into espers. The espers led to war, presumably it was them against the unchanged humans, but regardless of the specifics, the magi wanted the war to end and the only way they could think of was to create a new world for espers to separate them from humans and then follow the espers there and turn themselves to stone so magic would no longer be a part of the world. Meanwhile, the world was rebuilt by humans who have achieved industrial era technology. However, someone has discover a way to bring magic back and war may begin again...
With this setup, we focus in on three soldiers in the artic tundra piloting magitek armor to investigate rumors of an esper having been found in a mine. Even though there are only three, their power easily overwhelms the villagers and miners and they reach the esper, but the esper, even frozen, reacts to one soldier with enough power to blow away the other two. The surviving soldier awakens in a villager's house with no memory except her name, Terra. Scared the man who brought her to his house sends her away when the Empire comes to reclaim her, then sends another young man after her, named Locke. Locke takes Terra to see King Edgar of Figaro, a double agent who claims to be an ally of the Empire, but is really a spy for the Returners, a group of rebels who oppose the Empire. Kefka, the unlikely general of the Empire, shows up in Figaro looking for Terra and Edgar decides to arrange for an escape leaving Kefka stranded in the desert, but while trying to escape, Terra ends up using magic to protect her new friends which surprises them. Realizing she may be of great value to the Returners they take her to their base, picking up Edgar's brother Sabin along the way. The leader of the Returners wants to take Terra back to the frozen esper and figure out what's going on. Along the way, Sabin is separated from the group and washes up on the far off shores of Doma. Here, we find the Empire at war as well, this time the champion is Cyan, an accomplished swordsman. Kefka shows up again and decides to poison the entire kingdom of Doma, despite the fact that General Leo who is in charge of this campaign thinks such action is too drastic. Kefka doesn't care, he laughs as we watch everybody die. Cyan, the sole survivor (we never find out why he's the only one who doesn't die from the poison) flies into a rage and single handedly takes on Kefka and all of the troops. Sabin realizes this is insane and offers to Cyan that he can join the Returners and they will fight the Empire together. After a traumatic detour through the Phantom Forest where Cyan sees the recently departed souls of his wife and son, they enter the Veldt where they meet the feral child Gau who helps them return to Figaro. Meanwhile, back in Figaro, Locke finds another imperial general named Celes who has apparently turned traitor(again, we aren't really given any specifics as to what she did or why, but the point is she's on our side now) and Locke helps her to join with the rest of the Returners. Kefka manages to track down our heroes and start fighting over the frozen esper. Terra reacts to the esper again and starts glowing pink and flies off-literally she flies away. The group goes looking for her and finds her in the slums of Zozo in the care of an old man who identifies himself as Ramuh the esper. Ramuh explains that the espers are the source of magitek at the factory in Vector, the capital of the Empire on the southern continent, and that there may be an esper who can help Terra if the Returners can break the espers out of confinement. Getting there is the hard part, all major transport has been restricted and the Returners are on the no sail list. The only way is to sneak aboard the only airship which belongs to Setzer a gambler who is infatuated with an opera singer who happens to look exactly like Celes.
You can imagine how that went, so they make it to Vector and invade the factory and manage to get away with the magicite remains of the espers, but not before Kefka strikes a rift between Celes and Locke causing her to abandon the group temporarily. When they get back to Zozo, the magicite reacts to Terra reveling her past. One of the espers was Maduin, Terra's father. Maduin found Terra's mother when she accidentally entered the esper realm twenty years ago. For two years they lived in peace and started a family, then the Empire tracked her down and captured a bunch of espers and began developing magitek. Terra was also captured and made a slave of the empire. Now that Terra knows what she is, she gets control of herself and they figure she can help by returning to the esper realm and recruiting the espers to their cause. This almost works until Kefka shows up and ruins everything again. The espers go nuts, destruction ensues and then they seem to vanish again. The Returners and the Empire make a truce to track down the espers to Crescent Island. Here they meet Strago and Relm in Thamasa, a village of ancient mage knights who had drawn magic from espers during the esper war long ago and were left behind when the magi took the espers away. They had enough power to stand out, but not enough to protect themselves in a world where the true masters of magic were gone. They lead our heroes to find the espers hiding in the mountains and arrange for what appear to be a happy ending. Then guess what happens? Yup, right when General Leo, the Returners and the espers are all laughing and smiling and letting bygones be bygones and starting a new world of peace, Kefka shows up and kills all the epsers to collect magicite, then kills Leo for standing against him. As out heroes regroup, Kefka and Emperor Gestahl seek out the stone magi and try to draw magic power straight from the original source. A continent rises into the sky, the world shudders in fear, our heroes take their airship to the floating continent and bravely fight the Empire. There we finally face down Emperor Gestahl. Then something really weird and surprising happens, Kefka kills Emperor Gestahl and takes center stage as the true villain. Seriously, Kefka manages to take the gold for being a douche as he then proceeds to rearrange the entire planet to build the ultimate palatial fortress for himself. Yes, this rearrangement causes a lot of destruction, lives are lost, villages are destroyed, the land becomes barren and the sky and sea change colors. Celes wakes up a year later in a world where Kefka now rules over an instantly post-apocalyptic realm where most simply struggle and hope not to incur his wrath knowing he can and will kill them for his amusement. Celes manages to gather and reunite the scattered Returners and they finally wage war on Kefka. The letter portion of the game is kind of jumbled, but makes a point of how much damage Kefka was able to accomplish making him the most bad-ass villain ever!
This game was originally introduced on the SNES in the US as Final Fantasy III because Nintendo of America screwed up the numbering. It was re-released under the proper number for the PlayStation and has since been re-released for the Wii as FFIII and on the DS and mobile devices as FFVI. I highly recommend playing any version you can get your hands on because the visuals and music make everything way better than what I just said. This is the game that truly inspired me more than anything, except possibly Journey to the West. Why are you still reading? Go get it now!
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