I have a love of old JRPG's from the SNES and NES era and would love to play Final Fantasy VI again.

Just wondering what's the best way to play it today? Steam version? PS1 version and play it on my Vita? GBA version? or iPad/iPhone version?

Or should I just go and dig out my SNES and my copy of FF3? :P

The PS1 version is mostly the same as the SNES version, but has some load times. Nothing terrible, just a second or two when going into combat and stuff like that, but noticeable when compared to the SNES version that didn't have any of that. Either way, it's perfectly fine and I really enjoyed playing it on the Vita.

Of course, a few seconds for every battle adds up quickly if you're doing a lot of grinding, but I really wasn't bothered by it.

@fisk0: I am leaning towards playing it on the Vita as it's a game I would like to play while traveling. The load times are not a major issue for me, sure it's not as fast as the SNES, but I'm not going to get mad if I have to wait two extra seconds.

Did any versions add new content? If so probably go with that over any older versions. I am not sure VI had that though like so many of the others....

Steam version is probably a good way to go, but it is 16 bucks which is perhaps a bit much some may say. The game is worth that much, but I only ever justified paying that much for an old ff game to replay when they went on sale [as in, I haven't justified to myself paying 16 bucks for it]. It has steam achievements which could be neat with one of those. I haven't played VI on steam but I played V [my FAVORITE of non XI FF games] and it had interesting and neat achievements I think. If you want portable, yeah that depends on if you have a laptop I suppose with reasonable power, but about any laptop could play it... I mean it is an SNES game I think the steam recommendations are a Pentium 4 processor and... well of course doesn't even mention a video card. I haven't played all the versions though to say, but I know the FFV steam version was pretty solid.

I started playing it on the Vita and thought it was fine, but as soon as I heard about the load times, I really started to notice them and they became really jarring.

SNES, in my opinion. The GBA version has some extra content, but the graphics and sound are a little bit worse. And as said already, the PS1 version has pretty jarring load times. The iOS and Steam versions have awful re-done graphics. The only "extra content" you'd be missing by playing the original version is a few extra Espers and an extra post-game dungeon, which IMO are sort of unnecessary anyway. It also has a few bugs that later re-releases fixed (Evade not doing anything, etc).

The original version is still the best version. The original US version anyway. I'm not sure what kind of changes were made from the Japanese version, but I bet it was harder. And bonus if you emulate it, you can set a key to fast forward and then easily grind your entire party to lvl 99 in an hour or two and completely destroy Kefka. Or if you're hex editor savvy, hack some save states. Whee!

The original SNES version is the definitive version of FF6 but..

The extra content in the GBA version can't be ignored. It was all stuff intended to be in the original game in the first place, and I think the extra dungeon is kind of cool. Too bad that playing on the GBA means you get downgraded graphics and that TERRIBLE GBA sound chip wrecking the best soundtrack in video games. So yea.... go with the SNES version.

Not sure what your stance on emulation is, but the mod 'Brave New World' for FF6 is pretty good. It pretty much re-balances everything (characters, stats, espers, enemies, equipment, etc.), along with bug fixes like Sketch destroying the game and evasion not working.

Only thing that sucks is the changes to some of the dialogue, but there's a second patch that comes with it that cleans it up (not sure how much it reverts). The gameplay improvements are substantial though, so I'd still recommend it.

I find the PS1 version unplayable with the loads every single random battle. Mobile versions look real bad. I'd say SNES version or PC version are probably your best bet.

They also have them every time you open the menu (which you do kind of a lot for saving and item management stuff), and it was so irritating that I was actively trying not to engage with as much of the game as possible.

So uh, yeah, don't play the PS1 version.