I never said the finishing was badly executed, I said you were unlucky and that normally doesn't happen. Might be something they changed in the GBA version, maybe they made it easier to keep Cid alive, I have no idea I just know I've never seen anyone complain about it before.
Yes the Magus introduction is great, no arguments here hell its likely the best overall scene in the game.
Final Fantasy 6 has the entire Opera sequence, the World of Balance ending, ect. all epic moments but if you want something more comparable well... look where they got the idea for that Magus seen from. Although warning,
Major spoilers, IE Final Boss revealed spoilers: https://youtu.be/XgcbShn9x8g?t=14m56s
It's not exactly the same, no but the way its presented and the way Magus is presented are very very similar, likely because many of the people who worked on FF6 also worked on CT. Both amazing scenes but CT came later so yeah they could do more with it at that time.
I don't think Chrono Trigger has ruined your standards I think the problem is that you keep internally comparing FF6 to CT and expecting it to match it in every aspect which doesn't make any sense they aren't even remotely the same game even if they were on the same system. I'd hate to see what you think of Final Fantasy 4 or 5 if you think that 6 looks bad.
The biggest difference between the games is tone, FF6 deals with slavery, suicide, murder, genocide, ect. CT deals with some heavy stuff as well but its tone is much more optimistic and cheerful about everything. It has more fantasy elements then FF6 has complete with the biggest tonal different between the two, villains.
Kefka is an evil, twisted, demented, psychopath who seeks and acquires godlike power and uses it to reshape the world in his image. The thing about Kefka is that he is very much a psychopath, he loves to hurt people and to make them suffer so he creates a world where suffering is constant, where hope is non-existent, where he can play with all the lives of the people of the world and torture them as he pleases laughing as he does it. Kefka could wipe out the entire world if he wanted to in a flash but he doesn't want to do that you see, that wouldn't be fun to him. He wants to twist, bend, and break the lives of all of those who are still living because thats suffering is what gets him off, that is what makes him the most excited and happy he can be. He is a truly sick and twisted man which is why his victory is all the more shocking. A character like Kefka in any other game would be comic relief or a mid boss (hell the game even makes you think thats what he is that all throughout the world of balance) but if you take that character and give him godlike power then he will abuse it to the full extent he can, not because he wants to end the world like so many other lame villains, no he wants chaos and suffering, to bleed the life slowly out of every living thing on the planet before its over, and nothing would make him happier.
Then you look at Lavos... A space monster that eats away at a planet for a time then destroys the world, breeds on it and then does it over and over again. He's a giant monster he has no personality, he has no ambitions, he has no character, hes just a giant monster. He's a serious threat sure but where as I can go into detailed paragraphs analyzing and discussing Kefka's personality, ambitions, desires, and purpose there isn't much you can say about Lavos because hes just a thing you've gotta stop, very generic fantasy storyline filler villain just blown up in importance because he also destroys the world.
Hell thats one reason I honestly don't want the current SE to remake FF6 because the current SE doesn't even fucking understand Kefka, his character in the Dissida game is just a clown, Kefka's character is all about hiding whom he really is, you think hes crazy because hes dressed up like a clown, its a disguise to hide how truly evil and twisted he actually is, and it works because he continues to commit monstrous thing after monstrous thing only to deceive and betray the Emperor and usurp power for himself. Kefka gets away with it because hes smarter then everyone else, everyone including your player characters constantly underestimate him up until the very end.