While escaping reality, Cyan and his moody friends come across the phantom train, which acts as the RPG version of Charon on the River Styx. Cyan decides it’s worth a shot to try and find his recently murdered family and plop a couple of phoenix downs on them while they’re still just mostly dead.
At first the train seems really creepy, what with all the ghosts implying that you’re never ever ever leaving.
Things move from creepy to fun once you realize the ghosts are pretty weak fighters and some of the ghosts are friendly! There’s a capitalist ghost who will sell you stuff and an entire restaurant of benevolent ghosts ready to feed Sabin’s massive appetite.
It all culminates with one of the most fun boss battles of the game. The phantom train is genuinely difficult, at least the first time you face him. The constant scrolling of the screen and the awesome music give the fight a frenetic energy. And then you got Sabin impressively going WWF on six-thousand tons of steel.
The thrill of beating the train is then quickly washed away by having to watch Cyan watch his wife and son board the train and tell him goodbye.
Cyan: Please wait!
Elayne: My love… You made me so happy… Don’t forget me…
Owain: Dad! I’ll make sure Mom’s alright!
Death By Troggles 
Ah, this was such a powerful scene! It’s amazing how many feels you can fit into 16-bits!
This scene is why Cyan is my favorite. And yes, I always look forward to the entire Phantom Train segment.
(Though I must point out that WWE hasn’t been called WWF in 13 years; you can get away with this by claiming you were going with the company’s name at the time of FFIV’s release)
Yes. That’s it.
And now I see I typed FFIV instead of FFVI. Oh me, oh my
I was going to let that go, since it was still true.