When I first played, it had been a long time since I had played an RPG (my first was FFII, now called FFIV, back when I was about 8. It was my cousin's game. I came from a poor home, so I couldn't play it when it first came out), so I just roamed around and hunted down treasures and fought monsters to discover what cool things my characters could do.
Later on, when I wanted to see how fast I was, I had been dismissing the sidequests and just zipping through the main plot in games like FFX. When I realized that I had forgotten how to play FFVII, I determined to test myself there. It took about half a day. If you fight through every random battle you're put in and heal before entering any new area, you can pretty much handle every boss monster you encounter just by smartly equipping.
