i absolutely loved it, as i had no preconceptions in my mind before seeing it i enjoyed it in a non-judgemental state (not comparing it to the game series), it was a solid piece of science fiction, my only complaint about it is it was too short, and it started in the middle of their hunt for spirits, i think it should have been longer or 2 movies so ppl didn't feel like they were being thrown into the middle of something with little to no explination untill a bit later when Cid starts explaining things to the soldiers... the fact that most ppl were expeting a movie version of FFVII or FFVIII (the BBSs back then were buzzing with such speculation during production) and when it turned out to be pure sci-fi the "jaded old-school purists" took it upon themselves to slam this great piece of sci-fi mercilessly and as a result not many have given it a fair shot, many judge it soly on what they have heard without ever watching the movie, and others stop watching it early like 30 minutes in and judge it on just the opening, ppl should give it a fair shot unless they really really don't like sci-fi...