I like the game for quite a few reasons. I think the battle system is fun, and it plays very quickly when you set it to full speed--always a plus. Materia is a solid system, not as great as jobs or anything, but a lot of fun. There's definitely an addictive element to maxing out your materia and getting all the stat boosts that accompany that.

I also enjoy the story. Don't love it, it's not my favorite, and it's kind of a mess--but I enjoy its particular type of convoluted, as it's put together with just enough mystery and buildup to be engaging throughout. Also, of all the emo antiheroes that plauge the RPG genre, I like Cloud the most, though I couldn't say why. Something about how ordinary and cliche he seems, but I thought he had a hidden soul that was far, far better than anything they communicated with, say, Squall.

And last the visuals. Yeah, I know they're absolutely awful, but I actually kind of like them. They're so bad, I somehow find the blockiness endearing. Moreso than FFVIII, which is all jaggy and attempts to look much more realistic. Of course it succeeds, but it still looks like ass compared to the next generation of games, whereas FFVII looks so ridiculously bad it's just fun.