I think the whole 'wanted an FFVII clone' is far from the truth. That's definitely not the reason people hate it. It's because after the brilliant first disc, the game really goes down hill in gameplay, story and character development. The love story between Rinoa and Squall is just so contrived and forced that it's kind of embarrassing. I won't even get in to the whole orphanage ordeal, it was just plain dumb and uneeded.

In saying that, I still enjoyed playing through the game back when it was released and I have a spot in my heart for the first disc of the game.