As an avid fan of all the Final Fantasy series, I was very excited to play this game. I had beaten FF6 a few times through, because it was and still is one of my favorite video games ever, so I was anxious to see if they could improve on that game. The plot, setting, and characters are rather different between FF6 and FF7, so getting used to that took some time. I think what really did it for me was materia. Once I started building and combo-ing materia, I was completely engrossed in this game. I still think it's the best ability-learning system of all the FF games so far. Luckily, I played through FF7 before I saw FF8, so I wasn't disappointed with the graphics, because nothing else I had seen really compared at the time. The music was a different story, though. FF7 arguably has the best soundtrack of any video game, period. We should send Nobuo Uematsu a thank you card, because his compositions greatly enhanced what was already a fantastic video game to play. In my opinion, it's a toss-up as to whether FF6 or FF7 is the best in the series, but suffice it to say they're both extremely well-made and just as enjoyable.