I was about 11 when VII came out, and so I had a good attention span. My first save still sucked because I missed a lot of good stuff, but still managed to beat the game. Although I had no idea what would happen if I overused materia (SPOILER)when I was fighting that Gi Warrior at the Cosmo Canyon caves, Cloud was only doing 90 damage, so I restarted, and got there his physical attack was better and I was able to destroy his soul flames easily.