Right well i think the main reason ff7 is the most beloved ff of all is probably because was the first ff to hook people in. i mean there were a lot of people that played the ones on NES and SNES but when ff7 came out on the PS the number of people who played the game was far larger than the amount that had played the others and so ff7 hooked most people on ff in general which makes them love it even more.

Of course i also think that while ff6 is a good game ff7 is better by a lot.

A) Graphics - Now im not some kind of graphics whore that thinks the old ff games suck because you cant tell whether the people are male or female but the huge change from 2d to 3d really made the game come alive and make u feel like it was a real place.

B) Characters - Now true ff6 has more characters but in my opinion i prefer quality over quantity. In all of ff6 the only characters i actually liked were Terra, Celles, Sabin, and Edgar compared to ff7 where i liked all of them cept Cait Sith (may u burn in hell u robotic cat). Plus i really hate Kefka as a main villian and i dont mean like hate because he was evil, i mean hate because i thought he looked like a female clown(ecspecially his final form...omg what were they smoking). While Sephiroth on the other hand looked like a badass.

C) Battle - Ok well this is pretty much a tie because u can pretty much beat each game by just using the attack command and use like no magic or special abilities if you want to. But you said that each person had their own special abilities in ff6 which made it better, i disagree. I think that the freedom that materia gave u by allowing you to use whoever you wanted and still give them whatever skills you wanted was awesome. That allows me to make a party of only the party members i really like without having to sacrifice really good skills.

D) Story - You said that each character in ff6 has their own story and that the characters in ff7 didnt. You are wrong. Each character has their own moment where their backstory is explained and then sometimes expanded on. Red XIII - The GI cave, Barret - the first visit to North Correl, Cid - when they launch the rocket and before u steal the Tiny Bronco, Yuffie - the Padoga, Vincent - when u talk to Lucrecia in the cave, and Cloud, Tifa, and Aeris are all pretty much involved in the main storyline.

Thats about all i can think of at the moment, oh and my favorite ff games are; ff7, ff8, ff6, ffX, ff5