Quote Originally Posted by gyrus View Post
The people who I hate more than the rabid fanboys/girls are the people who have to say that just because it is popular, it must be really, really bad.
QFT.. gotta love people who jump on the hate bandwagons without reason. I bet more than half of them were fanboys/girls themselves.

Even ten years later I'd still say it's my personal favorite in the series.. because it was the first game I actually spent over a few days of gametime playing. And I'll never forget it... I rented it from Blockbuster, and then we were hit with the massive snow storm of 98', and school was out for a few weeks. Luckily our apartment still had power so I was able to enjoy it.. I was drawn in right from the first bombing run. I was impressed by the dialogue and graphics, even though I thought some of it was a little cheesy. The music had me turning up my TV. The combat was fast, and the materia system was incredibly easy to pickup. Midgar was a great place to start off the game... the mix of fantasy and sci fi, the slums, meeting the Shinra and the Turks for the first time, learning about Hojo and Sephiroth.. then I was playing about 5-6 hours straight after the first history lesson in Kalm.

Anyway.. I played right through till the end, and I got lost enough times along the way so that Cloud was 99, and the rest of my party was around 85-95, so the final battle was extremly intense. I hadn't used any guides or anything, so I didn't know about KotR or mime or anything else. And I accidently gave sephiroth an x-potion halfway through the fight when I panicked after a super nova ):

It was the most fun I've ever had with a game.. I was only eleven and not really a gamer until then. After that I really got into RPGs, but it was hard to find something as intricate as FFVII, until VIII came along.. and I stuck with FF's as my main source of RPGs.

The Aeris death and losing Cloud in the later part of the game were my favorite parts..

That's just my experience, I was never a rabid fan, but I have yet to play a game I got so involved in. I would have rathered they made some kind of sequel or prelude to the game rather than a few spin-offs and AC.. but oh well.

In terms of storyline and gameplay, I'd say FFVII is still the best of the series. IX for graphics and characters.
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