Alright, I have a theory. I've had this theory for a while and the more I read this board, the more I think I'm probably right.

I believe I have determined what kind of people love FFVII and what kind of people hate it.

It has been theorized many times by many people that the people who love it do because it was their "first." Close. It correlates with age a bit, but you're missing the mark.

It isn't that it had to be the very first, it's just that they had to have been young (teens) when they first played it.

If you played the game first as a teenager you saw the protagonist and thought "wow, he's so cool. He's a badass rebel loner who acts like he doesn't need friends and doesn't want any. He's so deep.... he's just like me." The angsty teenager identifies with Cloud, and so they love the game. If you're a non-angsty teenager when you play it you might not like the game as much, but lets face it, if you're a teenager and playing video games-- especially RPGs-- in the 90s, chances are you leaned at least a little toward angsty.

If you were like me and played the game for the first time as an adult, identifying with cloud was considerably harder. "ooooh, Mr. 'I'm a badass with no sense of humor, no friends, and trying to look tough when I'm a scared little boy. Look at me, I have the personality of a stump!' *eyeroll* Get over yourself you cliche teen angst weakling." And so you hate the guy you're supposed to be role-playing, making it pretty hard to get into the game.

I am almost positive that if I had been 14 when I first played FFVII I would've absolutely loved it and it would be among my favorites today. I know my old self well enough to know I would've had a man crush on cloud. "oooh, we get each other! We're kindred spirits!" Ugh. Luckily I've grown up, but I did so without ever playing VII, without identifying with cloud, and therefore without having fond memories of getting lost in his role.