They're bad graphics. Some of the worst in any 3D game I've ever played. Sure you can be not bothered by them, and it helps if you know what to expect before you start, but you can't in seriousness tell me that there is only one part of the game's graphics that 'aren't great' (implying everything else graphically related is great, are you kidding me!?).

Also, I never said they affect the story directly, I said they were so bad that I never even made it up to the meat of the story on two seperate occasions because the graphics made me want to stop playing.

Look, you have to see it from my perspective. The first time I ever played the game was in 2009, I had never watched a let's play of it and had no idea what to expect. I went to play it and the graphics were what they were. I can happily go back and play Crash Bandicoot, MGS, Super Mario 64, Tekken 2, and a slew of other games that were released at that time. I'm not some graphics elitist, but bad graphics are bad graphics, and FF7 has, objectively, some of the worst I've ever seen in a game.