Very well thought out and a masterpiece.
Gameplay (9.7 out of 10):
At first, the game is very linear and quite boring, but as soon as I left Midgar, things got much better. I spend about 5 times longer battling the enemies then progressing with the story and the game clock is maxed at 99:59 before even getting to disk 2. The materia present in the game allows for extreme customizability. Everything in the game is so well thought out, it's very realistic-like.
There are numerous self-created challenges available and beating Emerald Weapon in just 6 1/2 minutes was the toughest one of all that I've accomplished. By mastering "all" materia several times and selling the mastered ones at the game's shops, I've racked up over 1.3 billion gil and maxed out several stats (strength, defense, dexterity, and luck) for four characters, I've obtained a gold chocobo with a 161 Km speed, crossed the marsh early in the game without using a chocobo (and it's surprisingly easy). There are so many self-created challenges, I'm still coming up with more self-made challenges.
Outside battling enemies, my favorite thing is the chocobo racing. At first, with the regular yellow chocobos, getting much past the B rank is very hard and when I got my gold chocobo running at 161 Km for the speed, I always won the races and sort of wished there was an even higher rank than S. The battle arena is my third favorite and with the four maxed stats, the battles are rather easy, even the special battles since I have to set the battle speed to the slowest available.
Final Fantasy 7 has a few bugs, mostly minor. The item duplication bug when you get W-item is the only nonminor bug, but it's a very useful one. The abilities for the river and mountain chocobos are reversed in the chocobo races (mountain chocobo can whiz through water unaffected by it whereas the river chocobo slows down like the other chocobos do) and with my gold chocobo running at 161 Km speed, when going up steep inclines, clipping issues with the ground are visible.
For a first time of playing an RPG, I was truely amazed at the gameplay and flexibility it had. FF7 was the starting point toward playing other Final Fantasy games.
Graphics (9.4 out of 10):
When not on the world map, the graphics are almost life-like, something that amazed me. When I got to the world map, I was a little disappointed, but the spherical planet effect was the most amazing as it gives the sense that the world is indeed round and spherical.
Sound (8.8 out of 10):
The sound effects are very good, but when the flash occurs during battle when attacking, the sound changes and it sounds better. The music isn't all that decent, but the first tune from the world map is the best and I dislike the fact it changes later in the game.
Value (9.9 out of 10):
Final Fantasy 7 has a very good story and at times, I wanted to continue on with the story to find out what happens next, even after 3 days of no progress with it from battling enemies. The sheer customizability and flexibility really make the game's value very high. Final Fantasy 7 goes in such great depth for it's awesome story, it's well-thought-out nature and systems, and the battle system is amazing. Final Fantasy 7 is definitely worth getting.
Tilt (8.7 out of 10):
The only thing I found very annoying is the fact you can't get any more than 9999 HP, 999 MP, and you can't do any more than 9999 damage (and some of my hits could easily be doing 16,000 damage, 50,000 at the most extreme (back attack, Cloud's Omnislash, and the flash occuring upon the first hit, all at once)). The use of bad words is also a major dislike. Final Fantasy 7 is very original (but then again, I haven't played many RPG's to really say for sure).
Other comments:
I'd almost play the game a third or even a fourth time and there are still more self-made challenges I have yet to accomplish - seeing what the upper limit of gil is and maxing out all of everyone's stats and this'll leave me playing for hundreds of hours longer.