edit:

If you don't find any of these innovative, then I think you're just downplaying the game, or the storyline of FFVII just didn't resonate with you.

• 3D Graphics for a Role Playing Game
• Limit Break
• FMV/CG quality cutscenes
• Identifiable protagonist
• Diverse Party Members
• Death of Party Member
• Use of language
• Weird situations
• Conjuring of emotions within the player
• Gameplay Mechanic with the Materia System
• Mini games/Chocobo Raising/Breeding/Racing/Snowboarding/Submarine

There's an identifiable protagonist in Final Fantasy IV - Cecil. Diverse party members are a Final Fantasy staple lol. The first final fantasy to have a playable character die is Final Fantasy II.  Use of language? What does that mean? Weird situations? Foudn in all final fantasy games. Conjuring of emotions within the player. Sorry, but all Final Fantasy games before VII were acclaimed for this, certain ones like IV and VI especially. Material System, yes however each game has its own new addition to the battle system. Mini Games, I'd give you that. 

As for 3D (and this applies to Kyuu as well) I only really see it as innovative if it drastically affects gameplay as it did in games like LoZ and Mario. Otherwise, it is just the next step in development. In the case of VII it was primarily a graphical feature, not a gameplay device (the camera is not 3d.) 

Yes, these are all significantly different from FF6 as a package, but FF6 was significantly different from FF5 (and FF4) for many of the same reasons and others - as a package. I fail to see how Final Fantasy VII, other than graphics and a focus on cinematics (goes hand in hand with CD format), is any more different from I-V than VI was. 

If either of the teams met one another in the wild and had a reason to fight, would FF VI or FF VII win?  Let's find out!  The winner of this battle shall be named champion once and for all!  Are you ready?

FF VI vs FF VII - Battle

I really prefer the setting of VII, one of the best settings of any game I've played.

With a level head though, FF VI is for me the better game in every other department.

Very much alive. :)

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When I say diverse playable characters I'm talking about characters like Barret Wallace. The first black playable character.  Weird situations. Have you ever been to the honey bee inn, or that part where you have to meet the Don? The Use of language. Barret Wallace, and Cid Highwind is one of the only "Final Fantasy" Characters that has used curse words in-game. 

I'll give you conjuring of emotions in other Final Fantasys, but it went above and beyond in FFVII, and when it comes to special abilities, Final Fantasy VII was the first game to use the term "Limit Break". FFXIV is using Limit Breaks, and Materia, in case you didn't know.

You have my irrefutable evidence and reasoning. In terms of relevance, success, and innovation for over a decade. FFVII tops it.

Have you played VI? Was Celes' suicide attempt, opera scene, destruction of the world, etc etc not emotional at a similar level to Aerith's death? Did you feel nothing for any of the characters, knowing their pretty extensive backstories? I just don't see how VII took it to a whole different level. It kept going with what VI brought to the table in terms of story telling.  Cross-dressing is weird, yes. It adds a little charm to the game. But this charm wasn't missing in the previous final fantasy's. All of those games had their unique little quirky areas. 

As for materia and limit breaks, again you haven't addressed my point. All Final Fantasy games have their unique micro-managing systems. VI, for example, had espers. Which function quite similarly to materia. You know what else FFXIV has - a job system, which is not present in VII. New Final Fantasy games take from ALL of their predecessors in different ways. This isn't something unique to VII. 

I still don't see how VII was very innovative other than that it was released at the right time on the right console. 3D would've happened even if VII were an entirely different game. CGI would've happened even if VII were an entirely different game. Heck you could've called VIII, VII - not release VII - and people would've said VIII was innovative for the same reasons. It's silly. In that case VI is innovative for using mode 7, and IV for having 16-bit sprites. These were progressions in technology, not innovations. In terms of success, yes VII was the most successful - but again that has much to do with so many factors that are not about quality. Wii Sports and Tetris aren't the best video games to grace this earth to many people. And I'd even argue that the best RPG on the Playstation was Xenogears, a game that was no where near as popular as Final Fantasy. Xenogears was essentially all that Final Fantasy VII wanted to be, but couldn't be because it had to remain mainstream. As for relevance. I think all of the Final Fantasy games are quite relevant. Some of them actually have gotten remakes, and also have sequels and side-stories like VII. VII has so much crazy nostalgia around it that Square-Enix is too scared to remake it out of fear of alienating their VII fans. VI is in a similar place, but probably has a higher chance to be remade. 

If Square Enix would completely remaster both games for the PS4 I would be able to make a better comparison.

As it stands Final Fantasy VII had a better story and combat system.

Final Fantasy VI did better on the character side of things and has aged better visually.

Celes' suicide attempt, opera scene, destruction of the world, etc, did not have the same impact it did compared to Aerith. Aerith death was impactful on the devs themselves. Fact of the matter is Celes is hardly talked about, in fact you're the first person that I know of that mentions it. That should say something about its emotional impact. I think you might be alone on this.

You keep dismissing all the facts about how FFVII influence other games, and how it was the first to do many things that we see today in other Final Fantasy titles. I'll give you another irrefutable factual evidence of this. How FFVII influence FFXIII? Did you know Toriyama's guideline to Nomura was to make Lightning strong, beautiful, and "like a female version of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII." What does Lightning and Snow have in common? As silly as it is, they both come from Clouds.

Even if FFVII didn't have a job system, the characters still retain traits of their intended classes. Cloud a Warrior, Barret a Gunner, Tifa a Monk, Cid a Dragoon/Engineer etc.