I think one of the reasons that so many people liked FFVII when it came out was the stereotypical characters with flat personalities. The first three characters you get are: 1) A ripoff of DBZ hair with a huge sword, 2) A buff black guy with a gun, 3) A karate chick with huge tits. That is another thing, Squaresoft's obvious exploitation of their new ability to use sex appeal.
Another thing is Sephiroth. As a villian, he gets the job done. They basically gave Cloud long hair and a huge katana and called it good. And did you notice how little screen time he got in the game. IMO, Kefka was a much better designed villian, and you can tell that Squaresoft thought so too because he got a huge amount of dialogue and screen compared to Sephiroth. Sephiroth's character seems so flat compared to Kefka.
Character design leads to storyline. Storyline is arguably one of the most important aspect of a JRPG. To be honest, I haven't played much of VI, VII and VIII since I beat them originally, but I remember VI and VIII had the better storylines. VI, in particular, had a lot more characters, and each one had their own personality, places in the storyline, and relationships with other characters. This easily beats FFVII's storyline, where the characters are mostly stereotypes. As for Aeris's death being the most shocking and sad moment in RPG history, that is not the case as Phantasy Star II did the whole killing a main character thing before FFVII did.
Combat wise: FFVI has 1) More unique character traits and abilities. 2) Espers. When I got an esper, it was a much more significant event than just getting a materia 3) Better bosses. Doom was awesome. The three statues before fighting Kefka was awesome. The one boss at the top of the tower that cast ultima right before he died was awesome. The dragons....awesome. The ghost train was cool too. And don't forget that octopus Ultros. I can't remember any significant bosses in FFVII except for the weapons. 4) Better levels. I refer back to the ghost train, I loved that lvl. Also there is the magic tower to where you can only use magic. I could list a few more interesting lvls, but I'll keep this short. 5) Splitting up into teams. I know this seems insignificant, but this encourages you to use more than just the 3-4 characters you like the most. Before Kefka's tower, you need to lvl up and equip all your characters in preparation (the dinosaur area made the leveling bearable).
I should wrap this up. FFVII is a great game, especially for Squaresoft's first 3D RPG. However, the effort put into the graphics obviously hampered the game's other qualities. FFVI had a better storyline and combat system and FFVIII had better graphics. FFVI has great graphics for 2D which I would take over crappy 3D graphics anyday. As a package, FFVII does not match up to Square's other endeavors in almost every category. I did not even include great titles like Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, Chrono Trigger, FFIX and a multitude of other JRPS in my arguments above.
One last thing. When saying that FFVII is the best game of all time, FFXII, while flawed and feeling a little dated by today's standards (can you say heal-fest?), beats FFVII in every aspect: combat, story, graphics, etc. It is an easy comparison to make and I don't see how anyone could argue against that.
edit: I said Doom, didn't I? I meant Death.
