Ill add my two cents. Like Lifa said CC would not be half the game it was having not played ff7, seeing as the bulk of this game is riding on the story.
Gameplay wise it got boring after a while and the missions were repitive.(iI can't see too many people buying this for the gameplay)Another thing too is that the materia seemed really limited in this game, the combo/birth thing was a excellent idea but it just lacked alot of depth due to repition of the same garbage air strike+ woo hoo..
Story was intresting to say the least, everyone who played 7 had a basic idea of how the events would play out, with a few twists along the way, Genesis to my knowledge has become a fan favorite( i don't know if its the poetry or him and sepy being friends)
Zack was the Cloud we never had. i find him comparable to Dante's personality. Loud, tough, cocky,( i've never played the japanese version, but Rick Gomez (i hope thats his name) i thought did a fantastic job with Zacks english voice acting, excellent job) Cloud comes off as a sad pathetic excuse for a character when compared to Zack, and sadly Cloud is right up there with my favorite characters. ( top 2 even)
and Cissnei dont ask me why i love Cissnei
Soundtrack, was composed mostly by Ishimoto if im not mistaken. ( i thought the soundtrack was fantastic, i have heard other peoples opinions and they have had mixed reviews but i thought it was superb) They went what seemed to me fairly 'rock" heavy with most of the remixes of classic tracks, similar to what they did with advent children.
And in the final battle the DMV scenes you can get just are so emotional and powerful and of course "the price of freedom" playing in the backround helps bring this to life.( as lame as i am, i shed tears during zacks final scene - something that did not happen in ff7)
Graphics, yea well i have not seen anything on the psp come remotely close to cc, feel free to educate me otherwise.
Hows it stack up against ff7, this is almost impossible for me to do. As much as i love the tradinational jrpg battle system, i have to say i've fallen more in love with the "kingdom hearts esque" battle system or action rpg battle system. Limit breaks blow away the DMV.
World map stomps all over stuck in tiny location, or mission starts at A and ends at B locals.
Materia in 7 i thought was far superior to CC although i loved the crossbreeding.
FF7 has the GOLDEN SAUCER..nuff said.
It's hard to say and i know im going to get crap for this, but if Cloud had voice acting in ff7(besides that fact they would of picked some noob budget va) if he got his respectful va steve burton as hard as it is to belive i think cloud would have more worldwide success,(on that note a ff7 remake would take a ridiculiously long time so much that as STUPID as this sounds i don't think they will ever do it)
in the end i would have to say FF7 > FFCC
