Dude, my dead grandma could kick Sephiroth's ass. All she would have to do is slap the whiny bitch with her cane during one of his 47 minute long monologues or maybe sneak up behind him while he's grooming that quite excellent Karen Carpenter mane he rocks.

Worst. Villian. Ever.

I like ff7, but with the passing of time, I think certain things may not sit as well with some gamers. The graphics (including cg) has aged terribly. Also, since it's turn based, there's no real camera or AI system. These are 3 big elements in gaming and ff7 more or less gets a free pass on all three.

I still very much care for the game though. Beat it will like a 70h file. It's my second favorite in the series next to 6 (US 3).

 While I do completely respect that you like VII or VI, I do have to say this:

*SPOILERS*
Kefka did defeat the party.  he completely broke them.  He changed the world.  He ruled over the world with an iron first.  He actually did win. 

How many villains in the history of gaming managed to go from a lackey to a god in the timespan of the game?  Not many (I don't want to say none because, well, I know I can't).  Kefka is one of the very few villains that managed to do that.  On top of that,  he's just plain evil and bat shit insane.

As for the characters, as I said he did beat them and they all lost.  The amazing part of the story is the character, how they change, and how they pick themselves up and put themselves back together. 

The characters changing is why FFVI is such a good game. It's not because of the gameplay or even the cliche story (because most FF game stories are slightly cliche), it's the amazing character development.

I advise everyone that has played FFVI and does not know what a heroes journey is to read up on what exactly a heroes journey is.   FFVI is a heroes journey and a very good one at that.

Personally I thought FFVII was a piece of unmitigated crap filled with ridiculously awful design decisions, a horribly translated (and bad in the first place) plot, and some of the worst characters in video game history. I think it's the day FF died, and the only time I ever enjoyed FF much after FVII was IX, which imo is one of the best JRPGs ever made.

After that brief glimmer of hope though the FF series is officially dead to me, and I blame FFVII. I have blamed it and hated it ever since I was a 12 year old kid with little sparkles in my eyes paying all the money I had saved up for a year for that PSX and FFVII. I have blamed it ever since I brought it home, popped in that disc, and a part of my soul died with the awfulness. With the horrible lego character models and ridiculous dialog. With the annoying characters, and the pathetic villain (Who wasn't even the main villain of the game BTW).

FFVII is one of the most traumatically awful experiences of my 20 years of gaming.

^^Just my opinion.

Naz, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

If I did that I'd have to benkenobi myself.

That's how I feel...about FF8.

Squall is the worst main character ever concieved, if he says "whatever" one more time I'm going to ram his goddamn GUNBLADEZ LOL1!1 in his goddamn eye. And don't get me started on the rest of the androgynous cast.

In all fairness, I don't know whether Cloud, Squall, or Tidus annoyed me the most.

Either way, I would rather loop the audio voice tracks from Altered Beast through my head for the rest of my life than read or listen to any of those guys talk ever again.

I can say I agree with Nat on some sentiments I mildly found interest in 7.

I hate when people say that timed battles are crap, I vastly prefer them so long as there's an injection of strategy. I absolutely despise most Active battle systems. I'd rather a well built turn base game with good strategy than a piece of crap adventure game. Unfortunately we seem to get a lot of those and a lot of FPS(not my favorite, personally I think the advent of FPS on consoles is killing console gaming but hey I'll let people have it if they like it)

I felt so strongly about 8 I literally cried, keep in mind I wasn't very old and I had my hopes that they'd revive the old formula after 7 but they didn't instead they tried to recreate 7 and I felt the force collapsing all around me.

As for Cloud Squall and Tidus, defiantly Tidus got to me the worst, I wanted to rip his head off and spit down his neck, at least Cloud had moments(a few) where he wasn't completely annoying and Squall.. I never made it past the first disc before destroying it so no comment.

While I appreciate the intent of your claim, the impact thereof is lessened by the important fact that the Altered Beast voice samples are incredibly awesome.  Having them looped through one's head for eternity would surely be some kind of bliss beyond the comprehension of mankind.

OT:  I have tried playing through FFVII several times over the years and have never found it engaging enough to go more than a few hours in.  The dialogue is stupid, the characters are irritating, the art design is uninteresting.  Conversely, I have played entirely through FFVI at least six times and will no doubt increase this number over time.  Hell, I've even played entirely through Mystic Quest a couple of times.

@twesterm:

Nice rebuttal on the Kefka argument.  Couldn't agree more.