I'd prefer to buy my games and support the companies that work hard to make sure I have a good experience.

As would I. I'm not a thief.

I recommend Tactics for two reasons. It's the better game, and it's cheaper. When you pick up Crisis Core at a later time, it'll probably be cheaper than it is now.

Final Fantasy Tactics: It's a great game. Very fun, great story with nice plot twists and turns. The music is pretty good, and those cell-shaded cut scenes look amazing. There are a lot of stuff to do in the game such as assigning different jobs to your soldiers. There are over 20 jobs to choose from. Each job have their own ability and weapons/equipment. It'll keep you busy for a long time.

Crisis Core: FFVII - It's a pretty enjoyable game. Nice battle system, easy to use, pretty fun. Using materia is also easy to use and you can fuse them to make a new materia or enhance it. The DMW/power surge is pretty confusing. It comes out random at times. I went from level 5 to 8 in just one battle. There are also a lot of optional missions to do, but they are pretty repetitive. Most of them are pretty hard since your enemies start casting death or something. Music is great, but some FFVII classics are ruined. The story is so-so. It's very boring at first, but at around the end, you'll start to enjoy it, especially if you played FFVII. The ending is beautiful and brilliant.

Tactics. I never played Crisis Core (and I love FFVII), I'm sure it's a fantastic game, but is hard to match a masterpiece such as FFT

core, get tactics of psx

Well since you love FFVII so much I would get Crisis Core, but Tactics is not a bad choice at all, it's by far the better game but you being the fan of FFVII, Crisis Core is probably something you'd love to have.

FFT then Crisis Core. Get both if you must!

Thats a tough one. Final Fantasy Tactics is my favorite game of all time. So I would pretty much always suggest that. However you say you are a big fan of FFVII, so that would make me consider that perhaps Crisis core for now and maybe Tactics laster.

Questioni have you ever played Kartia, Hoshigami, or Shining Force, or Ogre Battle?

If so consider what you would rather have New prequal of FFVII (your fav RPG) or Shining Force III : Final Fantasy Edition.
I hope this helps

Actually it was helpful...I'm looking for SRPG's but I figure with Valkyria Chronicles coming out soon I might not want to play two SRPG's at the same time...might get a bit too much.

Crisis Core, buy nao.