I will not deny that it made an impact, but I find that the impact was incredibly negative for the gaming industry and the RPG genre.  It was an early example of how oversaturation kills smaller franchises and hurts the diversity of a genre.  It inadvertently set up an arrogant mentality in an impressionable generation of young gamers and basically shoved countless titles (many of which that were superior) off the map.  It further cemented square into the industry and turned it into a behemoth.  FF was a pop craze in the video game community, nothing more, nothing less. and like pop crazes in music, it overshadowed countless masterpieces and was hideously overrated. It doesn’t deserve to be on any list. It needs to be forgotten. And thank god the craze is starting to fade. People are finally moving on and people aren’t afraid anymore to say that FFVII is overrated.  Of course people still like to limit themselves and refuse to keep their nostalgia under control.  Well im not afraid to admit right now that I HATE FFVII. I have good reason to and im proud of it.

lmao. This does sounds funny.

Palom and Parom (correct right?) - Let us sacrifice ourselves by turning into stones!

Cid - Let me sacrifice myself by jumping off the airship!

Fang - Let me sacrifice myself by exploding the machine in my face!

Rosa - Let me sacrifice myself by getting the desert fever!

Tellah - Let me sacrifice myself by casting Meteor and dying of old age because I don't have the energy to cast Meteor anymore!

Rydia - Let me sacrifice myself by being thrown off the ship and getting swallowed by Leviathan!

Edward - Let me sacrifice myself by jumping out of bed to play my harp even though I am sick like death!

FuSoYa - Let me sacrifice myself by throwing myself in front of Golbez to let him cast Meteor on me! Roarrr!

I guess the only sane ppl in FF4 are Cecil himself and Edge who never did sacrifice themselves.

I also don't see all the hubbub. Aerith just wasn't that much of an identifiable character for me, so her death was neither a tearful occasion or a complete shock during my first playthrough.

I do understand why it's so popular, being as this was, and continues to be, one of the biggest marketed RPGs of all-time, as well as many peoples' first and only Final Fantasy,
BUT, Aerith? A martyr? Hardly in my eyes, she just seemed like an almost disinterested shell.
Besides wasn't she like the one who was suppose to have this "pure of heart," "chaste," "perfect" persona and this deep connection with the Life Stream?  So her death necessitates that  balance in the universe, the great savior motif.  Flippin' formulaic. 

I would have been more upset if Tifa died.

Yeah, for future reference you do spoilers by listing the game/show and then hiding the spoiler, not the other way around.

And funny enough, the wife had the same thing spoiled to her today by Salon.com!

Wow...dude...you ever heard of having an opinnion? It seems as if the VGC community believes that FFVII was a better game than all the junk you just try to say was better than it. Get over it. It's the most popular game in the franchise (hopefully XIII changes that). and for all the right reasons.

Tons of people still classify Aeris' death as both.  Look at the title of this thread.  And you can;t make a single RPG thread without it being mentioned.

well, here is a list of RPGs that I have beaten that have had better storylines, characters, replay value, gameplay innovation, environment diversity or a combination what I just listed, than FFVII.

seiken densetsu games
Chrono trigger
 FFIV, FFVI, FFIX or FFX
Legend of dragoon
chrono cross
star ocean
any shin megami tensei game
earthbound
startropics
xenogears
xenosaga games
skies of arkadia
ark the lad
vagrant story
rogue galaxy
fire emblem
golden sun

so, if there is a FFVII fan who has played all these games that can come forward and refute what I just said and still claim FFVII to be the best, bring it on. And I’ll listen, but I guarantee that you are wrong. There are better games out there that deserve theat #2 spot more than FFVII does.  as for opinions, If someone has only played only 5 or 6 RPGs (one of which being FFVII), how would they know which is the best of the genre much less the best game of all time? those kinds of people make up a huge majority of FFVII's fanbase, especially the more zealous ones. That is why its popularity gives it no merit. If you havent played more than 10 RPGs, than you dont have the viable knowledge or the right to say which is the best of all time. it may be an opinion, but its an ignorant, baseless one.  FFVII’s popularity means nothing.  And you may be wondering “ok mr smartypants, why was it so popular then and still popular today if it really wasn’t that great?” I have a one word answer to that question and it is the single force behind all of the pretentiousness, nostalgia, popularity, hype and success of FFVII…… “graphics.” That’s all. Everything leads back to it. Ponder it for a moment.

Gameplay – wasn’t really much different from 6 (though it was more chaotic and choppy).  Why did it seem revolutionary? Because it was using 3d polygon models instead of sprites. So, its simply graphics, nothing more.

Environments -- though midgar was cool, there wasnt a huge diversity of locations throughout the game. for example, FFVI brought you to way more interesting locations than FFVII ever did. so why do people praise the style of FFVII? im sure you saw this coming....... graphics

Storyline/characters – from a movie/literature critic standpoint, there really isn’t much depth to the characters of FFVII. Most are either pointless, annoying, melodramatic or shallow.  There nothing really dynamic or original about these characters (besides their big swords). So why do fans swear their allegiance to them. Because they were “wow’ed” by the clearer, more realistic appearances of them.  Once again, it all falls back on graphics.  If they all looked like sprites, they wouldn’t have all these fanboys today. You cant deny it.

Hype – it was the first 3D FF game, as the whole world today knows. So obviously, that gave it a lot of hype. In fact, that was the cause of all of its hype.  Graphics once again account for it.

Nostalgia – thanks to this hype, millions of kids played it. thanks to that and the graphics, it was instilled in their tiny brains as “amazing” and “the best.” Nothing could possibly overwrite something so nostalgic.  Millions of kids had this branded into their psyche. And why was that? Why was it so widespread and popular? Why did so many kids inevitably play it? The graphics.

In a nutshell, graphics begot hype, hype begot sales, sales begot a wide child demographic, the wide child demographic begot unprecedented nostalgia, and unprecedented nostalgia begot fanboys, universal acclaim and a popularity that overshadows everything else in the genre. All of this, because of one word…… “graphics.”

So is it any surprise, why huge RPG fans (or you could say experts) like myself, hate this game And why we look down upon people who put it on a pedestal?? Am I not alone here??

I was beginning to think that nobody agreed with me.  I will say that I had never played a game before that where a character in your party died, so it made quite the impact.  By the time FF7 rolled around, death in the party was no big thing.  I wonder what game was "first" with the death angle.

Gameplay - was awesome, it was 3D gameplay too, which was awesome. It had the Materia system too, which you somehow missed out on, oh... And the Chocobo breeding/racing, and the many... Many other minigames to add to that. A bunch of different vehicles too for that matter.

Environments - Yes, graphics here is the main thing... Because it looked more realistic, and at least IMO... It was nicer to look at.

Storyline/Characters - FF7 has had more spin-off's and movies made of it and it's characters than any other Final Fantasy game ever. Fact. Which shows just how deep the characters are. Plus, it's easier to get attatched to a character that looks and feels more real than a 2D sprite. And when you get attatched to the characters, you get attatched to the story they are in.

Hype - Can't argue here, the graphics helped it a LOT. But wait, surely that means good graphics were... Popular... Yes? So how can it be a bad thing? Oh... And Sony had a major ad campaign for it too

Nostalgia - Could also kinda add graphics into the equation, as it is one of the reasons for being attatched to the characters. But hey, i think it is nostalgic because yaknow... It was a damn good game for it's time.

@arbitor365:

You're basically the reason I stopped bashing the game years ago. I used to like pissing off VII fanboys, but then people like you came along and ruined it.

Your hatred of the game is so irrational, so narrow minded, so flamboyant that you're making the FFVII fanboys look good. Congratulations.

I played FFVII sometime in 2002 or 2003. It looked awful compared to basically everything I had ever played before or since. I still liked it more than I did VI, which I played before and thought it was a little bit too slow paced and gloomy for my taste. At the time, I thought it was the best FF ever, tied with FFIX, which I also played before. My opinion has not changed.

There are better games, I'll admit. Chrono Trigger and Suikoden II are so beyond what any FF will ever be, is not even funny.