This was the first RPG I ever played, and I played it kind of by accident.  I had may have seen a commercial or two for it, its hard to remember, but I certainly had no intention of playing it.  But one night, I went to rent a few games, it was rent 2 get 1 free, but I didn't realize this.  I got to the counter to pay adn the guy told me about the deal, but there wasn't anything that looked decent to me.  So the guy recomended FF7, I figured why not its free.  After I got bored of the other two games and put it in, my life changed forever.  I was amazed at how bad I wanted to keep playing, never before had a game sucked me in so quickly and so powerfully.  When I saw my first summon, Ifrit, holy crap was I blown away.  Needless to say, i bought it soon after and played it all the way through to include the optional bosses, Emerald and Ruby Weapon.  If you havnt beaten them, you havnt beaten the game by the way.  Sephiroth is a joke compared to those guys.  I have played through it again probably another 3-4 times since because it really is that good.  I wasn't expecting anything when I played it as I didn't even know what it was really, so hype has nothing to do with it being simply fantastic.